Chapter 24.

As everyone gathered together again in the living room Hitomi -sitting too close to Wufei for his own comfort- that she suggested they all stay over that night. "We couldn't possibly intrude on you," began Wufei while Duo grinned like an idiot and interrupted him with a loud "Oh yeah!"

Hitomi beamed while Memso, Heero and Wufei just sighed.

"There loads of rooms in these kinds of places, even though he chose one of the small ones to stay in." She chatted on to Duo while Heero wandered what exactly they were going to do all evening.

From what Heero had gathered, his paternal father was not the social sort which explained a few things. Though he doubted either Duo or Hitomi would be happy with a quiet night in reading, or writing up on his laptop.

"I suppose we could stay but I would need to go collect our bags first. I could pick up anything in town that may be needed." He offered as he stood up and moved over to his coat.

Memso nodded and looked in the direction of the kitchen, "we do need some milk… and I suppose it wouldn't hurt for me to cook something good tonight. If I give you a list could you pick up the missing bits?"

It was an hour later, Memso had cooked and everyone was sitting once more, comfortably in the main living room. There was a comfortable silence in the room until Heero spoke, "Is it possible to ask about our family history? I have a few questions."

Memso sat up a bit, taking interest "yes of course! Some of the stories of our ancestors are quiet interesting. For example, did you know that-"

Heero held up a hand to hold the flow, for a moment, seeing that his father was an enthusiast for the subject. "I wanted to be particular."

"How so? Did you find something in your researching of us?"

There was a pause before he answered. "Yes. I found… reference to one of our ancestors, I was hoping you could enlighten me to any family story there may be about them." He paused as Memso nodded encouragingly, "it was a relative named Yuki Sohma."

Memso's eyes widened while Hitomi sat up stark straight in the chair her eyes hungry for information, opening her mouth "there is a rumour… " she murmured, watching Memso.

"I know you know it Mem, I saw you reading the old books that are kept by… Them. You were lucky to be Her favourite at one point."

Memso looked away from the group, out the window at the glowing sunset that was starting to take place. He seemed to come to a decision as looked over the group.

"Okay." He began, then smiled. "Just remember, what I tell you is all I know, so please bare with me if something's seem… vague or strange."

"Yuki Sohma was the Rat of the Zodiac back before the colonies. Back then the head of the family was called Akito and he was a cruel man, you can feel it when you read the words he wrote in the journals all head of the family must keep.

"You see, Yuki's parents practically gave there son to him when he was a child, with Akito being only a few years older, maybe 4 or 5? Anyway, he was obsessive with the Rat, about how perfect he should be and how he was the closed to…" he tittered "God."

"You see, the head of the family, is to us of the Zodiac, the God in the story. He is the one that calls us, guides us and rules us. And the Rat was the first to the banquet in the story."

He sighed heavily, "it's a shame you see, because since then, every head of the family has ignored the Rat as much as the Cat."

There was a pause he gathered his thoughts before continuing. "But there's another part of the story, you see, the Cat at the time was a boy name Kyo. And he had it just as hard at the Rat; his mother killed herself when he was a boy, taken on by a Dojo Master he was raised to hate the Rat and the Cat was vice versa.

"It's almost a tradition in our family to see them fighting constantly. But the one thing they never took into consideration was that the two would grow to become friends. You see they got to live outside of Sohma house with a relative called Shiguri, he was the dog back the. And then… a young girl called Tohru Honda came to live with them…came to know of the secret…"

Duos eyes perked up at hearing the name, her book still sitting in his bag in his room, next to Heero's bag.

"And… they became friends, with her kindness and warmth, it's said the for the first time in the history of the family, the Cat and the Rat didn't hate each other. But this infuriated Akito, he had the Cat locked up when he finished his schooling, as is traditional; but the Zodiac was close back then, they were all within the same ten years of being born and they were close. They hated him I think, so helped the Cat and the Rat escape!

"They defied our God…. To the point were he killed Tohru Honda."

There was silence as everyone stared at Memso, shock, horror and curiosity running threw all in the room. Memso was staring at a patch of floor as he spoke, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible while he spoke so as to get all the words out.

"He… revelled in it."

"He had hated her since she arrived, she.. .took his Rat away from him and gave the Cat dreams of freedom in his life. She gave the entire suffering Zodiac a chance to think that life could be better, that they could be normal and accepted, and Akito had worked so hard to make them all fear him, to make them obey his every word without thinking… to fear him."

"After Tohru died, he quickly re-captured the Cat and the Rat. Locking them both up in rooms that are still in Sohma house today, they are never used but everyone knows that bad things happened in those rooms. I mean, the Cats cage has never changed but those forced to dwell there, say that sometimes at night they see a figure in the corner of the room, looking out of the bars.

"Its just superstition but… They both died within three years of being re-captured…"

There was silence as he finished speaking and those in the room thought deeply on the loose that those two had felt.

"They lost there freedom and there acceptance in one go," murmured Duo, his eyes out of focus. "Being accepted for who and what you are.. Its more important that some think."

"For us, acceptance is hard." Whispered Hitomi, drying her eyes.

Heero nodded, "that explains much… because you see, I went to one of the summer houses to try and get an idea of the family. And I found this."

He showed them the book he had brought down with them.

"Oh my…" Gasped Memso once he was told what it was.