I thought I would die a while back waiting for 152 and 153 to come out... Poor Kohane. I want to know why Watanuki is the only one with enough damn sense to stop crazy people from beating up on that child! What is this 'plight' I speak of, you ask? We'll get to that...
In chapter 152, my man Watanuki busts in and takes a beating from crazy mom, including a nasty punch right to the face. He demands that the mother apologize to Kohane-chan. She then has a breakdown and is sent to the hospital, and Kohane goes with Watanuki and Domeki to Yuuko's shop.
In 153, Kohane reveals to Watanuki that everything she's done has been, in the long run, to help her mother, whom she loves in spite of how she's been treated. The mother tells Kohane how much she'd wished for a daughter, and that her wish came true.
Kohane started to see things that others couldn't see, and she began to see a woman always next to her father. She told her mother, and it turned out to be a woman from her father's work. I don't know if that means her dad had an affair, killed the woman, or both. Either way, it would freak the hell out of me...
In any case, Yuuko explains in chapter 154, the mother wished strongly for her husband to be unhappy and that wish, in turn, caused her great unhappiness. Although it is to a lesser extent, it's similar to how vengeance is explained in
Jigoku Shoujo. The black stuff enveloping her mother it most likely the result of her wish, and Kohane wanted to save her mother before it got any worse.
155 lightens the mood considerably. Watanuki and Domeki discuss the incident in between orders of onigiri filling. Watanuki tells Domeki that allowing himself to get hit was probably painful for Kohane-chan to witness, but he had concluded that it was the best option to keep the mother from getting arrested or hurting more people. He also admits that no matter what happened, he knew Domeki would still be there. Domeki replies by saying he must have hit his head quite hard. Watanuki gets angry and crushes the onigiri he'd just made in his fist...
Also, Kohane-chan snuggling Mokona is about the cutest thing ever...
In 156, it turns out that Kohane's exorcism powers come from one of Sakura's feathers and that is what she paid Yuuko to erase all bad rumors about her mother, and Yuuko said the price would erase bad rumors about herself as well. Yuuko then takes Kohane's power that came from the feather.
In 157, Yuuko and Mokona note that time-space is starting to fall apart, because the time Kohane received the power and the time that the feathers were scattered don't coincide.
Right after saying this, for a brief, frightening moment, Yuuko's shop flickers out giving way to the vacant lot that it sits on... but Maru and Moro manage to bring it back, at least for now. Sakura's feather is given to Black Mokona (Larg). It is revealed that Larg's blue earring, the one with sealing power, contains other memories, including Sakura's memories of Syaoran, and Watanuki's memories. Evidently, Watanuki gave his memories as a price before the first chapter of Holic even occurred, and that is why he can't remember his parent's names or his own past. He did this 'for the sake of two futures,' as Yuuko says.
157 ends on a happy note (with a smiling Kohane-chan, no less!), so my PLIGHT is not as bad as it could be... NEVERTHELESS, HAVING TO
WAIT UNTIL JUNE FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER MAKES 369 SAD!!! >__<
