Darkest Rain
By Nix Winter
Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket. It is a very inspiring show and I encourage everyone to watch it. I do own this story though and very well might make it over as an expanded original, but for now, this is how I'm day dreaming it.
Chapter Two
The more Kyo ran, the more he felt he had to. Yuki had come for him that night, the night when he'd transformed into the original form. Yuki had held him and made him listen. Kyo wanted things to be different!
He hit the outer wall and climbed, to the roof, where he'd waited for them the last visit. He had so much energy now and he didn't understand why. Rain washed over him, plastering orange hair to his face, trailing rain down his back under the blue sweat shirt.
No one was around and he had never been farther into the house than this court yard. Fists clenched, he fought against a wall of all the parties, all the times they, the real family had meet here, all the times he and people like him had been left outside, watching from this very roof. And for the first time, he understood, deeply, deeply understood. It wasn't the rat's fault.
He clawed hair back from his face, propped his other fist against his hip and tried to decide what he was going to do to. He had to decide what he wanted to do.
He was the cat! He did not have friends. He did not fall in love!
He was Kyo. He did have friends. He did fall in love, twice over.
He loved them both.
He pulled at his hair, feeling like the rain should just washing away so he'd never run the risk of hurting anyone again.
And
Then
He
Heard
Yuki
scream.
He hit the court yard hard, running towards the double doors he'd never crossed through before. Temper, heart, he'd never controlled either well. A second scream followed, then screaming for Akito to open the door. Within Kyo the beast that never rose while he was protected by his beads rose within him anyway, snarling behind his very human face.
He skidded when he hit the hall, sliding on a rug probably worth more than Shigure's house. "Yuki! You damn rat! Where are you?"
Regaining his footing he took off down the hall, banging doors open. He didn't care if it was the main house! And he wasn't allowed to be there! He didn't care! "Yuki!"
The voice echoed up from stairs, stairs filled with a darkness, and Kyo skidded to a halt. He'd never believed in Hana's electric signals, but here they were, like electrified dark smoke, murderous anger and rage. The scream made the darkness vibrate, hum, as if the very air might shatter under the weight of it. Kyo snarled like the cat he was, hair standing on end as he started down the stairs.
"Akito! Open the door! Akito!" Hitori begged, palms pressed to the now torn rice paper of the door, revealing steal behind it. "Akito!"
Shigure took a more active role and had a crow bar between the sliding doors, trying to pry them open. "Hitori! Help me! That bastard's done it now!"
"What's going on? Where's Yuki?" Kyo asked, standing there looking at them circled by the light of their flashlight. "Where's Yuki?"
Akito laughed from behind the doors. Kyo stood there, water pooling around him. He was the cat and he was in the main house and he loved the rat.
"Kyo?" Shigure asked, sinking to his knees. "Help me."
"Get out of here!" Hitori snapped. "We're taking care of it!"
Senses all heightened, more cat than human, Kyo smelled blood, smelled fear, and he could hear Yuki crying. Without thought his fingers moved to his beads. "Get out of my way. Get out of my way!"
The beads slipped free of his wrist, rolling over his fingers.
"Kyo! No!" Shigure yelled.
Kyo and Yuki's screams blended together as the cat transformed, huge clawed paws forming where Kyo's fists had been. The great cat had within him always the power to beat the rat. His claws scored the wooden floor as he ran.
Akito's doors held against the first assault of the cat, bending though, metal creaking, then shredding under jaws with prehistoric rage. No demon, no curse, only primal.
Shigure shielded Hitori's blindside, arms out, as shrapnel flew. Then there stood Akito, blood pole held in both hands. Yuki lay balled in the corner, bloody arms over his head. The powerful rat, so powerful, and Kyo understood, even in his primal form, the power to win and fight came from within. Kyo couldn't win when fought Yuki for reasons within himself, because it never would have solved his needs. In the same way, Yuki who was so powerful could not fight this monster because inside he was waiting for someone to save him. Kyo didn't know if he were right, but he knew he would save Yuki, the way Yuki had saved him.
All paws on the floor, lips drawn back in a snarl, Kyo circled the head of the Soma family, the core of the curse that haunted them all. Voice distorted, twisted by a muzzle that had walked the earth before human speech was known, Kyo snarled, "Away from him! Get away from him! Monster."
"Hitori! Help me!" Akito held the pale wood darkened with Yuki's blood up, ready to fight the cat as he'd fought the rat. "Hitori!"
Shigure knelt by a fallen Hitori though, the hem of his kimono sleeve wiping at blood on Hitori's face. "He can't help you!"
Yuki struggled to his feet behind Akito. One eye was swollen shut, one harm hung limply beside him, but he was on his feet. "Nothing can help you now! You are wrong! What you do is wrong!"
"What I say is law!" Akito brought back the staff, preparing for another strike.
Kyo struck first though, one huge paw sending Akito sprawling across his secret room. "NO!"
The staff skidded out into the hall. Shigure covered his mouth, eyes narrowing over the dark stains in the wood. "Kyo! Don't kill him!"
"Cats like to play with their food," Kyo snarled, breath from an ancient world, hot and carnivorous breathing in Akito's face.
"Kyo!" Yuki said, staggering closer. "Kyo kun!"
Hitori struggled back to his knees in Shigure's arms, then he saw the blood staff as well.
The great cat looked back over his bare deformed shoulder, a great purple eye watching Yuki stagger closer. In this form they both had violet eyes.
The edges of the room, the hall way beyond began to fill with rats and cats, small angry eyes.
Akito's fingers struck at Kyo's large eye, tearing skin around it, causing a cry like had not been heard for centuries, millennia. Yuki dropped to his knees by Akito's head grabbing both wrists, pinning the head of the family. "Hitori-san! Erase his memory! Make him start over!"
Crawling forward, Hitori's ruined eye showed, sweat holding his dark hair back.
Shigure picked up the staff, rage on his face, loyal and obedient, even dogs could be pushed too far. "What an excellent idea," Shigure said. "Kyo-kun, thank you, Kyo-kun! Don't kill him."
It hurt! They thought he'd kill. Akito struggled under him and for a split second, he wasn't sure he wouldn't. Only when Yuki's hand touched his cheek, his shameful deformed cheek did the urge to rip Akito's throat lessen.
"How can you touch it! Yuki! How can you touch it!" Akito screamed, hysterical now, as a battered Yuki leaned closer to look right into the eye of his mortal rival.
"I love you, Kyo, You damn cat," he whispered.
Smiling with fangs as long as pens shouldn't have been reassuring, but Kyo felt wonderful.
Hitori's fingers brushed through Akito's hair, finding his temples.
"You can't do this to me! Hitori! I forbid it! Erase Yuki's memories! Make him forget about this evil cat."
"Goodbye, Akito-sama," Hitori said gently, and then... there were no more struggles.
Kyo leapt free, moving like no living creature now could. All four paws on the ground he danced away, backing himself into a corner.
"Kyo?" Yuki asked, "We wouldn't hurt you. We accept you."
Akito lay peacefully now, even though his shoulders were both torn by huge claw marks. Shigure looked up, following Yuki's gaze. "Kyo? It's okay, Kyo. You saved Yuki."
Hitori leaned heavily against Shigure, panting from the exertion of wiping out Akito's personality, memories. It was a greater crime than claw marks would ever be.
Yuki moved to where Kyo's fallen black and white beads lay. He had to drop to his knees to pick them up, and he shook as he stood, but he carried them back into the room, this hated room. "Here?"
He spread the beads with one hand and Kyo reached out, hand becoming human as it passed through the magic circle of the beads. Just a red headed guy in baggy pants he collapsed now, taking both he and Yuki to the ground. Yuki held Kyo with one arm, holding him tight and they both cried.
The End.
Occ: I'll probably write more with them as they've really got my attention. I have to get some original done. These characters will have other stories, I'm sure. I really want to take it towards Yuki/Kyo/Tohru.