Chapter 14, enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own fruits basket but Kitsune is mine!
Run. Run. Run. Hide. Run and hide.
Primal thoughts ran through Kitsune's frantic mind. She keeps running, and finally there it is, a window. No one surrounds it, so she'd in the clear, all she has to do is jump.
The glass doesn't sting like she'd think it would of, keep running. She keeps going; keep trying to find an escape. Or at least hide. Something she's good at. Hiding.
A soft click echoes in the distance and she raises her head. What is it? A stranger? A threat. Gotta find somewhere to hide.
Then there he was, standing at the doorway of the exit sign of the airport, just watching.
. . .
"Kitsune?" Tohru called, walking down the slightly crowed airport terminal, eyes frantically searching for anything out for the ordinary. It wasn't easy, considering that if Kitsune didn't have her bracelet she would be….something else. But they kept looking, desperately hoping they could find her.
"Tohru?" Shigure called, running towards her. Tohru did the same and they both met in between, panic expressions mirrored on their faces.
"No luck finding her?" Shigure asked.
Tohru shook her head. "I couldn't find her…"
"She's probably hiding," Shigure explained darkly. "Surely you remembered what happened when you saw Kyo's second form for the first time."
Of course she did. It was something she'd never forget no matter how many years that would come to pass. But all she said was. "Yes,"
"I can't even begin to imagine where she could have run off to without being seen." The elder cousin continued. "Not the way she looks…..but she is very fast so maybe she'll be safe."
"Shigure, Honda-san!" Yuki called, running towards the two who's heads were bent together obviously oblivious to the rest of the world that swam around her.
"Yuki, what is it?" Tohru asked.
"I found out what plane Kyo went on," Yuki said quickly. He almost never called Kyo by his first name, so hearing him call his cousin by his first name just made the seriousness of this situation grow. "He got a ticket to go to a town about six hours away from here by plane. We'll never get to him by car,"
"Can we get to the plane in time for it to take off?" Tohru wondered hopefully.
"It's already taken off," Yuki said in one of the saddest tone she'd ever heard. "We'll never get to him."
The silence that followed Yuki's news was deafening.
"Then we just have to find Kitsune," Shigure said a matter of factly.
The two third years nodded. "Of course," Tohru agreed. "We have to find her,"
. . .
"My, my, what are you doing here?" The boy standing in the doorway of the airport exit sign said confidently. His arms were crossed over his chest and his head kind of slanted at an angle like he was observing an object he was about to purchase.
No, no, no. Kitsune thought, clenching her eyes shut. Not here, not now.
"I'm curious to know how you managed to stray so far from home as well," The continued in their light tone. "Shouldn't you be at Shigure's home with Tohru and Yuki?"
I can't even look at you, Kitsune thought turning away.
"Turn around and open your eyes," The shadowed figure told her. "Now,"
The creature that had once been Kitsune turned.
"You disgust me," Akito secured. "Look at yourself. You're a monster. Not even human. Worthless. I told you that you would never find him, and now look at you. Alone on the fringe of society, close enough to see it but not even nearly close enough to touch it, to be part of it. How do you even survive it?"
Kitsune still said nothing.
"I see you still haven't accepted who you are, either." Akito told her. "You still think that you can be anything but an outcast. The forgotten fox, the one that doesn't belong, Everyone has their place, Kitsune. Everyone. Even you. Yuki's place is as the rat, Shigure's the dog. Even Tohru has a place in this world, and Kyo too. But you? You're place is that you don't have one."
"You don't know that," Kitsune whispered.
"Excuse me?" Akito's tone was lighter, like something and changed and she had finally caught him off guard. "I don't know? Am I the one who has constantly been on her own, constantly been alone and neglected, because I was too stupid to be part of a family? You don't know anything, Yumiko. You should know that you're nothing."
"No…." Kitsune whispered feebly.
Akito laughed. He actually laughed, his chuckling sounding like thunder rolling in from a hidden storm that shook Kitsune's very existence. "You entire existence isn't needed. If you disappeared tomorrow, who would look for you? Tohru would never be able to find you if you really wanted to disappear, and no one else would even attempt it. They'd try small attempts no one really means and they'd forget about you. It be as if you'd died, wouldn't it? Your memory like a story that no one would ever know if it was true or not and you'd be forgotten. Just like you always have."
Kitsune shook her massive head. "They'd remember-"
"Look at you!" Suddenly Akito was next to her, pulling her head and her towards the dark window where she could see herself. Or at least what she had become. "Look at what you are,"
And she looked.
She saw a massive head that had once been a fox, with long ears that twisted into sickly points, a muzzle caked with a black ring all around and big shining colorless blue eyes. Her once graceful arms now long with thick black thorns, bending at sickly angles no arms should bend at, a sick distorted body and short broken legs. And three tales that twisted around one another like the dead vines of a tree long forgotten.
"No one will want to remember that face," Akito told her, releasing her and taking a few steps back, like he was disgusted to be near her. "And hopefully, no one will,"
And then someone said something that Kitsune would always remember. Words seeming to seem out from the darkness when things were the most dark and depressing. "I will,"
I like this chapter a lot because we finally get to see Kitsune's second form. Please don't forget to review!