Vessel
Every evening the shadows slink through the doorway and floorboards, gleaming black and frothing with stars. They circle Akito, head of the Sohma family, in the dark, bare room where Akito goes to meditate. The shadows are dense, pressing heavily on their shoulders and ribs. The backs of Akito's eyes bloom with dark fireworks.
Akito feels themself collapsing. Every bone aches. Joints creak like rust-eaten hinges. They are hungry, tired; more than that. They are ravenous. Exhausted. They are almost not here.
And yet, they must be here. Nonexistence could not hurt like this.
Akito senses that boundaries of their body and mind are drawn in spindly, broken lines, no longer quite separating internal perceptions from external reality. When they see the shadows, they do not know if they are their own thoughts or outside, physical entities.
All they know is that they are afraid.
It hurts.
Akito's mind is full of teeth and twisted metal and the incessant pulse of repeating thoughts, deeply rooted as a second heart. They were supposed to love you and they left. They saw you for what you are, and they hated you. You were supposed to be their god, but they abandoned you. You were supposed to be God and you failed.
Akito wishes there was something in the room to destroy — what they wouldn't give to smash or shatter a table, a vase, to purge this painful energy from their body, make their surroundings as chaotic as the storm inside their skin. But there is nothing in the room except the shadows, the thoughts, and themself.
They dig their nails into their palms. Why should they care what the family thinks? Those idiotic, disloyal Juunishi, relinquishing their sacred duties the second they're given the chance? Betrayers, scum.
Humanity is feces. This world is poison.
Let the Juunishi have it, if they want it so badly.
Let them wallow in it.
Akito's palms grow warm as their nails draw blood.
Why does everyone hate me?
Their vision, already dancing with shadows and sparks, blurs even more as tears simmer in their eyelashes.
And as lonely as they are, they're grateful no one is around to see.
-/-/-
Akito has long been aware of the zodiac power dissipating, the curse breaking its hold. Link after link in the chain crumbles. One by one the Juunishi cease to transform, and God's influence grows weaker over the family.
Once the Sohmas would have obeyed without question, awed by the presence of the Jade Emperor. Now this power has decreased exponentially. They don't fall to their knees; they talk back. Some, like Shigure, even manipulate back.
If you don't take control, they'll hurt you. They'll take advantage.
The family hates you.
Akito was born for one reason: to be God. And the celestial order has festered under their rule. The Sohma family has disintegrated. After millennia of strength, the Sohma dynasty may now be permanently ruined, all because Akito lacked the power to maintain control.
For months, Akito has been poring over records left by generations of Sohma scribes, scraping for evidence of similar cases, how previous incarnations of God dealt with insubordination. The cat's cage, a wiped memory, an excommunication. But mostly it hasn't been necessary; for the most part, God's grip has held strong.
Until now.
But in past eras of upheaval, the Jade Emperor has nevertheless gone in search of answers. In world wars, samurai feuds, the fate of the Sohmas has been tenuous. The family has been through crisis before, and has its methods for seeking revelation.
For beings imbued with supernatural souls, the barriers between the human, physical world and the underlying energies that structure reality are more easily bypassed. Altered states brought on by deep meditation have allowed previous Emperors to tap into this intelligence, to perceive past the restricted spectrum of human senses.
There are so many limits on what humans can sustain. The Juunishi, though physically strong and preternaturally attractive, are prone to illnesses of the body and mind, strained by carrying a spirit not quite of this realm. For the Jade Emperor, this is magnified tenfold. None of the gods have lived past fifty, and few past thirty.
Akito is barely in their twenties and they are well aware their life is almost over. Even before they retreated to this room, they struggled with eating and sleeping. Food turns their stomach. Sleep comes rarely, in jagged nightmares. Every thought feels like pain.
A human body is unfit for a god. Humans are weak, dirty. Impure.
This is supposed to be a path to purity. This is supposed to be a path to power.
And if it kills you, you never deserved to be God in the first place.
-/-/-
Senses raw with hunger, head throbbing with sleep deprivation, Akito does not know how long they have been here. Every thread of light that slips through the doorway feels like a knife to their eyes.
But the darkness is worse. Free of distractions, there is no way to escape the pulse of their thoughts, corroding Akito from the inside out. You failed they hate you you failed they hate you. Dizziness blurs their vision like glittering insects.
Akito feels it, like the records had said — they are drawing closer to something. A revelation, pure and devastating. They will not be the same after this.
The shadows, although eyeless, seem to watch them. In the corners of the room, their amorphous bodies congregate in silence. Their black-and-white forms flicker and shift. They circle Akito, drawing closer, pulling at Akito's arms and legs as they try to drag them off into unconsciousness.
Akito bites their lip, fights back the black blanket engulfing them. They force their burning eyes to remain open.
When Akito reaches to shove away the shadows, their hand falls through empty air.
-/-/-
One of the shadows is brightening. A strobe of white slicing the opaque air, growing larger, coming closer.
Akito stares, too frightened to move. Their breath turns to ice in their throat.
White ribbons. No, a robe.
No.
Akito blinks, tries to wrestle themself out of the dream. But the image doesn't disappear.
It's a lie. I'm hallucinating. It's a lie.
White hair falling softly around his face, Akira Sohma glides towards them.
"Akito," he says. Chills race down Akito's spine; his voice is just like they remember. Like wind in leaves, but a warmth behind it. They've never loved any voice as much as this one.
And despite their attempt at cynicism, tears prickle Akito's eyes, their hands wavering. Not afraid of what they're seeing, but afraid it might be a dream after all. That their father will be taken away, again.
But they can't stop themself. "I missed you," says Akito, shakily rising to their feet. It is the only thing to say.
Their father lays a hand on Akito's shoulder — lightly, but Akito can swear they feel it. Solid. Real. "I've always been with you," Akira says.
Akito looks into his face. Akira glows in a shell of white light, coming in and out of focus like the shadows around him. But it's him. His fine features, soft sad smile. Akito stares like a child into his eyes, their dark water.
Everyone always said how melancholy Akira was. But Akito has never felt as close to another person, never felt as happy as when he was around. When Akito was a child, Akira would tell them about books he was reading, point out the different species of birds and butterflies on the Sohma grounds, imbuing it all with a sense of wonder.
Akito saw the sadness in him, the loneliness; but at the same time, they've never met anyone so attentive, someone who found so much beauty in the details of living. Someone who made Akito feel like, despite illness and loneliness, despite the insults That Woman spat daily, there was more to life than pain. Who made Akito feel like they would be able to live in this world.
Akito hasn't felt that way in a long time.
"Am I dying?" Akito asks.
Akira takes a moment to answer. "Things are changing," he says finally.
"I've failed as God." Akito's head sinks forward. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I disappointed you. I never meant…" Akito swallows, unable to continue.
"It's not a matter of failure." Akira's voice is as even as Akito remembers; not disengaged, but accepting. "The world isn't the same as when the curse began. It's inevitable that we adapt." He goes quiet. Akito looks up to see thought clouding the pools of his eyes. "We probably should have a long time ago."
"The curse if falling apart," says Akito.
"Curses are meant to break. Eventually they set us free."
"I don't want to be free," says Akito, flinching at the childishness of the words immediately after they're out of their mouth.
Akira looks at them closely. "Don't you?" There's no sarcasm in his voice. It's a genuine question.
Akito doesn't reply.
"You have an opportunity no Jade Emperor has ever had. You can leave the family confines. You can recover your health. You can be anything you want."
"Except what I was meant to be." Akito watches Akira's robe, the colour of moonlight and rippling despite the still air. "She said I would fail and I did. She said they would abandon me and they did."
Akira does not deny this. He speaks slowly, as though searching for the words. "People can't own other people. If they choose to move out of your life, then yes, you're powerless to stop them. But you have the same right to leave. You're unhappy here." It isn't a question.
"I have nowhere to go."
"You're not tied to the curse like you once were. The world is open to you."
"I wouldn't survive!" Akito's voice breaks like a shattered glass, anger and panic spilling out. "I don't have any practical skills. I don't know how people behave. I have no friends, my childhood was stolen from me — all I can do is be God, and I can't even do that!"
In a voice soft as snow, Akira says, "Would you rather die as a god or live as a human?"
"You know the answer," Akito hisses.
Akira regards them with sad eyes, his white robe flickering like static. "I'm not sure I do," he says.
Akito's shoulders fall. As their anger depletes, they're left feeling… empty. Like there's nothing inside them to hold them up. "If I go out into that world… I'll have nothing."
"You'll have a chance. One no one in your position has ever had."
A wave of dizziness rises over Akito. They sit, clumsy and ungodly, before it can knock them down. Sweat prickles their skin, nausea rising in their throat. They breathe heavily, wait for it to clear. Force themself not to go under as the room wavers in a tumble of black sand. You can't pass out not now not now not now not now not now you can't lose him again you can't LOSE HIM AGAIN.
Akira sits down across from them, calmly as though he were sitting down to meditate. He has always been so natural, as much a part of the world as the wind or the grass. Like he knows how to be here. How to exist.
Akito has never known how.
When Akira died, he was barely over fourty. How can it be right, for him to be taken so quickly out of the world, and Akito left to go on living?
Hot tears drip down Akito's face. "I don't want to lose you."
"I'll always be with you."
"I don't know how to do this."
"I know." Akira leans in, touches Akito's shoulder again. Akito wishes they were a child again, that they could curl into his arms and sleep as he carries them to safety. But Akito hasn't been a child in a long time. "No one knows how to live. But you'll finally be able to try."
To be good like Akira. Like Akira believes they can be.
A long life, like Akira would have enjoyed, should have had. Would have made the most of, every minute of it.
"I don't know… how to be a person. I think I'd be terrible at it." More quietly, Akito says, "I don't know how to be good."
"You try." Akira looks off at something in the distance, something Akito can't see. "It's futile to try to change the past. All you can do is attempt to make a better future." He looks back to Akito. "This family has hurt so many people. We're not meant to live in captivity. If we're going to live… we have to live differently."
"How?" says Akito. The dizziness is rising again, Akira flashing in and out of vision. Unable to control their body, Akito slumps forward.
"There is no secret. Only this."
What's "this?" Akito tries to ask. But their body won't listen. They are sinking to the ground, into the black sea of sleep.
The last thing they are aware of is Akira's hands, setting their head down softly as they fall to the floorboards.
-/-/-
Akito wakes on the bare floor, their face damp. Triangles of light paint the space beneath the door. As Akito rises to open it, they are surprised how easily movement comes. Their body feels lighter, free of aches despite their ungainly sleeping position; as though they've been freed from a poison or a long fever.
The shadows have cleared. Their thoughts are their own.
As they open the doorway, the sky is cloudless and bright; their eyes take a moment to adjust, the blinding glow fading to a rich, pale blue. Summer leaves dance quietly on the wind, swaying on branches sharp as calligraphy strokes. Wind moves in waves through the tall green grass.
Akito feels as empty and as open as the sky before them. They do not know if they've been asleep for hours or days. The cries of birds tell them it's morning.
Trembling, Akito steps outside.