DISCLAIMER: I don't own "Ju-On," "The Grudge," or any characters contained within the films. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

Fury

"It's happening, Derrick."

"Right now?"

"Right now."

Kristen could barely keep her voice steady. She had been surprised she had been able to gather the strength necessary to dial Derrick's phone number and tell him.

And she still had no idea what, exactly, Derrick Martin had up his sleeve. She had first begun by needling him, then pleading, then flat-out begged to hear what Derrick planned to accomplish in those moments after she had kissed him, and he still would not budge. All he had told her was that it was better if she didn't know – and that all she had to do was trust him.

She did. It was the only thing she knew with any certainty. She trusted him.

That had been yesterday. She had not heard the clicking sound from her closet that night, and she had fallen asleep soundly for the first time in weeks, wondering if maybe all of this was just a dream, or some bizarre freak occurrence, or some Star Trek-style warp in the space time continuum…anything to put some semblance of rationality to the goings-on of the previous few weeks. She could think of nothing, and in a state of pure exhaustion, she had felt her eyelids grow too heavy for her weary head. She had fallen asleep shortly thereafter.

When she had woken up, her first thoughts had been of Derrick. She hated to admit it to herself, but the feelings were there; she had never felt this way about anyone before. The psychologist in her told her that the experiences with her father had left her distrustful toward men in general, but Derrick Martin, from the moment she had first made his acquaintance on the trip to Japan, had been very different from any man she had ever met. The complete antithesis of her father. Tender, loyal, honest.

Again, all he had told her was to trust him. And she did. It was really the only thing she believed in. His strength was the only thing keeping her sane.

"I'll be over there in a little bit."

"What?" Kristen said, standing up in her bedroom, casting a nervous glance back to her closet.

The clicking sound was getting louder – indeed, the only thing drowning it out were the two screaming voices coming from the floor below her.

As much as she feared the thing in the closet, she feared what laid downstairs worse.

"I'm coming over there, Kristen."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you why. You just have to trust me."

"I do, Derrick."

"Good. No matter how loud it gets downstairs, no matter how much stuff goes down…you can't come down there, got it? You have to stay by where she is, understand?"

"Tell me why, Derrick."

"I can't."

"Derrick, it's getting louder!"

"If I tell you, I'll scare you. Even more than you are right now."

"Believe me, that's not possible."

There was a long, agonizing pause on the phone. She could tell that Derrick badly wanted to tell her what was happening, and was wrestling with his innermost demons as to what exactly to do in the situation. After five seconds, Derrick spoke. His decision was made.

"Just stay where you are, Kristen. Don't go downstairs. Trust me."

There was an audible click on the other end of the phone.

Sometimes trust has its limits, Kristen thought to herself. Still, her room offered comfort, just as it had for all the years she had been alone with her father. It was her sanctuary.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Derrick stood at the front door of Kristen's house. He had walked her home on purpose yesterday; he had needed to see where she lived. It was imperative to his current mission, although at the moment, he admitted to himself a great deal of apprehension. He had hoped for a few days to mentally prepare himself for what was about to occur. But just last night, the clicking sound outside his door had started to get louder…and louder, and louder, until he thought that the sound would drive him mad. His foster father did not hear the sound; it seemed to exist in a plane only in his own mind.

And just today, the phone call. But sometimes life isn't fair, is it, Derrick?

God, she's up there right now, he thought, looking at the second floor window. From outside, the house looked utterly nondescript, almost exactly like the other suburban-style houses in the neighborhood. From a distance, it even looked eerily similar to the house.

The house. The Saeki house.

Derrick did not allow himself the luxury of dwelling on the thought. Gathering up his courage. He knocked on the door.

There was a long, agonizing ten second wait. Then the doorknob turned. And then the front door opened – and before him stood the man who could only be Kristen's sack-of-shit father. His face looked to be caked with pure grease, his brow furrowed, a big, noticeable mustache the primary defining characteristic of his face. His white t-shirt had grease stains on it – obviously, this guy is a factory worker – and his blue jeans had holes in the knees. Behind him, in the relative chaos of the family room, stood an older white woman.

So this is Kristen's family. She deserves it…she deserves it all. After putting up with all this for all these years…

Suddenly, the man standing before him spoke.

"Who the hell are you?" he said, with a rather high voice. Figures, Derrick thought. Guys who like to bully women usually have high voices. Overcompensation.

"Derrick Martin," he said.

"I've never seen you before."

"I know your daughter."

"What? What do you mean you know her?"

"I'm her new boyfriend, pally."

"Boyfriend? She never said anything about a boyfriend!" he said. His speech was slightly slurred, his breath smelled slightly of a few afternoon beers. Taking the offensive, Derrick muscled his way into the entrance of the house, planting his shoulder into the father's – and Kristen had told him that his name was Lanh – chest. He let out a small exhale of protest, stumbling back several steps as Derrick entered the house.

"Yeah, well, she can't really talk to you at all, can she?" he said. He cast another look to the pathetic sight on the floor that was Kristen's mother. Ever subservient, likely addled with drugs at this very moment. Her eyes were purple and puffy, obviously chemically altered in some way. And just like always, in a few moments, the proverbial shit would hit the fan, and she would do nothing.

If only both of them could go…

"She could never really count on you for anything, Lanh. She told me all about you. How many times has it been? How many times has it been when you've had nowhere to turn for your own self pity, so you have to turn to her? Does it make you feel better, Lanh? Does it make you feel better to hit her?"

The look of rage was apparent in his eyes, but it did not frighten Derrick. No doubt, he would be pitifully slow in what was to come. This would be an easy fight that Derrick Martin would relish.

"You should shut the hell up," he said, attempting to sound as much like Charles Bronson as he could. He took two steps toward Derrick, who looked around the living room one final time, looking for things in the terrain to use to his advantage. There was a couch to his left, planted in front of the television, and a huge stack of newspapers to his right in front of a kitchen counter. Not much in the way of weapons in the scenery.

All the better…

"Or else what? You'll do to me what you do to her? I don't think so. Unlike her, I'll fight back."

With that, Lanh threw his first haymaker, meant for Derrick's jaw. A pathetically slow right hand, slurred with his alcohol, and the aim was even a little off to boot.

Derrick easily dodged the punch, leaning out of its way, then launched one of his own. His own aim was not errant, connecting directly with Lanh's right cheek. Derrick felt the satisfying thunk of his knuckles making contact with the man's face, seeing thin rivulets of blood forming on the bare skin of both his own knuckles and Lanh's face.

God, that felt good…

Even more, Lanh instantly fell over with the force of the blow. While he could hear Kristen's mother yammering in the background, he paid it no mind, immediately pouncing on the prone form of Lanh lying next to the kitchen counter. He mounted him, pinning his arms down with both of his knees. He was now completely at his mercy.

"How's it feel, Lanh?" he said. In response, Lanh merely spit up a wad of his own blood.

That's supposed to make me feel pity?

Derrick punched Lanh with his right hand, then his left. He swiped at Lanh's face with lunge after lunge, hitting him perhaps twenty times total, watching the wood floor below his face turn into a puddle of red liquid, his face eventually unrecognizable – but he left Lanh with a fragmente of both his consciousness and his sanity.

After one final left hand, he suddenly stopped, letting the moment savor, and then speaking.

"That was from Kristen," he said, standing up and freeing Lanh. "She wanted me to tell you that."

Finally, Lanh spoke up, coughing up blood on the floor as he did so.

"She…she told you to do that…"

"Yes, she did."

"That, little…"

"Yeah, blame her for it. That's what your types always do. Go up there and be a sack of shit again."

And with that, Derrick Martin turned around and exited the house.

It's done, he thought. It's going to happen, and soon, it will all be over for her.

But am I ready?

________________________________________________________________________________________

The sound was getting louder…

Over the past ten minutes, the croaking sound had intensified greatly. Presently, it was so loud that the door itself was rattling. But it had been hard to hear over the commotion downstairs.

She had heard a knocking on the door; she had heard a man enter, and she had heard her father talking to another man. She had known, of course, that this other man was Derrick – and after a brief conversation, she had heard the unmistakable sounds of a fight. And since it hadn't been accompanied by her father's usual taunts, she had been certain that Derrick had been winning.

The urge to go downstairs had been ungodly; she wanted to see it. She wanted to see Derrick take her father and wipe the floor with him, make him suffer, make him feel all the things she had felt over these years.

But he had told her not to. He had told her to trust him.

So she had remained, accompanied by the ever-present clicking sound, threatening to burst out of the closet at a moment's notice and rip her to pieces.

Then, she heard it. The sound that had haunted her throughout her entire life. The sound that scared her more than the thing in the closet. The sound of him, walking up the stairs. It was slower than usual; a plodding, a kind of defeated gait. But it was him. There was no doubt about it.

Oh, God…what did Derrick do…

Her door burst open – and there he stood, once again. His face was a bloody mess.

Jesus Christ, Derrick did a number on him…

But Kristen was nonetheless terrified – not only by what was sure to follow, but by the look in her father's eyes. It reminded her of when she had seen the spectre in the mirror that night in the airplane, the face that she had come to associate with the unseen menace that had terrified her and her friends over the past several weeks. The look of hate. The look of absolute destruction.

"You," he said. "You had him do this!" he screamed, pointing upwards at his face with his right hand.

"No," was all she could say, shaking her head. While she was transfixed on the image of her father in the doorway, she found herself turning back to the closet – it was louder. The door was rattling louder than ever now…

And then Lanh began advancing on her.

He was upon her in less than three steps, and he immediately threw the first hit – an open-palmed slap that connected squarely in the face. Kristen felt the pain on both her face and body as she tumbled over onto the ground near her bed.

She looked up – he was looking down at her, the same look of utter, content hatred glazed on his face, still all-too-readable through the layers of blood caked to his face.

Then he knelt down beside her, and Kristen saw the figure behind Lanh.

Standing directly behind him was the boy. The same small boy she had seen on the airplane. Pure white skin, eyes wide open, shirtless. And the look on his face spoke of even more hatred than Lanh had been able to convey.

Then he opened his mouth.

An extremely loud "Meow" escaped from his vocal chords, and Lanh jumped upwards, turning around as he did so and falling over backwards in his shock.

He can see him, Kristen thought, as he fell over on his back on Kristen's right side. He had completely forgotten about his daughter, his eyes focused only on the intruder to his home.

"Who…" was the only word that he was able to say, and then Kristen's closet door burst open…

While it had seemed that he hadn't been able to hear it before, now Lanh seemed to be all-too-aware of the sound that had haunted Kristen's waking and dreaming states. He looked toward the closet, sweat beads starting to form on his forehead – and then she came. From the blackness of the closet, almost materializing from the rows of clothes hanging from hangers, she came.

It's Kayako, Kristen thought, seeing the beginning of her long black hair emanating from the closet. Then her arms. Then her shoulders. And finally her face, the mouth and neck caked with blood of her own, eerily similar to Lanh's present look.

Just then, Kristen's eyes darted back to her father.

At this angle, he looks a little like him. Like Takeo.

Then it occurred to Kristen what Derrick's plan had been all along.

"Kayako was human once," he had told her yesterday, in that great time when all that had seemed to matter was him. "And as such, she feels human emotions…"

He had made sure that Kayako had seen Lanh commit the actions; most likely, Kayako had even seen it beforehand. This had only been the proverbial lighter fluid on the already raging inferno.

And Lanh did indeed see Kayako, who had slithered out of the closet.

My God – how can she move like that? Kristen thought. She was no longer frightened; neither Toshio nor Kayako were even looking at her. Both were warmongers of hate, and they were headed directly for Lanh, as Toshio blocked the exit – and Kayako moved in for the kill…

Lanh screamed for one final time.

"I hate you!" Kristen screamed at Lanh. "I always did. Go to hell!"

But just as Kayako's face neared Lanh's, and he screamed one final bloodcurdling scream, Kayako turned her face to Kristen. Strangely, she was still not frightened. The look on Kayako's face was different this time, different from that night in the airplane. It was not full of hatred, but rather a sadness, a soulfulness, and a kind of understanding…

The image of Kayako's face and Lanh's terrified contortions were her final mental images as she blacked out into unconsciousness.