Strange Happening's

By SAL-Chan

*Part Nine: Mini Chapter 1 - Shigure

"The only way to treat something deadly serious is to treat it lightly..."

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The snow always made me feel comfortable. I had never really realized how much the snow can calm me until I had so much on my mind. The way snow can sit on top of everything and cover it in a film of cold amazes me to a great extent, and I find myself grateful for something to focus on other than the thoughts circling inside my head.

I leaned back against the wall of the house as another feather floated from the sky. My fingers were numb and I could almost feel my nose through the thick cold that captivated my face. I took another long drag form my cigarette, letting the calm numbing feeling wash over me.

I didn't want to feel.

I didn't want to know.

I didn't want the trust, the loyalty that came with my position.

...My position...

Gods...I am a dog...

Is it just because I'm the dog that I torture myself so? Or is it because I'm a masochist and I enjoy they pain inflicted on myself for having the right mind to stay quiet? Do I like the attention it gets me? Am I so sick and twisted that I like feeling helpless inside myself and forcing all my strength to others who need it more? What is the real reason Akito said what he did? Is it he who does the torturing; do I torture myself by allowing myself to be the only person in agony?

I don't want to be this loyal.

I don't want to have to understand everyone.

I want to be normal. I want to be...a person... a person who doesn't have to worry about being touched by the opposite sex. Who can enjoy the true freedom of other writers. Who can fly to distant country's and experience things others normally experience and not have to worry about their family at home.

I should stop teasing myself with things I'll never have. I should try to accept the responsibilities given to me from being born into this family. I should try to take on the role I was given and live to my fullest potential. Maybe I could even change the role of the Dog in the Jyuunishi if that's at all possible...

...Could it be possible? Could we change the curse at all, or lift it? Is there even a cure to the curse? Would it be attainable? I'm sure it would be, the only problem would be finding it. There has to be a way, for most curses have a cure and this one shouldn't be a exception.

...Right?

I blinked, trying to remember why I ever had these questions floating around my head in the first place. I curled my legs up to my chest and looped my arms around them, placing my head on my knees and letting out a sigh. I let my eyes slip shut, thinking.

I remember when I was younger and these thoughts were introduced to me, before the others were born - when it was just me, Hatori, and Ayame. When my first God figure - Hisoka - was still alive and Yukari and Simai - the Rat and the Cow- would let us out of the compound and sick us on the Sohma's that lived around us. Those were good times of an innocent child, and I loved every moment - Hisoka had no interest in tormenting the three of us at all. Life was fine for a while, and then Hisoka died.

We had no God...

It was a shock for all of us younger kids. We had never been without Hisoka, and I can speak for myself when I say I had been scared of what would happen without him.

It was right after Hisoka died and I first over heard Yukari, Simai, and Maro - the rabbit-, talking about what would happen now. About how the rest of us would survive for the time without a God.

Yukari had said something about having a central God power and that it had something to do with breaking the curse, that now was the time to act. Simai then said something about a Sohma getting pregnant and I remember the chill that had passed through the set of sliding doors. I remember them sliding open, and Yukari's cold and long fingers wrapping around my arms and pulling me into the room. I remember her being very pretty and very pale, and she always had really long hair. I can't remember for the life of me what color it was, but it was lighter then her ocean blue eyes. She was always very thin and looked very frail, but she was strong. She was always strong, and I remember always looking up to her and her strength, for as of then we all relied on her guidance.

Compared to Yukari, Simai was very old. Her hair was snow white and her skin was a gray color. She looked brittle and broken, but the glint in her black eyes was one I remember well- the one Haru has in his now. I also remember the smell of death that she reeked of at the time, and I remember coughing and sneezing the entire time I was in that room. Maro looked almost as young as me, curly blond hair and cherry wood eyes. She never talked very much, but she always had a smile on her face. If I remember correctly, she killed herself two weeks later.

"Shigure..." Yukari had said, voice quiet and eyes stern. "You mustn't speak of anything you hear, understand? No one must know that you've been included in this conversation." I didn't understand why she told me this at that time, but I do now. She was protecting me, and informing me of what I would never be told when Akito came into power - what questions I should ask myself from time to time. She told me beforehand that the previous dog- Hitoko- was the one who told her all of this before he died saying that he needed this information given to me.

I guess all dog's are constantly at they're masters heals. I'm not the only one...

"Shigure, you must keep you mouth shut no matter what. You need to keep everything your God tells you to yourself and not let the others know. It's for the best of the group, though I know it might hurt you a lot more then it looks like it hurt me." I was young at the time, five or six. I didn't know really know what she was talking about, but I nodded my head anyway and smiled up at her. I told her 'I'll do anything you say, Yu-Chan' and smiled wider. She looked so sad at that moment as she patted my head. They continued on their conversation and I sat they're quietly as they talked for the next few minuets, unknowingly training myself for years of doing this same thing.

And at the end of that short conversation, they split up for the last time. Maro went home, and that was the last time I saw that lovely vision again. Simai ran a hand through my hair and blessed me, saying something of the double cursed years or something along those lines. I had no idea what she was talking about, nor did I care. Now, looking back on it I'm puzzled. She told me something important, I know it now, but I don't know exactly what it was. I can't remember it that celery either.

I sat in that room with Yukari for another minuet as she pulled a book out of her loose kimono and wrote something in it. I remember asking her what it was, but I don't remember what she said it was for. I remember it was then that she grabbed me and gave me a hug, her shoulders shaking and her eyes leaking.

"The Rat, the Cow, the Dog, the Rabbit, the Tiger, the Sheep, the Boar, the Horse, the Dragon, the Rooster, the Shake, the Monkey...they're all the same spirit as they have been." She told me, her voice still fresh in my mind. "I can't change it Shigure, but you can. You all can, you and your years. I no longer have power, but you do. Things will be different for you, I can see it."

I gave her a puzzled look and asked what she was talking about, and why she was crying. She just shook her head and smiled, laughing with a hitch.

"You'll break it Shigure. It will be them..." She smiled sadly, and it was at that moment she gave the book she had been writing in to me and pushed me away from her, yelling something about the next Rat and destiny. She then screamed something else that I can barely remember, and that was when the stench of death hit my nose again. It was so sharp and so exact that I remember my eyes tearing and I remember gagging on the smell. The rest of what happened seemed like a dream.

My strong and determined Yukari feel to her knee's, and a noise I can't describe came forth from her. And then I was yanked from the room as the smell became stronger, and then suddenly it was blown away in the wind. I was on the ground outside the room that would later become Akito's, staring into it with large eyes. Hatori's arms were looped around my middle. I heard Ayame's voice die on his lips before he could call for help. I'm not sure if they believe what they saw, but I know what it was. I know exactly what it was, and what had happened.

Yukari had died, right then and there in front of me. And now there was another figure in the room standing over Yukari's body, but it didn't stay very long. Something like a dark shadow rushed through that room so quickly that it sucked in the wind from outside. That smell became overpowering once again as the first figure rushed passed me with the smell of peppermint, followed by the quick black fog that made me gag.

The elder that found us like that had been surprised. I hadn't moved from my place on the floor, Hatori's arms looped around me and Ayame's standing inches for Hatori- the three of us looking shell shocked. That was the moment I had grown up, and suddenly I was around the age of 20. For the longest time I had a say in what was happening with the cursed Sohma's, even though there were only 4 or 5. I still do slightly...

Then, Akito was born.

We knew almost instantly who he was. The were a sudden link between the 4 of us - now adding Kureno whom was quiet and just a year younger- and Akito. A year or something later Kagura was born and introduced to us, and then Ritsu and Yuki showed up one day with Ayame. Rin managed to sneak into some games once in a wile, but her face was rarely ever seen. Then Haru and Momiji came, and it was around then that I was first introduced to Kyo...

...Kyo...and the monster that rested inside of him. After I witnessed his transformation, I figured everything out. I knew what had happened to Yukari and what happened afterwards. That smell that made me gag was the spirit of the Cat, and the permit was from the Rat.

The Cat had chased the Rat away and into another body.

We held the spirit of the real zodiac within us. Thus the reason Kyo would transform - he had the real spirit of the cat in him.

The memory got me thinking. If he had the Cat in him, does that mean I hold the real Dog spirit in me? If so, does that mean I have Hitoko's spirit as well? Does Yuki have the Rat spirit in him, along with Yukari's and all the others? Do they all live within us?

Then there's another thing to consider.

What if you just swap positions?...What then?

Lets say I were to die, could Hitoko's soul be the next Dog? Would he be born again as the Dog, and would I fall asleep within him? Do we keep swapping places? Or am I a totally new soul that happened to be infused with the spirit of the Dog? Will the next pore soul that is possessed by the Dog be someone who could have accomplished so much more than I will?

Makes you dizzy, right?

Now about this time I was in my second year of High School. I still held onto that book that Yukari gave me, yet I had not been able to open it since. I also had in my possession 7 other book's exactly like that one, given to me in secret by their past holders. As of now I have 10, and each and every one of them has a symbol of one of they Jyuunishi on them. I'm missing the Dogs, the Cats, the Dragon's, and the Rabbits.

Now you may be asking why there are 14 and not 13. You are forgetting the God's book, which I'm sure has the key to all of our troubles in it. The book is large and old, at least 100 something years. I hold onto it, and no one but Akito knows I have it.

He wants it, I know, but has said noting about get it back. Instead he holds onto my book, along with the other three. So here's another choice I need to make: Should I give Akito his book to get mine, or keep his and let the information in my book rot away?

I've stuck with my choice to keep his book for 8 years now, and I'm stuck. I need to know - no, I crave to know what is in my book more than anything else in the world. There could be so much information in theses book that could help up so much.

They could also kill us slowly.

Frankly, I'm quite afraid of what is in Akito's book. I'm also afraid of what's in Yuki's, Hatori's, Kyo's, and mine.

They could tell us everything we need to know. Everything that all the other cursed Sohma's knew, what they felt, what they found out. But knowing Akito, if I even went to him now to trade book's, he would let everyone else know about the book I hold onto. He knows full well what damage these books could to to everyone, and he would use that to his advantage somehow.

Akito is one disturbed person.

I felt myself back in my mortal body at that moment and I sucked in a breath, shivering. Now's a good a time as any, I thought to myself. Your treading on the past already...

Akito killed Kyo. Gods, he really killed him, didn't he?

Hatori almost died, along with Momiji and Kisa. Kyo died...he's dead...And Akito admitted to killing him.

I felt my heart crush, and I felt my my breath stutter. No one knew, no one else had a thought about that, no one even suspected it was not a car accident. I felt my brow wrinkle.

Why did we just pass it off as a accident? Why didn't we look into it? Hatori's a good driver, he wouldn't hit anything if he was trying to. Then he had to be hit...and from the way it looked... it looked like the car was impaled at a high speed. The front of it was crushed in like a tin can. They had been hit by the other car, where the driver was killed as well.

It couldn't have been an accident. The other car didn't even look like it swerved or tried to avoid Hatori's car.

It was planned.

He was murdered.

He was dead.

The cycle was broken.

Things were royally going to fall apart, if they hadn't already.

Everything was going to fall apart.

I felt my world shutter again, like it had in the hospital, about a year ago. I felt the same way I did days ago in the back yard, Kyo's realm, the day Yuki was hit. I berried my head in my arms, and I felt like a 6 year old again.

I had missed my child hood altogether. I had year or two of it, but this curse striped it away from me when Yukari died. I wanted it back so badly, I wanted to give it to all the others who had theirs striped away as well. But I couldn't...I cant do anything...

I cant help anyone. I cant do anything at all.

I couldn't help...I could do nothing...

"Don't beat yourself up over nothin, ya stupid Dog..."

I don't think I could have yanked my head up any faster at that voice. There was no passable way that I could hear...but...

He stood next to me, dressed in the same thing he had been wearing when we saw him off the day he died. He was leaning against wall, crimson eyes looking out toward the snow covered ground of the back yard. His orange hair shifted in the crisp winder breeze, and he brushed it out of his face with a quick movement. It looked as if his feet stuck to the floor, and it looked as if he really leaned against the wall.

I felt my eyes go wide, another tear falling from my eye - I hadn't even realized I had shed any at all. He sighed and looked at me, a slight grin on his face that moved a ripped part of his cheek. I felt my thoughts stop.

"What the hell are ya starin at?" He scoffed, a slight growl incased in his voice. It was...it was...

Holey crap...

Somehow, someway, in some twisted universe far, far away, things just got a hell of a lot more complicated.

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Ranting: This one was short, but I put it out fast. It gives you a lot of insight on what is in Shigure's head, and how he thinks in the story. He gave you a lot of information to work with, along with names. Now I'm sorry I was chucking names at you, but I have a lot planned now. I've had some time to think of what I want to happen, and now - I'm sorry to say- I believe the story will extend for a few more chapters...

See, now... I have a idea. And though I might be breaking the fourth wall, I'm going to do it. At least... I'm going to try...

Anyway!... in-depth thoughts on the fic.

In this chapter Shigure told us about part of his past, about his thoughts, and about how he felt. Truthfully, I think I have Shigure's character down pat, and now all I need to do is work on Yuki's. He's the only one I think I need to work on, him and Tohru. I'm totally captured by Shigure, he's second in my book of Fruits Baskets {Kyo being the first}. He's extremely hard to understand for the pure fact that you don't really get a change to get into Shigure's head in the series. Okay, I'll shut up about this now...

So did you like it? Anything you don't get? Any questions, comments, anything?

Favorite line: "Somehow, someway, in some twisted universe far, far away, things just got a hell of a lot more complicated." The last line, and this is an actual comment that I thought to myself.

Favorite character: Is there really a point in me asking this? {Shigure} Well I happen to like my OC's, but that's me of cores...

*Note: OC: Original Character. A character created by the author that usually has a major part in the story. Most OC's are hated because they interfere with the real characters. In this story the OC characters created are going to be either past Sohma's, angels, or other ghosts.

If you guy's are getting confused with the OC characters, they're a chart I'm going to put up on my Bio page with info about them. I'll add to the list as other's show up.

Date Finished: April 11th, 2004. 3 :39 pm.

Moving along...

*Caer: LOL. 'In a good way'? I love that saying... ~Raises her eyebrows~ Your a Yaoi fan? Well I'm sorry I disappointed you, but the plot took the front seat in this one. Glad you like it despite it, and I hope your neck is ok. ~Grins then Sighs~ Yea, well I'm sorry. I rushed the last chapter a little to much. Please keep reading, and I hope to hear from you again!

*Misaki the Assasin: Thank you, thank you. Tear-ing, yes yes. And that's okay, I'm to tired to think most of the time as well. Your allowed to be like that once in a wile so no big. Sorry bout the AOL thing. I have a really bad habit of ignoring my IM's and reading something. If you want to get to me, sent a chat. That gets over the away message. And i know...spelling...I'm sorry. When i finish the story, I'll go back and fix everything until it's perfect. ~Grins and waves back~ Talk to you later...

*HanaTenshiHimeko: He's evil, he's crud, but he's the perfect evil character! ^-^! Don't worry, as you can see from the graphic description of my dear Kyo's death, I'm violent as well! Is this soon enough? Nice and quick, right? It might take a wile for the next one...sorry...

*Kath: Thanks. Aah, Kyosetsu, my all time favorite OC. Glad you like him, for he will be back. ~Grin's~ I have a beta now, and thank you very much for that! I'm sucking in English now, and that verb tense thing is messing me up. Thanks and I'll send you chapter 10 soon.

*yamatoforever: Quite crazy! lol! ~Winks~ Glad you caught that. Now, predict the next one and see if you get it right. All the power to ya! Thanks!

*Kiku-san: Everybody cry's! It's a good-bad thing that I make you cry. I'm sorry if your nose got all read afterwards. YAY! glad you like it!! Read again, and thank you!

And now, the much loved!-

Bonus's: Pre-view of the next chap!: (Even though I'm being called down for family interaction...)

"Screw you Yuki! You not worth my time!"

"Forget you Kyo! Your not worth anything! You never were to begin with, and you aren't now!"

I had thought that would be it for now, and that even though he went storming off we would fight again when the got home. And we would fight in the morning about how immature he still was even though he was 'older', and we would fight over what we would be eating that night. I though we would fight about school work - of lack of school work- and that we would fight over Tohru for Prom. I thought that we would fight about what jobs we were going to have, where we were going to live, and why we had to see each other at family gathering's.

But I thought wrong.

I saw him twice after that fight, once in the hallway of the hospital and I yelled out his name along with everyone else, and the last time when I had gotten into the emergency room and watched his had fall from Tohru's. All sound in the room stopped, and the two of them were then the only other people I could see. I watched his eyes close and i watched ad blackness engulfed his body in my vision, leaving the pure white around Tohru tinted gray.

A second later, I passed out.

I never saw him again.

And in that black abyss that took me from the emergency room, a part of me was sick with worry that the Cat would come after it. It chorused the same thought over and over again, something about 'It coming to get me', and 'It would never let me get away'.

Another part of me felt like I had died along with him. That on some other unearthly level a connection we had through our bickering and fighting was broken and would never be right again. The person I wanted to be so much more then myself was gone and would never come back. I was disconnected from someone I knew had one of the biggest connections with myself, yet I refused to admit it.

When I woke up and they told me he had died, I didn't cry.

When we went the the funeral and I had to sit and watch Tohru cry to herself because not one of us could comfort her, I didn't cry.

When I watched the coffin being dropped into the cold and wet ground on that rainy Sunday - he day after his birthday- and realized that there were only 6 people - Myself, My brother, Shigure, Tohru, Hana, and Uo- there to watch him be berried, I didn't cry. I didn't cry and as Shigure took Tohru back to the hospital to sit and pray for Momiji's life for hours upon hours.

Yet after a hour of staring down at the slowly filling hole in witch his body lay wall standing next to my brother, who only after a hour wrapped his arms around me in a warm and wet embrace, murmuring quietly in a soothing tone, and when I didn't push him away yet instead grabbed onto him like a life line i never had as a child did I let myself shed tears that were simply washed way by the ever present rain.

Tears or regret. Tears for Tohru and all her loss at this, for the horror that Momiji, Hatori, and Kisa had to go through because of this, for the pain I witnessed in everyone's faces, of the satisfaction I had seen in Akito's when he was told of the news, for the pain I knew everyone had taken away from this one thing.

I didn't cry for him. I couldn't...I wouldn't...

But now I...

That's it!!! ...think about it. I know it's a bit long, but think about it. The next chapter will probably be a long one, for a lot more events and things will be explained. Oh, and bring tissues, cause you might need them.

By the way, I don't own FruBa. This plot and original characters are mine, but not Fruba itself. Any twisted, enhanced psychotic tendency, morbid reactions, deep and well deserved brooding and/or beating ones self up that happen to appear in the story are mine and I stake fill clams with some help and idea's. Please review, and any flame will be laughed if not ignored. Please, have a nice day!

Happy Passover and Easter!

Ja till next time!

~SAL-Chan