Rain hammered the windscreen of the car as it wound its way towards the Sohma lake house, trees and sky blending in Rika's vision into one amorphous blob of grey. It was near impossible to concentrate on anything but the knot in her stomach. Fibres of fear, anticipation and guilt had snagged themselves together, each one more tangled than the last. A hand brushed her thigh and she visibly flinched.
"You don't have to do this today." Hatori tried again to dissuade her and Rika rolled her head towards him, trying to swallow down the bile in her mouth.
"Yes." She said. "I do."
He didn't dare open his mouth again but his hand remained on her thigh as he drove, shifting only to change the gearstick. As if he could imbue her with a sense of calm and comfort. His act lasted as far as the outer edges of the house they were driving to, another car visible parked against the building.
"Who's here…" He murmured it more to himself than to her, Rika's distraction keeping her from noting the full extent of his worry until she heard him swear violently under his breath.
"What is it?"
"Stay in the car okay? You don't get out until I'm back do you hear me?" The car screeched to a halt on the gravel drive, Hatori jumping from his seat before she could even protest. Curiosity outweighed her nervous tension, woman leaning forward to try get a better look at the other vehicle in the driveway. It was a black, nondescript thing and the rain bounced off of it in a way that suggested its engine had been cold a while.
Curling her braid between her fingertips, Rika wondered who it might be. She'd told Kyo and the others where she was going to be this weekend, the decision having been agreed upon by everyone that waiting until Golden Week was the ideal time for her to miss out on a few days of normal activity. Hatori had never had to restore anyone's memories before so he was understandably nervous about the whole process. Demanding more time for Rika to recover should it take more from her than they wanted it to. His agitation hadn't done much to help her own and as the minutes ticked by painfully, her muscles tensed. Discomfort grew.
At the half hour mark, she saw a person exit the house, the rain obscuring their features as they moved to the other vehicle and climbed in. The car moved closer to the building and Rika spotted a side door.
Unable to help herself she climbed out, a couple of seconds all it took for her hair to become matted to her skin and even her raincoat was instantly battered by the intensity of the downpour. Rika managed to wrestle the hood over her head but was unconvinced by its ability to do much of anything in the bleak weather.
The man driving hovered beneath an alcove at the side of the house, Rika only realising she knew the face as she drew closer.
"Kureno?"
He turned sharply, mouth a stressed thin line.
"Rika, you shouldn't be out here. Hatori said you were to stay in the car, didn't he?"
"Hatori's been gone for over a half hour. What's going on?"
"They were trying to protect you from me." The voice made her blood turn cold, Rika turning too late to stop a hand from snatching at the collar of her coat. It shook her so violently that her lifted hood fell back once again.
"Akito." Hatori's voice rang out from the doorway, the sharp edge of it countered by Kureno's soft echoing in the same moment.
"You think you can just waltz back into all their lives and I would let it go unchecked?" Rika's vision was blurring around the edge, her fingers scrabbling ineffectively at the other's sleeve. Pain had burst into being behind her eyes as she'd registered the face and now it was all she could do not to throw up. "You think I don't notice your disobedience? The visits to my home? You made a deal and broke it!"
Kureno's arm had wrapped itself around Akito's small frame in an attempt to pull Rika free but all the freedom gave her was the ability to stagger backwards until her rear hit the gravel. She retched onto the ground as Akito's voice gained more anger.
"You're pathetic! They don't want you and you'll see that." She shouted it as Rika tried and failed to get to her feet, palms shearing themselves against gravel until Hatori's hoisted his arms beneath hers, pulling her upright, "You're pathetic! Pathetic!"
Breaking away from the doctor, Rika could hear a wail on the breeze. It took a few seconds to realise it was her own voice tearing its way through her throat. Akito's expression was wild and terrifying but not as horrific as the slew of memories that had been unlocked all at once. A dam breaking open, all its contents flowing out without pause or consideration for the forests and villages in its path. The trajectory was destruction and although she could hardly see for the pain, Rika saw a line between where she stood and escape.
Without looking back, she ran.
There were stars on the ceiling.
Rika, in all her five years, had never seen anything so magical.
"Do you know what they are?" Akito asked at her ear, fingertips making an arc as she pointed out a particular constellation that had been thrown against the curtains nearby. Rika shook her head. "That one is the kogitsune because it looks like a fox," Another sweeping hand, "And over there is the dog."
Rika leaned back against the pillow, the little turning mobile of stars that Akira had gotten for them rotating gently enough so that they could track the trajectory of their favourites.
"The only one I know is the dragon," The small girl admitted, almost to herself more than her friend, "Mom showed me when we went to the observatory. She showed me others but I forgot."
The slip of her memory was waved off as Akito took her hand and pulled her upright.
"Someday, we're going to be made of stardust and space rocks."
"But doesn't that mean we'll be alone?" Rika asked, mouth tugging downwards to a growing frown. "I don't want to be alone."
"'Course not," Akito's voice was soft but firm, a dark head bowing towards light, "When you're with me you'll never be alone. I have all the zodiac, but you'll always have me. Always."
Rika smiled, the expression betraying a little of her disbelief but Akito was her best friend in the whole world. She'd never lie to her. Never leave her. Never betray her. Flinging her arms around the other girl's neck sent them both tumbling onto the sheets of their shared bed. Laughing, the pair curled around one another like two koi in a pond. A circle binding them into something whole. They remained like that, trapped together in giggles and awe until Akira stuck his head in the door to remind them they needed to sleep. It was always Akira who came to find them. Sometimes with Kimiko at his tail, sometimes Takuto but always Akira. Tonight, he bowed and placed kisses against both their brows. Tucked them in. Switched out the stars. Rika's fingers were wound tightly against Akito's, and she knew from the pressure against her palm that her friend had seen the same shadows under the Sohma head's eyes. The gaunt lines of his face. How he'd stopped to catch his breath before turning back to look over them a final time.
"Night papa."
"Night Uncle."
Akito's voice called at the same time Rika's did and the door slid shut, folding them both into shadow.
"He's gonna die soon isn't he?" Dying was a concept still foreign to Rika. It seemed too far away to be real and yet, she couldn't work up the words to dispute Akito's question.
"Maybe," Rika murmured finally, squeezing the other's fingers gently between her own before echoing words back to her friend, "But you'll still have me. Always."
The girls fell silent, limbs tangled. Dark hair mixed with light. A god made whole.
"My mom says we can't be friends anymore."
Rika looked up from the picture she'd been colouring, youth evident in the wide glow of her eyes and the single side ponytail that her hair had been haphazardly tied into.
"What?" Akito had been quieter than normal, the other girl usually talkative when the two were left to their own devices. At six she wasn't as emotionally equipped for odd silences but she did recognise them. The colouring pencil in Akito hand snapped under the pressure applied by the dark-haired girl, equally dark eyes meeting Rika's.
"My mom says we can't be friends." Akito repeated the words with slow emphasis, as though Rika were some baby rather than the same age. Instead of bristling at the words, Rika tucked her own green pencil to the side and met the others stare with quiet ferocity.
"Why?" It was a slow and cautious question, and one she wasn't going to curb. Rika and Akito had been spending playtime together since they were out of the womb. For that status quo to change so drastically meant something greater than them both had shifted. Rika didn't understand why the words and the very idea of them not being friends any longer made her heart stutter in its beats - but she did know that whatever had inspired these words affected her friend greatly. That much was evident in how tautly the other girl was holding her body. Rika pressed the topic, a footstep dropped inelegantly onto uneven ground. "Why can't we?"
"ARE YOU STUPID?" The tension snapped, Akito diving forward at Rika who wasn't fast enough to avoid the collision. "I am the god! I am the god and you have to listen to me so when I say we can't be friends; we can't be friends okay?!"
Fists and tears rained down on Rika's body, pulling and tearing at any bared skin that could be reached. It was remarkable violence for a six-year-old to wield but wield it Akito did as she repeated her mantra over and over again until all Rika could do was apologise. Her apologies echoed in the room between sobs until new bodies were there, pulling Akito from her war path.
Moisture seeped down Rika's clothing as Kureno ordered Shigure to take Akito away to cool down. In his arms Rika trembled, shocked and baffled at what kind of switch had been flipped in her best friend to cause such an outburst.
"You've done enough Akito!" The smell made Rika's eyes water, a cloying sense of decay and shame that filled her senses to the brim and then forced them into overflow. Her arms were looped around the misshapen form beneath her but her eyes were spared for Akito and Akito alone.
"They're my zodiac!" Akito spat it, moisture flying from her mouth in rage. "You don't get to say when I'm done!"
"I won't take them." That seemed to pull the wind from Akito's sails, the seven-year-old returning to the size of a normal child than the monster she'd been channelling. Rika's sigh of relief was too loud in her own ears and she didn't dare look at the boy cradled under her arms. She could hear him sobbing quietly, feel the movement as he tried to reclaim the beads that had been torn from his wrist. Rika straightened, edging her way closer to Akito as she did. Lowering her voice in a warning.
"But if you keep hurting them, you'll lose them anyway."
"They're mine to hurt!"
"And you'll be a god on your own if you do!" Rika registered the laceration her words left. Uncle Akira's death had left all the house sad. Her own mom was heartbroken and if Rika could have poured all the grief into a box and locked it away then she would've. Instead she had to do the next best thing.
"It's not your PLAC -"
"Give them to me!" Akito was swelling and almost incandescent with anger so she ploughed ahead in haste while she still had a chance of making the other agree with her, "The ones you want to hurt and hate and need to lock away. You give them to me and I'll take their punishments. I'll never tell them. That way, they will see you as something good. You'll be their god, the person they love and they need and when you're angry you use me. When you're lonely and sad, you call me."
Rika had no true comprehension of the promise she was making, but she knew she had to. Akito, the real soft and quiet Akito who had been her closest friend and ally, had changed. She was crueller. Desperate for control. Looking for a way to fill some void that Rika couldn't and wouldn't ever understand.
She had heard the cries of horror in the courtyard when going to meet her mom. Seen the boy shift from human, to something less than that. Watched the malignant fire spread and burn through Akito's eyes as she reaped pleasure out of Kyo's pain. Rika knew from her head to her toes that that person was not Akito. Akito was gentle. Witty. Scared. Akito made her feel whole and rounded out.
This new version was something born in the nasty words of Aunt Ren and the absence of Uncle Akira. This new version was barrelling headfirst into the loneliness she seemed to desperately want to avoid. This version was going to drive the Zodiac to the farthest reaches of the globe or make them all wish they could escape.
"I'll protect their love for you. I'll make sure you will always have them."
Rika knew she'd won before Akito spoke again. She could see it in her eyes. The expression scared her, but Rika was too deep now to back away.
"When I call, you come to me. Anytime." Rika nodded dumbly, Akito's voice hardly more than a whisper of cold triumph. "Take your dumb cat. The smell makes me feel like I'm going to puke."
She staggered back when the other girl swept back into her house, Rika turning to look at the smaller boy now sitting on the ground behind her. The smell had faded but the memory of it still made her stomach roil. She tried to smile through it.
"Kyo right?" She asked it cautiously, crouching down and shrugging off her jacket to replace his shorn sweatshirt that was scattered on the ground. "I like your orange hair. Let's be friends, okay?"
Rika's feet hit uneven ground and she stumbled into the bough of a tree. Her breath was fire in her chest, curling its way through her lungs and clawing to the surface. Coughing roughly, she could feel her body protesting the distance she'd run. Straining against the pain that had flooded every synapse and cell in her head until the trees, the path and the rain became nothing more than a blurred collection of surfaces to tear at her. Somewhere, she'd fallen, the knees of her jeans ripped. The pumps she'd worn with the knowledge that she wouldn't be walking any more than the path between house and car were in shreds.
"Stop," She keened it, flashes of her childhood mashing together faster and faster. "Please, stop."
Hatori and a hospital bed. Origami. Nights spent at Kazuma's. Momiji. Kisa.
Rika emptied her stomach against the roots of a particularly large tree, fingernails dragging over the bark. There was almost nothing left in her to give but her memories continued on regardless and so she staggered on. Seeking shelter. Calm.
A place to catch her breath.
"It's not working."
Akito's voice was colder than she expected, though maybe Rika was simply projecting the quiet shudder of her body into a form that made sense. She had curled herself into the tightest corner of the little room, a gap in the woodwork blowing a cool breeze against the back of her neck. She'd been too warm for days now, a fever coursing its way through her system but that was nothing to the blossoming pain across her ribs. How her jaw ached when she dared to eat.
Rika knew why she was being punished. She'd sworn to Akito to protect the unwanted zodiacs from her but when Kisa and Hiro had been alone in that park and subsequently transformed - Akito's wrath had been uncontainable. She'd slipped up. Spilled her anger onto every passing person who came within her grasp while Rika cradled Kyo against his fears. His anguish. It was impossible to regret that choice, but there were whispers in the house. Of what had been done to Yuki. To Kureno. The very people Akito wanted most to love her. To retain their loyalty.
Knowing those things didn't make the consequences any easier. Rika wanted Hatori back. Her mom. To be embraced in kind whispers and comfort. Her clothes reeked. She hadn't washed in days. Yet when Akito spoke, she forced herself upright. Willed herself to listen.
"The punishments?"
"My giving them to you." Rika flinched. She remembered her promise too clearly, just as she knew that she was failing in it. Selfish need to see the curse broken was shattering years of constructed goodwill. Awareness sent pain blossoming over her chest. "They were meant to return. You were meant to be their path back to me. Instead they're choosing you."
"I didn't ask -,"
"I know." It was the most civil Akito had been to her in years and Rika was too afraid to meet her eyes. If she found pain there, she didn't know what she would do. It was already too hard bearing the weight of that anger. She couldn't handle the hurt too. Not now.
"What can I do to make it right?" Rika asked eventually, her head bowed to her chest. She felt heavy with the weight of duty. Of bearing Akito's whims and watching others live peaceful lives devoid of violence or faith. Faith, she hated most of all. Faith that someday Hari might look at her the way she wanted him. Faith that Kyo could escape this room in his future. Faith that Akito would be comfortable and happy with who she was and how the Zodiac's lived their lives. She hated it because it made decisions for her. To take the kids under her wing. To run to Kyo when he rang her in tears. "What can I do go make you not hurt them ever again."
"Stop them loving you."
Silence fell on the room again and when Rika finally dared look up, the other girl was gone.
"Akito you cannot do this to people! To family!" Rika could hear the tight anger in Hatori's voice, one of his hands still trying to hold her behind him. To protect her. Her heart soared at the knowledge only to crash violently back to earth when she dared to look past the older teen. Akito's expression was everything she hadn't wished to see. To know.
It was terror and anguish and rage all at once.
The blood left Rika's face so violently the world spun as she saw their future spilling out before them. Word would spread. Akito's violence. Anger. Hatori would bear the marks of it. Then Yuki. Kyo. All of them. They'd all be torn apart when the Zodiac was meant to be bringing them together. A unified party. How else could the curse be broken? How else might Kyo be protected?
Dark eyes met golden and her nod was almost an imperceptible agreement.
Akito was losing them because of her.
People were going to be hurt because of her.
The curse would never be broken because of her.
Kyo would face this very room because of her.
A common denominator was rising and Rika didn't need Hatori's smarts to recognise it. To know what she had to do. Akito's form was radiating anger and that nod was the pulled plug. She wasn't sure how they did it so artfully. Akito's raised hand and spittle flying. Rika shoving her way past Hatori and falling to her knees. It was an act formed of many movable parts but the tears and the offerings she made were all honest and true.
Rika swore to leave. In wrenching sobs, she promised Akito a world without her presence and without her memories. When Akito pulled her upright by the collar, shoving Hatori away with one hand - only Rika saw the truth of her heart.
"I will get them back and nothing you do can change that." It was a promise of Akito's own written into the guise of a threat. Rika saw how her eyes glistened and shut her own. It was going to be too painful as it was to let them all go. When she staggered it was into Hatori's arms and saw only Akito's retreating back. Her barked order hanging in the air.
"Do it then. Take every memory of us all and send her away. I've had enough of this sight. Her parents will be removed by morning."
Even making the promise didn't stop her begging Hatori for something to remain. A chance to come back and see how Akito fared. To know that every one of them had become something more, something better, than they'd ever be in her presence. To know that her faith was more than a thing to hate, but something tangible to trust in too.
Through sobs, Rika reached for him. Wrapped both hands around his wrist and held him fast as she pleaded. Until he promised.
"You Hari. Leave me you."
She gasped a breath as he touched a palm to her forehead, the last words she uttered carried faint.
"I love you."
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Hatori was out of breath. For a woman undergoing what could only have been tremendous pain she could still outrun him. The woods were dangerous and dark, rain slicking the ground so that he almost missed where she'd veered off the main track until he fell into the divot in the earth.
Between the trees his path was slower. Mud swallowed her footprints but he found one of her shoes stuck in a thicket of shrubbery. He picked it up. Swore. This whole thing had been a mess from the start and now it was unbridled chaos. Akito at the lake house waiting for them. Rika's stubbornness interfering again. Wiping at his eyes he found he'd reached a diversion in the trees. Hesitated.
"You promised me." The words cut through the wind and rain, drawing Hatori's gaze from the path to a lone tree. Rika had found refuge there, clothes and skin splattered with mud and her hands curled possessively around her abdomen as though trying to hold herself together. Even without her saying as much he recognised the look in her eyes and his stomach lurched with discomfort.
The last time he'd seen that look -
"You lied to me." It was hard to tell if she was crying, the lines cutting through the dirt on her cheeks as likely the outcome of the rain as her emotions. He was trying to take stock of her features. Measuring the extent of the injuries. The forest had never been the safest place to be and it took little time for him to notice the blood that marred her hands or the gash she'd gained across her knee.
"Rika -," He held out a hand but she flinched further back against the bark, a wounded animal. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Her head bowed at the words, a keen sounding from deep in her chest and it pierced him right to the bone. She was twenty but she may as well have been fourteen again, her hands tangled into the fabric of his shirt as she wept. Except this woman didn't trust him anymore. That much was evident as each step forward forced her another step back. "I had no choice."
"I begged you. I remember it. I begged and begged and begged for you to leave me something and instead all I have is this emptiness. This pain and guilt and you lied! You lied!" The words got progressively louder and Hatori stalked a little closer. She had run out of space to retreat and he tentatively reached for her. Trailed hands over her shoulders before pulling her close to his chest.
"I'm sorry Rika." He tried to keep the shudder out of his own words, to not be wounded by the flinch as he held her to him. "Please know that. I can't take it back but know I never meant for this." Her body was trembling, clothes damp and dirty. He hadn't meant to let it happen this way and the appearance of Akito reeked of Shigure's doing. Restoring her memories was meant to be gentle, an unpicking of the hypnosis she'd been under since her early teens. He had wanted to give her back the good. The joyful. Whatever Akito's presence had done it had reduced Rika to a quivering mess and cracked open the doorway to the past with brutal precision. Hatori could feel it in each gasping breath, the panic that coursed through her limbs and lungs and heart. She was murmuring something close to the crook of his neck but before he could make sense of it - she went limp.