The first rays of morning sunlight crept silently into the room, filling it with a soft yellow glow. The storm had passed and the leaves dripped with sweet cool water. A water droplet fell onto the windowsill and splashed. Tohru wriggled her nose as if she was about to sneeze and then the chilly warmth made her shiver. Her eyes blinked a few times and then she lifted her head off of the pillow as if her whole body was buried underneath the house. When she adjusted to the light, she turned her head to the right and saw that Yuki was lying right next to her. As the birds began to chirp outside, she felt a new sense of life. A smile brightened on her face, the stress in her head gone as if someone had pulled it out with a long thread.
Tohru brushed her frail fingers over Yuki's messy hair and then she lowered her head and gave him a kiss on his forehead. He stirred and then opened his eyes gradually. The first thing he saw was the warmth in her eyes, how they seemed to look at him with another sense of adoration. The cold shadows weren't there anymore.
"Tohru?"
He sat up quickly and then his back straightened as if someone pressed a board against it. Tohru flung her arms around his neck and pulled herself closer to the pounding in his chest. Yuki wrapped his arms around her and hid his face into her shoulder, breathing in the new life that had bred inside of her overnight.
"I feel so different Yuki! I feel like I felt before… before…"
She couldn't bring herself to recall all that had happened, and she didn't need to. Yuki pulled his head away and looked into her eyes, tears falling down his face gently.
"I thought that I would never see you smile again Tohru… it hurt me so much to see you like that… so dark and bitter."
She wiped away his tears, her fingertips gliding across his smooth skin as if feeling it for the first time in her life. A small sparkle came alive into her eyes, her heart opening itself and allowing the emotions to spill from it.
"Don't let me become like that again Yuki. I was so lost and afraid."
The words choked in her throat and then Yuki embraced her again. Tohru closed her eyes fiercely and gripped his shirt so hard that her knuckles turned white. He caressed her and whispered kindly into her ear.
"Speak softly, like the breeze in the morning and don't let the tide carry you away."
Tohru smiled, the tears spilling down her face like a soft river. The warmth inside of her body began to spread faster than she could have imagined.
"There's so much I want to say to you Yuki, now that I'm…"
She pulled away suddenly and leaned back as if someone was pulling on her hair. Her eyes widened and her lips parted slightly, tranquilized in fear.
"You aren't going to tell him anything! I thought I might reward you for your excellent behavior last night… remember the pain? I think you will now… I will think twice before I let you free like that again."
Tohru trembled as she looked over to Kisa, who was lying curled up and completely pale. She shook her head as the warmth was drained away and she flinched when Yuki touched her arm.
"Tohru! Are you all right? What's happening?"
The fear depressed itself and then her eyelids drooped. Her trembling vanished and her back slouched. When she looked into his eyes, she could tell that he knew what had happened.
"Your eyes… they're hollow and distant again… Tohru! Come back to me!"
He shook her arms and her body flailed each way that he pulled her. Without another thought, he embraced her with all of his strength, hoping that she would find that seed of emotion in her heart. Yuki gritted his teeth as he kept pulling her towards him, her weight constantly slipping out of his arms.
"Tohru… please don't do this… please come back to me, I can't take it anymore!"
The silence rippled throughout the room and then her slick icy voice penetrated it.
"Let go of me Yuki."
He fought with every muscle in his body, which lessened the grip he had on her, because his mind obeyed, yet his heart did anything far from it. Once she sat on the bed alone, she slowly moved away from him and walked towards Kisa. Tohru searched the young girl's face for agony and bitterly smiled as she touched Kisa's forehead. Yuki watched bewildered as Tohru's fingers became luminescent for a few seconds. The light faded and then he saw that Tohru's face seemed fuller, more of life than before. Tohru jerked her head towards Yuki, her eyes glaring at him beyond her shoulders.
"Did you see that Yuki? It is how I am able to live each moment that I keep my eyes open. I feed off of the misery that lives in each of the cursed Sohmas. So do not question my actions if you want to see me live another day."
Yuki narrowed his eyes and his jaw clenched. That voice was not Tohru's. It was someone else's.
"Akito… Akito! Stop using Tohru! You cruel foul beast!"
He leapt off of the bed and raced towards Tohru who was standing at an angle. Yuki grabbed onto her shoulders and looked deep into her dark black eyes, stained with the torture of another soul inside of her body.
"I know you're in there Tohru. Fight him! Fight him so that you don't have to live like this anymore! Do it for me, do it for Kisa, and do it for yourself Tohru!"
His fierce plea shattered the hold Akito had and in the distance, he heard an echo of a growl. For an instant, her eyes softened and she looked at Yuki with worry.
"I can't do this Yuki… he's too strong… help me!"
The terror in her eyes shined as an inner battle was taking place.
"Do you really think that you can win against me Tohru? I am a part of you, remember? Nothing he will do or say can break that special bond we share!"
Yuki scanned her eyes for any sign of hope but her body became limp once more and despite his tedious efforts of shaking and yelling, the cold glare was back. This time, it really was Akito's voice he heard.
"Let go of her now! I am tired of this foolish game you are playing! There is nothing you can do, and if you get in my way, I will make you pay dearly!"
"You can't hurt me Akito! You're dead… you're not… alive…"
"Do you really believe what you just said? You are lying to yourself. Look at her, look at her and tell me that you don't see that I'm alive… if you dare to interfere with my plans again, I swear that I will make you suffer more than you've ever suffered before… because now, I can control her, the girl you can't live without… might be gone in the moment you turn your back!"
Yuki took a step back and stumbled onto the bed. The hazy glow in Tohru's eyes subsided and she folded her arms, smirking.
"Make sure that Kisa gets up all right. I have something urgent which I must attend to."
Swiftly, her robe trailing behind her, Tohru left the room and closed the door silently. The constant beat inside of his chest felt more like a hammer driving the pain into his heart. If this would go on any longer, he didn't know if he could stand to see her controlled like that. Kisa stirred next to him and he wiped the sweat off of her brows. Yuki shook his head and sighed sullenly.
..:-:..
In the kitchen, everyone had gathered after the festive night. The clouds of strain and anxiety kept lurching over their heads, and each sat silently. Even Momiji's playful curiosity had vanished. As each second passed by, they grew wearier of finding out what had happened with Akito and what was wrong with Tohru.
"It's very unusual… and there is a grave coincidence with Akito's disappearance and Tohru's infirmity. Her symptoms are much like Akito's."
Everyone turned their heads towards Hatori and they saw the grim expression leaking out of his mouth as he spoke. Kagura squeezed Kyo's hand underneath the table and she looked at him with despair, her nose scrunched up as if she was holding back tears.
"We don't know if that is true Hatori. But for certain, Tohru has been acting most peculiar," Shigure pointed out figuratively.
"No one can be sure until I examine her. She might be up by now, maybe I should go check…"
"No Hatori!" Kagura leaped out of her seat instantly. "You should wait until she comes down. I think she… she needs as much rest without us getting in her way… let's wait until she comes downstairs."
Kagura sat back down and looked at her lap. She jumped when she felt Kyo's hand on her back.
"Are you all right Kagura? You seem… agitated."
"Oh, I'm fine Kyo! I'm just worried about Tohru… her behavior… it's been so strange!"
Hatori heard the last phrase uttered from her mouth and beckoned her to elaborate.
"What do you mean Kagura?"
"Well, I know she told me not to tell anyone, but for a few mornings, she said she was going for a walk… but she went really early, and I don't think that she ever did that before. I'm not positive, but I think she might have gone to see someone…"
Shigure's eyes glistened with theories bubbling around in his brain, but Ayame cut him from saying anything.
"If I might add something to this discussion… I think it is possible, since Hatori mentioned the coincidental correlation between Akito and Tohru, that perhaps she had visited Akito before he disappeared. I wouldn't be surprised if she helped him in some way, so that none of us would have known."
Everyone's jaw dropped with disbelief. Ayame was never one to theorize so poetically, neither act seriously about anything that didn't concern him directly.
"That actually makes a lot of sense Ayame," Momiji said after nodding his head a few times.
"Okay, that settles it, I'm going to go check on Tohru and I'm going to get the truth out of her once and for all."
Just as Hatori was about to get up, they heard a loud crash come from the dinning room, the foreboding was never stronger than at that moment.
..:-:..
Tohru slipped down the stairs and sensed that two familiar auras had arrived at her house. She snickered to herself and then glided down the hall towards the entrance. The window was slightly ajar and she saw a tall man with white hair, and a slender women with sleek brown hair coming towards the house.
"Perfect. They are right on time."
Rin and Hatsuharu held each other's hands as they walked up towards the Sohma household.
"I wonder what Hatori said was so urgent. I really liked it up at the spa."
Hatsuharu smiled and looked down into her eyes adoringly.
"I liked it there too, but family matters are the most important, aren't they? Besides, I don't want to make Akito angry with us."
Rin nodded her head and then opened the door. Her hair dangled elegantly from the top of her head and when she stepped inside the dimly lit house, she suddenly felt the confidence seep out of her, as if someone was beckoning it at its weakened point. She shivered and Hatsuharu messaged her shoulders, trying to not feel the pang of sorrow himself. They slipped their shoes off and began to make their way down the hall. Abruptly, a slithering dark voice called to them from inside the living room.
"Come here. I need to speak with you."
Rin's eyes flashed with fear and Hatsuharu gripped her leather bound hand tighter. With a deep breath for reassurance, they stepped into the room and shut the door behind them. Two eyes glittered in the darkness and when they stepped closer, they kneeled immediately, believing it to be Akito.
"I have missed your presence beside me. Why have you not visited for so long?"
Rin's hair swept off the floor as she lifted her head.
"I'm sorry Akito. I didn't know you wanted an audience with us."
Hatsuharu lifted his head then, and snarled, seeing Rin being reigned in and controlled. She was as free as the wind and she didn't care about commands or rules.
"What are you doing to her? She's pale and her profound confidence shrank the moment she walked into this house!"
His eyes turned dark and his hands lunged forward towards the person in the chair. Right when he was going to reach for Akito's neck, Hatsuharu stopped and heard Rin weeping. He looked towards her and saw that she was clenching her abdomen in pain. The darkness in his eyes faded away and the tears glimmered in his eyes.
"Please don't do this Akito… I beg you, don't hurt her!"
"You never answered my question Hatsuharu. Where have you been? Where have both of you been?"
He clenched his fists and then answered, the tears stopping at the corners of his eyes.
"We have been up at the Sohma spa resort."
"Oh… have you? The two of you… alone? I must say that is very displeasing news to hear."
Hatsuharu's eyes widened as the cold grip caught his neck. His head jerked upwards and then he began to choke as he saw whom the pair of ruthless eyes belong to.
"Toh…ru?" he asked amid struggling to breathe.
"Yes, it is she, and yet it is not. You will obey what I say, unless you want something else to happen, something you won't enjoy…"
She let go and his eyes saw the reminiscent sparks of malicious laughter in her face. He turned and saw Rin writher to the floor in more agony.
"Hatsu…ha…ru! Ah!"
He reached for her but Tohru stepped into his path. The blazing anger in his sweat dripped from his face and onto his arms. He growled in fury and then threw a vase against the wall, its shattering pieces creating the echoing boom of what remained of his and Rin's relationship.
"I can't let you do this to us! You can't separate us no matter what you try!"
"Oh really? Can't I?"
Rin let out another anguished cry as she gripped the corner of a couch. Hatsuharu's chest quaked as he tried to breathe steadily.
"Fine! Just stop it! Stop torturing her!"
Tohru's crooked smile turned into a slim horizontal line. At once, Rin took a huge breath of air and Hatsuharu helped her stand up. The physical pain inside of her was gone, but the emotional flurry of rage began to roar inside her heart.
"You… you aren't Akito! You're that girl Tohru! How dare… how dare you!"
She leaped through the air and caught onto Tohru's robe as well as her neck, yet her fingers slipped and then she cried out in pain, silencing the uprising inside of Rin. Tohru's eyes became narrow slits as she fumed. Her reflexes told her to grab onto the woman's hair and she let her dangle at her touch.
"Don't you dare question me! I will teach you a lesson, you ungrateful…"
All at once the room flooded with light and a stampede of people rushed inside. Tohru's hair flickered back and forth across her face as Hatori and Shigure surrounded her. Her grip on Rin was lost and she crumbled to the floor with a thud. Hatsuharu helped her get up again and Tohru went franticly crazy.
"No! You are not allowed to be together! I forbid it! Let go of her, now!"
She struggled to lunge forward as the two men, now accompanied by Ayame, held her in position. Momiji's eyes filled with tears and he ran out of the room, unable to see Tohru act like a different person all together. Kagura came into the room last and when she saw the frenzy pale face of Tohru, and her loose dark eyes, she whimpered and lost her balance. Kyo heard her gasp and immediately caught her before she fell. In the blink of an eye, they both transformed and shriveled into their animal forms. Like a chain reaction, Rin and Hatsuharu had embraced, also transforming. The men's grip on Tohru tapered and she stumbled forward, her shoulders jumping up and down, a stream of croaked chuckles sweeping the room.
"What… what just… happened?"
"Oh, don't act like you don't know Hatori. You know perfectly well what just happened."
He stood firmly and his gaze fell away from Tohru and towards the chaos of animals, especially the horse and the cow standing in the middle of it all. Ayame had already cleaned the floor of the broken pieces of glass that shattered from the vase and then as Tohru was about to leave, Yuki came into the room with Kisa waddling near him. Tohru stopped and took in the sadness that emitted from the little girl's eyes. She wavered for a second and then looked at Yuki.
"What are you doing here?"
"I heard something like a crash… are you all right?"
Shigure shook his head and rubbed his forehead vigorously.
"What I don't get is why everyone seems confused except for Yuki…"
At the mention of his name, his face tightened and Tohru flashed around towards the adult men in the room.
"You shouldn't be confused Shigure. I think that perhaps it is time that everything is revealed. Or not. I'll think about it."
She walked out of the room and shut the door behind her. Yuki looked away and sighed deeply, his heart twisting out of control and the sorrow growing even more. For a few minutes that morning, he had thought that Tohru had been cured of the evil that resided inside of her, but now he truly understood the harmful potential of Akito's power over her. As he was thinking this, a few popping noises scattered throughout the room and the animals disappeared. Everyone rolled their eyes and looked away as the four Sohmas dressed themselves.
Kyo looked around and saw that the same thing that happened to him and Kagura happened as well to Rin and Hatsuharu. He clenched his fists and walked up to Hatori with complete fury written on his face.
"What the hell is going on huh? Why did all of us change when he hugged each other? Hatori! Damn it! Why aren't you saying anything?"
He had closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. He slowly raised his eyes and looked into Kyo's face with enormous guilt.
"I'm sorry Kyo, and everyone else. Things have… it seems that things have differed in our curse…"
Ayame stopped cleaning the room and looked up along with everyone else. Rin shook her head incredulously and shrieked at the top of her lungs.
"What do you mean differed? That girl has gone crazy and you believe some kind of riddle she just told you?"
"I agree! This is all ridiculous. Come on Rin, we're out of here."
As Hatsuharu grabbed Rin's wrist, Hatori pulled him back by his shoulder.
"There's no point. Any time you want to be close to her, either one of you, or both of you will transform. That is our curse now. The tides have shifted against us."
The deafening tension crashed down on each person's soul and Kagura whimpered, looking at Kyo with tears in her eyes.
"Is that why… why each time…"
He clenched his fist and jammed his jaw shut.
"This is a bunch of shit! Now that I finally want to, I can't be close with Kagura? Who does Tohru think she is? Akito is the only one who bosses us around!"
Yuki's heart began to race as he saw the aftermath of Akito's experiment unfolding. Suddenly, everyone was yelling and arguing with each other. Tears were spilling down the woman's faces and Kisa had run off to find Momiji and join him in the desolate doom of the cursed Sohmas. He fled himself, and left everyone arguing.
..:-:..
The day had passed and everyone was searching for Tohru. She had disappeared and no one could find her. Along with this, Yuki had gone missing, but some just thought he was looking for her as well. That was exactly what he was doing, and now that the moon was shining above him, his worry began to take a turn for the worst. The thought of Akito hurting Tohru was enough to drive his anxiety up the wall. His search had led him back towards the house, literally. Yuki sank into the forest behind the Sohma residence and walked through the maze of trees until he reached the small lake in the middle of it. The ripples of the water shimmered and reflected the light, which glided down onto him.
"Where are you Tohru? I wish I could just know that you're all right."
He gazed into the water and then threw a rock at his reflection. His eyes were covered with dark circles and his hair was a dirty mess. The waves subsided and then he gasped. In the reflection, Tohru stood behind his shoulder.
"Tohru?" He turned around and saw that it really was her standing behind him. His eyes glistened with happiness and he was about to hug her when she put a hand up to his chest.
"Don't do it Yuki." He dropped his arms and his gaze fell to the sorrow it had held before.
"Why did you do it? What happened to the curse? I'm so confused and soon, everyone is going to accuse me of having something to do with this mess!"
A small chuckle rose out of her chest and then her bangs covered her eyes. Through the hair, he saw the truth inside of her dim ovals.
"But you do Yuki. You're the one that created the reversal. Remember when you hugged me? In that moment, your love reshaped the curse. Because you felt so strongly about a woman, a woman who you were cursed to be with, you broke the spell. Now, each Sohma who loves another is cursed and cannot be with that person. It is my duty to seek to that. Do you understand now?"
She spoke with amusement in her voice, as if another's punishment and cursed fate didn't matter the slightest bit. Yuki shook his head slowly as the realization unraveled within him.
"That's right. It was you who turned the world upside down. The people inside of that house are all in agony right now because of us. So don't fight it Yuki. If you want us to be together, you need to forget all emotion and that little stupid voice inside of your head."
At that moment, Tohru slipped her arms around him and even though he knew the horrifying truth, even though he knew it wasn't really Tohru that he was with, his heart told him that she was there somewhere, trying to free herself of the tortured prison that kept her locked within herself. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her head towards his chest, his fingers slipping through the strands of her hair.
"Okay… I'll do it. I'll do it for us…"
They stood there for a few moments like that and then suddenly they broke apart, the crack of a twig resounding in the air. A rustle of leaves followed that and then a fuming Kyo appeared, his eyes bloodshot and ready to kill.
"You! And YOU! You just… you just… and you didn't transform! So that means that Kagura and I can be cursed all you want, and the two of you can live a happy curse-free life? I can't take it! This is insane! And you're not even Akito! Tohru, you are sick! You're sick and I'm going to get rid of you! I thought you were someone special, you made me think and feel but now, you hold the power to weaken my sense of feeling. I've rotted into anger, just like before. But it's worse this time, because I feel like I want to… kill you…"
Yuki stepped in front of Tohru protectively, but then she stepped away, just as Kyo made a run for her. She put up her hand and then he stopped in midair. A tiny gasp came from the edge of the trees and Tohru's eyes met Kagura's. Tohru smiled vindictively and then clenched her fist. The night rang with withering cries, which echoed from Kyo's aching body. Yet as Yuki and Kagura watched in horror, they didn't realize that somewhere deep inside of the woman who held so much power, was the real Tohru Honda, withering in pain just like Kyo.
A/N: I updated... but it was another sad chapter huh? And I added Rin and Hatsuharu! lol xP I thought this fic would be longer, but i think I'm going to end it in two more chapters... MAYBE three... I'm not sure and I'll have to see... anyways, I hope you liked it despite all of the horrible things happening... soon, the suffering will come to an end... as all fics do lol leave if a review if you wish, i'd really appreciate it! thanks for reading!
-Monika-