Title: Unyielding Courage

Chapter 1: Awake

Authors Note: This is the sequel to Unbreakable Strength, and is set six months in advanced. I've tried to write other fanfictions, and I just can't concentrate. I keep thinking of poor Liv and Mira and how angry they are at their evil and insensitive writer for giving them tragic endings. Not that I'm hinting that this story's ending will be any better. –smirk-

Enjoy!!!

Disclaimer: I do not own Fruits Basket or any of the characters. However, my dear little Mira Liore Nolan is mine and mine alone along with the lovely Liv Cyrene Nolan.

The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between sleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened." ~ Unknown

The mountain range set behind the Nolan ranch was idyllic, and yet unacknowledged in it's sublime scopes of nature, towering peaks and grand dips of the earth's crust where God had gently laid pressure with merciful hands. Mira knew every curve and dip of her mountains, and where the hoof prints started and where they ended, trailing alongside her own confident steps into the relentless wonders of the wild. In the valley region of the Nebraska land, there was an endless field with a sea of white daises and beryl forget-me-nots. She could fall into the sweet floral embrace and remain hidden from the world as her trusty, companionable steed munched greedily on the fragile emerald stems. It was a vast and colorful world that she lived in, conquering the land on horseback, starring fear in the face and pushing past it with the mentality of being invincible. She couldn't remember how much time had passed, since she had started to live in this fantasy world, only that it was as warm and comfortable as a child's home. Mira was certain that time had indeed passed since she had run away from Japan, fleeing from…something…

Whatever she had fled from, it must have been painful. She didn't remember the events that had occurred, only that they had brought her back home. She was where she wanted to be, in her comfortable and regular home, safe violet sheets of a double bed with lacy fluffed pillows. The nights were spent in the cozy cocoon of her bed, the days riding wild and free with Belle. Nothing could touch her here. This was safe. This was home.

The days all blended together, time didn't exist on a ranch, only the difference between sunlight and moonlight. It was always quiet and tranquil, with the soft puffs of the horses heaving chests and the flair of their nostrils to keep her company, their unsteady stomp of feet against the thick two hundred pound rubber mats that muffled the clink of iron horseshoes. She knew that her mother was supposed to feed in the morning, but she couldn't quite recall where she had run off to, so Mira did the chores time and time again. Her father was supposed to manage the finances, but Mira hadn't received any bills to hand off to him. She hadn't received any mail at all.

Where was everyone?

"This isn't right," the statement was true enough, but Mira couldn't find the will to want to change it. She remembered pain, a very vivid and twisted agony that was rooted deep in her heart, the affliction of a soul withering from her chest as her lungs caved in and begged for air. If she left the quiet sanctuary of this little cloud nine, she'd fall victim to the crushing agony again. She wanted to stay here, with Belle. They couldn't be together if she went back. Everyone was dead if she went back…

Because…Belle was dead? Wasn't she?

"This isn't right," Mira stumbled over the words for a second time. She reached her hand out to grab onto the kinky strands of Belle's multi-colored mane of flaxen and tawny, but her fingers couldn't grasp anything, the gentle mare becoming transparent and the sound of her palpitating heart diminishing. The mare before her began to pale, along with the rest of the horses and the barn. When Mira ran outside, she watched as her lovely and wondrous mountains began to crumble, large boulders crashing into the earth's crust as the sky turned black and hazardous twisters spun the background into muddled, grey colors. They sky filled with darkness, and then there was nothing.

"Mira?"

Someone called her name, her hesitation was deep in responding, eye's as large as saucers as the turbulent winds rushed her from the sanctuary and everything went dark. Once again, she was lost, forsaken in the deepest sanctuary chambers of her mind, foundering as images and people rushed by and losing their identity. She wanted to go back…she wanted to feel safe and secure again. When she moved toward the voice, everything hurt. It felt as if she was walking through a baptism of fire and the people she remembered fled from her conscious, her greedy hands grasping around a precious love ended with the hot blade of tragedy, violent purple eyes closing for the last time. If she retreated back into the darkness, a cold numbing sensation filled her. It was uncomfortable and caused tightness to riddle in her chest, suffocating even. As if someone had just laid a car on her chest to force her heart to lay still. To live and be in pain, or to die and feel nothing.

"It's time to wake up, Mira."

"What if I don't want to?" Mira challenged with stubborn indignation, her bottom lip trembling as she ran her hands nervously through the long cascade of curls that felt fragile and breakable under her fingertips. How much time had passed? Since when did she wear her hair at such an irritating length? The voice called her name again, and Mira slowly walked forward. The pain began to ebb its way into her mind, slowly spreading through her body. Her limbs felt saggy and tired, weighed down and useless. There was severing pain exploding behind her chestnut eyes as she continued to drag her feet forward unwillingly. Something was pinching her on the top of her hands and in her elbows.

The man by her bed waited patiently as his client began to show various signs of life. Her eyes were beginning to flutter open and shut, there was a heavier breathing and her heart beat was prominent in the room, the blaring noise of his machine proudly boasting her cardiac rhythm. She had been in an unconscious state for six months, although not by choice. He left the face mask off, allowing her to resurface.

"Hello, Mira," the doctor greeted her warmly, watching her from one dark eye. His hair fell over the scarred up iris. He watched the life slowly flee into her honey brown orbs, before her lip began to tremble violently, anxiety riding high in her ghostly shell of a body, memories erased and mind dark from his detestable hands. Once again he had caused desolation to become her flickering shadow, constantly lingering behind her, only vanishing with the blinding light of the sun.

"I know you," she stated flatly with a rasping, wearing voice, and then the fear began to flood into her conscious, her sympathetic nervous system telling her to tear the wires from her body and run. Fuzzily, the memories came like whip lash as Mira pieced together the final ending of her story – she had run, pumping her legs furiously after a gunshot had sounded off, catapulting herself forward into the flickering shadows of the night and dodging from building to building. Foolishly she had believed in escaping the nightmare, changing countries and living with her old family before once again, history would repeat itself. Snap shots of images flashed in her head quickly, freezing for a second before moving onto the next as she grasped the tragedy that would fly wide spread through the newspapers on the Nolan Massacre, how the horses had shrieked out in abhorrence before the barbarous teeth of fate had crunched down over their necks, her mother proud and regal had fallen by the implement of a sharp axe, beseeching her daughter in a soprano shriek to run. Tears had been free flowing down her cheeks, air ragged as she exhaled harshly in the crisp cloudless night, the celestial stars winking down at her. From the stables she had raced forward, chestnut curls bounding over her shoulders and bright, sienna eye's wide with alarm when something pulled her back, exploding pain erupted over her forehead. She had tasted metallic in her mouth, the dirt hard as she collapsed against the particles of dirt on the earth, her nails digging into the surface and glancing at meticulously shinned obsidian shoes before walking into a personal wonderland.

"Ah, well, we can't be having that," he smiled bitterly; disappointed of the vivacious strength she pitted against him and slowly slipped the mask over her face. Her hands pushed against him relentlessly as he watched her rapidly succumb to the medication, a hard lump of self-hated lodging in his throat.

"Pathetic thing…" a voice mumbled in the darkness, "Erase everything after she realized who and what she was. I don't have the patience this second time around. Oh, and Hatori, mind what you say. You better not slip up like you did with Liv. I'm very put out with how much she still remembers," Akito Sohma frowned in the background. He had his work cut out for him, erasing memories and fabricating new ones could be so….tedious.

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! My plan is to get out a chapter a week, depending on my course load so look forward to Chapter Two: Confused next week.

Lady M.