Kyo looked up when a knock came to
the apartment door. He knew who It was already, since he had
cancelled his martial arts lessons with his students until further
notice. He walked over to open the door, seeing Yuki's bright eyes
look at him in concern.
"Hey." Kyo said in a low, slow voice
of depression. Yuki walked forward, revealing Hatsuharu behind him,
who walked in as well.
"I have no idea where she went. I thought
about where they could have taken her all night, and I have no idea."
Kyo said, running a hand through his orange hair in frustration as
they all sat down on the floor, since there weren't enough chairs
to seat them all.
"I called Akito and Shigure as well, to see if
they would know something we didn't. It turns out they do." Yuki
looked at Kyo with deep purple eyes. He had never seen Kyo this way
before, and for some reason it was starting to scare him. "There's
a second cat house."
Kyo looked up in shock at that, his eyes
wide. "What? You think they brought her there?" He said in
horror.
"It's a possibility. These are people who for some
reason would want to hurt Tohru. The only reasons I could think of
why they would want to do that, is because she broke the curse and
made everyone happy." Hatsuharu added.
"A lot of people were
upset that none of us had our 'powers' anymore. Some thought it
was more of a blessing than a curse." Yuki said, shaking his head
in disgust.
"Either way, I think one of those people decided to
act on their hatred toward her for making them useless to the Sohma
family. It's the only thing that makes sense at all. She's too
sweet to have enemies, and she runs too fast to be captured by a
pervert." Hatsuharu said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"She does
run fast." Kyo said, letting a small smile slip out at the memory
of having to catch her after she came out of the hospital.
"There's
a smile. Good." Yuki said, letting out a sigh of relief.
Kyo
looked up at him in surprise. "What, you were worried about me?"
"Oh, so cute. Get a room." Hatsuharu teased, making a kiss-y
face as both Kyo and Yuki glared daggers at him.
"Well, I
suppose we should try looking around for this 'second cat house'
then." Kyo said, shivering at the thought of looking for the house
he could have been stuck in for the rest of his life. What if she
had been put in it instead?
"Alright, let's get going then.
The longer we wait, the more danger she's in." Kyo said, standing
suddenly. Yuki and Hatsuharu agreed and they left to try and find
Tohru somewhere in the country of Hokkaido.
"Do you give up, yet?" One of
the burly men under the old woman's command said angrily, holding
Tohru up by the cuff of her shirt. She closed her eyes as tears ran
down her face from the pain of him hitting her again.
"You must
let the cat go. Forget about him, and agree to never see him
again."
"I can't." Tohru whimpered, flinching as another
blow was struck.
"You're making this much more difficult than
it needs be, my dear." The woman sighed, and walked over to her,
looking up at Tohru who was still being held up against the wall of
the cat house. "I need to find a way to break the curse. All was
well until you fell in love with the cat. That must be the key."
Tohru looked up at the woman with
wide blackened eyes, wondering how far she was willing to go to try
and bring the curse back.
"Let her go, if we do any more damage
she's likely to faint." The woman sighed, and the burly man set
her carefully on the ground, looking at Tohru in apology as the other
man grunted in disgust. The woman leaned down over Tohru, who was
scuttling back against the corner as quickly as she could to get as
far away as possible. "Deary, if you don't try harder to
cooperate, you're likely to die here." She said, rolling her eyes
when Tohru huddled even tighter against herself. "I'm not going
to let you go, Tohru. You'll stay here instead of the cat in the
need arises, always looking at the world through those bars over
there." The woman pointed to the small window on the other side of
the room. "Do you really love him so much that you would take his
place in solitary confinement?"
Tohru looked up at the woman in
disbelief. Something inside of her somehow settled into place and her
expression started to melt into anger. "How can you do this?!"
She yelled, her voice raspy. "What did I ever do to you?!"
"I
was welcome in the Sohma household until the curse broke. Akito cast
me aside like some useless toy now that she didn't need me anymore.
I'm an old woman- there's nothing I can do with my life anymore.
I spent my entire youth taking care of the Sohma children, and this
is what I get in return." She hissed. "If I can get the Sohma
curse to return, I'll be welcome back into the main house again.
This is my only chance for redemption, and I'm taking it."
Tohru
continued to glare at the woman, uncaring of whatever excuses she
had. There was no reason to kidnap and hurt her. "You cannot bring
the curse back, no matter what you do. I don't know how you figured
out this plan, but it won't work."
The woman looked at the
young girl for a moment in shock, and turned around to walk out of
the building, opening the door built into one of the walls, and
closing it behind her and the two men under her command. Tohru
flinched as she heard the heavy iron lock close and she was once
again left in the small room where the only light came from the
window with heavy bars separating her from freedom. She would get out
somehow… even if she had to chew through one of these walls, she
would get out and go back to Kyo.
"Are you saying the cat house is
somewhere in the middle of this forest?" Kyo looked around the
dense forest, the noises of the nocturnal creatures starting to sound
out now that the sun was setting.
"It's the only place we
haven't looked. " Yuki sighed, starting to get tired. They had
been searching all day for some abandoned house, but all they had
found was a small shed in the middle of the forest.
"Perhaps we
would have more luck if we split up?" Hatsuharu said, looking
around ahead of them into the darkness.
"Good idea. We'll meet
back up at the edge of the forest at midnight- agreed?" Yuki looked
down at the watch on his wrist, which now read 8:30.
"Agreed.
Let's get going." Kyo said, wanting to find Tohru as soon as
possible.
Kyo started heading east into the forest, moving aside
branches and avoiding raised roots as he stumbled as quickly as he
could off in his chosen direction. He cleared the trees and found
himself in a grove, revealing a small building at the far side of the
clearing. Kyo stared at the old wooden house, a small barred window
the only sight into the inside of the building. He ran as quickly as
he could over to the window, looking in to see utter darkness, except
for the silhouette of a huddled figure lying at one
side of the small room.
"Tohru?"
Kyo whispered, gasping when the figure raised its head in confusion,
but seeing nothing, put its head back down with a small groan of
pain. Kyo ran around the building looking for a way in, and spotted a
large iron latch on one side of the building. He opened the latch and
pulled on the knob, opening one of the walls into the small building
and running in. He kneeled next to the figure and turned her over in
her sleep. Not able to see the girl's face in the dark, he brought
her over to the window and choked when he saw Tohru's soft
expression riddled with bruises and scrapes. He cradled her closer to
him, hoping that she wasn't injured too badly, and wondered who
would do this to such a sweet woman. He started walking carefully
back to the open door with Tohru in his arms, only to see it close
before him in a hard slam. Kyo yelled in shock and ran over to the
wall, kicking at the closed door, but to no avail.
Hello everyone, this is Caroline! Thank you to all who reviewed the story and convinced me to keep going with this plotline If you'd like to see more, please keep reviewing and I'll write a new chapters ASAP.
