-The Secret Sohmas-
The discovery of the reverse side of the puzzle.warning: notes for the names are at the end of the chapter.
update: The climax continues.
The Sohma girls have found the Clubhouse empty and have run to the final gate to be stopped by the beautiful Kurenai.
Reviews: I'm putting all my extra commentary at the end of the chapter so you can just read the chapter like you came here for and you may read about yourselves when you're all done.
ENJOY!
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Chapter 11-
And time stood still for the moment that would be the most desperate moment they would experience in the small tastes of life that were worthy enough to be called 'living'. It wasn't fair.
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"Akito said you'd come." Her voice felt like ice, a very different kind of chill than the one felt from Akito's, but still a very mighty chill. She was Akito's right hand girl. Akito would hear of their coming now. All their precautions were for naught.
"Let us through!" Kyoko shouted, her voice saturated with an intense and desperate rage. Kurenai made no response, but twisted the long key laced through her fingers.
Kyoko hissed and growled and was about to throw herself at the maiden when Yukiko stopped her. "No, Kyoko-chan. You mustn't."
Hara's gaze was still locked on Kurenai. She had been considering the same course of action.
Kyoko hissed and spat again. "Give us the key, Kurenai!"
Kurenai didn't move. Her long skirt swayed back and forth in the wind. Her expression never changed and her eyes were as cold as her voice. "No."
Kyoko's was about to fight off Yukiko and tear Kurenai limb from limb when a gentle cry broke through the air around them.
"Wait!" It cried. Kyoko turned. Yukiko turned. Hara turned. Kurenai looked up.
Young Tohru Honda was running through the dusty streets, clutching in hands the hat that had flown off of Kyoko's head when she leapt off the porch. The dust behind her hid everyone else who might be running after her from view.
"Wait," she gasped in between breaths. She was breathing rather heavily when she finally caught up with them. Yukiko released Kyoko and ran to meet Tohru. "Are you alright, Honda-san?"
Tohru looked up as she began to catch her breath, small beads of sweat running down her face. She met the eyes of Kurenai whose expression had frozen over into shock.
Someone running until they were covered in sweat.
"Kurenai-san?" Tohru wheezed, standing up straight and shifting forward, her breath still heavy. Tohru and Ru really did look very much alike. Kurenai saw this and it began to tear her to pieces.
"I'm sorry, Kurenai-san, but please." Tohru bowed heavily, her hair falling free from their pigtails and into her face. "Please let us in. Our friends are in there. We need to get them. I promise we'll leave right after that."
Something inside the maiden of the gate broke. She could hear it. The sound of breaking, that's what it was; the sound of opening.
There was a loud clank and a groan and grinding of weathered iron. Tohru looked up from her bow to see that Kurenai had opened the gate and now stood behind it and held it open so that her image could only be seen through the rusting bars.
Time slowed slightly as Kyoko, Yukiko and Hatsuhara walked slowly through the gate, as if passing through some unknown portal into a strange new world. To them, it may have been exactly what they were doing; a strange and terrible world. The others could bee seen down the barren road, but they dared not venture forward. Tohru slowly took one step and then another to the gate and passed through it, pausing only to thank Kurenai. The pale maiden looked back at Tohru through the bars of the gate. "Be quick. A person like you shouldn't be in a place like this."
Tohru nodded and they met eyes for a moment. Such a sad smile...
Tohru wanted to reach out a hand and touch Kurenai's that was wrapped so frailly around the iron bars that she seemed like a spirit, but Kyoko returned and took her by the hand and Tohru hurried inside with them. She could not properly turn back to see what happened to Kurenai, but she heard the gate cry out as it closed and gentle footsteps softly faded away.
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They were inside. Tohru had never been so afraid to be inside in her life. It was dark. The little bits of light thrown by the lights cast long and frightening shadows. It was a very unpleasant place. This was to prove to be the worst haunted house she would travel through in her life.
"Where are we going?"
"I have no idea. I don't make a habit of making myself familiar here. There's usually a guide."
"So we're lost? I don't believe this."
"Well, if Akito already knew we were coming he would've sent someone to show us the way."
"Well, then, let's hope a guide doesn't show up."
"Do you think he knows we're here already?"
"Depends on if Kurenai went to go tell him or not."
The hallways were dark and warm. The windows were thin and relatively high. The walls were made of stone and covered with thick tapestries, as the floors were stone and covered with rugs, which prevented most steps from echoing loudly down the dim hall. It seemed Akito had traded in the feudal Japan look for the medieval Europe look.
Kyoko and Yukiko, both, had Tohru's hands and were leading her down the hall as she sealed her eyes shut, terrified of what would happen is she opened them. Kyoko had taken up her hat again and was now wearing it backwards on her head.
"A torch would be nice right now."
"Fat chance finding one in Akito's place. He won't even let people smoke in here."
"Well, smoking is bad for you."
"That's not what I meant, idiot! I mean he hates fire."
"Can't you just take off your bracelet and scare him out, Kyoko?"
"Shut-up."
"I didn't mean to offend. I just meant that-"
"Shut-up! I hear something."
There was a chilling silence, but then they all heard it too. There were footsteps coming towards them. They pushed and shoved a bit until they had pinned themselves to the wall of an adjoining hallway and they held their breath. Hara glanced around the corner to see a shadow pass through the cracks of light slipping through the windows, only pieces of the approacher showing at a time.
It was a boy, not too tall and very thin, but not sickly thin, though his skin was very pale in the bits of light that caught it. His hair was dark and straight and his eyes were dark. There was no joy in his face.
"Ren?"
The boy looked up from his empty gaze at the rug beneath his feet as Hara stepped out from her hiding place. "Ren, it's me. Hara."
Kyoko and Yukiko poked their heads around the corner. "What's Suzuri-san doing here?"
"I have no idea."
Tohru persuaded herself to open her eyes and glance around the corner as well. This boy called Ren and Suzuri was a very handsome boy. He looked relatively harmless compared to Akito, but Ren had locked himself off to the world with just as much effort.
Hara approached the boy with a soft swiftness. "Ren, what are you doing here?"
Ren looked at Hara with the tiniest hint of a smile, a sincere one. "I'm being punished. What are you doing here?"
Hara could barely return the hint of a smile. "I'm here to find Ru."
Ren's face cringed in the slightest and he growled internally, turning his head to the side, but said nothing against Ru, which Tohru as glad for.
Tohru stepped out from behind the corner before Kyoko and Yukiko realized what she was doing and could stop her. "We're here to find my friends."
Ren looked up, Tohru shaking roughly two yards from him. He looked her up and down, surprise slipping onto his face. "She looks just like him."
"Yes," Yukiko whispered. "And her friends look just like us."
Ren glanced at Yukiko and then looked to Hara. "Is there someone like me?"
"I didn't see one." Kyoko coughed, now also emerging from the ajoining hallway after Yukiko, "and I knew them the longest."
"There is one!" Tohru said quickly and louder than she meant to.
Ren approached Tohru, finally, and looked down at her. Tohru was shaking in her shoes, but Ren's tone was not threatening. "What is that one like?"
Tohru wrung her hands, not expecting this at all. "Um... She tries very hard to help people, though it's hard to tell because she does it alone and doesn't want anyone to help her." Tohru tried to clear her throat, but whatever was caught in it was stuck as Ren's eyes were locked on hers. "She's stubborn and gets herself into trouble, but she's persistent and-" Tohru could not think of anything else to say. "She's very beautiful."
Ren continued to look at Tohru for a moment, as did everyone else. He turned from her finally when Hara touched his back. Ren's eyes shifted to Hara's. "Does that sound like me?"
Hara's eyes answered for her. She would've said something, but there came another silent tapping of footsteps. Ren looked up quickly, turned to the others and, with a glance at Tohru, whispered, "Go."
Ren gave them quick directions to Akito's where-abouts. There was little time to argue. "Come on." Kyoko grabbed Tohru by the wrist and started leading her up the hallway. Yukiko followed in second. "Suzuri-san!" The young man turned at his name. "You won't tell Akito, will you?" Yukiko asked, calling silently back to him. Ren looked back at them, his eyes cold, but bearing no ill will. "You think I would?"
Yukiko bowed a quick thank you before quickly following Kyoko. Hara was about to follow them as well, but Ren touched her hand. She turned to him and he spoke softly as a young man whose heart was slowly being put back together would. And something unsaid passed between them.
"You were always so kind. There were times when you spoke so tenderly and so softly to me that my heart couldn't understand what you were trying to say. But still... you always reached out your hand to me... until I had no choice but to reach back... like I always wanted to do."
Hara took him by the collar of his open shirt and kissed him. Though he was pale and his eyes were cold, his skin was smooth and warm. She released him finally when the footsteps down the hall became too loud to ignore. "Will you wait for me?"
Ren's eyes, though they still seemed empty, glistened as if they had found a way to be happy. Even so, he didn't answer. "Go. You're friends are waiting."
And with that Ren turned from her and headed down the hall to intercept the one's whose feet were echoing down the hall. Hara starred at his back at first and the thin breaks of light catching his hair, before she turned herself and headed quickly in the other direction.
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note: This Akito's not really afraid of fire. He just wants to be in control of the fire in his house.
name notes: the word 'Suzuri'(as compared to Isuzu) means 'Ink stone' and 'Ren' means 'verse' (like poetry or song.) (I realized later that there was already someone in the Fruits Basket series named Ren, but it was either that or call him 'Ran' which means 'orchid', but I had already used Ren in an earlier chapter (chapter 3) so I apologize. If the real Ren was in this story, I probably would've made her a guy, anyway, and then called him 'Ran'. Tee hee.
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I barely made seven pages with this one. I'm sorry they're so short and quick. I just couldn't make them any longer without hating them. Maybe I'll rewrite them one day or make a sequel so that no one hates me by the end of this ('cause you might).
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Thank you, reviewers. Your support makes me eternally happy. I am very thankful.
Yeah! I've got six! That's not bad, right? It's still up there? I wonder if you guys liked this chapter as much as the last one.
Serinity's angel: I'm more than happy to let you know little things like that. I hope you liked her counterpart. I can't believe that chapter was so short, but most encounters with Rin there are in the series are short.
Moonflower: I wonder if the Sohma boys will be okay too. I can't seem to find a good way to transition to them. This became a mainly girl-Sohma story, didn't it? The dudes are in the next chapter though. They have to be.
Kyoko cares very much for Ru, but she's still trying to sort out her feelings. I'm a KxT fan, myself, but it's a bit different when they're girls.
Yanielle: Aw man! You mean I almost had 8 reviews for my last chapter. Darn. Perhaps I should be careful with how quickly I update, ne? And if you want a hint for who the guy in the window is (since I'm not gonna tell ya), check out chapter 3.
Catana: I'm sorry the review system was mean to you. I'm sorry you only got a tiny peak into Kurenai's soul. Unfortunely you won't see her much more than that. Perhaps I should've put a bit more effort into this story. And I don't know what's happening to the Sohma boys. I don't think I go into it very well. Maybe I'll try to fix that before I post it next week. Yeah! Suspence! I'm so clever.
Damki: I'm glad you enjoy them so much. You flatter me. All you guys flatter me. I'm so pleased I stir up so many emotions and that you can't tell that my chapters got shorter. They're not the shortest, but they're shorter.
JennyKim319: Yeah! I love the name Kurenai too! I was so happy when I stumbled upon it cause it works to well! I'll keep the chapters coming. I think there's only 1 left after this, plus a little epilogue thing.
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Remember, If you guys get board enough to think of an alternate ending, I'll consider all suggestions. I'm not sure how much I like the ending I came up with.
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I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!