Disclaimer: WolfBane2 does not own Fruits Basket or anybody in Fruits Basket. She does, however, wish she owned the boys so she force them to do horrible, yaoi-filled things to amuse her in the manga. Especially Hatsuharu. Because he rocks. She does, however, own the Rabid Fangirl Pledge, which she and her friend made up at lunch last week. Except for the first 3 lines, which she stole from someone. But that doesn't matter because WolfBane2 ended up not putting the fangirl pledge in this chapter anyway. Onto the fic! Which WolfBane2 DOES own. Except for the parts that she stole from various places.
Tohru wore a small smile as she ran a gently steaming iron over the black jacket of a man's three-piece suit. Humming merrily to herself, the brunette reached up to the row of clothes hangers on the wall beside her and pulled down the white shirt that went with the jacket. As the iron glided lightly over the fabric of the shirt, a middle-aged woman employee commented to a fellow co-worker, "Honda-chan sure seems cheerful today."
The other woman shrugged as she twisted the dial of a washing machine to begin its spin cycle. She replied off-handedly, "You know her, she's always like that. Come on, help me with these uniforms, the school wants them ready to be picked up by tomorrow."
Indeed, Tohru was in particularly good spirits at that moment, though she had no idea why. But it's like Mom used to say, she remembered fondly. You only need a reason to be sad, you don't need a reason to be happy. As the girl meticulously flattened the wrinkles out of the white material, she chewed her lip absent-mindedly. She was oddly hungry, though. Dinner was looking better and better with every minute that passed.
Suddenly, the clock that hung above the row of washing machines chimed 6 times to announce the arrival of 6:00. Immediately there was a flurry of activity throughout the back rooms of the laundromat as her fellow workers quickly wrapped up whatever they happened to be working on and hurried out the door, eager to get home. Tohru slid clothes hangers through the neatly-pressed sleeves of the jacket and shirt, and hung them in their proper place on the long rotating clothesrack, which was organized by the last names of the customers and the dates they were due to be ready for pickup. She tugged her handkerchief loose from where it was tied around her head to keep her hair out of the way and stuffed it into her pocket. Her stride light and bouncy, the brunette pranced out the back door.
Once outside the door, she spotted a flash of vermilion hair by the metal railing that lined the street beside the building. Kyo, she murmured thoughtfully within her mind. That's interesting, Yuki isn't here. I wonder why Kyo came to meet me? Oddly, the sight of her volatile friend didn't give her the burst of joy that she usually received upon meeting someone she knew by chance. It wasn't really anything about Kyo himself. It was simply a slightly uncomfortable feeling, as if he had interrupted something she'd been enjoying. For some reason, she thought about turning back and reentering the building, and then slipping out the side door to avoid meeting him. It was as if…as if she wished for…something. Something that his presence did away with.
Solitude. Serenity.
Tohru stifled a yelp of surprise. No! That voice…the sleepy, warm voice of the red panda was still in her head. It wasn't that big a surprise. After all, deep inside the brunette had never really believed that the animal's mind had left. She had hoped it could be so, but evidently hope hadn't been enough. But this odd new longing was even more bizarre to the girl then her strange transformation into the fire fox that had occurred a few says ago. She, Tohru Honda, had wanted to be alone? But she loved being with her friends. Even if they interrupted something she'd been intensely focused on, she had never felt anything but happiness when she came face-to-face with them. Certainly never the slight resentment she was feeling now.
She shook her head. No. Kyo would get angry if she didn't show up, and it wouldn't be nice to avoid him after he came all the way to walk her home. Tohru swung her school bag over her shoulder and trotted out the door to approach the red-haired Sohma. As the brunette girl called out a greeting to Kyo, she glanced over her shoulder. Only a stray cat walking along a fence post looked back at her, eyes disdainful, before returning to its journey to wherever cats go when the twilight casts its shadows.
Odd. It had seemed as if someone had been watching her.
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In another part of the Japanese town, 4 Sohma family members also made their way towards their respective homes. Momiji was walking backwards, gesturing wildly with his hands as he yammered to Hatsuharu about the upcoming high school concert for the chorus and band. Kisa hung back shyly a few steps behind the other two and listened, while Hiro matched the tiger Sohma's steps and paid absolutely no attention whatsoever to the older boys.
Or so it appeared. After several more minutes of the rabbit Sohma's merry chatter, Hiro's teeth clamped together. He sneered coldly, "Will you shut up already! No one cares about your school's stupid concert."
"I do!" protested Momiji, turning to look over his shoulder innocently at the pessimistic younger boy. Despite their 3-year age gap, the blond freshman was scarcely any taller than his moody 12-year-old cousin.
Hiro lifted his head and gazed haughtily down his nose at the rabbit Sohma, amber eyes cold. "Great. But no one else does, so keep your incessant ranting to yourself."
However, Momiji wouldn't back down that easily, especially to someone who he had 3 years seniority over. The blond rabbit had many undesirable habits, true, but he definitely did not consider himself a pushover when it came to arguments. "I'll talk all I want to!" Granted, no one ever said he'd come up with a mature statement to use as his weapon.
Haru, who had previously been staring into space and actually hadn't been listening to Momiji either, observed the other two mildly. Behind him, Kisa watched them anxiously, mentally debating whether to ask Hiro to stop or just to mind her own business. Hiro's eyes narrowed, and his lips curved into a malicious smirk. "Honestly, Momiji, you're 15 years old. Don't you think it's time you started acting your own age, instead of forcing others to have to deal with your immaturity?" The golden-haired sheep tilted his head, waiting patiently for an outburst that he could use for ammunition. Haru's gaze rested on a point behind Hiro's right shoulder, and the freshman wore an indecipherable smile that Kisa saw and wondered about. Curiously, the 13-year-old girl looked in the direction Haru's eyes were turned towards. Her tawny eyes widened. Seeing that Haru wasn't about to do anything, she opened her mouth to warn her younger friend of what was behind him, but before she could say anything-
A booming bark rang through the air. That noise gave Hiro just enough time to whirl around to face the source of the sound before a gray blur flew through the air and hit him at about rib level. With an undignified yelp, he was slammed to the sidewalk. The sly sheep Sohma stared up in shock at the large canine that was now pinning him with its enormous front paws. Haru's pewter eyes flickered with amusement, for he had no great fondness for the younger Sohma. Momiji was openly laughing at the sheep's situation. Kisa had her hands clasped over her mouth, eyes wide with worry.
Hiro struggled valiantly to get away from the canine. "Get off me, you stupid mutt!" he shouted, trying to shove the dog off his chest. But the dog was as large if not larger than the 6th-grader. If it didn't want to go anywhere, it wasn't going anywhere. Managing to look smug even for a dog, the stray leaned down, its hot breath wafting onto the skin of Hiro's forehead. He clenched his teeth partly in frustration and partly in fear as it studied him for another moment. Then, with great delicacy, the gray dog lifted its lips and slowly raked its fangs down the 6th-grader's face. Twin lines of blood appeared, beginning at Hiro's hairline and tracing the sides of his nose before ending about an inch above his top lip. Only about 8 seconds had passed since the dog first pinned Hiro to the ground. If a canine could be grinning, this one would have been.
Run.
The sheep Sohma had just enough time to jerk in surprise at the word that appeared in his mind, before the dog leapt off him. As he scrambled to his feet and stared at the pewter stray, he saw the fading sunlight flash off its yellow fangs. Suddenly the dog's barking filled the air as it lunged forward and nipped Hiro's left ankle with its eyeteeth. Hatsuharu still didn't react at all, but Kisa gasped and Momiji was still howling with mirth. His amber eyes now wide open, Hiro yelped, turned and fled down the street in the direction they had been heading. With a string of short barks, the stray dog tore after him.
Momiji, gasping for breath, finally managed to say gleefully, "Served him right!"
"We've got to go after him! The dog might really hurt him! Hiro-kun…" Kisa whimpered, gazing after her friend with wide tawny eyes.
"Aww…do we have to?" Momiji complained, only half-joking. His facial features puckered into a pout, the blonde Sohma reluctantly trotted down the street towards the corner that Hiro had vanished around in his desperate attempt to shake off his 4-legged pursuer, calling half-heartedly, "Hiro-kuuuun? Did you get eaten by the dog?"
Kisa was about to follow him when suddenly Haru proclaimed in a monotone, "He'll be fine."
The tiger Sohma glanced up at her older cousin curiously, momentarily distracted from her best friend's situation. "How do you know, Hatsuharu-kun?"
"I just do. But we'd better go find them anyway." With a look of indifference that implied he didn't really care whether the dog injured Hiro or not, the ox Sohma took a few steps in the direction Momiji had gone, his hands in his pockets.
However, a timid "Ano…" from behind him stopped the high school freshman. He turned and glanced at his younger cousin questioningly. Gazing at the ground, she continued softly, "Hatsuharu-kun…I don't mean to be prying, but…what do you keep in the side pocket of your jacket? I…I just noticed that you never use it, but I've seen you take something out of it several times."
He regarded Kisa for a few seconds with impassive eyes, and she worried that she'd offended him. So the tiger Sohma was surprised when he suddenly gave her a half-smile and reached into the small pocket on the side of his jacket, above the usual left pocket. The ox Sohma pulled out a piece of dark paper that, on closer inspection, turned out to be a photograph. Haru handed it to Kisa to look at. It was a picture of Rin, the horse Sohma, a family member she'd seen at the New Years banquets and heard about from older Sohmas at the main house, but rarely encountered by herself.
"Rin-san…" she murmured, touching the photo meekly, as if afraid it might rip in her hands. In the picture, the older girl stood in front of one of the thick trees that lined the path to the Sohma main house. She had chosen not to smile for the picture, and several strands of her midnight-black hair were being tossed by the wind. The girl was gazing into the distance instead of looking into the camera. Although Rin's appearance was defiant and gothic, there was something alluring about the way she held her head; she seemed to be keeping herself apart from her surroundings. She was almost like a feral horse gazing over the fence that held it captive towards the valleys it wished to return to and could not. It was as if Rin saw in the distance something that others could not, and that something was not a cause to be celebrated.
Hatsuharu wore a gentle smile as he looked over Kisa's shoulder at the photo. He told the tiger quietly, "Yeah. She never liked having her picture taken. She never thought she looked like the person they had photographed." Kisa's tawny eyes scanned the photo of the horse Sohma for another second, then she wordlessly handed it back to her older cousin, who tucked it away in the pocket it had come from. Some things did not need to be spoken aloud. In a thoughtful silence, they began searching for Hiro and Momiji. And Hatsuharu's mind drifted back in time, to the day before the day that had changed everything in the relationship between him and the beautiful, untamable Rin Sohma.
As he thought, someone listened. And smiled.
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Rin reached up and plucked an elegant crimson leaf from the brightly-colored boughs of autumn leaves that decked the trees along the dirt path that led to the Sohma houses. She twirled it absent-mindedly in one hand, and shrugged one shoulder to make her black bookbag more secure as it dangled by its midnight-blue shoulder strap. She inhaled sharply in surprise as an arm snaked around from behind her and settled around her shoulders. Warm breath brushed her ear as a voice whispered, "Who loves you, babe?"
Her eyes narrowed, but a smile tugged the edges of her stoic lips. "Have we met?" the horse Sohma responded coolly.
The voice took on a tone of mock surprise. "Don't tell me you're spoken for. Am I going to have to pound some guy into the pavement before we can live happily ever after?"
"No. You're the one I want." She tilted her head back and gazed into warm, dizzy gray eyes.
"Forever?" he persisted, his other hand now playing gently with a lock of her thick dark hair.
She swatted his hand away playfully and flashed him a rare but charming smile. This was a game they'd gone through a dozen times and still neither had tired of it. "Until angels close my eyes."
He laughed softly, breaking the serious spell. "Yeah, right. More like devils."
"You're one to talk, biker-boy." Rin stretched upward, her head still tilted back, and brushed her lips against his.
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The Gray Lord, judgement. The Wanderer, the unknown. The Killer, laughter. The Listener, emotions. The Singer, life. And the Slayer, death.
Kyo found himself walking, as if in a trance. His mind remained oddly free of the confused thoughts he knew should be racing through it.. Those had been replaced by a fuzzy, but comforting blank whiteness that encased his mind and eradicated any thought process at all. There is no panic in this place, his mind told him gently. There is chaos, yes, but chaos is organized to bring serenity. One cannot exist without the other. The cat Sohma didn't bother to argue. He knew that any attempt to reason with himself would be hopeless.
The surroundings he passed were bizarre. There were no trees, or concrete, or dirt. There appeared to be nothing supporting his feet at all, and yet his scuffed sneakers still found firm footing on nothing. A white mist obscured whatever landscape might have been there, leaving the environment as blank as his thoughts. The air was warm, but cool wisps of wind brushed his skin in a seemingly random pattern. The sound of his feet hitting the invisible ground made no noise, and when he opened his mouth and tried to speak simply to see if it was possible, nothing came out. Occasionally from the corner of his eye, Kyo would spot a burst of color exploding from the white mist, but when he whirled around to see it fully, there was nothing there.
After what could have been hours, or days, or even only seconds of walking through this bizarre landscape, a breath of song reached Kyo's ears. With a yelp that never left his throat, the teenage boy twisted his head to search for the sound. His pricked ears were met with another soft, musical note. It was only a whisper of noise, but any noise at all seemed miraculous in this strange muffled place. The familiar spring of tendons in his legs brought him comfort as he sprung into a quick jog, moving quickly towards the direction he thought the sound has originated from. The muscle tension was sweet, almost as sweet as the adrenaline from a fight. But not quite.
Suddenly the world shattered like a mirror broken into shards. A shrill shriek of winds pierced Kyo's ears, and he clapped his hands over them in both surprise and pain. The scream crenscendoed, and he closed his eyes in agony from the sudden volume of the noise. When it finally died away, the cat Sohma hesitantly opened his eyes. He was thrown off again to discover that the white mist had vanished, and with it had shattered the muffled spell it cast upon the world. The redhead now stood in a small clearing bathed in dew-covered grass. Puffy white clouds drifted across a clear periwinkle sky, and before his feet a river rushed, white foam leaping up where the water crashed into small rocks. The first thought that came to Kyo's mind was that it was odd there was no bird song within range, only the dull roar of the crashing waves.
As he scanned the river skeptically and decided this had to be a dream, the teenager spotted a flash of color to his left. Automatically, his head whipped around to look. This time, the color did not vanish. It was a man of perhaps 25 years of age, a bit younger than Shigure or Hatori. The man's features were thoughtful, with sandy eyebrows and thick, light brown hair. He was of average height, and wore a navy-colored sweatshirt and blue jeans. The man was skipping rocks across the river, watching as the sprays of foam threw them high into the air before they sank.
Happy to see another being that appeared to be solid, Kyo demanded, "Where are we?" He meant to ask who the man was, but this question seemed more important and so slipped out of his mouth first.
The other male looked up, not appearing very surprised at Kyo's abrupt appearance. His voice was deep like Hatori's, but rhythmic. "In a place without a beginning, without an end, where the waters flow hidden beneath an empty sky." The man's eyes were a deep brown, warm and searching.
Kyo raised his head a bit, not understanding the man's reply at all. "What the…who are you, anyway!"
He studied the red-haired Sohma for a few moments before answering. "You may call me Mohan."
In Kyo's opinion, there had been something odd about the way the man had phrased his answer. The teenager asked suspiciously, "Is that actually your name?"
The man shrugged easily. "It is one of them. I have many names. Mohan is Sanskrit for bewitching. But names are inconvenient things. They only serve to give one power over another through their use. This can be either good or bad. But in the long run, getting attached to names is fairly useless. They're only things to be used for a certain body, they are unimportant to the spirit."
This was all well and good, but the cat Sohma was impatient to finish whatever he was supposed to do in this world so he could go home or wake up, whichever came first. "Great. Look, do you know how I can get out of this dream or wherever we are?"
"You can't," the man said simply, flicking his wrist to let another round stone fly across the turbulence of the river. "You need to go forward to go back."
Kyo resisted the urge to slam his fist into the man's ribs. He bit his lip in an effort to restrain the flash of anger. Warm blood trickled over his tongue, filling his mouth with a metallic taste. "So how do I do that, cross the river?" the 16-year-old asked, reminding himself that this man was the only one around and the only one who could tell him how to get out of this illusion, so he must be patient.
The man spoke up suddenly, telling him, "Yes, it is maya, an illusion. Most of life is." The cat Sohma took a step back, unnerved. Had the man just read his thoughts? Nah. This is just a dream, he reminded himself chidingly. There was no such thing as mind reading in real life. The other being's chocolate-colored eyes were focused on some point across the river. Kyo turned his gaze to where the man was looking. For some reason, the white spray leapt so high in the air from the white caps of the river that Kyo was unable to see what lay beyond it.. Still staring into the foam, the man added, "Like your friend Tohru. You cannot be sure she does not wear a cloak of illusion."
Kyo's head snapped up. His temper rising, the cat Sohma snarled fiercely, "How do you know who Tohru is? And don't bring her into this! Just tell me how to get across the damn river!"
The sandy-haired man either didn't hear Kyo or simply chose to ignore him. He continued to gaze across the river for a few more moments. Just as Kyo was about to explode and pound the other being's face into an unrecognizable pulp, the man suddenly looked away from the distance and met Kyo's fiery eyes with his own. Taken aback, Kyo shifted his weight to his other foot uneasily. He held the man's gaze for a couple seconds before he was forced to look away himself. That gaze…it was too deep. It was as if he looked into the man's eyes long enough, he would fall through them into…into what, Kyo wondered. He'd never seen eyes that held those kinds of depths before, and they were unnerving, to say the least.
"Do you love her?" the man's voice asked, velvety and with the rhythm of a religious chant.
"Yes." Kyo's mouth seemed to be speaking without his permission now. It was as if he had been hypnotized. Lying or avoiding the man's questions were not even options now, even though his gaze was now towards the wet earth between his feet.
"So do many others. That is just Tohru's way.She is one of those people who simply loves you until you have to love her back." The man's voice was steady, like the ticking of a metronome. Deep within his consciousness, Kyo knew somewhat that he was being hypnotized to some degree, but there wasn't anything he could do against the strange man's power. The male tossed another stone across the river's surface and continued, "So you love her. And you do not tell her…why?"
Even in his trance, Kyo was ashamed to say why. Eventually, he replied quietly in a monotone voice, "I have no right to love her. I'm too filthy to deserve someone as clean as her."
"You say and think that. You might even believe that. But that is not why you continue to resist her. To you, she is perfect." The man turned his bottomless brown eyes back to Kyo's, and this time Kyo found himself unable to look away. "Yet you are still not happy. You are not content to have perfection. Why?"
"I don't know." Kyo said miserably, hating not having the will power to resist the spell that the man seemed to have cast over his mind.
The man studied him for a moment more, eyes piercing his own as if pulling out the answers themselves through his eyes. "No, you do know. You simply do not understand. Tohru is comprised of 3 of the 4 ancient elements. Earth, Wind, and Water. But she lacks Fire. Fire is destructive, and is fueled by lust for power and by the hatred of those who set it and the lives it consumes. But it also cleanses, and clears away the old to make way for the new. It is like Kalika, the ancient Sanskrit name for a symbol of darkness and eternity. It destroys sinners as well as saints, demons as well as angels, bad as well as good. It has no biases. And like the Kalika of legends, fire allows new life to be born from its ashes. But even if anyone remembered what fire creates as it destroys, no one would worship fire, for they would be too afraid of its destructiveness. You are comprised greatly of fire. Tohru extinguishes that fire, and makes way for the new. But Fire does not want to die. You want to keep the fire within you, and yet you also want to keep someone who extinguishes Fire. You despair because Tohru does not, can not hold any fire within, even though she can extinguish it. You want someone who knows the anger, who knows the fire's fury. Two fires will eventually burn each other out, but perhaps that is best, for all must be extinguished eventually to go on to the new." His eyes narrowed slightly, as if something amused him. "And you also are not happy because if you did take her as your mate, you would know that you would not be the only one that satisfied her. Within your subconscious, you know she would be happy to take many others as her mate, because Tohru is just happy with almost everyone. It is her way. You wish to be her single status of satisfaction, when to her, everyone and everything is satisfying in their or its own way."
Kyo's lips moved as though dipped in molasses, but he finally managed to utter hoarsely, "How do you know all this, when I don't even know?"
"Because in your silence, your spirit told me what your mind did not know." The man smiled. Then he wrenched his eyes from Kyo's, and the redhead staggered at the sudden loss of the eternity he'd glimpsed within the bizarre man's eyes. Voice still deep and rhythmic but no longer hypnotizing., the man turned again to face the river. "Thank you. You have told me what you needed to know. You have delayed the death of the universe. For that, you have our gratitude."
Suddenly, the male was no longer standing to Kyo's left. He was now balanced on a rock in the middle of the raging river. Foam drenched his clothes and face, and yet somehow he did not slip or even waver. He stood just before the area where Kyo's eyes failed. Desperately, Kyo called after him, "Wait! Tohru…is her joy real? Is whatever that's happening to her now going to end soon?"
The man still wore his smile, but it was comprised of both happiness and sorrow. His voice sounded far away as he answered, "Most of her joy is real. And yes, it will end," A note of sadness entered his voice. "It will end."
The taste of iron in Kyo's mouth from the blood seemed to grow stronger as he spoke those words.
With a haunting laugh, the man turned and leapt to the other shore of the river. And then he was gone.
On the roof, Kyo suddenly awoke from his fitful slumber and jolted upright. His sides heaved as he tried to catch his breath. Sweat dripped off the bridge of his nose and the sides of his face. Only a dream, Kyo told himself. Nothing to get so edgy about.
You keep telling yourself that, a voice replied within his mind.
"Damn voices," he growled irritably. Trying to put it out of his mind, the red-haired Sohma rolled over and went back to sleep, refusing to dwell on the dream. The moon watched over him, bathing his still form with faint rays of silver moonfire.
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"I don't know why, but…I've been having these weird thoughts lately."
"Like what, Rin-chan?"
"Like…is any of this for real? Or not…"
"What do you mean?"
"Good night, Kagura."
There was a shrug. "…G'night."
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Tohru stretched lazily, taking joy in the fact that her Current Events report for her Social Studies class was finished. She pushed away the pen she'd been using and slid the newly finished paper into a folder in her backpack. Beside her sat a now-empty dish of baked chicken that had been left over from the previous night's dinner. Normally the brunette would have felt guilty for taking the food, but only a few scraps had been left over, and they would have been useless for anything but a snack anyway. Besides, her stomach had quite loudly voiced its opinion on the matter. For some reason, when she arrived home after her work was finished, she'd been plagued with an insatiable hunger. The miso soup she'd made during that night's dinner hadn't cured it, but she hoped the small snack might.
But the hunger still raged now, even after she'd eaten the chicken as she wrote the report. With a sigh, Tohru picked up her chopsticks and the dish, tucking her backpack on its usual place beside the front door to wait for tomorrow morning. She checked the clock. 8:30 P.M. Perfect, the teenage girl thought with a faint smile. I have plenty of time to wash the dishes before I go to bed.
Carrying the dish and chopsticks in her left hand, she pranced downstairs and rinsed off her chopsticks. Then Tohru filled one side of the sink with warm, soapy water and began to soak the dishes that had been used during that night's dinner. As she pulled on rubber gloves and scrubbed the dishes with a sponge, her eyes kept wandering to the refrigerator. Why am I so hungry, Tohru wondered. I just ate, I can't possibly still be hungry. And I don't want to waste food on my own selfishness, especially because it's Shigure's food, not mine. Pushing the thoughts out of her mind, she set to work on the vast mountain of dishes that lay before her.
A half-hour later, she stacked the last plate in the dishrack to dry. A bright smile graced her face as she observed the clean dishes proudly for a moment as she hung her rubber gloves on the sink divider to wait until tomorrow. But even as Tohru smiled, her stomach let out another loud growl of protest.
The girl sighed. It appeared she wasn't going to get any peace from her body until she ate something. She opened the refrigerator reluctantly and began to scan its contents. Maybe I'm going through a late growth spurt, she wondered, eyes traveling over the various half-eaten types of food. For some reason, her insides twisted as she reached for a plate of carrot sticks. Now becoming frightened, she cautiously directed her gaze towards a small box of crackers in one corner of the refrigerator. If anything, she became even further repulsed.
Just as Tohru was preparing to freak out properly, her hands suddenly moved as if directed by a ghost. They took out the carton of milk that Kyo so coveted, as well as, of all things, the half-sausage that had been left over from a sandwich Shigure had made two days ago to eat as he worked on his latest novel. Hands shaking, she poured herself a glass of milk in a clean cup and took out a paper plate to put the sausage on, not wanting to dirty anymore dishes than necessary. There could be no denying that something was indeed wrong, but Tohru felt helpless to do anything but satisfy the raging hunger that burned her stomach. Oddly, no one had come downstairs during the half hour she'd spent doing the dishes and trying to pacify her snarling stomach.
Not wanting to disturb any of the other house's inhabitants, she stepped out the paper back door, moving lightly as to avoid making the floorboards in the house creak. With no real purpose, Tohru walked into the back yard, having forsaken the milk for the sausage. It wasn't until she was halfway into the backyard and almost through with the meat that the girl realized it hadn't even been cooked.
Still tasted great.
Lapping half-heartedly at the milk, Tohru gazed around the backyard. Perhaps it was the three-quarter moon that shown over her head, but her visibility seemed to be much better in the night than it had used to be. One portion of her mind was terrified at what she had just eaten, and wanted to do nothing but bolt back into the house as fast as she could run and hide under the covers of her bad. But another, more powerful part of her mind wanted to stay, and see the world as creatures of the moonlight knew it. The rumbling in her stomach had quieted slightly at receiving the sausage, but it was still there. Still lurking.
Not sure of what she was doing anymore, the girl lifted her head and gazed at the moon. For some odd reason, the thought that struck her mind about it was that it was full of holes.
As the silver orb reflected in her sapphire eyes, Tohru caught a flash of movement to her left. She glanced over to see something moving around the edges of Yuki's vegetable garden. It was a small, brown rabbit. The creature's ears twitched nervously as it noted her presence, but evidently it decided that the human girl was nothing to be afraid of.
It should have rethought that decision.
Tohru began moving slowly sideways, not looking at her prey, but knowing exactly where it was and what direction it was squaring its haunches to spring in. Her hunger was now back with a vengeance. As she moved, her stomach almost chewed on itself, such was the agony of her bizarre appetite. Feed me now or I will eat you from the inside out, it seemed to threaten.
When she was about 5 feet from the uneasy rabbit, Tohru suddenly regained a small amount of control. She shook her head violently. What am I doing! It's a rabbit! I can't eat a living thing! It's a bunny, like Momiji.
Unable to stop herself, the girl took another staggering step toward the rabbit. The stupid thing still didn't flee, for it was now occupying itself by nibbling on a small patch of dandelions that lay just outside of Yuki's garden. Incredibly, she made a mental note to herself to tell him about them in the morning, he wouldn't want the weeds to spread to his garden. I can't eat bunnies. I love bunnies.
She was 3 feet away from the creature now. I love bunnies.
2 feet. I love bunnies. I love them.
I'm so hungry.
Tohru slammed her hands down over the rabbit's back. The poor animal let out a squeal of terror and kicked desperately with its hind legs, but it hadn't reacted in time. Her hand gripped the furry scruff of the creature's, and twisted with inhuman strength. The rabbit took a gurgling breath just before its neck snapped, a breath that was never let out. Now the animal's head was on backwards, facing its tail. In Tohru's hands, the body jerked once, then lay still. Deathly still.
Tohru wept as she raised the animal's body to her face and sank her teeth into the soft white stomach. Tears mixed with the rabbit's blood, and both smeared on her face. But the warmth of the flowing blood was the only thing that soothed the rampant hunger that threatened to consume Tohru's insides. Teeth tore through tendons and muscle, still-warm meat slid down her throat like a healing elixir. Soon, all that remained was fur and bones that had been licked clean of all blood.
There had been much blood.
Before Tohru could register the anguish in her mind that had replaced the now-complacent hunger, she was running through the forests. This was much like the memories her red panda had shown to her, but at the same time completely different. Those memories had been gliding, painless. This reality had her stumbling over roots, throwing herself forward in a desperate attempt to escape from the hunger that had given her the uncontrollable longing for teeth sinking into warm flesh, for dripping blood and sweet flesh sliding down her throat.
Would she ever be rid of these horrible instincts that had plagued her ever since her first transformation? Would she ever be normal again?
Had she ever been normal to begin with?
The rabbit carcass fell from Tohru's hands as her fingers welded together into furry paws. A tail erupted from the base of her shrinking spine, and her face exploded out into her vision as it reshaped itself into a short white muzzle. Her ears slid up the sides of her skull to rest on the top of her head, and she fell forward. As she landed, strong hind legs had now replaced her spindly human ones. The girl-turned-animal raced away from the corpse and bolted up a nearby tree, seeking refuge in the forest of branches. The red panda's sleepy mind was now excited and fully awake, brought to life by the adrenaline from her human form and by the cool winds of the nighttime air.
When she reached the top branch, the maze of wood was replaced by the calm night sky, which seemed to be unaffected by her horrible deed. She lifted her muzzle to the stars, offering up her soul to the golden three-quarter moon, and howled her anguish to the unforgiving heavens. Her voice echoed around her like a curse.
Author's Note: Heh…sorry this chapter took longer than the others. Actually, I'm not really sorry, but I feel I should be saying sorry, so I am. Why am I laughing? This is why I love being the author. In my story, I get to play God. I know what's gonna happen, and no one else does. Oh how I love to torture my readers…sorry, y'all, but I do. This chapter was pretty much just as vague as every other chapter has been, if not even vaguer. Anyone understanding anything yet? Good. If you do, explain it to me. I'd like to know what I mean, too. But admit it, you loved the scene at the end. Well, I know I did, anyway. Nothing like gore and anguish to spice a story up! I can't tell you when the next chapter will be up, or how many there will be. I originally though there would be 6 chapters total, but the fic didn't agree, so I think there will be more. Please review! Oh, and on another note: Volume 7 kinda sucked, in my opinion. But I can't wait until Volume 8 comes out in America! I'm counting down the weeks. I've like to thank Utada Hikaru for singing the song "Simple and Clean", and Sandy Fox for singing the English version of "Freckles", because both of these songs were listened to over and over and over again while writing this chapter.
Now, for my faithful minions-I mean reviewers, to reward your hard work:
Dark Inu Fan: She's not a kangaroo either! Are you seriously saying you never heard of a red panda? I knew what they were when I was 8 years old. Of course, I watched the Discovery Channel too much as a kid. And to the Young Wizards thing…um…yes, I know what it is…fine, I'll confess. For writing up until the last section of this chapter (I cleaned my computer table off after the part with Kyo), I had a copy of Deep Wizardry sitting next to my computer. That's where the idea of the Five's titles came from, as well as the Lone One. But I don't feel I stole enough to be found and arrested so…yeah, no real guilt over here.
Amanda: Yes. Yes it does. I appreciate your support, you have good taste.
Altheas of Elessar: Your name is really hard to spell. Yes, I thought it suited her as well. I don't know if I'd call it good, but I'll keep up the work. Probably. I'm not swearing on anything, though. I have a very flighty mind.
Yabun: Yay! Long review! I love the rambling reviews, they're like the ones I write. Yes, I am evil. So evil I am! Fear me! Muahahaha! A variety of animals, huh? I didn't think of that, but to be honest, I like my way better. The voices are coming from someplace, don't worry. And if you have any brains at all, you'll have figured out where they're coming from by now. Yeah, #114 on my list of Things to Do during This Life is, "Torture editor if you ever get a book published". #1 is "Meet an Eskimo." Because it's cool.
Karina: Hey no complaining about updating time, that's MY job! The panda-mind thing isn't confusing if you've read Animorphs, which I adored back in 5th grade and I still think are awesome. Much appreciation for the support!
Random Fruits Basket Quote Of The Day: "The most important thing to me…has always been me." –Shigure, Volume 4 of the manga.