Prologue

She had not always been so bitter, so filled with pain and anger. She could still remember a time when her father had held her in his lap, stroked her smooth, black hair back out of her eyes, and reassured her that she was special and that she would always be loved. She remembered what it felt like to be cherished, to feel validated. Ironically, it was her memories of being loved that incited her to such a terrible and frightening rage.

It was as though the vacuum left by her father's death drew in nothing by fiery, blind rage. Night and day, she sat isolated in her room seething with impotent fury. But buried in the ashes beneath the angry pain in her heart were the cold ache of loneliness and the fear of rejection.

She still remembered the night he had died. She had been so young then, not more than three, and she was really too young to fully comprehend the gravity of the situation as it unfolded. She remembered the hushed and worried tones of the adults around her as they scurried from room to room in the compound. It was all so foreign in comparison to the attention and love that was regularly lavished on her by her father. All of her pain originated in that single night.

Chapter 1

She was growing uneasy. Servants were running about the house in a frenetic, scattered manner. And unlike his normal habit, her father had not spent any time with her today. Unused to the lack of doting attention, she tried to grab the hand of one of the servants as they passed where she sat; but the woman didn't spare her a glance and continued to rush on her way through the room. Feeling a little shocked and disconcerted by the woman's lack of concern for her, she crawled off of the cushion she had sat upon and she began to toddle towards her father's room; but as she entered through the door, her mother, Ren, saw her.

"Get her out of here! She'll only make things worse!" Ren hissed in a spiteful tone. " It's that little bitch's fault that my husband lies here dying!"

"Dying?" she thought. She wasn't certain what dying meant, but in the light of everyone's strange, frightening behaviors and her mother's hostility, it could not be good. Why wasn't father sitting up in bed? Why wasn't he calling to her to come sit with him? One of the servants came to her and picked her up.

The serving women lifted her up and began to carry her out, giving her young charge a heightened vantage point from which to view the scene; her father, Akira, was lying very still in the bed. His skin was very pale and his chest scarcely rose and fell with each of his breaths. Numerous doctors and her mother hovered over Akira, trying to find a way to assist the man. Ren looked up at her as the woman carried her out of the room; her mother had never been particularly loving, but she was frightened by the hate she saw flaring in Ren's eyes.

"If he dies, it will be your fault. And everyone will hate you. You will never be special and no one will ever love you again," her mother said venomously.

The serving woman carried her back to her room and set her down on the bed and then quietly closed the door and left her alone. She sat there alone on the bed and she began to shake. She knew that something was terribly wrong with her father and she was very frightened that it was her fault. She was not certain what she had done to make her father so pale and still, but she was very scared that she would never see him again!

She began crying and she crawled off her bed and went to her door. As she pulled the sliding door open, she heard her mother begin screaming and wailing. It was a terrible, piercing sound that seemed to tear through the rice paper of her door, shred her eardrums, and freeze her heart within her chest. Her mother screams continued until they degenerated into guttural, wrenching moans. She was mostly incoherent, but a few words were intelligible. She heard Ren cry out her father's name repeatedly.

"Akira!" Ren would scream and then descend into wracking sobs. Terrified by her mother's screaming, she slipped out the door and pulled it shut behind her. She ran down the hallway towards her father's room. She slowed as she neared the doorway to her father's sitting room.

The servants were mostly gone, leaving only Ren's personal assistant and the small cadre of doctors who had been with Akira. Ren's assistant was holding Ren, who was clinging to her sobbing. The doctors were trying to speak to Ren, but she ignored them and continued to sob.

Worried about her father, she crept closer to the room, trying to catch a glimpse of him. She tread softly on a floorboard and it emitted a loud creak. Ren looked up at her with baleful, red rimmed eyes.

"You!" she hissed. "You stupid little, worthless cunt. You pathetic, disgusting bitch." Faced with the utter loathing and hostility of her mother, she tried to move, but she was frozen with fear as she looked into her mother's red and swollen face.

"You killed him!" Ren's voice rose and became shrill. "You worthless piece of shit! You're not special! You sucked the life force right out of him and killed him! You vampiric parasite! You aren't even a proper heir to the family! You are an evil, disgusting slut!"

Ren began shaking with the force of her rage. She leaped up and lunged at her daughter, and struck her hard across the face. She felt her head fly back with the stinging force of her mother's blow and she hit the wall and fell to the floor. Ren lunged at her again but she was grabbed by two of the doctors before she could harm the child further. She began screaming hysterically until one of the doctors stabbed a hypodermic needle into her arm. Her struggles grew less violent until she went limp.

The doctor who had drugged Ren ran to where the small girl lay on the ground crying. She looked up at him with all the confusion and pain of a small child who was terrified beyond reason. She cowered as he leaned down and reached for her. He lifted her up and held her, rubbing her back in a soothing, comforting manner.

"Someone needs to take care of the child until Ren has recovered." He said quietly. He continued to rock and pat the child who was quietly whimpering against his chest.

"Kurosawa," said one of his colleagues, "your son and you were favored by Akira-kun. You would be the most appropriate choice for caring for young Sohma-san."

The doctor bowed his head in assent. The other doctors carried Ren to her room and instructed her assistant to care for her. Kurosawa looked down at the shaking toddler in his arms. She looked up into his eyes and then she looked over at the bed where her father lay.

"Akira-kun has died, Sohma-san. Your father will no longer be able to walk or talk. He has gone to join the ancestors," Kurosawa said softly. She just sat there mute in his arms with tears streaming down her face. Kurosawa carried her out of the room and brought her to his home in the Sohma compound.

He told his wife, "Sohma Akira has passed away. We are to watch over his daughter until her mother, Ren, is able to do so once more." Their son, Hatori, and his cousin, Shigure, sat quietly watching. She turned to look at the two boys. A thrill of recognition ran through her veins and into her heart. The two boys felt it to, and their eyes welled up with tears. She reached her arms out and Shigure walked over and took her from Kurosawa.

She nestled her head down on Shigure's shoulder, and for the first time that night, she felt safe. It couldn't erase the horror of her mother's rejection of her or that of her father's death, but it did quiet her fears that no one loved her. She knew that so long as the Juuneshi bond that her father had told her of was in effect, she would always be loved and she would never be alone. Her mother was wrong; she was special. To the members of the Juuneshi, she was God. Her father had told her so.

"It's okay, Akito," murmured Shirgure. "We will take care of you, won't we Ha'ri?" Hatori nodded his assent, and he awkwardly patted her on the head. "We will always love you."

Akito raised her head and looked directly into Shigure's eyes. "Do you promise?" she said quietly, "You'll never leave me? You will always love me?" Her lower lip quivered as she spoke. She feared hearing the answer.

Shigure looked back into her eyes steadily. "I will always love you." And he hugged her tightly. She smiled and closed her eyes. Her father may have left her, but Shigure loved her. He would be there for her.