She'd wanted to find Hatori.

That had been her goal. Get to the house. Find Hatori.

Talk.

Figure this out once and for all.

She'd stood in the garden of her old home, finding the places she and Kyo had etched their names in the woodwork. The panels they'd broken while trying to spar. Inside the compound, the trees had turned green. Flowers bloomed. It was an odd feeling to look around and see her memories laid out easily. Amongst the good were the broken bones. The bruises. A patch of stone where she'd lain while running a fever, trying to find something to break the heat below her skin. Hidden away was the cat's room. That dark place that haunted her dreams again.

It was the screaming that caught her attention. Drew her away from Hatori's home.

Following voices, she wound up at the main house. In time to see Akito and Ren in a stand-off just off the main path, electricity sparking between them. It was a wonder more people hadn't come to investigate. Not that, she noticed, anyone who had come had decided to intervene. A cluster of maids were at the end of the hallway, faces hidden behind her palms.

"I don't know why you're so worked up." Ren's tone was clipped, her aura as malignant and discomforting as it had been while Rika spoken to her all those times. From the end of the corridor it was plain to see how the woman loomed over her child. Akito, in turn, looked defiant. Terrified. "They're going to leave you no matter what way you throw your body around."

"Shut up!" Rika heard the hitch. The pain. Nothing could have prepared her for the instinct that rose, a clawing pain below her skin that told her she had to stop it. Soothe it.

"You accuse me of seduction, but like speaks to like does it not?" Ren smiled, expression brittle and icy, "Though what they'd see in a boy like you is beyond me."

Rika acted before she could stop herself, body flung between mother and child.

"Back off." She shoved at Ren's shoulder, pushing the woman back into the room she'd been relegated to. Threw a venomous look towards the maids who had been standing idle nearby, tittering and fretting like incoherent fools. "Get her away from Akito. Now." Her voice lifted an octave. "I said move."

Having her back to Akito felt like a death sentence, the prospect sliding down her spine in an icy rush but somehow putting Ren behind her seemed worse. Maids had bustled into action, the sliding door separating them from the older woman. Allowing Rika, a chance to turn.

"I don't need your help!" Spittle flew as Akito lunged at her; a hand raised to strike her before she could stop it. The blow landed, stinging her cheek and before another could drop Rika pinned Akito's hands to her side. Walked the woman backwards until she was flush with the wall.

"That's enough! No more!"

"How dare you! How dare you -" Rika suddenly saw what she'd missed all those times in the past. Illumination landed on her shoulders painfully, her cousin captured in her grasp. Akito wasn't an outright monster. Cruel. Yes. Possessive. Of course. Abusive? There was no doubt in Rika's mind.

Underneath it was a frightened child, someone who has been promised greatness and love and given only fear. Someone who had claimed Rika's generosity as a last chance and then been consumed by the poison her own mother had spilled. How many days had Ren repeated that ridiculous claim that Akira and Kimiko were lovers? Rika, their child. How many nights had Akito gone to sleep believing that someone she had thought an ally was simply lying in wait to claim all that she had been promised? It explained too much. Not even factoring into account the confusion of her gender. The weight of being the head of such an enormous family.

All of it set out on paper would've constituted a therapist's wet dream. Why Akito's violence had grown until it hit Rika's breaking point. How her decision to go had been twisted and warped into something senseless when it should have been an opportunity for amends. Why Akito had taken such glee in taunting her that day in the shopping mall all those years ago.

"You cannot try to take them again. I won't let you. I'll kill you!" Akito's voice lost all sense of control while Rika stared her down. The fracture deepened in her chest as her memories gained clarity. Akito was only ever a few months older than herself. Akito had been promised the world. There were people nearby, listening. Kureno had appeared. On his heels, Hatori.

The bond might be crying at her to offer this woman kindness. Forgiveness. Love.

The bond wasn't her master.

Truth would be what Akito got. Truth was what was deserved.

"I never wanted that." She spoke slowly, shoving Akito's hands against her body so that the other couldn't lash out. Couldn't reap more damage than had already been done. "I did it for you. To be a part of this family. Akito I wanted to be your sister. Not just because my mom wanted it but because I loved you. I'd have let you beat me until there was nothing left for me if it persevered your innocence. I'd have done it."

Rika felt Hatori's hand on her shoulder, trying to pull her back. To release their God. Glancing from the corner of her eye, Kureno's face was deathly pale. Nervous. None of them had ever known the truth of it all.

"The Zodiac, they weren't my obsession. I don't – I've never wanted or needed them like you do. Not their love, their prostration or their obedience." Pressure lifted from her shoulder; Rika grew painfully aware of the absence of Hatori's touch. "I only ever wanted a family. My family. I don't need the things you do to survive. Whatever this bond is, whatever way I've been joined to this curse - I don't want it. You can have them. I let you have them the day I promised to protect them from you, and I let you have them when I got my memories wiped. You're the one that's allowed this to spin so far out of control."

Akito, silenced by her words, let her dark eyes go wide. Angry. Scared too. Impossibly so.

"You promised! You promised you'd leave and never come back! You're the one that broke the agreement!"

"And you didn't?" Rika shot back vehemently, "You were meant to be their god, not their abuser. Look at them. At all of us! How much blood needs to be spilled before you learn that none of this was worth it?"

"Stop! You're lying."

"I'm not!" The heel of her hand hit the woodwork in her anger, Akito flinching from the touch. "If I'd known then... if you had told me what your mother was doing - I'd have been more than your damn punching bag. I'd have been your sister. I'd have loved you no matter what. I did love you. I'd have helped-,"

"No one can help! No one knows or understands except me. They're mine. They're mine and mine alone!"

"Only because you made it that way." Akito recoiled from the words and Rika released her arms. Stepped back. "You did this. If you don't stop it, if you don't fix it. You're going to lose everything. They'll all hate you. Or pity you. Do you just want to be pitied? How is that love? How is it real?"

"Get out! Get out of my house!"

"I was leaving." Rika stepped back, hands shaking against her sides. Staff had flooded into the space between them, but Rika raised her voice to be heard over the din. "I would have been your sister if you'd let me. I didn't recognise the spite back then or know why you thought I would betray you. I hope someday you can do something that isn't driven by fear Akito. I really do."

Turning her back on the chaos, Rika didn't need to see how Kureno embraced her. How Hatori checked for injuries. How they both soothed her while Rika's heart raced. How her nausea peaked. Adrenaline coursed through her, years of bottled terror and pain released in one fell swoop. Her hand lifted to trace her cheek, the skin still smarting from the blow. It was damp, and for the first time, she realised there was blood. Akito must have used nails. Scratched at her.

She'd only made it as far as the main courtyard, throwing up into a flower bed, before Hatori caught her. Quietly took her hand and led her back to his house. His silence was damning. It was the first time since the lake house that she had seen him. Inside his front door, he immediately dismissed the maid. Left Rika standing in the small hallway, her hands wrung against her chest. The little dragon buried in her pocket felt like it was burning a hole there, but now didn't seem to be the right time to address that revelation.

Minutes passed before he returned, lingering at the corner.

"Come on."

She released a terse breath, kicking her shoes off and padding after him into the living room. Taking a seat by the table and bowl he'd set up. The man had disappeared again so Rika rinsed out the little cloth in warm water and used it to dab at the sticky traces of blood she could feel. It stung desperately. Without hint of apology.

Hatori returned and gave an exasperated sigh.

"You didn't need to do that."

He tugged the washcloth away from her face and used the back of his hand to tilt her chin to and fro, examining the damage wrought.

"Is she -?" The words snagged themselves in her throat. Caring about Akito, as much as it was rooted, rotting, deep in her nature, was still foreign. It warred against the parts of herself that still feared the other woman. One triumphant interaction wasn't going to wash away that history.

"She'll be fine." It was unusually clipped for Hatori, and he stole the cloth from her hands to continue cleaning the wound. Rika watched him carefully, unsure about this sudden mood. He should have been with Akito, not here. He'd chosen to come for her. So why did there feel like an endless void swelling between them. Closing her eyes, she almost missed his whispered question. "Did you mean it?"

"Which part?"

"That you never wanted us?" Rika winced, either from the ache in her jaw or the bluntness. Possibly both.

"I meant it in the sense that I don't want to control you. I don't want -," Her hands moved as she searched for the right thing to say. The honest thing. "I don't want you all to love me because of that bond. I would rather it was because I cared for you, because I loved you too. I want a family. Not that -"

"That is our life Rika. We have no choice but to follow it."

"Until it destroys you all? Until Akito becomes so warped by her fear that she ends up doing something unforgivable?"

"It won't come to that -," Rika laughed, the sound hollow to her own ears.

"It already came to that. Look at Rin. At Kyo! You're all just going to let him be locked in that room and say nothing because it makes you feel better about yourselves. You're letting Shigure use Tohru as a tool. You let her ruin your eye when you could've fought back. You let her take Kana from you and...and - you let her send me away!" His mouth opened as if to counter her. As if to say something that might take back all the horrible things he had witnessed at the hands of Akito.

Unable to find the words, Hatori shook his head and turned away. Her guilt rose up quickly, an apology sitting just behind her teeth. It wouldn't come loose. She didn't want to be spiteful. She didn't.

"Sometimes I wish you two had been raised as sisters." He laughed hollowly. It was startling in its emptiness and as quickly as Rika's anger flared in his direction, it wilted. His face had closed off from her. Voice low. "Though I hate to imagine the pain you'd have caused. You both know how to slice a person to the bone."

"Hatori I -,"

"Sit still. I need to dress your wound."

You both know how to slice a person to the bone.

He worked in silence as he added strips to her skin to seal it back together. Covered it with a bandage. Swallowing roughly when he stepped out to dispose of the bloodied water and cloth, Rika searched through her pocket to unearth the dragon. To reap comfort from it. She hadn't meant to accuse him again.

Rika, for all her steps towards growth, was just as wounded and terrified as Akito at times. Especially when it came to revealing her vulnerabilities. Just because it was easier with Hatori, had always been easier with him, didn't make it feel easy now. Standing, she followed him to the kitchen. This house was riddled with more memories than she could count but surprisingly, many of them were good. Hugs. Warmth. Love.

"Hari, I'm sorry." He stood at the sink. Back to her. Rika closed the divide between them and placed the little dragon on the countertop in his view. Slipped her hands around his waist and laid her cheek against the soft fabric of his waistcoat. She was pushing too far but she needed to be close to him. To feel grounded. "I say stupid things when I'm hurting. I know better than to say things that aren't true."

"No," She stiffened, heart an unsteady beat in her chest, "You're right."

Hatori turned into her embrace, curling his arms around her. His cheek rested against hers, and she tightened her arms. Knotted the waistcoat in her fingertips.

"I've been trying to give you space. Time." The whisper against her skin was warm. "I've hated every second of it."

This close she could feel his heart racing in tandem with her own. "I should've been talking you through all this, helping you. Rika, I swear I didn't know about your mother. About what she was doing. And if I could go back and fix it, I would. I should have fought harder."

"You did try. You defied Akito to give me that dragon."

"Don't applaud me for doing the minimum after the fact." She sighed, shaking her head at how defeated he sounded. He pressed his lips briefly to her temple. Such a simple action rooted her, swelling the air in the room with the million things she wanted to say to him. He got there first. "I'm sorry for being petulant with you. Shigure always said I had a rotten streak when I'm jealous."

"You're jealous? Of what?"

"Of the very idea that you never wanted me at all."

"Hari," Tilting her head back, Rika brushed hair from his face; it had gotten long again. Took a proper look at him. The shadows beneath his eyes spoke of broken sleep that mirrored her own, "You were never negotiable. When I speak about rejecting the bond, I mean the obedience Akito craves. That tangled twisted mimicry of love."

"It doesn't feel that way when you're inside it. It's not an excuse, but the bond is -"

"I know."

That was always going to be the catch. Trapped within the confines of the bond, it was easy to pretend those feelings were enough. That they could justify anything happening to them. Violence. Pain. Sorrow. All of it was bearable so long as they were connected to one another but where did that connection begin, and where did it end?

Hatori sighed. Dropped his forehead to hers.

"Kana never did. She never could." His hands tightened against the back of her shirt. To her surprise, she felt moisture against his cheek. The last time she'd seen him cry - "I wanted you to come back. I always hoped you'd find a way back. It was selfish of me to want that. I've tried not to want it. So that you might have a better life than this. You'd escaped it, what right did I have to bring you back into something that might hurt you like it's hurt so many of us? And still, I hoped. Rika, I -"

He didn't need to say it. How long had she been trying to deny this? She almost laughed at the absurdity of her own foolishness. Before her memories had come back, she'd known she loved him. Could feel it deep down in her marrow like an extra throbbing heartbeat. With her memories back, it didn't negate the bad. Nothing could do that. Somehow, it didn't take away the love either. Its form had shifted and changed over the years, from innocence to respect to desire but regardless, it had always been him.

"I thought you'd hate me." Hatori tucked hair behind her ear but that didn't hide the tremble in his fingertips. "When you got your memories back, I thought it would change everything. I should never have taken them in the first place Rika. Never have agreed. I can't take any of it back now, but I want to. I wish I could. You're right, about things with Akito having gone too far but I've never been strong enough to say no. To do what you did today. Can you live with that knowledge? Of my weaknesses?"

Stepping away, Rika took his hands into her own. Lifted them to her lips. Released him.

"At the lake house I was hurting, so I tried to hurt you too. I let Akito hurt me because I believed my pain was better than someone else's. I made a deal to leave in blind faith that I was the problem, without ever speaking about the circumstances of why. Without trying to find a better solution." It had been straightforward to blame other people for ignoring her plight back then, but she'd been just as complicit. Her mother hadn't listened, but had she ever told Hatori the details of her interactions with Akito? Had she gone to her father? There were a million ways that every choice could have been better.

Kazuma's reminder had been blunt, but it was also necessary to realign expectations. The Sohma family didn't work under normal conditions and rules. People followed the will of Akito and Ren to the letter, without stopped to properly think – is this right. Why wouldn't they? It was all they'd ever known. She, as much as it pained her, had not. Leaving had been brutal and painful and horrific, but it had also given her a world outside of the bubble. Sure, that bubble had been bound to burst eventually but having a taste had made her keep reaching for something better. Something right. Her mother had hated the outside world. Every single moment. It was easy to see it in hindsight. Her father had run from it. He'd been born outside the fold and had adapted easily but watching Rika and Kimiko falter couldn't have been easy. Could hardly have been comprehensible.

The Sohma's were people who believed in a code. A rulebook of propriety. If the dying Head of the family wanted to leave its power in the hands of a seven-year-old, then so be it. If that Head was to make increasingly outlandish demands of her family, of her Zodiac, then so be it. The adults, all of them, had failed their children. They had created a system where a child who embodied an ostracised spirit could be locked away. A system where Akito could use and abuse her people because she believed that was her right. Where Hatori could be made to learn an impossible skill and use it to hurt the people he cared about under the guise of goodness. Hands forming fists, she exhaled hard through her nose. The doctor remained where he'd stood, watching her closely.

"Hari, doing something we think is right isn't weakness. Sometimes to do that thing is impossibly hard. I left the people I loved, and you have been sifting through memories at Akito's behest since you were what? – Seventeen? Earlier?! You had to take away Kana's. How you are as gentle and kind as you are is baffling to me. To do the things you've had to do, I'd have become someone cruel and wasted."

"I have."

"You've not. Hatori you are a complicated person who has been trying very hard to be good at every turn. Today," Rika protested as she walked an uneven path over the kitchen floor and looked back to him pointedly, "What did you feel today when I said I didn't want you all? Besides jealousy?"

Hatori considered it. Shrugged.

"I don't know. Hurt? Abandonment, like you were going to leave again. Sorrow." Braced for it, Rika was able to carry the blow.

"Do you think cruel people would feel that? Do cruel people feel love? Do they go out of their way to drive two hours into the city just to take some snot nosed brat out for dinner?" He snorted. It diffused some of agitation she could read in his shoulders. The light outside had changed, turning the kitchen too bright in the process and drawing her eyes back to the little paper creature that had started this. "You brought me that dragon with your name and number tucked away inside. How hard must that have been? To come there and know I'd look through you? Not know you."

Her mouth tightened as regret flooded through her. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to stop the tears in their tracks but it still showed in the rasp of her voice. "How could I not know you? How did I never open it?!"

"Hey," Hatori finally moved, pulling her to a standstill in the middle of the room. Swept hands over her hair and over the line of her jaw. Down to her shoulders so he could wrap her in another embrace. "We know each other now and I, for one, am so damn proud of the person you have become in our time apart, and together."

They stood still for some time, Rika breathing the familiar scent of his shirt. Of his skin. He had always reminded her of the ocean. Saltwater and sand. Pressing her head closer to his chest, she could feel the sting in her cheek. The ache of blisters.

None of that mattered.

"Do you think," He murmured, "We'd have still found one another if your father hadn't moved you both back?"

Considering it, Rika wasn't sure. If they were normal people, then perhaps not. Except they weren't normal. Not in the usual sense. There were more factors to consider. A bond that kept drawing everyone back into each other's orbit no matter how much they protested or fought against it. She had seen that with Kyo, who fought with every fibre of his being yet still accepted his fate for that room. Of Yuki, who had fled the main house but still surrounded himself by Sohma's. She said as much to Hatori and he gave a small hum of agreement. Tucked his chin against her hair.

"I wonder sometimes, if that's why so many of us found love within the bond. Especially those hurt the most. We can understand one another in ways that people outside might not."

A host of butterflies were released into her stomach, each one scrambling for freedom. Rika glanced at the man through her lashes. He hadn't needed to say it but it still knocked the wind from her sails. Forming the word on her tongue, she tested it carefully.

"Love?"

"Ah," Hatori exhaled it in a groan as he leaned back into the line of the sink, releasing her to drag a hand through his hair, "I've overstepped."

"No," Rika followed, hands moving to cradle his face between her palms. Run the pad of her thumb over his lip. "No, Hari. No."

"No?"

"I love you." She paused to let the words settle out there on their own. To hang in the air with all the tassels they came laden with. Only, she wasn't quite done. Once the dam opened, it spilled out in waves. "I love you. I'm in love with you. I've loved you since I was seven years old and didn't know what love truly was. Loved you when I was in Okinawa and I didn't know what how to define it, this ache in my chest that meant every person I even considered always paled in comparison to what I knew I could have. I've been in love with you for so long now I can't even pinpoint where it began. With my head on your lap in that living room. When we kissed. When you encouraged me. Supported me. Or when you were just you."

She rose to the balls of her feet, nose pressing gently to his. Ghosting her lips against his in a kiss that never came. A year they'd agreed. Were they still playing that game?

"I have doubted and feared and loathed this family but even when I want to hate you, all I feel when I think of you is safe." A flush began to rise over her skin as she realised, he hadn't said anything, allowing her to ramble on. "Please say something and stop me before I declare something entirely idiotic, would you?"

"I rather like seeing you flustered," Mouth twitching with a grin, Hatori rested his hands against her hips which only served to make her more embarrassed, "It's endearing."

"Oh, shut up." He laughed, tipping his head to hers. His gaze softened, the expression on his face enough to leave her dazed. Lips parting, she ran her tongue against them. Anticipation was a cruel mistress but it the rewards could be reaped in plenty. Especially if it included another kiss.

"I love you too."

Or that.

That was remarkably good too.

Rika smiled against his mouth, curling her hands around his neck to close the last few millimetres between them. To lose herself in the feel of him against her. A life of this she could adapt to quite well she thought, until she stopped thinking altogether, senses abandoning her. She was liquid. Spineless. Every nerve-ending responded when his fingertips twitched down her sides and she responded by kissing his neck. It drew a hissed exhale that made her grin widely, especially when the move granted her a shiver.

The phone ringing in the background inspired a groan, Hatori releasing her slowly. Hesitant.

"I have to get that." He murmured it between kisses and it took every ounce of power in her to agree. "It might be the main house." The words were an icy shower down her body and Rika released him from her grasp.

"Go," She quirked her mouth at his hesitation and found that there was truth as she said, "It's okay."

The time he was gone from the kitchen gave her a chance to gather herself. Legs shaky. Head spinning. Someday, his kisses would no longer leave her in such a state but for now she was going to revel in it. When Hatori returned she'd straightened her shirt. Splashed some water from the tap to cool her skin.

"I have to go. Will you be here when I get back?" He spoke it so cautiously that she wished nothing more than to bundle him back into her arms. To hold him and soothe away the doubt from his mind. Instead she gave him a gentle smile.

"I'm not going anywhere."