xxxHOLiC Rei Manga Chapter 12 Review ("Should I stay or should I go?")

xxxホリック ◆ 戻 chapter 12
xxxHOLiC Rei chapter 12 Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

As a serious looking Yuuko-san and a worried Watanuki sit on the engawa (veranda), Yuuko-san asks Watanuki if he wanted to go back (with the youkai she had dispatched). Her questions and demeanor have Watanuki wondering if she is mad at him.  As she continues to look at him in a serious way, Watanuki states that Yuuko-san looked frightening when he fled to the shop, and she looks the same now. As such, Watanuki wonders if he's being tested.

Yuuko-san causes Watanuki to lay his head down on her lap. She tells him that he's the one who has to decide on whether he wants to go back or not. Watanuki is confused on how this applies to him. Yuuko-san puts him to sleep, telling him that whether he goes back or not, he's still moving forward.

Doumeki shows up, telling Yuuko-san that she's the same, no matter which version of her is there. They have a conversation about her doing things so that Watanuki makes a choice, but also how Doumeki has a choice to make. Yuuko-san has Doumeki sit beside her, where he puts his head on her shoulder, telling him that he and Watanuki are good children.

Thoughts/Review:

This chapter is really making it seem like this is a dream world of Watanuki's creation, which would fit with the clues that have been established in the chapters so far. It also seems as if the dream version of Yuuko-san and Doumeki are real as well, at least in terms of their conscious.

Yuuko-san does look rather fearsome in how she is not her old self when it comes to dealing with Watanuki. We're so used to seeing her tease him, even when she's teaching him. Now, it is something else. Perhaps it is because she knows what's going on and rather than play to Watanuki's fantasy of how things used to be, she's doing what she thinks is best to get Watanuki to open his eyes and at least make a decision, something he's not doing at the moment.

I guess the question I have is that if this is a dream, then is Doumeki here the one that Watanuki went to school with, or the grandson of Watanuki's old friend, as seen at the end of xxxHOLiC?  I'm leaning to the former at present.

So, if the youkai from earlier chapters represents those who love Watanuki trying to wake him up, I suppose another question would be to know exactly whom is making this attempt.  CLAMP can make things quite convoluted with time travel, time skips, dream worlds that blend one from another, to say nothing of infinite alternate universes. Taking that into consideration, then it may be that much of the final volumes of xxxHOLiC, possibly even Yuuko-san's death (this is CLAMP we're talking about), were just dreams of Watanuki's and that he was being called to reality and being awake.

We'll see where CLAMP goes with this, assuming they don't up and dump it again.