"Isuzu," Rika's voice felt too loud in the empty hallway of the dojo, her knuckles drawing briefly over the lintel, "Mind if I come in?"

It was long past time that the pair meet officially, although truth be told they already had. Tohru had made efforts to include both women in conversation and events as and when she could and had Rika not skipped out on the New Year's celebrations here, she might even have had the time to speak to the other properly before now. In spite of this, they'd hardly ever been in a shared space alone until today. Such things tended to make frank discussion a little complicated.

Not that Rika had been ready for it. Trying to sift through her own fragile state of mind, let alone creating the bandwidth to process anyone else's trauma – it had kept her from being willing to connect with the other woman. Now, she felt a little sturdier. If not still utterly lost.

"Knock yourself out." Rika stepped into the room. Tugged the door shut behind her. Part way anyways. Since getting her own memories back, it always felt a little difficult to willing shut herself into a confined space. She saw the action echoed in Rin's next movement towards the adjoining porch, the door sliding open to let in some of the cool early summer air.

Passing the table, she saw a notebook. Pens. Haru had mentioned something about Rin having a penchant for art and Rika, never one to possess a singular artistic bone in her life, was intrigued. The origami, in her view, didn't count. She needed deft fingertips and an ability to put up with constant papercuts. It was hardly putting pen to paper and transcribing the world to a page.

"What were you working on?"

"I don't think that's any of your business."

Rather than labour the point, Rika took the warning and filed it away. Sat down in the gap between the dark-haired woman and the sliding door. It was simpler to let the silence linger for a while, Rika picking lint from her jeans and curling knees beneath her chin. When it had festered long enough, she chanced a look at the other.

"I won't waste your time but I wanted to say…" A breath, "…The cat's room, if you ever need to talk about it. I understand." Rin had gone too still. Her head didn't move an inch and Rika didn't dare shattered the taut sense of calm in the air. If she had to stay on a tightrope for a while, then so be it. Her own eyes had closed, soft wind tugging at the loose hairs curling her face and minutes slipping by at the tick-tick-tick of Rika's watch.

"You know the worst thing -," Rin eventually spoke and when Rika looked up, she noted her body had never moved from its rigid position, "Is that I would've gone back. I still would if it would make Akito promise not to hurt Haru. How messed up is that?"

Whether the question was rhetorical or not wasn't answered until Rin turned dark eyes her direction. "Isn't it messed up?!"

"It is." Rika exhaled sharply. "I feel it too, that need to throw myself at Akito's feet. To right wrongs that I'm not even sure were wrong." When she defied Akito - it was an itch she couldn't scratch, bugs sliding beneath her skin and picking away at her internal organs piece by piece. "Ever since I got my memories back, it's been an endless song in my head. Do not defy Akito. Do not betray Akito."

The Zodiac's were all Prometheus tied to the rock. The eagles, Akito and the healing liver, the bond. Only while they embodied immortal spirits, what lived at their core was simply, uncomplicatedly, human. Human's weren't immortal. They couldn't regrow a liver again and again and again without some scarring taking place and for the likes of Rika and Rin, those scars ran deep.

"It's not even Akito either." Rika continued after a beat. "While I was in that house, I suffered sixteen rib fractures. A broken radius. One blown iris. Since I was seven years old, I've had stitches thirty-seven times. Been bruised even more than that.

"My mom thought I was the clumsiest kid in the world. Every day, she packed me off to the main house because she believed more in Akito being the rightful benevolent leader of the family than what I tried to tell her. She loved me, but she loved Akira's legacy more. What kind of parent does that?" Strain pulled at her vocal cords and Rika blinked away moisture. It wasn't just her own mother. It was Kyo's father. Momiji's mother. Rin's parents. Yuki's parents. All of them were as twisted and screwed up as each other. "There are endless facets of the Sohma system that is wrong. Facets that need to be changed."

It was the first time she'd fully made that admittance and was surprised by how hollow it made her feel. She'd spent months trying to be worthy of the Sohma's but what had they done to be worthy of her? Not Kyo of course, but the system of the family. The hierarchy. Each part of it had been designed in a way to remind her of her unworthiness. She wasn't a true Zodiac, so she gained none of their benefits but all their pain. Her mother had been the sister of the head of the family and all that had earned Rika was the role of lifelong punching bag.

How was any of it fair? How was any of it meant to sit easy on her shoulders? Worse, how was she to even consider forgiveness? No matter what anyone said, Akito had always had a choice. Akito had chosen to turn on her dearest friend and ally and twist their relationship into one of the powerful and the weak. Of abuser and victim.

Rika hated that she'd ever been a victim.

Worse, she hated that she'd ever believed she'd been anything else.

"I can't forgive Akito. I can't just forget it." Rin's voice made her flinch and Rika stared at the other woman a long moment.

She reached out with her palm facing upwards.

"We don't have to" Her expression tightened. "And no one can make us."

Rin slipped her fingers between Rika's. Briefly. Just a fleeting touch. Something unifying. Safe. Retracted them just as quick. Finally, Rika stood and started for the door again.

"You can talk to me too," Rin said to the room between them and the blonde found herself looking over her shoulder into an expression of torn sincerity, "About that room. If you ever need to."

Rika smiled. Nodded.

"Thank you."

It took a moment for her to compose herself in the hallway, Rika leaning against the closed door long enough for Kunimitsu to poke his head out the nearest door.

"You good?"

"Perfect."

"Kazuma would like to see you in the tearoom before you go if you've got time?" Rika nodded and followed the older man towards the room in question, willing away the tension in her limbs as she did so. Coming to meet Rin had been difficult enough. Any kind of discourse with Kazuma would slay her altogether. Rika felt like she was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel since getting her memories back. Kisa had stayed over the night before as they'd reminisced.

Kyo had dragged her out of bed to take a run that morning, letting her off lightly with a short 3 miles before accepting her defeat. Her legs still felt heavy. Though she denied it, getting her memories back had taken a physical toll too. Sleep was more difficult. Restless. It was the nights tucked against Kyo that helped her settle best but Rika resisted using that too frequently. For one, punching Shigure had only bought her a certain length of silence. For another, she didn't want to scare off Tohru. Not when Kyo only had so much time to spend with the girl.

Rubbing at her face, Rika shut the door to the tearoom behind her after greeting Kazuma. Lowered herself opposite him at the table.

"You look tired." Her mouth quirked up at one side.

"Pleasure to see you too Sensei."

"It's always a pleasure Rika, I just worry you're not getting enough rest. Golden week is meant to offer a break is it not?"

She shrugged.

"It's hard to relax when there's so much going on."

"Like recovering your memories?" He smiled at her flinch, pouring out tea into a cup and passing it her way. "Hatori and I have spoken quite a bit since Rin moved in here. He's very worried about you. Said you haven't been in touch since he brought you home."

"It's not a requirement to speak to him." There was a touch of defensiveness to her rebuttal and Kazuma raised his hand to indicate he'd meant no ill will. At least that was how she perceived it. It dropped her hackles a fraction. Enough for Rika to cover up her frown with a sip from her tea.

"It's not. It is, however, foolish to turn away an ally when they've tried to do nothing but support us."

Her laugh was sharp enough to slosh the liquid in her cup, amber eyes widening as she shook her head.

"Where was that support when I was eight and getting the hell beaten out of me at every turn?"

"Right here." Kazuma answered without hesitation, staggering her response. "In Hatori's home. Did you never wonder why our doors were always opened to you? Why there were sleepovers and break times offered that far outreached normal healing time? I was the grandchild of the cat Rika, in a family like ours the power that gives me is minimal at best. Not least when I came up against Ren or Akito. Or your mother." She swallowed deeply. "I had to pick my battles and I so chose to protect Kyo, but where I could I fought for you too. Just as Hatori did and his father did.

"I know you're upset. That's only natural. But I urge you to remember that there are tiers to the Sohma power. Akito and Ren, understandably control the majority of it, but those who were born Zodiac chopped and changed with each generation. Not everyone understood it, but what they could comprehend was that their window of opportunity to gain power would ebb and flow with those who lived within the estate, and without. There was little fear for your mother and you while you were housed internally but after, there was little care for what you did. Before your family left, I saw that affect your mother deeply. Enough to overlook many a transgression she once would have rallied against."

"It's not fair." It was juvenile to live in a world of fair or unfair but it was the easiest summation that came to mind in that moment.

"It isn't. Nor is it right." Kazuma paused to drink a mouthful of tea. "It is the same reason other Sohma's allowed Kyo's true father to be as cruel and spiteful as he is. That Yuki's parents ignored what was happening to him. It is a remarkably difficult thing to fight against the way we've been raised, and harder still to rewrite the status quo. Especially hard, I imagine, if you feel bound to the person who has done wretched things to you."

Her mouth thinned; eyes narrowed. The accusation was off her tongue before she could stop it.

"You heard what I said to Rin."

"No," He shook his head, "I've just been around long enough now to know you. To know this family. None of us forgive easily, and in many ways, we have not earned that forgiveness yet. Myself included."

Rika frowned and left her cup back to the table, empty.

"You've done nothing wrong."

"I'm glad you feel that way, but I assure you even my own hands aren't clean. There are those of us who take desperate measures when we have to. Even if those measures are cruel." Kazuma leaned forward and rested his elbows against the table top. Knotted his hands together. "Even so, I hope they might be hands you feel you can trust. My door has always been open to you Rika, and with things starting to resolve somewhat I wanted to say that if you ever need a parent. In any capacity. I would be honoured to be here for you."

Rika blinked ferociously against the moisture in her eyes. Kazuma had always been one to take in strays and what was she now but another one?

"I don't wish to replace your parents. I could never do that but there are things that are going to change for you over the next few years and those things won't be always be simple or straightforward. All I want you to know is that with Kyo as my son, you have always been part of this family too. You always will be."

Tears spilled over to her cheeks, Rika hastily wiping them away. It was easier to look out the door into the garden than meet his eye as she wept.

"I won't let them lock him away." She said finally, back of her hand drawn along her jaw. It came away damp. "I'm going to change the Sohma system Sensei. Somehow. Some way. Will you help me?"

Kazuma rose and crouched at her side. Tucked a hand against her cheek.

"In any way that I can."

Tohru found her that evening, curled into herself on the roof of Shigure's house. Head bowed between her knees as though trying to find a breath that refused to surface. Relief that couldn't come. At the footsteps she angled her head towards the sky, watching the way lights danced and flickered. A plane streaking by here. Satellites rolling there. Since she'd returned from the dojo her mind had been a whirlwind. Weighing up options and just as quickly striking them down.

"Are you feeling okay?" Tohru pressed a hand to her forehead as if to check for a temperature, Rika's gaze sliding towards the girl.

"I don't know if I've been okay for a really long time."

Shingles slid against one another in a faint crackle until both of them fell still.

"Kyo, he shared -," A hesitation, "Uo and Hana were worried about you. I was thinking maybe, if you were up for it, we could all do a sleepover sometime soon again?"

Rika had given Kyo the all clear to share her story with Tohru, if for no other reason than it spared her repeating the tale more times than she could bear.

"Did you tell them?"

"Oh, of course not. Hana, I think she sensed something. She called earlier asking if you'd been hurt. That she could feel it." Laughing, Rika pushed the heel of her hand against her forehead.

"She is so weird." Tohru didn't agree but gave a half-hearted giggle. Laying back to properly see the stars coming to life, Rika had to consider how lucky she'd been. Had Uo not approached her that day, she might have gone through Kaibara without making friends. Had Tohru not been part of that group, would she have crossed paths with the Sohma's beyond cursory hellos? More than that, how many days had she spent picking food up at street vendors with Uo at her side and just living? In Okinawa that hadn't even felt like an option.

In Okinawa, Rika had been a solitary planet. Her dad used to tell her she'd been so involved, so happy during their first year there but it had been an illusion. A means to cover up the strange emptiness in her gut. It made her think that somehow, she'd have found her way back here regardless. To the Sohma's. To her past. A nasty part of her cried out that it'd have happened faster had Hatori not played roadblock. Rika felt the accusation like a knife twisted between her ribs because she knew that while it was true, it wasn't the whole truth. He'd been contending with her losing her father. With the damage recollecting that room could do. It was going to take years to process all of it. Even her parent's deaths still felt raw, sitting dormant until they rose up like vengeful angels to remind her of the loneliness she ought to be feeling. The regret over freezing out her father when he had only ever tried to fit her life into a non-Sohma mould. Rika scrubbed at her face. Groaned.

Was this who she wanted to be? Someone who looked back full of spite. Or someone who, like the girl beside her, tried to see the brightness in the world. Not only seeing it but embracing it.

A million horrible things had happened to her at Akito's hands but having met Ren and been manipulated by the woman – could she fully blame the god for being a little twisted. A lot broken? Or Hatori. Hatori who from his teens had been learning to pull apart other's memories and take them away. Who had to do it for the woman he had loved?

"Akito," She turned to look at the brunette, brows furrowing with surprise that Tohru had somehow known where her mind had wandered to, "You know she's really a woman don't you?"

Rika nodded.

"How scary that must have been growing up. To always be uncertain of who you are and mask your identity. My mom never had to hide who she was. Never tried to change to be something different. Sometimes, I think you act like her." Swallowing, Rika waited for Tohru to continue. "You came along to our school and knew you were going to do your best and here you are, going to University. You lost your dad but you went back to training and school and even changed your Doctor so you could unburden Hatori once you felt well enough. You could have given up so many times. You would've been allowed to, but something always made you get back up. Something was always worth fighting for. Isn't that a good thing to have?"

She didn't say that Rika's reasons to fight had always been selfish. She didn't say that getting back up wouldn't have been achieved if she hadn't had Kyo and Hatori's constant vigilance in making her address the things affecting her both physically and mentally. That the bond, as complicated and twisted and strange as it was, had been the reason she felt more at home than she had in years because she was able to embrace her Zodiac's. To hold them. Love them. Support them. Have all their support in return. Well, perhaps not Hiro's but she was still working on that.

It was funny, she thought, how desperately Akito had held onto her Zodiac's. Using fear as a weapon to bend them to her will. Rika didn't think of herself as a winner, not when so many of them had lost – but she had won something. People who loved her as much as she loved them. Even those outside the Zodiac, like Tohru and Uo and Hana. Kazuma. Had she stood up to Akito as a child, or more, had she shown her the strength in firm kindness – might it all have been different?

"Tohru..." She spoke after they'd been sitting in silence for some time, unsure what it was she was even about to say but knowing it was now or never, "Could I ask you a favour?"

The Honda girl agreed, sitting back on her heels awaiting the full request. Rika could feel the roof beneath her, uncomfortably angled against her legs and feet but sitting up there helped her feel like the world was bigger than her own problems. She could feel closer to Kyo here too. Given the comfort she reaped from him and the lingering distrust in her chest – anything that helped was worthwhile.

"Akito - what she's done to me," Sitting up, her chin bowed forward to rest on her knees, "I don't think I could ever understand it.

I mean, on the one hand I get that she thought I'd take them away from her. Undermine her whole existence by being better or kinder or more loved. I think that's why she let me get close to Kyo. To prove that any dalliance with him was going to backfire." A power play. Sometimes it felt like all the damn Sohma's were playing a brutal game of chess that only left them all bloodied and broken.

"If Hatori had given me back my memories earlier, I would've just been consumed by my anger. The fear. I'd have brought the whole thing down in the name of righteousness."

A large, vindictive, part of her wouldn't have cared who she burned in the process. She still wanted to bring it down. She'd just figured out that razing the ground to do so wouldn't hurt anyone but herself. Rika had meant what she'd said all those times before. As much as it was crooked, messed up and aching – she wanted to be a Sohma.

"I know now. All of it. Not just the things I was told as a child but the rest of it. The truth and the pain and the scared people all living in this damn curse." Her eyes flickered towards Tohru, noting how rigid she sat. Every facet of her being was turned on Rika like a searchlight.

"I'm not ready to forgive and forget it. I'm not sure if I ever will be able to. I should've had a cousin. Or a sister. Instead I grew up the way I did. But you can, or I think you can -" Tohru looked confused, and truth be told Rika was confused so she tried to elaborate the best that she could. To lay it out without turning Tohru into some pawn. "Maybe you can be the bridge to Akito. The hand that offers forgiveness. I know you would anyways but when, if, you do, can you think of me? Of the day when I can do it too?"

Tohru nodded. Reached out and took her hands.

"I can try. For you I'll try." Rika's throat felt dry. Tight. Even this much was hard, but it was right. If she went around hating Akito for the rest of her life, then what would it ever solve? "But Rika, just because you've had bad stuff, it doesn't mean all of it was that way, right? Without those experiences - you wouldn't be the person you are. Love the people you love. Uo, Hana and I wouldn't have our dear friend and Kyo wouldn't have you here to sometimes knock some sense into him."

Tohru's hand tightened over her palm.

"Hatori smiles more these days. Shigure is a little less, strange. Even Yuki seems to enjoy when you challenge him over our homework assignments. You could have had a different, better life maybe but I'm very grateful I got to meet you in this one."

Rika sniffled, pressing her head against their linked hands. Somehow, without even trying, Tohru had made her feel settled again. Ready to accept whatever might come next. She could see why Kyo had fallen so terribly in love with the girl. Tohru Honda was a secret weapon against misery by the sheer glow of her optimism.

"I love you all." She meant it. Right down to her marrow, Rika loved every part of her found family. Uo's brash temper and Hana's strangeness. Tohru's idle simplicity that hid immense perception below. She loved the way Kyo had made her his sister, how Kazuma not only accepted it but embraced it. She loved Yuki's laughter and his deftness with his vegetable garden, and how Shigure fought with every asset he had to turn the world into one he wished to live in. Even if it earned him a sock to the jaw now and again.

Most of all, most complicated of all, she loved Hatori.

She loved how his hands lingered over shoulders when she read from his textbooks for him. The way he shifted his position to accommodate her sleeping on his lap. How his eyes lit up when she entered a room, or as that smile she'd come to recognise as hers and hers alone started its ascent along his lips.

She loved how he'd tried to grant the right tools to reconcile her childhood with reality, even if it hadn't worked. That the origami skill he'd left her with had granted her something of him to hold onto even when she felt most alone. The paper folding could be thought juvenile or strange but in the context of their entire lives Hatori had offered her a reminder of how to process her fears and worries. To place them someplace safe until she was ready to face them.

Oh.

Oh shit.

He had given her a means to remember him.

You Hari, leave me you.

"Rika," Tohru reached for her, "Are you okay?"

Was she?

"I -," She clutched at her head, the dredges of one final memory fighting to make itself known. It had been hovering there beneath the surface for days.

Rika trudged through the garden; mouth dragged downwards into a frown. She'd been sent out to check there were no stay items missing from the packing that had been done by the maids. She'd been shaken awake before sunrise, her dad telling her they were going to be leaving shortly. Rika had been baffled, more so when the man had reminded her this had been in planning for weeks. She wasn't sure why, but she didn't quite believe him.

Her mom had been crying. Kimiko was also pretending she was fine as she bustled about the house, but the signs were there. Red rimmed eyes. Sadness, immeasurable. Cloying. While Rika detested being ordered out of the house on a weird errand it was undeniable that being outdoors was preferable to remaining within.

Shifting aside some bamboo and unearthing an old sock that must have been blown from the washing line, a creak drew her attention upwards.

The back gate had been pushed open to reveal an unfamiliar man standing at the edge of the path. Standing upright, she brushed down the edges of her shirt as she did so. Though his face seemed sombre, he was very cute. Rika banished the thought as quickly as it rose, realising that she'd been staring.

"Can I help you Mr-?"

Up close he looked younger than she'd first thought. Hesitant. He wore a simple button-down shirt and slacks, and the shadows under his eyes like an accessory to match. Whatever had brought him here had been driven by indecision - although Rika couldn't have said how she knew as much. A feeling, perhaps. Closer still, she thought she recognised the emotion locked under the surface of his eyes. Sad. He was so very very sad.

"Ah yes, I wanted to drop off a departure gift. A token for your parents." A shift in his movement highlighted the presence of a small bag in his hands that he passed to her. Rika stopped trying to puzzle him out, distracted. "It's just a good luck charm really."

"Should I get them?"

"No," He shook his head, "I really must be going."

Despite his words he lingered, the grey-blue of his eyes catching in the early morning sunlight. She'd never liked sunrise much but to see a colour like that, she thought it could be worth it. Particularly when they looked so soft. A shock of dark hair glinted almost blue to complete the picture and Rika, taking a good look at his face, felt her breath catch in her chest.

"Should you?" She asked, resting the bag against her knees.

"Yes." His hand moved to his pocket, coming out with a last item. An origami dragon. "I heard you liked these things. It could be silly but –"

Rika's mouth formed a small o of surprise, dropping the bag gently by her feet so she could take the item. It was sculpted from green and silver paper, small lines creating the scales that traced its form.

"I love origami." She breathed it, fingertips tracing over the delicate structure with barely controlled awe. "Thank you."

"It's a small thing." He smiled. It was an impossibly sad kind of smile. It made her heart flutter within her chest. "A token. Maybe within it, someday, you might find something useful."

Rika nodded, unable to keep the grin off her face. About to ask more about who he was and how he knew her parents, a shout from her father caught her attention to say the packing was finally done. When she turned back, the mysterious man was gone. Rika pocketed the dragon, grabbed the bag and discarded the sock. By the time the car was loaded, and her mother was openly weeping again, Rika had put the information aside to share later. A later that never arrived.

Rika bolted upright on the roof, foot slipping from the haste with which she moved. Tohru reached out to grab at her shirt, alarm in her voice.

"What is it?!"

"I have to go to my room." Scrambling across the tiles and down the ladder, Rika crashed into the wall hard enough for the thud to echo. Shigure gave a yelp of worry from the floor below at the sound but she found it hard to care. Her only thought were the boxes stacked against the wall of her room. After she'd cleaned out the apartment, her father's clothing had all been donated and what Rika had kept were the trinkets. The memories. Financial records. The first box turned up empty. As did the second.

In the third was an old tin that she'd had as a child. She hadn't looked to it in years, figuring some things didn't need to be dredged up all that often. The dragon sat inside it, shoved to a corner. A little battered. Its wing broken.

"Rika?"

Tohru stood in the doorway, Shigure behind her.

Tossing aside the tin to her bed, Rika unfurled the folded edges. The writing inside was faded. She recognised the hand.

I don't know if you'll ever look at this, but should you need a friend my line is always open. Your Hari, Always.

The air from her lungs released in a sharp whoosh, and worse the room was lacking oxygen. That had to be why she couldn't breathe. Could hardly think. A dragon. A little dragon. That damn sentimental idiot. Tohru was at her side as her body wavered, anxious questions peppering what little focus she had.

"He did try," She gasped it free, eyes wide, "He did try."