He sighed as he looked at his watch, again. Buffy and Willow were late. His foot started to tap a rhythm into the asphalt and his movements became more and more frustrated. Normally he would simply enter the shop, buy his costume and be done with it, but Willow made him promise to wait for them, so that they could pick out their costumes together.
So here he was, watching others enterin and then leaving the store again, clutching their bags with their probs and clothes and sometimes showing it eagerly to their friends, while he was waiting here, his storage of patience growing steadily smaller as he still couldn't see the two.
Then, finally, they were here and both of them hugged him, to reward his patience.
This hug should seal his fate, for Ethan saw it and realized that he was a friend, an obviously close friend of the slayer and thus deserved something special for this very night.
The slayer was easily satified, the dress of the noblewoman would either kill her due to her incompetence, or give her nightmares for some months, either way making him almost deliriously happy.
The redhead female friend of the slayer bought a ghostsheet among other things and he was almost sure that she would hide herself under the sheet, meaning that she would survive as long as nobody did something to her body... well he couldn't get them all.
But what to do about the boy? Hmmm... maybe... oh yes! He smiled gently as he steered the boy to a costume that practically garanted chaos and havok.
Xander stepped back and eyed his work with a critical eye, then he smiled. Sure, the shrine was small, nothing compared to the splenderous temple he remembered, but it was done with love and faith, it would work, it was all he could do for now.
As he knelt down to speak the words of a prayer he had never spoken before, yet knew as intimatly as his own heartbeat, he felt closure, something like finally coming to an end.
For a month, ever since that strange halloween night he had felt this longing, this need to build this shrine and pray.
And now, that he could see the ghostlike form of his god, that he could feel the kokoro sigil burning on his forehead once again, he finally felt complete.
In his last life, the little boy Ayuru had been forced to take on this burden, but this time he knew what was waiting for him, this time he took on the burden freely.
Once more he shed his old name, once more he was rebaptized in the spiritual fire of his god.
There was no Xander anymore, there was only Nakago.