Chapter 5: Consuming Darkness

A small stream of water made its way over flat, polished stones. The stream eventually flowed into the pond in which large, wonderful koi fishes resided, their marvelous scales glistened and reflected the sunlight. They were effortlessly beautiful, majestic. How Toru wished she could simply turn into one of those koi fishes and forget over every single one of her worries. The thought hadn't completely formed in her head as she realized how stupid it was to wish for that. She had a lot to be really thankful for. Well, not at the moment, but she did have a lot—lovely friends and kind people in her life.

The teenage girl stood at the very same window at which Yuki had sat all those years ago, waiting for Akito. She realized now that he had been able to have a look at the most beautiful part of the gardens, yet he also had never been able to roam them, to discover the beauties that weren't visible from his lonely place in this room. The beams of sunlight were highlighting everything nicely. It made the koi fishes seem all the more sparkly and the flowers at the back all the more colorful. But the upcoming twilight told her that her time was almost over. She had run out of freedom—or at least that was what she thought.

A few hours ago, they had arrived at the main house and the family head had led her to this very room. He had placed her in front of the window, had smiled and then had excused himself. "When twilight arrives, I'll be back to fulfill my promise." Although his smile had told her that she had to know what he was talking about, the brown-haired girl didn't have a single clue which promise he was talking about. Because she really didn't made him promise a thing. She couldn't even remember the last time she had asked for something (despite normal things like 'Could you pass me the rice?'). So naturally, his words had filled her with worry, with an unhealthy kind of anticipation which made her nervous and jittery inside. Her bottom lip had started to quiver again but since no one was here, she didn't stop herself. Even Hatori had been forced to leave her alone.

As Toru watched the twilight get more intense and then, as a consequence, slowly give way to the nocturnal darkness, the girl stood frozen by the window. She could exactly imagine how Yuki had felt. It was an especially mean, anxious feeling to stare at the garden and watch how her deadline came nearer and nearer, how time closed in on her. The thing that actually frightened her most was that she didn't even know what Akito was about to do with her. Was he going to hurt her? Was he going to speak to her?

An urgent question made its way to the front of her thoughts: 'Why did she let this happen?' Why exactly was she about to let her state of being decided by the black-haired male? It didn't matter how hard she demanded an answer from herself; she didn't get one.

When Akito slid open the previously firmly shut rice paper door, he had obviously changed his clothes. His new yukata was midnight blue with light grey flowers printed at the bottom and at the sleeves. The young male looked as if he had taken a bath and had washed off all of his previous emotions. His hair shimmered like silk in the dimly lit room and his skin positively glowed—nobody would think he had been too ill to visit a school festival earlier this day. But there he stood. Awfully composed, sleek and maybe even a little bit arrogant if she dared to think that about him.

His pale lips opened but not a single sound spilled out of them. Those black eyes watched her for a while before he pursed them and raised his hand. His index finger curled; he beckoned her to come to him. As she unsteadily sat foot in front of foot, Toru asked herself again why she followed his every word. Then again, she found that it actually hadn't bothered her at all throughout the years before she found out that he had toyed with Yuki's mind and had literally tortured the sweet boy. Or maybe she had known but was such a horrible person that she decided to not remember any of this. Yeah.

That didn't sound so wrong. She just was a terrible, horrible, really bad person. And she deserved every bit of Shigure's chilly gaze, Kyo's anger and Yuki's disappointment.

When she came to stand in front him, he pulled her into a tight embrace. The move was so very slow, sluggishly done that it felt as if her mind was wrapped in cotton. It was a feeling that she would imagine as the kind of thing that happens to you when you were drugged. Akito pressed against her as if he was savoring every bit of their contact. His body fit perfectly against hers, her thin arms neatly snug around his waist. Years of practice. His chin pressed uncomfortably against her shoulder. He really had a rather pointy chin. Akira had had the same chin. Toru shifted the tiniest bit so that the uncomfortable feeling faded to the distant thought that he was leaning on her for support. Support for what? She was afraid to find out.

The pale fingers of his hand tangled easily into her chestnut brown hair which fell down her back. "You have never cut your hair, haven't you?" His voice came from deep inside his chest, rumbling and sending vibrations through their bodies. "No. I kind of treasure it. Mother loved it." This time, he shifted. His lips brushed faintly over her earlobe until his mouth hovered directly in front of her ear. "I know," he whispered.

And then she felt how he pulled all of her hair together. Toru heard a cutting noise; the dangerous noise of strands of hair being unprofessionally torn.

Akito pulled away, gazing at her. The right hand held a pocket knife. The silver metal glistened in the dim light as his hair had also done. The left hand was clenched around the brown tresses. He raised his hand into the air, between them. The fingers let go of the hair, one strand after another. More and more of it fell to the floor like creepy, alien rain drops. They landed in a disgusting heap on the floor between them. The teenager stared at the puddle of hair. Horror filled her chest, fear and sadness bit equally into her heart. For the first time in ages, Toru found herself unable to think of anything. She wasn't capable of producing any kind of sound or moving her brown eyes away from the pile of hair that was no longer attached to her head. The only thing that she was capable of, was crying.

Only that she didn't really cry. There was no running nose, no quivering of her bottom lip, no sniffling and no sobbing. Salty tears simply slipped over her cheeks. Tear after tear. They followed her jawline to the tip of her chin before dropping to the floor. With every drop, she felt more sadness and horror, more angst and hurt, more fear and … Her body seemed to be a bottomless pit; more and more of all those horrible feelings poured into her, mingling into a huge amount of something that was only able to pain her. The girl still stared at her hair and found her body being so full of pain that she stopped breathing all together. He could have slapped her again and the pain would have been much less. She would have preferred being slept. She would have preferred it if he had struck her multiple times, if he had left her bloody and broken at the floor like a discarded toy. Because then she wouldn't have to feel this.

Her hair. Her hair. Her mother had loved long hair. Her mother had told her that she should never-ever cut it because it was just so beautiful. She had loved to braid it; she had loved to put it into different styles. She had even bought expensive shampoos, conditioners and hair masks to keep it healthy and shiny. For a normal person, it may seem stupid to fuss over a pile of hair that much but for Toru, Akito could have as well cut of her right arm and hurt her less with it. Kyoko Honda had insisted on Toru starting and finishing high school and letting her take care of her daughter's hair. The woman had only demanded two things. The family head had known both of them, even kind of encouraged her to do both properly. And now he had cut off her hair, just like that. He had treated it as if it wasn't one of two things that still gave her the feeling of pleasing her mother. It was worse than discarding her. It was worse than hurting her physically.

"… do you hear me?" Forcefully, her eyes whipped to what once had been Akito, the most wonderful and important person in her world. It was now the personalization of her own hell, the human form of Death who had rudely ripped her mother away from her once again. As her weak mind broke under the pressure, his obvious hate for her (Why else would he do this?) and the loss of what she considered a token of her affection for her mother … Toru fell to her knees, all the while staring at him. She was not able to comprehend the situation.

Akito's fingertips slid over her wet cheek and his lips curled into a cruel smile. "You said that you would only love me. You promised." His voice had a bitter hint to it as he pulled her to her feet and let his hand grip painfully around her upper arm. Toru stumbled after him, not stopping to silently continue to cry. The brown-haired girl knew where he was headed. The family head turned around the corner into another hallway and stopped in front of an innocent looking door. It was a western one and compared to all the rice paper doors in the rest of the building, it stuck out like a sore thumb. He pulled it open—her brown eyes barely noticed the heavy lock on it. They walked in together but only one of them would leave the room today; she was sure that it wouldn't be her.

Inside, there was only darkness.

Toru had imagined this room multiple times by now but her imagination could have never possibly come up with this. It was like a hellhole—four walls, no windows. The walls were pitch-black and although the floor was not, the missing income of light was enough to scare every positive feeling out of her. "I told you. If you break the promise, I will prick you with a thousand needles." Akito let go of her arm; she could feel a bruise forming where his fingers had been. Leaving her standing in the middle of the room, the God slowly backed away. He watched her cautiously as if she was the dangerous one, the crazy one. As if she had been the one to hurt him, as if she had been the one to stab him in the back. His voice still echoed through her empty mind even when the door had long fallen close and been locked. As panic started to grow within her, Toru desperately asked herself when and how Akito had decided to solve the situation in this way.

"I am the God of the Zodiac. And you were trying to take them away. You cannot mingle because I love you."

Yuki didn't know what to do.

He had pulled on his shoes. He had taken them off again. He had walked into the kitchen but upon seeing her unfinished task of putting the cookies into a jar, he had lost every bit of appetite. Next, the gray-haired boy had walked into the living room. The hole in Shigure's office door had greeted him and he had become positively sick, his stomach doing flip-flops inside him. The nauseous feeling had made his head spin and he had proceeded to go upstairs to rest on his bed. Only that once he had lied down, the sickness had been replaced with a mix between sadness and anger. Scathing rage, to be exact.

And that was where he was now—lying on his bed, staring at the plain ceiling. The rat felt awful. He didn't know if he was being irrationally angry at Toru. Akito was a decisive bastard so it wasn't the girl's fault that she had been fooled by him to see past his nasty character and ill behavior. But then again she had preferred their God over them mere hours ago. Wasn't she supposed to be friends with them, to care for them? Hadn't she said herself that she wanted to remain friends with him, no matter what? She had said that he was a good friend and a kind person.

Yuki turned on his stomach.

The teenage boy couldn't start to begin at how to broach this matter. Should he call Hatori? Maybe Akito was hurting Toru right now? But maybe he didn't get their relationship right. Hatori had looked at Toru caringly, had treated her nothing but kindly. Which made sense if they knew each other since more than ten years. But despite the fact that the girl seemed to get along with the dragon just fine—the rat couldn't believe that her relationship with Akito was just as stable or good. He had slapped her across the face and pushed her to the floor!

Yuki turned on his back, gazing again at the ceiling as if the answer to all of his problems was displayed there. It was getting later and later but he couldn't think of anything that could possibly help his situation. So the grey-haired teen continued to lie on his bed for hours until he fell asleep, dreaming of dark rooms and brown, large eyes that were gazing frightfully at him while Akito appeared everywhere he looked to shut out every bit of light.

The next morning, Yuki awoke to the insistent ringing of the doorbell. He threw a sleepy look out of his window and noticed that it was afternoon. He must have slept in and half of the day had already passed. Not being able to walk properly, Yuki stumbled down the stairs and opened the door. He positively thought that someone up there was heavily mocking him. Momiji Sohma was radiating excitement and happiness while jumping up and down and trying to peer over Yuki's shoulders. The rabbit was accompanied by a tall boy with a mop of… special hair. The top was a snowy white, the bottom pitch black. Hatsuhara Sohma, the cow, smiled casually and raised a hand to greet his friend.

"We were at your school, Yuki," Momiji cheered and grinned all over his babyface, "But neither you nor Toru or Kyo were there!" The blonde giggled heartily and clapped his hands together. "I wanted to introduce Hatsuharu to Toru! She's too cute for him not to know her! Where is she? Where is she?" In an instant, Yuki's sleepiness disappeared and his grey eyes darted from Hatsuharu to Momiji. He was alarmed and didn't know what to do. Should he even tell them the truth? He was sure that wouldn't be in Akito's interest. His feverish thinking was being interrupted when Kyo came out of the woods, sweaty from having done his daily afternoon workout.

The orange haired teen raised his arms over his head, stretching. "Yo. What are you doing here?" His face turned angry only a second later. "Do you have a message from Akito?!" Yuki really wanted to slam this dork's head against the nearest sharp thing. Such idiocy wasn't normal. He prayed, it wasn't. Of course all the thinking which Yuki had done was now going to be wasted. Momiji turned to back to the rat and stared at him, open-mouthed. "What? Why would we have a message from Akito? Wouldn't he call you or drop by? Is he mad at you? Did you anger him? And why aren't you telling me where Toru is? Is she ill?"

Although Hatsuharu wasn't always looking as if he was capable of doing any mindwork at all, he was actually very intelligent. "Did Akito do something with her?" His calm voice was serious and turned even more dangerous when he added as an afterthought, "Did he hurt you, Yuki?" The overprotectiveness of the cow would have bothered Yuki at any other time but he was grateful for it now. "No, he didn't… But he did do… something to Toru."

After a few minutes, he had explained the situation to other two members of the zodiac and between the four males, not a word was said while everyone of the boys pondered over it. Much to his surprise, it wasn't Momiji who raised his voice first; it was Hatsuharu. "I mainly came because I was worried about you, Yuki," he said darkly and looked up at the sky. "Meeting Toru would be nice but I was thinking about you when I agreed with coming here." The rat knitted his eyebrows together. "Why?" Hatsuharu turned his black eyes towards his friend. "Because when I strolled through the gardens yesterday night, I heard noises coming from the room. The black one."

Yuki paled. Every bit of color was being drained out of his face until he looked as white as a fresh sheet of paper. "T-the room?" he echoed dumbly and saw Kyo also perking up. "What kind of noises?" the cat wanted to know and shuffled until he could look Hatsuharu directly into his face. "Shuffling, dimmed noise… Sobs." Once more, everyone was silent. Kyo and Yuki tried very hard to imagine how Toru was being kept in the dark, being heavily frightened and left alone. "But I wasn't really sure what was going on, it could as well have been Akito who was visiting the room and… re-decorating things in there. But that was why I was worried."

Suddely, the youngest of the four turned around and bolted away from the group, literally running away and back where Hatsuharu and he appeared from minutes ago. "Wait! Momiji," Yuki shouted and almost sped after him despite not wearing any kind of shoes. "Where are you going?!" The rabbit only paused for a few seconds. "We have to do something!" he shouted back and started to run again. After Yuki put on shoes and got the house key, the other three followed. It looked like they were four princes, trying to rescue a single princess.

Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket and don't earn money with this.

Hello my beautiful shiny-stars!

I think you probably didn't expect to be back because I've been lately failing to publish anything. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut here I am! Real life has been a bitch and stuff but yeah. So anyway, here's the new chapter!

As you've probably (:D) noticed, we (or rather I) have gone darker than before, reaching a whole new level of suffering for Toru. THANK YOU SO MUCH for all the reviews and favs and follows. I lost overview to which reviews I replied and to which not but I will pick up with the ones written after this chapter. (If there will be any at all. Probably flame, haha.)

So, anyway, IMPORTANT NOTES

• Toru does not hate Akito • She is petrified by her fear and she is traumatizied • For her, her hair has been an important connection to her mother. (As in, the length was important!) • Akito has cut the hair directly at her neck so her "haircut" is rather boyish.

Differences to the Manga/Anime:

• Akito cuts Tohru's hair (obviously) • Her hair is really, really important to Toru (though it is canon that her mother loft braiding it and stuff) • Hatsuharu has not meet Toru yet but knows exactly who she is

So let me know how much do you want to kill me after this chapter. Keep in mind that there is definitely hope for AkitoxToru! 3 I enjoyed the reviews and had to grin when I read "she is going to stay with him". Yeah. She is. But not in the way you imagined, right? :P

XOXO Padlock