Chapter 9: Cruor Glacialis

Tohru watched through the open front door and the falling curtains of snow as Hatori strode towards his car with a heavy step - she could almost see the weight of care upon his shoulders. I hope his relative will be alright, she thought anxiously. His face had been etched with a deep worry as close to fear as she could imagine someone like Hatori feeling. Her brooding was interrupted when she realised that Shigure was standing behind her, (and had been for some time during her reverie), one hand resting on the door. Tohru gasped and whipped around to him. "Oh, I'm sorry Shigure-san, I didn't see you there."

Shigure grasped the edge of the sliding door and moved to pull it closed. "We're losing the heat, Tohru-kun," he explained. Still recovering her grip on lucidity, Tohru nodded and spun back to face the distant Hatori, intending to wave goodbye . . . . but the motion, and all thoughts of it, died when she saw his face, a mask of foreboding and dread. It chilled her, much more than the bite of the wind which was banished once the door slid closed and formed a barrier between the outside world and the remaining occupants of the house. The younger chill would not be so easily quelled.

Quietly meditating, Tohru was pulled back to reality again when her drifting eyes swept over the hazy, frosted reflection of Shigure in the condensation-drenched window, still standing behind her own twin. Shigure laid a hand on her shoulder and she turned around again, ready to apologise for zoning out on him again, but he spoke first. "Are you alright?" he asked. His question caught her by surprise, and he was answered by her blank face. "You look pretty worried."

"Ano, oh no, I'm fine, really," she said in earnest.

Her mysterious, ever-shifting captor turned a lazy gaze out the window, following the trail of Hatori's car, which had by now been hidden by the bare woodland. "Are you afraid to be left here with me?" he asked frankly. No sense in beating about the bush.

Tohru held up her small hands in protest. "N-no, not at all, Shigure-san. I-I was . . ." She didn't want him to worry about her, or to draw unneeded attention back to the aforementioned invalid (after all, Shigure was most likely worried enough as it was, and it wouldn't be polite to remind him of his family's ills). However equally, she didn't want him to think she was still rudely afraid of him. So, fiddling tentatively with the tips of her index fingers, she told the truth. "I was worried about Hatori-san, and your injured relative, Shigure-san. Ha-Hatori-san seems very concerned, almost afraid, for their sake, and I was thinking . . . . well, Hatori-san is always so calm, it appears, so that's why I was worried."

Shigure was smiling. "You kind child," he said, and then, before the colour had even begun to spread on her cheeks, he turned on his heels and entered the dining room, gesturing for her to follow. "But you needn't worry about Kyo-kun. Haa-san will be able to treat him, and Haa-san knows that." Kyo-san . . . thought Tohru to herself, memorising the name which was strangely familiar, like a photograph blurred beyond recognition. "That's not what he was worried about," asserted Shigure, sitting at the kotetsu-covered table with two mugs of tea, one of which he pressed into the girl's hands.

Tohru murmured some thanks and sat at a right angle to him. When she glanced at him, his brown eyes were transfixed upon her, and they held her gaze captive. "He doesn't trust me, you see. He doesn't trust me with you." Shigure didn't say it as if he was sad or angry. He merely said it.

Tohru blinked a few times and shifted where she sat, not fully comprehending what she had been told. That chill she had been unable to dismiss made a new assault on her thoughts. Neither of the two said anything, and so, partially to break the deafening silence (where she was alone with her uncomfortable contemplation), she asked, "I don't really understand. Why wouldn't Hatori-san trust you, Shigure-san? He's your friend, isn't he?" When Shigure didn't answer, she said, "Ah, excuse me for being familiar."

"Not at all." The man beside her exhaled heavily and leaned forward, his head resting on one hand. Tohru let out the breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. The normalcy of Shigure's motion had relieved her somewhat – his monotonous, definitive tone had bordered on frightening. "Haa-san . . . ." he muttered, and he looked at her again, though without the entrancing quality of before. "What you must understand, Tohru-kun, is that . . . . . all this – " he gestured at their surroundings " – was my idea, and mine alone. I was the one who decided to kidnap you. Haa-san is . . . a good person. He's a man of principle and he didn't want anything to do with this. The only reason he helped me was because I, well, to be frank, I morally blackmailed him."

Tohru pondered this new information with surprise. Blackmail . . . The word sounded ugly. "I blackmailed him with your safety, to be specific. He knew he couldn't stop me from going ahead with this, so he did the next best thing. He came to keep an eye on me, and make sure you were unharmed. So you understand why he would be reluctant to leave you here with me." The girl locked eyes with her own perforated reflection in the tea mug. Hatori-san really is a very kind person. That was her first thought. Her second was, Why would a person like Shigure-san go to such lengths to get me? Why me in paticular?

"But there's more," continued Shigure, drawing her eyes up again, his words a string, albeit fractured and missing vital strands. He suddenly became very interested by the small circles he was drawing with one finger on the table. "There was . . . . a girl. Some time ago. There was a young girl – a child really – who was living with me, in my charge and under my protection. Her family, such as it was, entrusted her to my care and I pretty much adopted her except on paper. She was . . ." he trailed off, and a smile crossed his face, and his finger stilled. ". . . . I'm a novelist, and I don't throw the phrase "words can't describe it" around, but in her case, there really aren't sufficient words." (Tohru withheld her questions about Shigure's profession). "She was kind, that's all. She was simply kind, all the time and to everyone, indiscriminately. She was honest and humble and she put everyone else first and herself last. It's so simple, but so incredible."

Tohru smiled. Shigure-san looks so gentle right now. He did. The curve of his mouth wasn't a light-hearted grin or an omniscient smirk. It was something transcendental, and caring. "And I betrayed her."

Suddenly, imperceptibly and terribly, his face, his eyes, and the tone of his voice contorted into intimidating forbearers of the darker events of his story. The slight girl had not noticed the change, and had to forcibly dismiss the urge to back away. "It was for my own benefit, and no-one else's, that I took her in. I was using her all the time. She was never more than a convenient pawn, and any affection I may have felt towards her, any shadow of care, was secondary to that. It was the kind of attachment you might feel towards a familiar, weathered old tool; you may feel a dull pang when you discard it after it's outlived its usefulness, but you discard it nonetheless. It's not important how or for what exactly I manipulated her. The point is, she trusted me, wholly and completely and naïvely. She was never anything but sweet and obliging to me, and I cruelly abused her for my own selfish ends. And as a result, she was hurt."

Something in the way he uttered the word "hurt" suggested silent volumes even to Tohru's innocent ears. She shuddered, and the tremors which ran through her entire form, down to her toes and fingertips, produced ripples on the surface of the tea she was gripping so tightly.

There was an unrelenting quality to Shigure's continuing speech. He was either willfully ignoring her discomfort or unaware of it, and the former was hard to believe considering his perceptive nature. "Every inch of her was cut and bruised. She could barely stand by the end of it." He paused, measuring the effect of his next words. "And Hatori – he cared about her so much, he loved her, in the true meaning of the word . . . quite a contrast to me – and he was the one who had to pick up the pieces and put her back together."

Tohru's eyes drooped down to the table in an almost wilting manner. The deep and strenuous tension she had so often sensed between her captors she now understood somewhat. A new and icier lump had grown in the pit of her stomach during Shigure's harrowing tale, amalgamating the other one.

The tea had gone cold. Icy cold.

The chill gripped her all over.

Shigure observed her reaction. She was still. Her fingers were wrapped around the cup of her untouched tea, and he could see her eyes, albeit with difficulty due to her bowed head, directed at the table's surface, but unfocused. He slouched down, draping himself over the table in order to look up at her. "What are you thinking?"

"That Hatori-san must have been very sad, and that Shigure-san must also be very sad right now."

"Me?"

Tohru nodded several times. "Yes. You must be full of regret . . . and it must make you very sad to think your friend doesn't trust you."

Shigure felt that lukewarm emulsion of guilt and warmth that had been so familiar a month ago, that he had felt whenever she spouted one of her "Tohru-isms". They were not true. They had never and would never graze the surface of the murky truth. "Ah, koi," he sighed, reaching up to brush her cheek. "You'll end up like her if you're not careful."

Some distant relative of a shudder passed through the girl's cheek at those words, though she could scarcely understand them. He pulled back and rose from the table, taking the frigid drinks with him, but halted at the door and began speaking again.

"You never did answer my question." Tohru looked up at him. "And there's no need. You are, in fact, afraid to be here." Her lack of response was in itself an answer. The girl's hands, which had disappeared under the table, shook with trepidation on her lap. "Well," he said lightly, "I'll just have to be especially nice."

And he left to dispose of the tea in the kitchen.

An extremely familiar discomfort was spreading though Tohru. A discomfort . . . . tinged with fear, or terror. He had read her so easily. He had read her effortlessly. She was always such an open book to him, and is made her feel horribly exposed. How long before he discovered . . . . that?

I mustn't think that way, she thought, stilling the tide of panic that threatened to drown her. I mustn't. I mustn't. It's alright. Calm down. It's alright. It's alright. She repeated her mantra again and again, forcibly slowing her breathing, though the rattle remained.

Yes, she was indeed afraid to be with Shigure, first and foremost because he could see right through all her feeble attempts at deception, and could predict with uncanny accuracy the direction of her thoughts. She shuddered to think what would happen if he found out what she was keeping from him.

But there was something else, she knew. Some other reason she feared him. Something that hovered just out of reach every time he darkened te way he so often did . . . . . and something she wasn't sure she even wanted to know.

It was around midnight by the time Hatori arrived at the Sohma estate. He had driven non-stop, chasing the receding sun, and determinedly staving off tiredness. The snow hadn't stopped in all that time. He wished it would. He was not fond of snow.

Just as he was turning his car to face the enormous, thick wooden doors, his headlights passed over an anomalous figure, standing in the snow. He braked suddenly and rolled down his window, squinting through the heavy snowfall.

Isuzu was at the window in an instant, her fragmented white veil a stark contrast to her ebony hair. Behind her, some way off, Hatori could see a patch of uncovered green next to the wall, marking the spot where she must have huddled throughout the snowfall.

"Get in," he said. She did so, despite her obvious aversion to being told what to do, and slid into the passenger seat.

"What took you so long?" she hissed, keeping an admirable control over he near-chattering teeth.

Hatori silently pulled off his coat and passed it to her (she ignored it), and turned up the heating. "You shouldn't be out in this weather in your condition."

"Don't preach, dammit! You've gotta get in there! You've got to help Kyo!"

"What exactly happened?"

"I don't know!" she yelled. "Kagura went to visit him earlier and came back to the wall in histerics – "

"Wall?"

"Yes, wall! She climbs over the wall, I wait, and then I pull her back over! So she came back crying, and she told me to get you and disappeared. She went back to Kyo!"

Hatori considered this. "And she's still there?"

"I haven't seen her come out, she won't answer her phone, and – " she finally lowered her voice at this, solemnly, " - and I can't go in to get her."

Hatori nodded in understanding. "I'll go. But you have to stay in the car." Isuzu made a face, but stayed where she was as he reversed the car a few hundred metres up the street, out of the line of sight of the main house, and left her. He walked with a direct and unfaltering step to the imposing double doors.

Once inside, he headed straight for the Cat's room, blessedly segregated and hidden from the rest of the compound, where he found Kagura sitting propped up on the wall near the barred window, asleep in the snow, in an almost identical position to Isuzu. He knelt next to her and shook her gently awake. She blinked, bleary-eyed, and looked up.

"Ha-Hatori-kun?" She rubbed her eyes and spoke through chattering teeth. "Y-you came at l-last! P-please, Hatori-kun, Kyo-kun is s-s-so hurt, he h-hasn't woken up since I c-came and h-he – " She was becoming hysterical again, so Hatori laid one hand on her shoulder to quiet her.

"Go to my house and stay there. You've taken a huge risk in trespassing on the grounds and staying here for so long, not to speak of the dangers to you health." Kagura blinked the tears away. "I will be there with Kyo as soon as I can." Kagura nodded and reluctantly left her vigil. Hatori took one look through the bars at the spread-eagled Kyo, then left to find the one person besides Akito who had a key.

The head servant was not happy with being woken at this time of night, especially for the sake of "the cat-monster", but Hatori knew he had the authority. Akito had given Hatori permission to bring Kyo out of the room for a short time to treat him if necessary. It was all he could wrangle from him.

Kyo was in a dire state, he could see. Bloodstreaks and bruises riddled his skin. His clothes were ripped and encrusted with blood, and lacerated skin was visible through the holes. His pallour betrayed the prolonged time he had been left out in the cold . . . . and also that he hadn't been fed properly. He could not be revived, in the short time Hatori could afford to spend trying. Hatori finally arrived back home, carrying the bloody and frozen Kyo.

Kyo was quicky laid down on one of the beds in the small ward Hatori had in his house. Kagura did everything he told her quickly and quietly, fetching medical odds and ends as he cleaned and bandaged Kyo's wounds, and kept watch at Kyo's bedside whenever she was given a spare moment. She watched with unveiled concern as he lay motionless.

Several hours later, Hatori was just coming into the room with tea for Kagura and coffee for himself, when Kyo stirred and revived.

"O-ow," he moaned, as Kagura euphorically threw herself onto him, hugging him tightly.

"Sorry." She pulled back, almost crying from relief.

Kyo pulled himself into a half-sitting, half-lying position, despite the obvious pain it caused him to move. "Where am I?"

Hatori stepped forward. "You're in my house. You'll be staying here until you recover." Kagura visibly flinched when Hatori allured to Kyo's inevitable re-imprisonment.

Kyo looked around. "That's weird. I haven't been out of there in a month." He grinned without humor. "Your house wasn't this big before, was it Hatori?"

"Kyo-kun . . . " murmured Kagura.

Kyo turned to her. "He-hey," he said sharply, his voice rising a tad. "Don't you be getting all upset over this. It's not – "

"You were beaten half to death!" she cried.

"Only because I – " he cut himself off and reigned in his anger. "Sorry," he muttered. "I shouldn't have yelled."

Hatori pulled a chair over to the bed, his interest piqued. "Because you what?" he asked. Kyo looked away. "Kyo, what happened?"

"I took a swing at him, happy?" he retorted. Kagura gasped and covered her mouth with her hands, but Hatori considered this evenly. "I punched him. Akito. He wasn't going so hard on me until then."

Kagura shook her head violently. "Wh-what on earth possessed you to . . . . "

Kyo gritted his teeth. "I know I shouldn't have. It's ended up causing all this trouble. But . . . . he said . . . . such terrible things." He clenched his fist so hard that he reopened some small scars on his hand. "He was threatening her. Tohru." Kagura's brown eyes, twins to Tohru's, widened, and Hatori paid close attention, measuring every word Kyo said. "He was talking about all the things he was going to do to her. He was saying what he'd done before to her would be nothing compared to . . . . He said he was going to lock her up again and . . . . " He couldn't finish. He smashed his fist into the bedside table, knocking some pill bottles askew.

No-one spoke for a while. "Kyo-kun," began Kagura in a small voice. "Tohru-chan is gone. Akito can't get to her anymore."

Kyo slackened. Now, he really was in pain, Hatori knew.

They all were.

"I know," Kyo conceded. "It was stupid. But I . . . I couldn't stand it when – "

"We understand, Kyo," said Hatori, and his voice didn't waver at all when he spoke. He betrayed nothing in his tone.

Kyo's eyes drifted without direction, his fist still clenched, until they arrived at the lamp on his bedside table, which was lit. His eyes widened, his fist unclenched, and his grim mask fell at once from his face, to be replaced with open surprise. "Hey! It's night!"

In spite of everything, and in spite of the mood of the conversation, Kagura burst out laughing at such a ridiculous statement, and Hatori leaned forward, holding out his hand. "How many fingers?" he asked solemnly. Kagura's laughter went up an octave.

Kyo's face was now as red as his hair, and he angrily batted Hatori away. "Dammit! I mean, was it just a few hours ago that Akito railed on me? I thought it was the next morning."

Kagura gasped. "I'd never leave you that long, Kyo-kun!"

Kyo's blood-red eyes burned with anger. "I know" he said, his tone low and dangerous. "I was beat up maybe six or seven hours ago, correct? And Hatori was away . . . . Akito said something about it. So how was I brought here so quickly? There's only one person who comes to the Cat's room often enough to notice so quickly. There's only one person who'd care who's allowed near the place. And that person never comes in the middle of the night, she comes in the afternoon." He glared at Kagura again. "And once she was there, she wouldn't have left until Hatori came, however many hours that may take." Kagura was extremely quiet. She didn't even move. "You stayed there, didn't you!!" he yelled.

"Kyo," Hatori interjected. "You don't want to wake up the whole compound, do you?" His eyes flicked over to Kagura, reminding Kyo once again of the danger she was in.

The red-haired boy seethed but lowered his voice. "You're forbidden to enter the compound, you know that," he seethed. "It's bad enough when you sneak in for half an hour or so, but to stay there for half the night?! Do you have any idea what a stupid risk that was?!"

"I couldn't leave you."

"Do you want to end up like – " He cut himself off.

Hatori came forward. "It's late. Kyo, you're in no condition to be yelling and I'm sure after staying out in the snow Kagura's in no condition to hear it. I'll drop her and Isuzu home."

Kagura was shocked. "Isuzu-chan stayed out all night too?"

Hatori couldn't help but smile slightly. "You both have incurably loyal friends." His smile fell from his face. "However, Isuzu is better equipped to deal with that harsh weather than you Kagura, even with her health." Kagura was shamefaced. Hatori saw that she was upset, so he cracked a joke to lighten the mood. "You normal, non-cursed humans . . . You just can't take anything."

"Hey!" cried Kyo.

But Hatori had already turned to leave. "Come along, Kagura."

"Hatori," called Kyo from the bed. "Give out to her for me, would you?"

"If you promise to rest."

Hatori had led Kagura just out of Kyo's earshot when she said, with finality, "I'm going to visit Yuki-kun. Please, give me the keys and give me some medicines or anything. If this is how bad Kyo is after one beating, what state must Yuki-kun be in after all this time?"

"Never. It's too dangerous." Somehow Hatori knew already it was no use. His protests were almost automatic in their nature.

"It might be dangerous, but I'm the only one for whom it's possible. I'm not bound by Akito's word. I don't have to obey him. I only pretended to because I thought it would be safer for Kyo-kun and Okaa-san and Isuzu-chan and everyone else. But now it's too dangerous for me not to help Yuki-kun. Please, Hatori." Hatori was caught. Kagura could be hurt in this attempt. On the other hand, he hadn't been allowed even to check on Yuki. For all he knew, he hadn't been fed. For all he knew, he could be dying. "I'll do it with or without you help." He grimaced. He'd heard that not too long ago, and it had worked last time too.

Clutching a bundle of food, gauze, and disinfectant, Kagura crept as silently as she could through the dark hallways of the house where Akito dwelt. She again rued the loss of her animal skill of discretion, as she heard some boards creek. She crept up to the door of Akito's room, gathering the courage (or foolishness) needed to sneak in to steal the key to Yuki's room. She wasn't even sure where to look. The thought of spending long minutes or hours in the den of the sleeping lion was almost, but not quite, enough to send her packing.

Her hand hovered over the handle, but was snatched from behind, and another hand clamped over mouth before she could gasp. She was pulled away from the door. Her heart immediately accelerated to a deafening, rapid throb.

"It's me," whispered Kureno. He let her go immediately. "Sorry, I didn't want to make any noise." Kagura eyed him warily. "Follow me."

He led her to Yuki's room and passed her the key. "I'll distract anyone who comes. Quickly, help him. Akito is always stained with blood when he comes out, and I don't know when the last time Yuki ate was."

"Kureno!" called Kagura. "Thank you." And she steeled herself to enter the pitch-black room as Kureno left to take up his post.

Yuki was indeed in a dire state – that much was clear from what the light from the open door alone could reveal. Kyo's injuries paled in comparison with his. Weeks of maltreatment and beatings from a fist or nails or a whip or God-knew-what-else had left his skin white as a sheet, albeit patched with red and purple. He was even thinner than before and bruises and cuts riddled every visible inch of his skin. Kagura suppressed tears as she hoisted his head onto her lap, feeling with revulsion the ribs through his crimson-stained shirt. "Yuki-kun?" she whispered, gently pulling his hair away from his face. Bile rose in her throat as she peeled the hair on his forehead free from a thick crust of dry blood. "Listen, you have to eat this."

She pressed the food to his mangled lips. He obediently opened and swallowed, his eyes still closed. Now and then he mumbled in a dream-like state, gradually gaining coherence, but obviously lacking lucidity. Once Kagura had fed him, she proceeded to wash out his cuts, some of which were secreting yellow puss which screamed "infection", but she didn't dare bandage any for fear of bring even more of Akito's wrath down on Yuki . . . or Hatori.

Yuki never woke, but he was half-aware of her. "T-Tohru?" he called achingly.

Kagura's heart sank. She wasn't the one he needed. She wasn't really the one anyone needed, and she was a poor substitute. "Yes, Yuki-kun," she lied trying to imitate Tohru's speech patterns. "I'm here."

Yuki began writhing from side to side. "N-no! Y-y-you can't be here . . . He'll come . . . Tohru, don't let him hurt you!"

Kagura stroked Yuki's hair, restraining him with frightening ease. Yuki-kun, you're stronger than this! But she forced her voice to sound calm. "Shhh, hush, it's alright. He won't find me. I'm safe."

A single tear leaked from one of Yuki's closed eye. "Couldn't stop him . . . . I f-failed . . . I c-couldn't . . . . protect . . . . I'm so – "

"It's alright. I'm safe," she repeated firmly.

Yuki was inconsolable. "No, you . . you're not . . . not safe," he murmured feverishly. "Not safe . . . not safe. Tohru!" Kagura bolted upright at the sharp seriousness of his words. "He's going to come for you! He's going to bring you back here. A-A-Akito. He wants you here. He's going to get you. He's going to hurt you! He'll keep you here forever! Don't . . . don't . . . don't!" Try as she might, Kagura couldn't calm him, or still his ramblings.

But his next words froze her to the core.

"Don't make that mistake twice . . . . Tohru, don't trust him! Either of them! . . . . . Don't . . . . trust . . . . Shigure . . . ."

Kagura shook her head, as if literally shaking off the freezing ominousness of his words. "Not safe," he continued. "Not safe . . . . "

Next chapter in steady progress.

Boy, that was a tough Lent. I spent most of today on the 'Net.

Great to be back! Love, Suteki31392!