A/N: This story plot takes after a Swedish folktale that I thought was pretty awesome, so the plotline is not mine. I hope you like it. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Fruits Basket, nor do I own the plotline, I only own the creative idea of merging the two.
Ghost at the Inn
A widow at twenty-nine, Tohru Honda decided to manage the many estates inherited from her late husband herself. While surveying the lands, she came one evening to Sohma's inn. Since it was late, Tohru decided to spend the night.
"A room for one, for one night, please," Tohru requested of the inn keeper.
"Okay, any particular room you would like, Mrs. Honda?" replied the inn keeper, Momiji Sohma.
"Uh, yes, could I stay at the 'Ghost Room' please?" Tohru answered.
"What! You do know the history behind that room, don't you?" Momiji choked, shocked to hear such a request from a lady.
"Yes, I know, and I still would like that room," Torhu was firm about her decision. The 'Ghost Room' had acquired that name after a traveler, Kyo Sohma, vanished without a trace a few years before. The last to see him, the stable boy Yuki Sohma, claimed that he went to sleep in this room just before midnight. The villagers supposed he had been murdered, though no evidence availed to decide the mystery.
Shortly after the incident, a ghost appeared in the room nightly, and those who knew about the haunting would rather travel to the next inn, in the dark, than to stay at Sohma's inn for the night. Aware of the stories, Tohru wanted to sleep in the room nonetheless. Momiji solemnly nodded once, and handed the key over to Tohru, silently.
Tohru warily walked across the small room to the hall that led to the sleeping rooms. She retired to bed and slept, leaving the lamp burning. At twelve o'clock, the sound of groaning, breaking wood awakened Tohru. Two of the floor boards had been pried free from their positions and from the opening a bloody form appeared, with bright orange hair hanging from its head, divided by a massive fracture in the skull.
"Noble lady," whispered the figure, "Please, speed the murderer to his just punishment."
"Sir," Tohru replied, voice trembling, "Bound by this unfit tomb, alone in darkness is no way to spend eternity. I will show you the sunlight once more."
Tohru, hands shaking, took from her finger a gold ring. She got up from the bed and slowly walked to the ghost where it stood still by the hole in the floor. Tohru gently laid the ring in the gaping wound on the phantom's head surrounded by orange hair, and bandaged it with her pocket-handkerchief. The ghost leaned toward Tohru and murmured the name of the murderer, softly as to not stir the air. It then disappeared without a sound beneath the floor, where the hole gaped no longer.
The next morning, Torhu went immediately to the owner of the estate, Haru Sohma. She told him to gather the people at Sohma's Inn. When a crowd had gathered Tohru told them of a corpse under the floor boards in the room in which she had slept. The people were both surprised and dismayed at once, demanding confirmation.
Tohru then commanded that the planks of the floor be taken up. The discovery of a half decomposed corpse under the floor boards confirmed Tohru's claims. Tohru's ring rested in the hole in its skull, and her handkerchief bound around its orange head.
At sight of this, one of those present grew pale and fainted to the ground. On being revived, the man, Akito Sohma, confessed that he had murdered the traveler and robbed him of his goods. Admittedly guilty, Akito Sohma received death for his crime.
"What shall we do with the murdered man?" questioned Tohru.
"Well, we do not know if he has any family, and they would be hard to track down," The sheriff, Shigure Sohma, replied. "Do you have an idea, Mrs. Honda?"
"Yes, I think we should give him a proper burial in the churchyard," Tohru promptly responded.
The funeral was held later that day. Only a few residents attended, among them appeared Tohru. Kyo Sohma finally rested in a sunlit corner of the churchyard.
That night, as Tohru drifted asleep in her own home, she could just make out the whispered words of 'Thank you'.
Fin.
Thank you for reading. I'd love to hear any comments you have.