Author's Note: Welcome to the penultimate chapter. Here be monsters…

Chapter Thirteen

Haruhi struggled to run down the hallway as though it was coated in tar. Her feet were heavy, and her shins burned from the extra energy it took to slog forward, but if she didn't keep moving, she knew she would sink into it. The shadows were so thick that the blades of her hands sliced through them like they were made of gelatin. The temperature climbed the deeper she plunged into the bowels of the school until she was being broiled alive. Merciless beads of sweat blossomed at her hairline, one eager rivulet snaking down the hollow of her nose and splattering in a salty shower across her lips.

She was close. Inside of her, she could feel the thrilling call of the dark horse flourishing like a flower leaning toward the sun, its petals unfurling in anticipation. Its draw was seductive, intense, and impossible to ignore, and a part of her didn't even want to fight it. Nothing had ever been so alluring. She could tame that beast, make it hers, and ride atop that indomitable spirit as its mistress with nothing but raw power surging between her legs. She would not be of this realm anymore, but on its back, nothing and no one could stop her. She could take what she wanted, go where she wanted, and feel freer than she had ever felt under the oppressive shackles of Ouran's wealthy alumni. They would be one—one mind, one desire, one hunger. She would be its, and it would be hers, and nothing more would matter than that.

Haruhi felt her cheeks grow hot with the fever the dark horse imparted within her. The closer she got, the more possessive it was, and she had to fight to remember herself. This wasn't her. She wasn't a power-hungry Amazonian. She was Fujioka Haruhi, first-year scholarship student with ambitions of making a name for herself in the legal world just like her mother had. That's who she wanted to be, not some undead equestrian cutting down those she desired.

"No!" she shouted in her head as she rounded one final corner and came to a screeching halt. It was close. It was here.

The school bells tolled five. Silence.

The beast was lurking somewhere in the ebony net at the end of the hall some fifty feet away, but it may as well have been on top of her. She smelled it before she saw it—a whiff of hot exhaust mixed with dwindling coals and something horrific in its bottom note like burnt meat and hair. It was putrid and sweltering, and Haruhi wanted to tear off her skin to get away from its cloying stink.

"Yes," it hissed in her ear, "come."

"Oh, I'm coming all right, coming to destroy you," Haruhi snarled back inwardly. Mocking laughter—not her own—filled her body and gathered strength like a rolling boulder, and she knew the beast was challenging her. "Damn demonic bastard." More laughter.

Haruhi wondered how the demon could read her thoughts. It was like a child's improvised toy phone with two tin cans on the ends of their shared string. How long had it been listening? How much did it know? About her, about everything and everyone? She thought of her friends and their safety, of the twins, of Tamaki and Kyoya, of Honey. Of Mori.

As if in response, the horse snorted, and she felt the coil of its rage unravel in the pit of her stomach. Evidently the beast remembered her protector keenly and, more importantly, remembered how Mori had kept it from claiming her yesterday. Because of Mori, the hunger for her in its stomach had reached a desperate frenzy. Because of Mori, it was denied its beautiful prize, and the dark horse was never to be denied.

Crimson pierced the veil, two little demonic lighthouses beckoning her toward treacherous shoals. Even from this distance, she could see her silhouette in its glowing orbs as it pulled her in. She saw another flash in their depths, and though she couldn't clearly make out the shapes, she knew it was the rest of the Host Club. It was a simple ultimatum: you or them.

Haruhi's rage competed with the horse's own. Threaten her, fine, but threaten her friends, all bets were off. Her defiance stoked the beast's flames, and suddenly its true form was ignited in a crescendo of flames as though its body was the ember that fueled a demonic fire. Nose to tail was outlined in flickering orange, enough to showcase its great height and girth as it nearly filled the corridor. Its glistening nostrils flared with another snort that poured out smoke in twisting gray ribbons. Its mane was long and dramatic, wild like a tattered flag on a stiff wind and every bit as black as the space around them. Its skin was ebony just as the stories had foretold, but there was a lustrousness to it—even a depth—that rippled like a starry night reflected in a still pond. Every inch of the beast was covered in twitching muscle, from the length of its great muzzle along its broad flank and down its tremendous thigh. Though the horse wore a bridle and reins, it had no saddle, just a wide expanse of its powerful back to tempt its rider.

Its ribs swelled out like billows stoking a blaze, and Haruhi could hear the dark horse filling itself with precious cool air before it unleashed a long exhale of scorching breath. It was like she was swimming in fire. Haruhi's skin contracted on contact with the roiling air just shy of a full-on steam burn. She choked on the rotten egg stench of sulphur and covered her mouth as she ducked to avoid the worst of it.

The dark horse lifted one fringed hoof and lurched forward with a grunt. Every muscle quivered under its glistening skin like molten rock surging from a volcano. The clop of its hoof on the marble resonated with the clarity of a crack of thunder, and Haruhi shuddered.

"Mine."

"Never."

"Mine," it growled with force.

In the face of the beast, Haruhi's resolve crumbled, and she felt a strange willingness to comply well up in her chest. "Mine..."

It was a raspy whisper, low and desperate and possessive, but somehow it was her voice.

Haruhi blinked when she realized it and looked ahead in horror to find she had been in a trance. She had taken a number of steps closer to the dark horse, bringing her within a car length of its burning eyes. Her right hand reached out in front of her, unconsciously questing for the bridge of its muzzle. She had underestimated the demon's power and overestimated her own. Fool.

She stumbled backward and reeled into a wall, her hands frantically searching for an escape route. She needed some distance from the dark horse or she would be sucked into the whirlpool of its desire no matter how much she fought it. The shadows had shifted as she adjusted to their depth, and while her eyes were still effectively useless, Haruhi could make out the darker shapes beneath. Through the smoke and shadows, she spied a narrower offshoot of the hallway and dove into it, but she found no reprieve from the hellacious pull of the creature that sought her.

The string that connected them was now a chain, and it was being tugged back link by link. The young student thrashed like a circus animal fighting her handler, but it was a losing battle. She knew it. She stuttered forward, her arm bracing against the wall as her knees buckled beneath the tenacity of her resistance. Still she fought on. She had to.

"No," Haruhi said to herself. "There's no damn way I'm going out like this."

"Yes…"

Haruhi summoned what was left of her willpower and stood again, albeit haphazardly. Her determined eyes focused on the ebony planes of the walls that tapered into nothingness. Beneath all of her fear and the horse's persistent call, she felt something else—a pulsing of unimaginable power beckoning her forward. It was stronger than the dark horse, more concentrated and decidedly blacker in intent, and, in spite of the foreboding budding inside her, she pushed toward it with certainty. She did her best to blank out her mind so that the beast wouldn't know her intentions, wouldn't know that she felt it.

"Mom? Can you hear me? I need your famous strength. Please, lend me some of your formidable determination. I can't beat this on my own like I thought. I need you." Tears pricked at the corners of Haruhi's eyes as she pictured her mother, making her little cheerful V for victory with her fingers. A warm light filled her, replacing the tortuous fire in her chest, and Haruhi limped forward a few more steps, still using the wall as a crutch. Guided by her mother and aided by an untapped reservoir of strength, she managed a gangly jog along the corridor.

Silence.

Thump.

Silence.

Thump.

She heard the clop of hooves behind her, pursuing her at a leisurely pace with the knowledge that its prey had nowhere to go. Each thunderous snap was almost artful in the way it punctuated the preternatural silence, like an endless series of exclamation points. At this point, she knew the beast was just toying with her. All the while, its gravelly voice vibrated inside her, calling her name and bombarding her with images of her friends suffering terrible fates at her hand as its rider.

Under her skin, Haruhi felt the dull throb of a malevolent homing beacon up ahead. As she closed the distance between it and her, electricity surged through her joints, zapping more precious energy from her aching joints.

Almost there.

Closer.

Thump. Thump.

The horse had picked up its pace a bit, and Haruhi wondered if it had finally caught wind of her plan.

She shuddered against the wall, her forehead colliding with a broad expanse of wood. She rocked her face to the side and allowed her cheek, red with exertion, to cool for a moment. The throbbing under her skin burned more acutely than ever. She was so close. If she could just dip into the last of her mother's borrowed strength…

Haruhi pushed up and noticed, even through the darkness, the subtle glint of a silver number thirteen just above her head. As she leaned back, she realized the wood beneath her hands was part of the elusive and ominous Room 13. There was no mistaking it this time. Behind this door was true power like Haruhi had never experienced before, and she was going to destroy it.

She placed a hand on the knob but found right away that her palm was too sweaty to even grip it. After drying it off on her knee, she tried again but found to her distress that the knob simply wouldn't turn as if bolted in place by otherworldly elements. She shoved with all of her might against the jamb, kneeing the edge and leveraging her foot against the bottom corner. Kicking, yanking, thrashing, swearing—nothing Haruhi did mattered. She couldn't even rattle the lockset in its frame.

With one last futile push, Haruhi slumped down, her forehead dragging down the ebony wood. What an idiot she was. To think she could go up against a poltergeist on her own and defeat it. Nothing could have changed her fate, not her mother, not Mori nor the rest of the Host Club—not even herself. "Stupid," Haruhi chastised herself. "I just wanted to get my Sundays back…"

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Heart and hoof beats synchronized.

The dark horse was closing in quickly, sensing her acquiescence more than an actual threat, she suspected. Dull red light funneled down the hallway announcing its arrival like an ambulance's sirens. Its eager gallop only served to deaden her spirit further. At last, it slowed to a stop before her huddled form, its kneecaps at eye level. It shuffled excitedly from one leg to another and inhaled the intoxicating aroma of her defeat.

"Look at me," it commanded.

It stamped its foot and her eyes rocketed upward from its legs to its goblet-shaped chest and finally up its muscular neck until they came to rest on one striking cheek. It nickered and shook its head, its version of a triumphant laugh. The demon fixated one scarlet globe on her face, and Haruhi felt like it was wrenching her soul right out of her body through that red portal.

What was the point of fighting? She had literally volunteered herself for this suicide mission believing she didn't need anyone else. Or maybe, in the back of her mind, this has always been an outcome, perhaps even an inevitability, and her heart had sent the others away so they wouldn't have to witness her fate. Haruhi clung to the hope that the rest of the Host Club had made it topside. She pictured her boys basking in the afternoon sun, their hair ruffled by a breeze, maybe even one peppered with rose petals. If this was how she was going to go down, this was what she wanted to think about one last time: the warmth of that sun, the warmth of their personalities, the warmth of Mori's lips.

Life wasn't all bad, Haruhi figured ruefully. At least she had gotten a proper first kiss, one that she planned to spend her last few seconds savoring in every exquisite detail. She closed her eyes and drifted back...

The dark horse whinnied appreciatively.

"Haruhi!"

Her eyes snapped back open. From somewhere behind the massive black beast, she heard Tamaki's call.

"Haruhi!" the twins repeated.

What were those idiots doing? This had been their chance to get out scot-free, to forget about her and worry about the rest of the girls at Ouran who loved them. Why on earth were those arrogant bastards calling so much attention to themselves when they knew full-well what was lurking only a few strides away from them? Haruhi prayed they would pass her by, but she knew it was impossible for them not to notice the massive horse-shaped poltergeist radiating fire.

"Haru-chan!"

The dark horse heard them, too. If it could smile, it would have. "You, then them," it hissed.

"Haruhi."

Mori's voice. The beast stamped its hoof and whipped its head back down the hallway, breaking its concentration on her to steer its eyes toward the apex of the corridor. Its muscles tightened and it forcefully exhaled blazing hot smoke. From her own history with the Host Club, Haruhi recognized that posture even in a demonic horse: annoyance mixed with anger, and perhaps, just perhaps, a tinge of anxiety.

"Him."

The horse's lust for her was immediately swapped for pulsating rage toward the third-year student. Fury radiated from the beast hotter than the halo of flames that surrounded it. Evidently, nothing had challenged the horse the way Mori had, and it hated him for it. It swiveled its head to one side as it returned its fervent attention to her, one eye roiling with the intensity of every fire in Hell.

"You, then him," it seethed. "Then him."

Without more preamble, the great beast reared and brought down its hooves with ferocity. Haruhi tumbled to the right in a rolling move she had perfected to dodge Tamaki's "fatherly love" routine. Horseshoes smashed against the black door. Though all of her strength had been nothing in the face of the supernatural gateway, the demonic force was enough knock the door clean off of its frame, leaving only one hinge connecting it to the wall.

The hell beast would not be denied. It reared back again, its head bucking against the ceiling, two polished hooves poised above her head like fangs moving down for the death blow, sparks firing from its nostrils. Haruhi couldn't move fast enough this time. Her strength had been sapped. The coup de grace was inevitable. Haruhi braced, managing only enough time to cover her face with an arm.

Crash!

She was dead. She had to be dead. She felt weightless. Every extremity was numb. She was surrounded by fire, encapsulated by steam and smoke. Her skin burned, her eyes watered, she gagged. It reeked of hot flesh and feral animal.

Funny, Haruhi thought, she expected more from being the undead rider of a hell beast, maybe some power surging through her or an unquenchable bloodlust. Even the ghosts in this school were entitled bastards.

Slowly, fearfully, she dropped her arm and eased open one eyelid to find herself still in a defensive heap on the floor. The dark horse was caught mid-rear, its front legs hooked over Mori's sheathed sword as the two were locked into a battle of strength. Mori stood at full height, his arms extended above his head as they trembled beneath the weight of the snarling beast.

"Mori-sempai!"

"Finish it," he grunted over his shoulder.

How could she? She wasn't strong like Mori. She couldn't even move. Every last ounce of her mother's energy had been siphoned from her, leaving her a husk on the floor.

"Haruhi!"

Reluctantly, she shifted her gaze from Mori to the others barreling down the hall. In the orange aura that emanated from the seething fiend, she saw that Honey was leading the charge with Tamaki close behind, followed closely by Kyoya and the twins.

"Here, sempai!" she managed weakly.

Without a word, Honey launched a flying kick into the already sagging door and it skidded across the floor in the hidden chamber. The rest of the men funneled in one-by-one and encircled a tall pedestal in the center of the room as Kyoya stooped down to lift Haruhi out of the way of the most immediate danger. He propped her up along his length, one arm under her arms as his hand clutched her aching ribs. She slouched against him and tried to borrow some of his renowned Shadow King strength to replace her own, her hand fisting around the loose fabric on his back.

There was a collective intake of breath as they beheld the horse's tether in all its glory. It was so much more than a second-year's inelegant clay creation could ever hope to replicate. The chalk-white pedestal flared up from the floor like frozen smoke, feathering out into a wide stage for the real masterpiece—a statue of the dark horse itself.

Just as it had been described in Kioshi's monologue, it was monstrous, worthy of every bit of effusiveness the drama student had loaded onto it. At three feet tall and immortalized in jet black obsidian, the effigy reared up just as the actual horse was in reality. The flickering firelight teased out an undulating purple haze beneath its surface that infused an otherworldly life to it. Its back legs were grounded on the platform while the other two curled like scythes cutting through the air. Flags of flowing hair billowed out behind each hoof, snapping in an invisible breeze. Its barrel chest was so meticulously rendered down to the ghost of the ribs below that Haruhi could swear it was breathing. Its bared teeth winked in the shimmering red light as they chomped on the bit fastened to a loop of reins that drooped behind its wild mane, riderless. A long waterfall of tail surged behind the powerful haunches as a final declaration of the horse's greatness.

Haruhi had no idea how to even begin bringing down such a masterpiece crafted by the Devil himself.

A shuriken whizzed by her ear, colliding with pinpoint accuracy with the statue's head. It rebounded off its cheek with a sharp clink and tinkled uselessly on the floor, not so much as a scratch left behind. Hikaru pouted beside her before he stooped to pick up the dejected star.

Haruhi had just enough time to ponder where the troublesome twin had learned to throw a ninja star with such expertise before Honey's chain snaked around the statue's neck and yanked. Not even a budge. The third-year tried again, this time snapping the chain like a whip against the flank of the impenetrable stone. Still nothing.

As each club member fruitlessly attempted to sever the tether, Haruhi's eyes shifted back to the sinewy man fading beneath the might of the otherworldly force. Mori's arms were no longer straight pillars supporting the beast but were now bent like a goal post, muscles straining through his sleeves. His head drooped as perspiration trickled down the nape of his neck under his collar. His legs sunk beneath him until his knee bumped the floor. He was going to fall beneath the might of the dark horse, and he hadn't even called for help.

One red eye caught Haruhi's fearful gaze and the beast knew. It greedily gnawed on its bit and let out a rapturous whinny. It wanted her to watch as it killed her guardian. The horse willed itself up a little higher to thunder down on top of him, and as she broke from Kyoya's embrace, she screamed.

"Takashi!"

Mori braced, his name buoying his stamina just a moment longer. His back leg dug into the floor and his knuckles tightened around the sword. Though his limbs were shaking, he held fast one last time.

"Now!" Mori grunted.

What was she supposed to do? Weapons couldn't destroy the horse or the statue, so how could she? Haruhi stumbled backward. Mori was going to die. They were all going to die. Another step back and another. She wished she had a hole to burrow into and hide from everything. Her back ran into something hard. At first, she thought it was Kyoya, but as she whirled around, she saw it was the pedestal. The statue rocked from side to side, gaining momentum like a pendulum until the base lifted from platform and teetered over the lip. It flopped inelegantly sideways as it accelerated downward.

It shattered.

Shattered like an $80,000 Renaissance vase.

With a bang, shards jettisoned outward, a few slicing the Host Club members who stared dumbfounded at its descent. Though it had looked solid, the statue was hollow, and as it splintered across the glittering marble, the twisted ghost of some wretched soul materialized from inside in an ethereal silver mist and unleashed a piercing scream that made everyone clasp their ears. It vanished as quickly as a cherry blossom on the wind.

Haruhi stooped over to grab a polished teardrop of rock and realized one of its sharp edges had sliced her fingertip. A pinprick of blood oozed over the stone before it was absorbed. From deep within her, in the darkest corner of her heart, she heard one last mournful cry: "Haruhi…" She dropped the fragment and booted it down the hallway in her best impression of a famous Tamaki Starlight Kick.

Almost immediately, the lights in the basement kicked back on and whitewashed the hallways with sickly luminescence. Haruhi blinked. The whole Host Club was in the hallway now. Room 13 had simply disappeared, replaced instead with a canvas of drywall and a horridly cheesy landscape of Mt. Fuji in the autumn.

Behind her, Haruhi heard a second crash and found Mori collapsed in a ball. His sheathed sword jutted out beneath his hunched back as he sucked in breaths of finally fresh air. His chest heaved and his muscles sagged. His eyes were closed and his lips were charred. Black snow fluttered down upon him and smudged butterfly kisses on his gasping cheeks.

Honey was first to regain his senses and bounded over to his cousin's side. "Takashi? Can you hear me?"

Mori did not open his eyes but grunted.

"Kyo-chan?"

"On it," the Shadow King replied as he made a call.

Haruhi wanted to go to Mori's side—knew she should comfort the man who had literally shielded her from certain death—but she was lost in a mental fog as she felt strangely unmoored. She felt a hollowness inside, as empty as the horse statue, now that the dark horse had vanished. It was strange how over the course of a few short days she had acclimated so completely to its presence inside her and somehow missed it now that it was gone. It made her question everything. Had all of this actually happened or not? If it weren't for Mori laying on the floor, Haruhi might have convinced herself she had imagined it all. She wanted to convince herself of that because it would all be so much easier.

"Mori-sempai is fine," she repeated to herself ad infinitum as she came back to her senses. But he wasn't moving and his breaths were becoming shallower. His eyes weren't opening no matter how hard she was willing them to acknowledge her. Honey squatted beside his cousin, one hand resting reassuringly on his fallen man's shoulder; there were tears in his eyes. "This is all a dream. Wake up now, Haruhi. Wake up!"

A hand on her shoulder jolted her awake. It was a dream after all! She was fine, Mori was fine, they were all fine. She squinted in the onslaught of light and turned to her right to find a pair of narrowed eyes—Hitachiin eyes.

"You okay?" the oldest twin asked.

"Is Mori-sempai?" was her immediate answer.

Kyoya hung up his phone and nodded. "He will be."

"Ne, Haruhi," Hikaru pressed solemnly, "what exactly is it with you knocking things over?"

She couldn't stop it. The raw bubbling of laughter burst from her lips so hard and fast, she doubled-over. She laughed until her cheeks burned and her lungs ached. Every fear and frustration over the past few days escaped on the wings of her incredulity. First, first a priceless vase, now, a demonic statue. A shuriken, a chain, a baton, an ax, and nunchaku were nothing in the face of the awesome destructive power of Fujioka Haruhi.

When Haruhi couldn't stop laughing, Tamaki placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "Haruhi?"

She craned her head towards him, still stooped over, still laughing uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face. Suddenly, she realized she wasn't laughing anymore. Haruhi fell into Tamaki's arms and sobbed.

The dark horse had vanished, a nightmare already fading in clarity, leaving only horseshoe prints in haloes of soot on her heart. The string that had tied Haruhi to it—that had pulled and puppeted her with such cruelty—unraveled and evaporated as though it had never been there. Maybe that had been her soul drifting up from the shattered statue. She was untethered, floating up and away.

She grabbed a fistful of Tamaki's shirt and squeezed as tightly to ground herself as she jammed her eyes shut. And then the world went dark again.