Hiya. I'm not sure where to end my story right now so it might be a bit of a muddle, well anyways; I hope you like what I've written in this chapter, it's reflected upon the mabudachi trio's lives. Reviews; please and thank you! :D
Chapter 11 Life or Death
In Ayame Sohma's world, it had always been about him, but there was a time for change. His old self never gave his younger brother Yuki the chance to be part of his life resulting in Yuki treating Ayame with ignorance and disrespect. Yuki in his opinion was better off shutting Ayame out of his life rather than letting him in. And now that Ayame had become a little more mature about having a proper relationship with Yuki, things were going to be different, but they wouldn't if Yuki died. At this moment, Yuki was covered in bandages and blood, there was no answer to why he was bleeding so badly since the scars and wounds appeared out of nowhere. The world of Ayame's was falling apart; he would now lose the chance to get to know his brother more because of the sickness. He knew that soon enough he would be in the same position as Yuki.
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Hatori Sohma had lost everything, his freedom, Kana and now himself. To be honest, he never truly liked Akito that much; he didn't want to admit that, he just respected him a lot as he was the head of the Sohma family. Akito did many bad things he like hurt Hatori's left eye, forbid Kana to marry Hatori and etc with the others. But Hatori learned that he could not hold a grudge against Akito nor find revenge, Hatori wanted to be a good person, not one of those people who use their anger to hurt others. Kana had already left permanent scars on him, he could no longer love another, he was still heart-broken whenever he thought of her and he could not cure the pain inside of him. Right now the only light that shone on him was seeing the younger zodiac happy; it reminded him of the past, the time when he was young.
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His best friends Ayame and Hatori had changed during the time that had passed after they had left high school whereas Shigure still felt the same, maybe he was the one who was changing, he didn't know. The dog of the zodiac Shigure Sohma had always joked around, acted like a kid, tried to torture his editor and lots more but as the years passed, as Kyo and Yuki had come to live with him and Tohru, they felt like a real family, ignore the Sohma family issue and zodiac stuff but it was a nice family thing and now that Kyo and Yuki were going to leave so soon, an empty hole appeared inside Shigure as if part of him was missing. It was obvious that Tohru would still be around but it wouldn't be the same without everyone, even if Tohru was in their place and they were in hers, things would never ever be the same. Shigure hated that, it made him sad and he was never sad, hardly.
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If there was one thing Tohru was afraid of, it would be losing somebody close to her. She remembered the days when Kyo, Yuki and Shigure had kindly taken her in after the loss of her mother, the day she met Momiji and the other members of the zodiac, the day she went to the hot springs with her friends, the day when Kyo, Yuki, Hana and Uo had come with her to Kyoko's grave. All of these memories suppressed inside of her, they would remind her of how lucky she was to have these people around that care about her. It had been a dream come true the day she had met all these people and now the dream was going to fade, slowly but efficiently.
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Back at the hospital ward.
Kyo opened his eyes and felt his energy slowly coming back as he sat up.
"Oww that hurt, stupid bar." He exclaimed as he banged his head onto the metal bar above his bed. He turned and looked around him, why is everyone in the hospital ward? He asked himself in his head. 'Why the hell am I at the Sohma main house, why is everyone around me sick, why was I sick, what is going on, where's that pervert Shigure, where's Tohru?' The final question left him confused; he got changed and exited the ward.
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Hatori's sanity came back when he heard a high pitched shriek. He raised his head and saw Tohru and Kureno were by Akito's side tugging on his arm. He opened his mouth and whispered a small swear word. His vision was blurry and unclear, he wasn't sure if it was what he'd thought, he heard the sound of scurrying maids and servants all arriving circling around Akito.
"I- I can't feel his heartbeat…Akito's g-g-gone." Kureno stammered.
Even if Tohru were to choose to not believe the truth, it all made sense as soon as Kyo stepped into the room with wide eyes of anxiety. The sound of turning heads made Kyo nervous.
"Why are you are staring at me? What's going on? What the hell is wrong with Akito?" He asked sounding angry for some reason. They ignored his question as they turned their attention back on to Akito.
"Hatori! Do Something!" One of the servants called out.
"I'm sorry, I can't. Like Kureno said, he's gone."
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It took a while for them to think it through, the head of the Sohma family Akito Sohma was no longer alive, he had moved on to a more peaceful state. The jyunishi one by one each started to recover. All members of the zodiac including Kyo attended the grand funeral, Tohru, Kazuma, the servants etc. The grave of Ryoichi was back in it's rightful place, magically, a sign which meant it was over, when everyone had thought the zodiac were going to die, it was the complete opposite. The flowers started to bloom, the weather cleared up; suddenly a huge weight was lifted off each and every one of the jyunishi and Tohru.
The funeral was held at night, candles were lit around the room and dark colored flowers surrounded the place with a refreshing sweet scent. Everyone wore black as the grieved in the absence of Akito. Shigure had arrived at the main house a day before the funeral ceremony, he was too late but glad that he had missed the moment as it would've been too depressing.
During the voice of the speakers, Tohru sat and wept silently, not only because of the death, she couldn't help but feel responsible for what had happened. Her evil form was in control, she had taken the rat poison and she had placed it in Akito's tea. Akito had died of poisoning and it was all Tohru's fault, in her point of view anyway. She sat between Kyo and Yuki, she was so glad that they had recovered, she was half full of warmth and joy knowing that they would be by her side always whereas the other half was held down by guilt. The only people that knew of Tohru's incident were Kureno, Hatori, Shigure and Ayame. She had recently told Kyo, Yuki and Momiji as well, knowing that she needed someone to talk to her; they listened and tried to cheer her up.
"Tohru, it's not your fault, don't blame yourself for this situation, it wasn't the real you. Please don't be so hard on yourself." Momiji pleaded her with an innocent expression.
"Momiji, I'm trying not to be a pessimist but if I'm not the one to blame then who will be?" Tohru asked staring at the ground.
"That damn ghost." Kyo murmured.
Yuki came back with a glass of water and handed it to Tohru. "Here you go Miss Honda, drink some water, even if this atmosphere is too tragic , you need to take good care of yourself., if something were to happen to you, then we would be very worried
"Thank you Yuki, but you don't need to take care of me, I'd be asking for too much, I've committed a crime, I deserve to be punished."
"No you don't, Geez, Tohru if your mother was here, she'd be bloody troubled. Look at you, your not even sleeping well, you look ill." Kyo commented.
"Kyo's right, Tohru you need to let go of the past, I don't mean forget your mother but remember that what you did, was right. You saved the zodiac, ignore the fact that the evil you poisoned him but you were being manipulated." Shigure butted in.
"Momiji, Yuki, please come to my office, I need to run more tests." Hatori entered and dragged them off.
"Oh well, I guess I better be going to, I need to help with Akito's grave." Shigure walked off which left Kyo and Tohru sitting in the corner by themselves.
"Listen, I'm gonna get something for you to eat and you have to eat it or else….or else…oh forget it, just eat it when I come back." Kyo went to the buffet and selected a few of Tohru's favorite rice balls and fruits. He came back with a tray full of food and placed it on the table by Tohru.
"Here, eat." He told her casually.
"Kyo, thank you." She picked up her fork and started to eat. She was hungry; she hadn't eaten for two days.
"Whatever, I'm just glad that you're eating."
"Umm…Kyo, when you were in hospital, you were the first one to catch the sickness and Hatori had informed me that you might've been the first to die if Akito hadn't given up his life. I was so scared, I was worried for all of you that it motivated me to do something about it, I couldn't sit there and watch you die, I needed to help so it drove me to….to." Tohru paused,
Kyo was touched, nobody had ever done something so noble for him before, not even his own mother or father. Apart from Kazuma taking him in and raising him as his own, this was something special.
"Uhh…Oh…That's…..Thanks." Kyo stammered.
Suddenly a weird feeling reached the both of them. They turned their heads and saw Haru standing behind them; it looked as if he was listening to their private conversation.
Kyo jumped up. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I'm attending the funeral and I popped in to say hello to Tohru and to check if she was alright, I mean not to be rude or anything but Tohru looked so gloomy, I was afraid Kyo might've done something to hurt her feelings." Haru replied with his usual blank expression of confusion.
"Oh, what? No way!"
"Judging by your anger, I wouldn't be surprised it you were." Haru answered coolly.
"Oh no, Hatsuharu, I'm fine. Kyo was just giving me something to eat and umm…cheering me up a little but it was very sweet of you to check up on me." Tohru smiled.
"No worries." Haru disappeared within seconds.
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Hatori drove Shigure and the others home a few hours after the funeral as they fare-welled the others. It was good to be home finally after two weeks of non-stop drama, all they wanted was a well deserved holiday.
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Well that's the end of Midnight Phantom….for now. Please review this chapter! I hope you've enjoyed reading this story, well the first part of it….hehe. I'm writing a sequel to this story very soon so be sure to check in the fruits basket category every once in a while or just check on my profile page if I have published a new story/sequel to this or not.
Thanks a lot for reading Midnight Phantom (part one).
Fruitylicious-Angel