Tohru's Demons
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Protectors and the Protected
"Hatori," Akito murmured once Kyo had gone.
"Hmm?"
"The bet's off, Hatori," the boy said, his eyes burning.
"…Pardon?"
"I'll lock that monster up forever," Akito went on, as if he hadn't heard the doctor. "Until the day he dies, I'll never let him free."
Hatori, for a moment, bowed his head, his eyes closed. He nodded, not trusting his voice.
"And when that thing does go… Tell Yuki to feed his corpse to the rats, would you? I think he'll like that. Don't you think so, Hatori?"
Hatori gave the smallest of nods, feeling a little sick.
"Akito-sama, you should rest. You don't look well," he said quietly, not making eye contact as he dug into his medical kit. "Here, I can bandage your wrist, and then I want you to lie down and sleep, alright?"
"Alright…" Akito agreed, and Hatori let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.
An hour later, Hatori walked back into the infirmary with a sigh. Glancing around, he noted that everything had not fallen apart the moment he left. Shigure was sitting on Tohru's bed, his hand wrapped in gauze and bandages, still staring into nothing, as if he had simply shut himself off from the rest of the world.
Tohru was awake and talking quietly to him, about nothing and anything she could think of while Valery sat behind the Dog and rubbed his shoulders. If anything could have made Shigure deliriously happy, Hatori thought, it the was attention he was getting now from two very attract—er, young girls, but it didn't look like Shigure was going to even respond any time soon. Sitting on the writer's other side was Ayame, sometimes throwing in his falsely cheerful two-bits in a vain attempt to get his friend to talk to him, his own arm and shoulder wrapped snugly in bandages. Kisa had her arms glued around Tohru's waist, her cheek, the one without the band-aid, resting against the girl's shoulder. The poor little Tiger had finally stopped shaking, at least, Hiro noted as he stood comfortingly nearby.
Hatsuharu lay on his back in the bed across from Tohru, his feet and legs propped up on pillows and his arms crossed behind his head. His entire chest was covered in bandages, courtesy of Valery in Hatori's sudden absence. He'd only had time to pull out the shards before a frantic Kureno had hurled into the room, shouting about a fight…
The other Sohmas, sans Kyo, ranged listlessly around in room in varying degrees of dejected silence. The only other people in the room were Millie and Rahallion, curled up asleep on Tohru's pillow, the little girl in her bunny form, her ears twitching back and forth every now and again. Inu-Yasha and his group were no where to be found, as was Artemis and the other two demons that resided in the castle.
"Ha'ri?"
Hatori shook himself and focused his gaze on Ayame.
"Yes?"
"Are you okay? You were a bit spaced out for a few seconds there."
"Yes, I'm fine, Ayame. Just thinking. How's Shigure?"
"He still won't talk to us, not even to dear Tohru-kun. Ha'ri, what's wrong with him?"
"Don't worry, he'll be alright, he's just a little shocked is all. He never did handle pain very well," Hatori assured, giving Shigure an unreadable glance, his eyes carefully avoiding the Dog's hand, and went over to Haru.
"How are you doing?"
"Alright," Haru muttered, his eyes shifting away, and his voice more monotone than usual. Hatori gave an understanding nod and went back to Ayame to check his shoulder, then he sat down in a vacant chair, pulling it slightly closer to Shigure, and resisted the urge to put his head in his hands. He could do that when he was alone.
"Hatori-san?" Tohru said quietly.
"Yes?"
"I realize… that this is really none of my business… But I need to know… what happened."
Hatori, his mouth set in a thin, straight line, glanced at Tohru and wondered, again, what he was going to say. He'd known there was no way she wouldn't ask, but he couldn't just tell her Akito had put holes in several of her friends, either. Their Master had made it quite clear before, on several occasions, that he did not like Tohru to know any more than was necessary about their family.
But… to Hatori, she was family.
"Hatori-san?"
The others had drifted closer and held their breaths as Hatori inhaled and exhaled slowly, and finally turned to face the girl. But he remained silent, unable to think of anything to say.
"It… it was nothing, Tohru-kun," Ayame put in unhelpfully, trying, and failing fantastically, to look convincing. "We… we fell, is all. You don't need to worr—"
"You fell," Val repeated, lifting a delicate eyebrow and looking, to Ayame's dismay, wholly unbelieving of the pathetic lie. "You, Shigure, and Haru have holes in you, and you expect us to believe you fell? Perhaps you'd also like to tell us it was into a pit full spikes that just happened to be in the middle of the hallway, is that right?"
Ayame opened his mouth, closed it, sighed, and shook him head with a rueful smile.
"Can't get anything past you, can I?"
"Damn straight," Val replied smugly.
"Look," Tohru said in a tone uncharacteristically serious. "I understand why you all wouldn't be comfortable telling me what happened… but, the truth is, I have to know. This is my home, and your safe-house, and I will not allow anything—or anyone—to hurt you while you're here, alright?"
The Sohmas were quiet as they absorbed that, gazing at Tohru as if they had never seen her before, or rather, as if they had just seen her in an entirely different way, though not at all unpleasant.
And suddenly, it felt as if a terrible weight had been lifted. For so long, each of them had worked, in their own way, to protect those they loved. Sometimes that protection had come at the cost of their life-long happiness, and sometimes, many times, it had failed completely.
But it was an entirely new experience to be protected by someone else, and what's more, to be altogether guaranteed of that protection. It was a wonderfully liberating feeling.
"It was Akito," Hatori said at length. "He got a little angry today…" It was there he trailed off, seeing the look of horrified incredulity pass over the two girl's faces.
"A little!" Val choked out after a few moments of struggle. "You call that a little?"
"Why?" Tohru asked quietly, looking around at them all with wide, sorrowful eyes. "Why would he do that?"
"He… he wanted Grandpa Hatori to…" Kisa began, but she couldn't finish. Instead, she buried her face in Tohru's shirt and started to cry.
"Kisa…" Tohru murmured quietly, trying to twist around to get a better look at the Tiger. "Kisa, it's okay. What did he want Hatori-san to do…?"
"He asked me to erase your memories," Hatori supplied coolly, completely unfazed. "After our return to our own world..."
Everyone was deathly quiet, unable to look at Tohru or each other, and for a moment the only sound was Kisa's growing sobs, all thinking of what that meant.
It meant that without Malacoda, Lucifer, and Artemis to threaten him into submission, Akito would be in control once more. Or, at least, he would have the little control he possessed when it came to Tohru, though the inferiority complex he'd developed where she was concerned would be easily remedied with a few choice words.
"Oh, is that all?" Tohru asked calmly, and the Sohma's heads jerked up.
"What do you mean, 'is that all'?" Hiro demanded after a few seconds of shocked silence. "Akito wants your memories erased, and you're acting like—"
"Hiro-kun," Tohru interrupted gently, "My memories can't be erased."
Another few seconds of silence passed, even more shocked than the last.
"What?" Momiji managed to gasp, not daring to believe it.
"I'm sorry I haven't told you all yet," Tohru said quickly, looking apologetic. "I meant to, but so much has happened, and I really didn't think Akito would do something like this… I did tell Hatori, Ayame, Shigure, Yuki, and Kyo, though. You didn't forget…. did you?" she asked, turning her attention to Ayame. The snake was almost too surprised for words, and for an instant he simply gaped at the girl like a very astonished fish, but he recovered in record time.
"No, not at all!" he said gaily, a huge smile stretched across his face, partly for effect, partly for relief. "How could I ever forget such an important detail as that?"
"Oh? You looked pretty devastated to me," Haru deadpanned, ignoring the fact that it felt as if whoever had been squeezing his heart had suddenly let go.
"On the contrary!" Ayame said. "I was merely playing the part of the emotionally overcome in the face of losing a precious someone in order to lead Akito awry from my true feelings, nothing more!"
"That's a damn lie…" Haru muttered, but Ayame pretended not to hear.
"You're… you're sure your memories can't be erased?" Momiji asked breathlessly.
"Positive," Tohru replied, grinning as the look of sheer joy on the Rabbit's face.
"Only fools are positive," Val snorted, and Tohru gave her a look, but chose to ignore her.
"Really?" Kisa asked, her voice quavering ever so slightly.
"Really, really," Tohru smiled.
"TOHRU THAT'S GREAT!" Momiji cried ecstatically and without further ado, threw his arms around her neck. Tohru laughed and snuggled the little bunny as he pressed his head against her cheek. Kisa was laughing and weeping at the same time, squeezing Tohru as tight as she could as if she would never ever let go. Hatori smiled softly at the looks of relief and joy that swiftly overtook the other Juunishi, and soon Tohru's bed was groaning under their weight as they came forward, talking and smiling and crying at once.
"Hey, what's with all this noise?" asked a quiet voice and Tohru looked up and positively beamed when she saw Yuki's violet eyes gazing back at her from his bed.
"Yuki-kun! You're awake!"
Yuki had barely opened his mouth to reply when his own bed was swamped with yelling and overjoyed people, the first of which was Ayame, who was now nearly hugging the life out of him, sobbing and laughing and telling him how so very worried he'd been… Haru was calling out something similar from his bed, trying to sit up and giving Yuki the biggest grin the Rat had ever seen upon the normally serious Ox's face… Kagura was talking a mile a minute, and smiling and patting him on the back… Kisa was torn between his bed and Tohru's, practically running back and forth between the two to hug them both in turn…
"Whoa, whoa!" he cried, a bit overwhelmed by their enthusiastic reactions. "Now wait a minute… What—"
"Come on, back off, give the guy some air!"
"Oh, dear little brother, you're awake, you don't know how upset I was—!"
"Ayame, you're going to strangle him…"
"—You're sitting on his feet—"
"Hey! Hey! Yuki, you were asleep for soooooo long, you don't know how much every one was so worried about you!"
"Oh, Yun-chan, what that Angel thing did to you was just awful, I'm so glad you're okay!"
"I suggest you all get off before you end up crushing him," Hatori said, his calm, quiet tones somehow rising above all the shouting and chaos going on. Sheepishly, they all quickly climbed off Yuki's bed, leaving the Rat looking around in bewildered alarm.
"Yes, yes, we're sorry," Ayame said, although he didn't sound a bit apologetic, his hands still clasping Yuki's tightly. Yuki hadn't quite notice this yet, which was testament to how very dazed he was. "Yes, you're right Hatori, but we were all just so overjoyed to see that you're awake that we didn't realize we might further damage your already delicate body—"
"I'm not delicate!" Yuki said crossly, trying to wriggle his fingers out of Ayame's grasp. The Snake didn't seem to notice, and his smile grew as he swept the Rat up into another happy and relieved embrace. Yuki's cheeks flamed red and he sputtered in angry incoherence. But, for once, Yuki felt it would be wrong to shove the man away; Ayame was actually shaking, and the Rat could see tears in his eyes, and realized the Snake probably needed this, more than he would ever know. So, with an inward sigh, Yuki put up with Ayame's antics for a little while longer.
After the initial tumult had died down, however, Yuki was beginning to notice that something was missing…
"Does anyone know where Kyo-kun is?" Tohru asked suddenly, confirming Yuki's realization that the Cat was no where to be seen. His cousins cheerful smiles fell almost at once and they glanced uneasily at one another, before their eyes finally fell upon Hatori.
"Kyo… is in his room," Hatori said after a moment, and no one missed the slight falter in his voice or the brief frown that dashed across his face.
"What happened?" Kagura asked worriedly.
"I'm not quite sure," Hatori replied slowly, his frown deepening for a moment. "From what I can tell, they had a fight, and Kyo… he ended up breaking Akito's wrist."
Once again, absolute silence fell upon the people around him, and it built up like the calm before a storm before finally crashing down in a thunderous avalanche of noise—
"WHAT!"
And then they were all talking at once, and Hatori waved his hands for quiet, but no one seemed to be listening.
"That idiot," Yuki was saying furiously. "That stupid, stupid idiot, what the hell did he think he was doing?"
"I think it's brilliant," Haru said, grinning viciously. "It's about time someone gave him back some of his own, I say."
"I'm sure it was by accident," Hatori said.
"Oh, but, what's going to happen to Kyo-chan? Akito'll kill him for this!" Kagura moaned, and the rest if them went quiet.
"That or…" Haru began, but he trailed off, his eyes flicking to Tohru for half an instant, and they all knew what he had been about to say, and glanced uneasily at the girl as well. She looked at them all in mild confusion.
"Or what?" she asked Haru finally. He blinked and shook his head with a small, fake smile, knowing it would kill the girl if she were to find out about Kyo's inevitable fate. A fate that even she couldn't change.
"That or Kyo'll just run away and go into hiding for the rest of his life," he said jokingly. Well, it was partly true.
"Or, I hope not…" Tohru said, slightly worried.
"I'm sure he'll give you his address, dear," Val consoled, rising and stretching the kinks out of her back.
"I wouldn't worry too much, Honda-san," Yuki added "He's probably just sulking. He'll… he'll come out eventually, when he's ready…"
Tohru nodded and smiled gratefully and, to their relief, didn't say another word on the subject, and eventually the conversation moved to safer territory. That is, until Valery's reflection in the full-length mirror stranding against the wall caught her eye and she noticed, with a grimace of despair, that her normally drop-dead gorgeous physique was definitely not up to par.
"Tohru…" Val said, squinting her eyes in order to make absolutely sure, and turning slightly to get a look at her profile.
"Yes?"
"I think I gained weight," Val said decisively after a moment, her hands on her hips, her pouting mouth pursed with displeasure, ignoring the number or raised eyebrows in the room.
"Tohru, did I gain weight? I think I did."
"No, you didn't," Tohru said, looking as if she had been through this conversation before. "You are exactly as you should be and I think you're beautiful and—"
"Ren, you go through this damned discussion almost every month," a new, though faintly familiar, voice cut in. "If she's dead bent on believing that every time she looks in a mirror that her waist line has grown another inch, then why waste your time trying to convince her otherwise, when she obviously doesn't even want to listen in the first place?"
Kisa looked down in surprise, since the speaker seemed to be coming from somewhere near her thighs, and met the very annoyed and sleepy red eyes of Rahallion.
"Oh dear, I'm not that fat, am I?" Val gasped, pinching herself to make sure.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're a fat bastard, get over it," Raha growled impatiently, disregarding the overall surprise of the Sohmas at his sudden vocalizations. "Now will you please shut up so I can—"
"Really? You think I gained weight?" Val asked.
"Yes! Now stop obsessing over your fat ass, and listen—!"
"Daaaamn, it is fat," Val said, swinging her rear from side to side, completely oblivious to the stares she was getting now from about a dozen people. "Ewwww! I have one of those jiggly butts!"
"Shut the hell up!" Raha snapped. "Since when are you so insecure about how you look? Look at your personality, it's depraved, demented, and ultimately driven by carnal desire. Your rear is the least of your problems."
"…Yeah, I guess everyone has their moments of insecurity. Whatever, I guess it doesn't matter."
"Damn right it doesn't!" Raha agreed. "If you're a fat bastard, be proud that you are a fat bastard. There's no sense in trying to be something that you aren't. Now will you please stop talking so I can sleep?"
"You know, you're right!" Val said fervently. "Screw society and it's obsession with idealistic beauty! Look at my jiggly butt!" she cried, shaking it vigorously. "Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle! Look at it! Look at my jiggly butt! It's BEAUTIFUL!"
"Stop that, you're embarrassing yourself," Raha told her disdainfully, laying his head down and flattening his ears in distaste.
"Since when do I care?" Val snorted, still shaking her butt, while most of the people present blushed furiously and either stared blatantly with their jaws on the floor and their eyes nearly falling out of their heads in flabbergasted mesmerization. "Look, it's like gelatin! Ooooh, it's jiggly. I like the jiggly. Jiggly, jiggly, jiggly!"
"Yes, you have the fattest of assess, now please SHUT UP!"
"It's a jelly butt!"
"Jeez, for the love of God, what kind of higher being gets pleasure out of this garbage?" Raha demanded of no one in particular.
"Look at my jelly butt!"
"I want names!"
"I'm proud of my jelly butt!"
"Give me names!"
Still gyrating her bum, Valery let loose a loud belch, and continued to watch her rear end in never-ending fascination.
"And you! You're the biggest disappointment since the crucifixion!"
"Tohru, does she do this often?" Haru asked interestedly, feeling, for some insane reason, much better after what had happened with Akito earlier.
"Most of the time, yeah," Tohru relied ruefully.
"Has he always been able to talk?" Hiro wanted to know, his hand over Kisa's eyes, and hers over his.
"Not like this no, just recently," Tohru explained. "Since I regained the majority of my power back, in fact, and since I'm more powerful, so is Raha, so he doesn't need to fully transform into a human in order to talk, he can just change his voice-box now."
"Ah."
"Oh, my, now what's happening?" Shigure asked, shaken out of his self-induced trance by the incredibly intriguing display taking place before him.
Perhaps this day wouldn't be so terrible after all…
"Hey, look at that, my jiggly butt can bring people out of self-induced comas!" Val cried jovially, noticing Shigure had finally rejoined the land of the living. "See, Tohru, I told you all that time eating ice cream and watching TV helped people!"
To be continued…
Disclaimer: Fruits Basket is not mine, and therefore I receive no royalties whatsoever in the making of this story. Unless you count reviews as royalties, then I would fight off any lawyer foolish enough to stand my way and spout legal gibberish at me. I simply will not tolerate anyone that tries to come between me and my precious, precious reviews. Particularly you reviewers, so unless you would all like to feel my Writer's Wrath of Writing, I suggest you click that little button immediately and tell me how great I am. Well… I suppose you have the constitutional right to tell me I suck (not that anyone has, mind you) just be aware that your flames will be doused with a big Pail of Disdain. You have been warned!
Also, the Jiggly Butt is not of my own creation. It is in homage to Foamy the Squirrel, featured in a particular internet cartoon that captured Val's glowing personality perfectly. If you would like to see this cartoon, visitNewgrounds dot comand SEARCH for illwillpress under Authors. The Jiggly Butt is near the bottom of the very extensive and wonderful list of toons starring the all-powerful Foamy. He has a mouth on him though and particularly likes the F word, so for you younger people, tread with caution.
Guten tag! Hope you liked this latest installment of Tohru's Demons (and the fact that I updated so soon)! There will be more angsting in the next chapter and then some action and swash-buckling adventure, if all goes according to plan, so it should be fun. Also, if you have any questions at all feel free to email me or simply review, it's all the same.
Now, I realize that with this new rule in place that I can't answer you here. But leave me your email address and a CLEAR wish that you want me to reply, since I will obviously not be able to answer them all, and I will gladly oblige. What with college and stuff happening, I may not get to you immediately, but hopefully this will encourage me to be more attentive. Actually, this way is probably better, since I'll get to reply sooner than I could (without having to write out a new chapter to go with it), and thus will be able to remember everything I want to say. And if you don't have an email address, but you do have stories posted, then I might get to talk to you in the form of reviews. And if you have neither, well… sucks for you, then.
Also, some people have asked if the previous chapter involved scenes from the 11th volume of the manga, and the answer is yes, for the reason that it fit quite nicely and allowed me to establish a few more plot twists that were present in the actual works of Fruits Basket by Takaya-sensei. Plus, it was just an AWESOME scene and I wanted to use it.
Also, as it seems my editor feels she's not getting enough credit for Valery's level 17 glare line, I have decided to devote the next few lines to her.
CREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDITCREDIT
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There. There's you're damned credit. Stop being sad.
Over and out,
Your Lord and Master,
Raha
