* - * - *

"What the hell's the 'san' for?"

"It's an honorific—"

"Well, drop the damned honorific. It's disgusting. I already said I'm not a prince."

"I'm sorry. How about 'Kyo-kun' then? It's a bit less formal than 'san.'"

"All right, 'Kyo-kun,' whatever makes you happy, just quit making a big deal out of my name."

"Thank you, Kyo-kun. My name's Tohru Honda."

The storm roared as rain pounded the earth, lashing at her face and blinding her, but Tohru didn't look away.

"I don't know why you people keep seeing magic everywhere. Healing has nothing to do with sorcery. If I seem to know stuff it's because I used to hang around an old healer in our village so I picked up a few things. But almost anyone can heal others. I bet even you can."

"Really? Do you really think I can, Kyo-kun? Would you show me?"

"Sure. Here, I'll show you how to do a simple technique."

The shadows writhed. The air turned sharp, nauseating, and the gorge rose in her throat in response. But still Tohru didn't look away.

"You've got to get away from here. Before anything else happens to you. Find a way to get out of this forest. Use the Sun Stone if you have to, just get as far away from this place as you can."

Akito was laughing, somewhere. She could feel him coming closer. But still Tohru didn't look away. She couldn't look away.

"I'm coming with you."

"Eh?"

"As far as the barriers, if I can. Even if it's that damned Yuki you really want. I won't let you be alone in this place."

The memories scattered like leaves in a hurricane, mocking her, tearing her apart while her frozen gaze remained upon the thrashing, keening form before her. Kyo had changed. The boy she knew was melting away right before her eyes. Once-human legs were growing longer, splitting the breeches he wore, the toes splaying out, sprouting claws. The arms extended, thickened, more like trunks of trees now than human arms, ending also in lethal-looking claws. His body stretched and elongated until the black shirt was torn apart, the bones jutting out over skin that rippled and changed, growing scalier, darkening into a reptilian shade of green. His head lengthened and grew sharper, his red hair vanishing, to be replaced by more scales and two long flaps like a dragon's ears, the eyes fading into glowing yellow slits, his jaws opening wide to reveal rows and rows of dagger-like teeth. The desolate cry of a human being on the brink of insanity was transformed into the dissonant, high-pitched shriek of a maddened beast, but not any beast Tohru had ever known. The sonics grated against her skull, making her want to scream along with it. Making her want to flee to the ends of the earth from it.

Monster! The words ripped through her mind, harsh and jagged. That's not Kyo-kun. It couldn't be, couldn't be, couldn't be…

She didn't even realize that she'd begun to move backward until a pair of hands caught her shoulders, breaking her trance-like stare. A pale, handsome face smiled down at her. "Repulsive, isn't he? And to think you've been spending your nights with him, talking to him, even sleeping near him,"Akito remarked casually. "In case you're wondering, that is Kyo. That's the curse he bore long before he came here. That hideous thing is the true form of a child of sorrow."

She gazed up into pitiless gray eyes, and the sense of horror nearly choked her. You're a monster too! the demented voice screeched inside her. Stay away from me! You're not Yuki-kun. You and that—that thing, monsters, the both of you!

"Here he comes," Akito announced. "He'll kill you now. When he's like this there's no reasoning with him. He'll remember everything, though. Oh by the way, in this form, he doesn't need a dagger to kill you."

There was an ear-splitting roar, and Akito vanished. Instinct made her jump aside, and a second later the gigantic reptile's claws scored the earth where she'd been standing. She landed sprawled full-length on the ground and began to scrabble desperately away, fingers and legs digging for purchase in the mud until she managed to grab hold of a tree root and haul herself upright. She turned and looked up into the massive lizard-head above her, and with another ferocious bellow, the monster lifted its arm again and brought it downward in a crushing blow. She dove between its legs, and rolled away before the shattered tree trunk could crash on top of her and finish her off. Jumping up, she darted toward the other side of the circle, then turned and raised both hands.

Nothing happened.

"That won't work," Akito said from his perch on the branch of the tallest tree. "Not as long as I'm here. I do need the child of sorrow alive, Tohru Honda-san. What I don't need is you."

Shaking, Tohru lowered her hands and moaned. Yaori help her, she'd been ready to kill. It didn't matter that the Sun Stone didn't work. She would have summoned the fire in a heartbeat and let it consume the monster in front of her, without a thought to what she was doing. No, not a monster. This was Kyo. Somewhere inside this horrid, vicious creature was Kyo—Kyo, who'd been trying to protect her, whom she had wanted to save. No matter what happened, she couldn't destroy him.

She looked up, and a maul-like arm came flying from out of nowhere and slammed into her, sending her hurtling into the very tree Akito was sitting in. The air fled her lungs as she slid to the ground, every bone in her body screaming with pain. Something warm was streaming down the side of her face; she didn't have to look at it to see that it was blood. Another roar, and this time she didn't wait but forced herself up, running for the other side of the ridiculously small clearing. She wasn't fast enough to escape the paw that was reaching out for her, and a claw snagged the back of her dress. There was a tearing sound and fire raced down her back, but she managed to stumble away, barely able to stop herself from tumbling right over the edge of the chasm.

She stood up shakily and faced them, the monster Kyo had become and the monster Yuki had become. They stood together, the inhumanly beautiful silver-haired boy and the inhumanly loathsome lizard-demon, slaves and prisoners of the same evil. She gazed at them, malicious caricatures of the two very special boys she had met in a cursed forest, one of whom she loved as a long-lost brother, the other she loved as only her soul can love, and despite the pain from her wounds and the agony of a possibly broken rib, it was the breaking of her heart that hurt the most.

"Kyo-kun," she called, her tears mingling with the rain. "Kyo-kun, don't do this. This isn't you. No matter what he says, this isn't the real you. I still believe in you. I always will."

Akito shook his head. "You can do better than that, Tohru Honda-san. You should get down on your knees when you beg for your life."

She looked up at him, at the face that for one precious moment had belonged to the person she would have given her life to. "Yuki-kun. I know you can hear me. Remember who you are, Yuki-kun. Remember how strong you are. Don't let him make you forget."

"Shut up!" Akito suddenly shrieked, gray eyes flaring madly. "Stop calling for him! He's mine, you stupid bitch!"

Tohru fell on her knees as an unseen force lashed at her, tearing little curving wounds along her arms as she attempted to shield her face. "Yuki-kun!" she cried out.

The gigantic lizard-demon growled and attacked, but instead of charging at her, it turned and slashed all five claws at Akito's tree. With a groan, the tree trunk shivered and toppled slowly, filling her world as it headed straight for her. Her eyes widened, and she threw herself out of the way—

—and with a scream fell headlong into the darkness.

Her body slammed against a rock, bounced off another incline, and went into a free-fall until it felt as if she were flying through empty space. She closed her eyes, letting the emptiness fill her until all that was left was the memory of Yuki and Kyo and the bitter regret that she would die having failed them. The Sun Stone flared to life with its typical ill-timing, but she barely noticed. What would it matter now, anyway? she thought dully. I'd failed everyone again. Yuki-kun, Kyo-kun, Rit-chan. Poor Kisa-san, who was waiting in vain for me. Nothing I do ever turns out right. Maybe—maybe it's better this way.

The important thing is to choose to live, her mother seemed to whisper, and Tohru drifted into blessed unconsciousness.