Title: Unyielding Courage

Chapter 14: Down with the Dogs

Authors Note: Late update. Sorry everyone! I think I've used up my reasons and excuses so we'll just mark it down to picky temperamental writer unable to find a decent source of muse. That won't stop me though : ) I hope everyone enjoyed my little tale of the Gods in the last chapter. The mystery is far from over though! In fact, I have quite a few surprises for you. I promise though – this will not end like Lost – you will understand everything when I'm done.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fruits Basket or any of the characters. However, my dear little Mira Liore Nolan is mine and mine alone along with the lovely Liv Cyrene Nolan along with a number of other side characters I've created on their little quest in Unyielding Courage.

There are two freedoms - the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought. ~Charles Kingsley

Why hadn't she thought of doing this before? She needed answers; someone to fill in the gaps where her memories were lacking, a person who had witnessed the entire two years of her pathetic attempt to live under the Sohma's bent rules. Mira gentle eased the wood plying away from the frame and slipped noiselessly into the house she had known to be home for two years, where she had shared a room with Tohru and they had studied together, laughed together…often gossiped about Yuki and Kyo together.

It made her smile tightly, walking into the dining room, where she could almost smell the fresh aroma of Tohru's cooking, leaking through the kitchen with her happy crooked grin stretched across her face. Kyo would be bothering someone, it was impossible for him to sit still. She'd be crossing her legs under the table, moving her marker in a skills game against Yuki, which she would lose until he took some pity on her and allowed her to a less humiliating defeat. Nonetheless, it was still mortifying…but it was the thought that counted. He had always been thoughtful, so kind…. she felt the sob choke her throat as she stiffened and forced it away, reminded herself to be hollow and empty.

Wiping her sweaty hands on the frayed dark denim jeans hugging her slender hips, she diverted from the kitchen with all of its sensory memories, and avoided the upstairs like a plague. Instead she rounded to the office, and quietly teetered in to the empty room. The computer light was still glowing with an ethereal brightness, there were paperbacks shelved written by the devil of a man who had been their guardian. Papers had spilled over the side of the table, the back door from his office left open.

He had run. And as she picked up Mii's handbag, she knew what he was running from. The bloody bastard just couldn't make one damn deadline, could he?

"Coward," she huffed under her breath, placing the purse back on the corner of the table and going to sink into one of his plush chairs, her fingers folded together in her lap. She could be patient. She could wait. Unlike Mii, the poor woman, she had all the time in the world currently.

"I assure you, it will be finished by morning, yes, yes, of course, now go home, I was only teasing," Shigure Sohma backed his weepy editor out of the room with a stroke of charm in his voice, dark sympathy in his eyes and the malicious curl of a smirk on his lips that told otherwise of his good intentions to give his editor his new edition of a sequel tomorrow.

Tomorrow Mira's ass. Poor woman, she thought again as she sat present on the couch, silent as the unobservant, blinded man had yet to notice anything except his own freedom as he shut the door and gave a celebratory cheer and a pat on the back to himself.

"Why do you do that?" Mira interjected sharply from the couch, "You know it causes her nervous breakdowns."

The sound of a half drowned kitten gurgled from his lips in surprise as he spun around twice and smacked his elbow up against his book shelf.

Highly amused, Mira raised a thin eyebrow, her lips firmly cemented in a tight line as she crossed her arms against the couch and chortled, " Alright, let's have it. What did he tell you about me? Am I dead again? Because that one is getting old."

"Ah," Shigure cleared his throat as he edged to his desk and perched up against it, pallid in the skin as he glanced across the room to the embittered female. "No, not exactly…"

"A huh,"

He had to smirk at her obvious grunt of disbelief, his fingers swiping through his generous head of obsidian cilium, "We were informed to withhold you if you tried to contact any one of us though."

"Are you?" she asked curiously, her legs remaining steady as she folded them under her and into the plush chair.

"No," Shigure mused softly, brushing his knuckles against his chin in thought, "You're no longer a zodiac. It would have no purpose and Akito's reasons for wanting you are….distasteful."

She rolled her eyes at the last work, hunching her shoulders forward as she gracefully leapt up to stalk around him, "You wouldn't know anything about that first part, would you?"

"It's a mystery," he chirped up with a smile.

Her dark eyes narrowed into a glower as she angled her chin to the side and frowned, "Not for you, Shigure. What the hell is going on? What did he do? What did he do to me?" she shrieked out, furious at how calm and controlled he was. She wanted to pound her fist into something, break something apart before she shattered.

"No, not that mysterious, for me," he agreed, "how about a cup of tea?"

"Are you kidding me?" she snapped, "You're going to stand there and offer me a damn cup of tea?"

"Good conversations happen over cups of tea, Mira," he insisted deeply.

She scowled once, and then nodded. "Fine," her lips quipped into half a sarcastic smile, "But you can't boil water, so this should be highly amusing because I'm not making it."

"You're funeral," he hummed pleasingly before exiting the office.

Mira knew she was going to die sooner or later. It was nature, immortality was not for mortals, and the Gods have been foolish to ever promise such a gift. And yet, she thought she would have gone out in style considering her past two years. What kind of eulogy was presented to a woman who was poisoned by a cup of tea? To a woman who enjoyed life to the very last sip. She smartly waited for Shigure to digest the first sip before she brought the possibly acidic cup to her lips. Inhaling the spicy smoke, she breathed into the cinnamon tea sprinkled with lemon and gentle sighed into it as it slowly slid down her throat, burning.

"Okay," she sat the cup down thoughtfully, "It's half way decent. You can stop all the whining and crying that I'm mean to you. It's hardly the time for your usual antics Shigure," and they had made her laugh once…his antics had been highly amusing and teetering on adorable. But she had lost the laughter in her eyes, the appreciation for humor.

"A little acknowledgement is all I ask for," he defended while taking a healthy dose of his cup of tea, setting it down on the table before his eyes shinned bright and black, "You should know now, I can't tell you everything."

"Screw his obligations, Shigure," Mira snapped, slamming her tea onto the table so it sloshed it's hot liquids onto the smooth mahogany surface.

"Careful, that's expensive," he cried out, reaching for a napkin, "I was going to add I can't tell you everything, because I don't know it all," he whimpered in excuse.

Mira scowled as she accepted the napkins and gently swiped the soggy surface, "Fine, but you might want to open that up as your lead next time," she warned.

"Anyways, before I was rudely interrupted…"

She huffed in impatience, rolling her eyes.

"Are you going to keep doing that?" he asked, stopping suddenly in his speech.

"Stop what?"

"Telling a story is a grand art, one left for the brilliant and ingenious, a melodic tale of deception and honor that must be told with truth, dignity, and without rude interruptions!" he exclaimed proudly.

"Fine, but tell it today, please," Mira remarked hotly from her sea. Her impatience was coming to a boil.

"Thank you," he relaxed his shoulders again and pressed his cup of tea to his lips before beginning, "After the incidents of your encounter with Akito -,"

"You mean attack," she interrupted furiously.

He narrowed his eyes, and continued as he flashed his finger in warning for her to shut up, "What did I say? Anyways, he was very displeased, as I'm sure you can imagine. This wasn't your first offense, and Akito must have order and loyalty. You had…fallen from grace in his eyes. We have a solution in the Sohma family for when a zodiac becomes too unmanageable. I've only heard of it, I don't know the ritual or what must be given in order for it to work, but in our history there have been disturbances, breaks in the age pattern where another zodiac possession has passed prematurely from one Sohma to a younger one. It seems he grew tired of your antics…and Liv had twins."

"He transferred my curse to one of Liv's twins?" her jaw subtly dropped, while in the back of her mind she wondered how much hell Liv would rain down on her for this. It wasn't like she had…asked for it….

"In so many words, yes. It's not nearly as simple as you put it though," he reminded her, "I was as surprised as you were."

"You said it's happened before, who else? Akito's body is so frail, he's often so weak, which is why Hatori is constantly at the main estate. Why would a God want such an imperfect host?"

Shigure's finger trailed the edge of his tea cup before hesitantly locking eyes with her, "Your mother forced him into some…improvising."

"Could you give me one straight answer?" Mira snapped, sloshing her tea again as she shoved it away.

"I warned you that I don't know everything," Shigure retorted, "And ignoring a drink from a host is plain rude," he added as an afterthought.

"So is poisoning a guest," Mira replied ruefully before standing up and stretching her legs, "I've got one last question, and I'm not saying I actually believe your little tale on how I was rid of the curse, because unless both twins are cursed, and I don't believe they are, we're still missing a zodiac," she looked for Shigure for clarification, but he remained so deep rooted in pretend thought, that she could tell it he wouldn't deny or confirm, "Why are you still allowed to live here? Last time I checked, all the zodiacs were forced into the main estate."

Shigure smiled smugly from his chair, "its more banishment to keep me here than in the estate, alone. Not all of us are so resistant, Mira. Call it a curse, but it wasn't always meant to be that way. At once, it was a gift."

"Taking away someone's freedom, is never a gift," she snapped before flinging around on her heels to fly out the front door and leave before he called in the cavalry.

Effortlessly, Shigure roamed up from the table to pick up the phone and slowly dial the number for the main house, Akito's frail and sickly voice trembling through the line.

"You have news?"

"She came, just as you thought she would. I told her what you wanted."

"Good. I see you're not as worthless as I had originally imagined."

"Hardly," Shigure barked a healthy dose of laughter across the line.

"If she returns again, and she has Liv, make sure this call happens a little earlier. I miss my wife," he snapped impatiently across the line, the voice brewing with something darker, more sinister than Akito's feeble human voice.

"It's only to be assumed," Shigure assured before clicking off.