A one-shot that was inspired by the possible curiosity of readers in finding out what happened in Reiko's past. This takes place several years before my role-play with fellow author and friend Toga Yagari.

Disclaimer: Fruits Basket and its characters and locations belong to Natsuki Takaya. Reiko Souma and any of her relatives or associates mentioned here belong to me.

I was going to give this a rating of T+, but I changed my mind after reading this over and decided to be safe by rating it M for some child abuse, which I do not condone in any way whatsoever; it's illegal.

There was no blood anywhere. What was going on? There they were, just lying face down in front of her.

Just last week, seven-year old Reiko Souma was sitting in her bedroom with the window open. She wasn't supposed to have it open at all because it would make her parents angry, but she couldn't just sit there and do nothing. Breathing only the air that came from within the house, but none of the air that came from outside, was monotonous and suffocating. Opening the window and hanging halfway out of it provided the relief from those feelings. She didn't feel as if the bedroom was closing in on her.

She heard the sounds of doors opening and shutting. Her parents had been home, so that could only mean one of two things: either someone was coming, or someone was going. Regardless of the order to always remain inside of her bedroom, Reiko saw no reason to always follow that rule. Shutting her window silently, she skittered to the door and opened it a little bit. It was quiet, so she stepped out and left it ajar as she walked down the dark hallway. Her bedroom was at the end of the dark hallway as a means of being told that her place was to be out of sight and out of mind.

"They say that some are meant to be seen and not heard," Akita once said to Reiko, "but you are meant to be neither seen nor heard...or else this will happen." The back of her hand flew against the young child's left cheek, sending her to the ground. "Just look at yourself! You can't even stay on your own feet! Shit isn't what I wanted to give birth to! Have you anything to say at all?!"

Pink eyes stared directly into black eyes as she nodded silently. "Okā-sama? Otō-sama? I love you, no matter how much you both choose to hate me...because I know that you hate yourselves more for making me."

"What did you just say?!" Both of her parents shouted. Their shouts were hurting Reiko's very sensitive ears, but they didn't care. Whilst Mishito picked the girl up to return her to her room, Akita gripped the tattoo that she and her husband by common law had branded into their daughter's arm. Reiko screamed in ear-piercing pain the entire time that she was returned to her bedroom.

This time, she had come out of her bedroom to find both of her parents sitting with her physician, Shourim Manti.

They had only just returned from their one-week vacation moments ago, so why were they now on the floor? "Okā-sama? Otō-sama? Wake up! You can't sleep here!" Reiko knelt between them and shook them with each hand on one shoulder. "Please wake up! Hit me, kick me, grab my left arm! Just please wake up!"

Shourim, who had stopped inside of the kitchen to throw something away, now stepped back into the foyer. "What's the matter, Reiko-chan?" he asked worriedly. Out of all of those who still came around, Shourim was the only one who legitimately cared about the little girl. As her doctor, he had noticed many things of serious concern. He cursed himself for being weak enough as an individual to accept dirty blood money from his own friends in order to keep quiet about the harsh abuse that went on beneath this roof. How dare he call himself a physician now? He had broken the one oath that he and every medical professional had taken: first, do no harm.

"O-Okā-sama and O-Otō-sama aren't waking up! What's wrong with them?" Reiko cried, pointing at their still bodies. They weren't even breathing! Didn't people sometimes stop breathing in their sleep, after all? That's what the small child thought as she watched her doctor turn Akita onto her back first, followed by Mishito, and then press his left ear to their chests. He was listening for signs of a heartbeat, but unfortunately there was none. No heartbeat and no pulse only meant one thing.

They were dead.

Little Reiko's eyes were full of hope for the best as she watched curiously. She studied their faces and noticed that they actually looked...happy. They weren't frowning, but...they still weren't moving. Shourim sat up and, kneeling in front of the child, placed his hands on her arms. "Reiko." Never did he just say her first name, ever.

"Yes?" Blinking once, she didn't look away from him otherwise. "Are they all right?"

I've never had to break the bad news to a child before, especially after she watched them die in front of her without having any idea of what's going on. The doctor was torn. He really didn't know how to word this. "No, Reiko. I'm afraid..." Shourim paused. How difficult this was! "...I'm sorry, Reiko. Your parents are in a sleep that they will never be able to wake up from anymore, no matter what we do. It's something that we call death and happens to everybody, including animals and-"

Dripping tears stopped him from saying anything more. A child's tears always got to Shourim and hit him harder than anything else in the world. Reiko had never heard about people dying before, nor had she expected it to happen to her parents. It broke the doctor's heart to see this, but what could he do? He watched as she hurried over and tried to hug them both at the same time. "I'll die with them!" she wailed, laying down between them.

"No!" A native of Canada, Shourim couldn't believe what he was hearing. He reached over, picked the tiny girl up, and pressed her to him for a comforting hug.

POOF! A thick cloud of pink smoke took the child's place. When it cleared a few moments later, a tiny butterfly with a white body, pink wings matching Reiko's hair colour, pink eyes matching her eye colour, and antennae matching the length of her bangs sat on top of her clothes.

Silence thickened the atmosphere to the point of someone being able to slice through it if they could. Never has the doctor ever seen anything like this in his handful of years as a physician, a person who could transform into another form. It was surreal at most, but no. Everything was real about this. Shourim watched as the butterfly flew up onto his hand before resting on his fingertip.

"You...I don't know what enables this, but it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life." Wait a second, that's not how he intended to give a compliment! Shourim liked the insect itself! Great. Now the girl was going to think that he was some sort of creep. Anyone else who heard would think that he was a pedophile.

A naked Reiko was curled-up at his feet seconds later. Snapping out of his thoughts quickly, Shourim wrapped the girl in a blanket and sent her to get dressed.

What was he going to do now?

—•—•—•—

"Yes, that's correct. Her uncle has been away for the last few years now due to his job." The next day had come very unexpectedly. After the event of Reiko's transformation in front of her doctor, almost immediately following the witness of her parents' sudden deaths, the child was no longer speaking. Shourim had to force-feed her because she no longer wanted to eat either. Her stomach hurt at the very thought of eating, and nothing she ate stayed down. "She can't keep anything down, which is to be as expected as her having nightmares and flashbacks. ... What? You're sending him now? The funeral! ... Understood. I'll start the preparations and have her ready to go by tonight. Au revoir."

So, that was it. Reiko was being sent somewhere. Was this always what happened to children whose parents died, and they had no other family to go to? Standing inside of her bedroom with the door cracked open slightly, the child had heard everything. Where was she going to go? Who was she going to live with? What would they make her do? She had so many questions that she hoped for someone to be able to answer. Maybe Shourim himself would tell her what was going on?

—•—•—•—

Reiko found out that very evening when an unfamiliar figure showed up at the door. Pointing at the grey-haired man, she looked to her doctor. "Reiko-chan, this is Kazuma Sohma. He's come to accompany you to Japan, where you'll be staying with your late father's family. That way you'll be with trusted people instead of strangers." But, Reiko just stood there silently. "It's okay. Kazuma-san won't hurt you. He's a Sohma, just like you."

She was still wary of this new man standing in front of her. Just who did he think he was, showing up to take her away from her parents? The child frowned at the yukata-wearing man. Then she fell to her knees and started to cry for the fifth time since finding out that her parents had died in front of her.

"It's all right to be afraid, Reiko-san. Nothing is making any sense to you right now, I understand that," Kazuma said gently. He had knelt down in front of the girl and placed a hand on top of her head. "You don't know what to do right now, but the truth is that you're free. You've been set free from the torment that your parents put you through...how does that make you feel?"

Feel? How was she supposed to know what to feel right now? Reiko's mind was in a perpetual storm of chaos and confusion that she could make neither heads nor tails of. She couldn't answer. Opening her mouth to speak was like rebellion in her young mind, and speaking out without her parents there to give her permission to do so was considered a sin in their eyes.

So...she really isn't saying a word. This was something that the Sohma hoped to work on once he and the child were back in Japan. If not, then he would have to present her to the Sohma doctor for evaluation. That's after he introduced her to Akira. Doing that was something that Kazuma personally dreaded when the man was near the end of his life, but would do anyways. He knew that the God would want to meet the young child and do whatever he could to unlock her otherwise bound mind. "Come, Reiko-chan. We must get to the airport."

Airport?

—•—•—•—

Reiko's first flight proved rather frightening. She found herself letting this grey-haired stranger guide her around by the hand as they traveled from one airport to the next, moving from one airplane to the next. By the time they arrived in Tokyo, the child felt more sick to her stomach than ever. Eating was now an impossibility to her, as she could no longer bring herself to even open her mouth for anybody. Kazuma could try, but his efforts always failed whenever he did.

"Reiko-chan? We're here." Kazuma opened the car door for the child and, knowing that she wasn't going to move on her own, took hold of her hand once more before guiding her out of the car. "Here" was at Kazuma's live-in dojo, where his home was attached to (but separate from) his training dojo. "I teach martial arts for a living; however, I'm currently taking a hiatus to help you."

Help? Help me how? a confused Reiko thought. She didn't know the first thing about being helped by another. What is help? She really was at a loss! Did it come with strings attached and beatings to follow?

No such thing would happen here, as she would eventually find out. In fact, when Kazuma walked her upstairs to a room that had a little bed, a bureau, and everything coloured white and told her, "This will be your bedroom. The colour white is a peaceful colour that's said to bring comfort to those who are in pain," Reiko immediately let go of the man's hand and kneeled down next to the bed in preparation for a beating. Alarmed, the man hurried to her side. "Is this what your parents would do to you?"

The question elicited a nod from the child. Finally, some sort of a response! Unfortunately, the answer shocked and alarmed him even more.

"You don't have to worry about that here, Reiko-chan. I'll never put my hands on you in a way that would harm you in any way." Her eyes widened at this. No beatings? No punishment? What was going on here? That was it. Her mind flew straight into a complete overload, and she gripped the sides of her head with her hands. "Is something the matter?"

Yes, as a matter of fact, there was. This room with all of this white, it was too happy. The brightness and cheeriness of it, she couldn't stand it one bit! None of this was who she was, so she stood and started to yank the covers from the bed. The bed and pillows were stripped completely bare of its white colour, and she threw it all out into the hallway. All of this furniture was already black, which she didn't mind so much since it was as dark as the anger she felt right now, but the walls were white. The curtains were white! All of it had to go now!

"Reiko! Stop this!" Kazuma grabbed from the girl a black marker that she had taken from one of the pockets of his yukata and started to scribble all over the walls and curtains. Then he put it completely out of her reach and pulled her over to him from behind, gently restraining her with a hug that prevented her arms from moving from her sides. "Is it a bad colour?" Reiko nodded. "Do you like the colour black more than you like the colour white?" She nodded again, only more quickly. "All right...all right. You don't have to see anymore white in your bedroom at all." To prevent another emotional breakdown, the man would have the walls painted black and her curtains replaced with black curtains.

—•—•—•—

Kazuma also bought fifteen notepads for the child. It was very clear that she wasn't going to speak anytime soon, so he insisted that she at least write down what was on her mind. There had to be a lot that she was keeping shut away inside of her mind, especially when her parents had censored her so much!

When he held out the notepad and a black pen, Reiko took both and immediately wrote on the first page in big letters, "I WANT TO GO HOME TO UNCLE SALEM-KUN NOW!" Then she thrust the notepad and pen back at Kazuma before running away back to the parlour. She had been sleeping on two of the tatami mats there since the first night because of all of the white in the bedroom, but it was to the corner furthest from the doorway to the kitchen that she retreated to now and curled up in.

Crying. That was one thing she had never stopped doing at all. Crying seemed to be the only thing that she did when she wasn't having extreme anger fits in short bursts. Reiko just didn't know the correct way to respond was the problem, and Kazuma was seeing this firsthand.

Which led him to phone Shourim that afternoon.

"She's experiencing only two emotions: extreme depression and extreme anger. It all boils down to extreme shock, which is still affecting her ability to open her mouth at all," the man told Reiko's doctor. In all honesty, "I've never seen this with anybody before, and you know how the Sohma can be. ... Applesauce? Speaking of him, I bought her some notepads so that she can communicate with others since she won't speak no matter what. She's expressed an immediate desire of going home with him. ... I see. So, he is overseas...I'll see how well she takes the news. Yes, thank you. Ja ne."

Kazuma hung up the phone and sighed. He and Reiko had a long journey ahead of them.

—•—•—•—

"Reiko-chan, are you awake?" After taking three days to paint the walls of Reiko's bedroom black and replacing the curtains and bed linen with black to match, the child was finally sleeping in the bedroom for the first time since her arrival. During that time, Kazuma had patiently explained to the girl that her uncle wasn't able to come to her right now, but he would when he had the chance. Giving her that piece of news had resulted in another spell of extreme anger. This time, Reiko had thrown her notepads and pens all over her room and accidentally punched Kazuma's stomach when he tried to stop her.

Now he waited for the door to slide open. When a minute passed with no response, the man slid the door open a crack to find the child still asleep. The colour black really did make her feel at ease, but she had to wake up. Today was the day that she was to meet with the Sohma head, Akira Sohma.

Just seeing the peaceful (although smile-less) look on Reiko's face brought a small smile to the middle-aged man's face. He almost wanted to let the child sleep, but he couldn't. This was an important day.

"Reiko-chan." Kazuma gently shook the girl's shoulder. No movement. She certainly was difficult to wake up in the morning, not a morning person by any means. I'll carry her there if I have to.

That's what it ended up coming to. Gently lifting her from the bed, Kazuma carried Reiko the entire way. He noticed that, in spite of Shourim telling him that she had turned into a butterfly mid-hug, she wasn't transforming in his grasp. Was there a different set of rules for those in America who were under the Curse?

—•—•—•—

"Akira-sama, I apologise for the delay." In the sitting room was a man of about the same height as Kazuma, but with lighter and shorter grey hair. "If I had waited for Reiko-chan to wake up before coming here, then we would have kept you waiting for far too long." The man laid the sleeping child on a tatami mat and bowed.

The sleep didn't last much longer. Suddenly, Reiko was awake and on her feet. Then she stepped forward before coming to a stop at a mere ten centimetres from the God. Her hands clasped together in a prayer-like formation as she lowered herself onto her knees. Then her kneeling turned into an all-out bow where her forehead touched the floor. The very top of her head brushed against Akira's robed knees.

"I accept your blessing, my beautiful Butterfly. Thank you very much," he said to the bowed girl. However, she didn't raise herself right away. That's because her eyes had gone wide from the shock of what she had just heard. Akira knew it too, or else he wouldn't be chuckling softly. "My, you really are quite loyal, aren't you?" Without moving, Reiko nodded. She felt a hand on her head and raised it at last. "Cherish your gift, Reiko-chan. Although your Cursed spirit cannot be accepted as a member of the Jūnishi, that is because you as the Butterfly were on a mission for me. You were fetching the finest meat for the banquet when you encountered the Dragon along the way."

The Dragon? Reiko didn't quite understand, mainly because neither of her parents had bothered to explain any of this to her, but something about hearing Akira mention the Dragon made something stir inside of her. Turning her head, she gestured for Kazuma to fetch her notepad and pen. When both were handed to her, Reiko opened it to a blank page and wrote,

"What happened between me and the Dragon?"

She could have asked who the Dragon was, or she could have even asked to meet the Dragon, but no! Reiko wanted to know what happened because she felt that was more important. Her chance of meeting the person who was possessed with the Dragon would eventually come, but it was story time right now.

"'What happened between me and the Dragon?'" Akira read aloud. He found nothing but sincerity in the American's desire to learn something that was obviously very new to her. "Reiko-chan, you and the Dragon will have a fulfilling future that doesn't come without hard times. Not only must you remember this truth, you must also develop. Right now...you don't have your wings yet."

Now both Reiko's eyes, as well as Kazuma's, were wide with surprise. "What do you mean, Akira-sama?" Kazuma asked. "Does this affect her ability to speak?"

The God nodded. "It does," he answered, looking at Kazuma. Then he looked back at Reiko. "You're not speaking right now because you watched your parents die right in front of you, and that has sent you into a cocoon to start your metamorphosis. As long as you're in the metamorphosis stage, my Butterfly, you cannot speak. You allowed your voice to be taken away from you, but it will come back the moment your wings have fully-developed."

Reiko took back the notepad. "You tell me that I can speak again when I'm done being sad over my parents dying?! What if I still don't talk then?! I can't! I won't!" Flinging the notepad down, she made to run off, only for Kazuma to take hold of her and sit her back down.

"We're not finished here yet, Reiko," he said sternly, "apologise to him." But, she turned her head to the side. "This isn't a request." The child's eyes lowered regretfully.

"It's all right. She regrets her actions," Akira spoke up. He handed the notepad and pen back over. "That's all for today. Will you come back again, Reiko-chan? I'd like to see you again soon." Reiko shrugged. "Let me know when she's ready to come back, Kazuma-kun. Until then, the doctor is expecting her in the next room for a checkup."

Kazuma bowed. "Understood. Thank you, Akira-sama."

Thus marked the end of the first fateful encounter between the Butterfly and the first late God.

—•—•—•—

Sitting on her bed, the now twenty-seven year-old Reiko was surrounded by her notepads. She had used hundreds of them in those ten years that she had been non-verbal for and flipped through them one page at a time.

That was when she came across the first thing she had ever written about the Dragon. '"What happened between me and the Dragon?"' Several notepads later, the following was then written down: '"I'll give my life to protect Hatori-dono from Akito-san."'

It's so hard to believe that twenty years have passed since Reiko's life first changed! So much has happened in her life that has also happened in my own, which made this one-shot very difficult for me to write. What made it even more difficult was the lack of complete information about Akito's father, Akira. I had to read in between the lines and fill in the gaps from there...in any case, I hope you were still able to enjoy this in your way as much as I enjoyed writing this out for you!