Prologue: The Founding of the Sohma Kingdom
Once upon a time, many centuries ago, there is a very rich huge island full of lush forests and rivers that stretched out from over 1,000 acres in a far away land. There, the pioneers who first came to the huge island explored across land to discover an ancient temple surrounding by a circular river bend while in the middle of the lush forest. When they approach the temple, the inhabitants were met by a dark entity that is eager to grant them great knowledge, wealth, and power to help them accommodate the island but at a price.
Feeling eager to establish the first great city at the spot were the temple is, the leader of the pioneers known as Lord Sohma, took the chance in accepting the entity's offer without giving it another thought. In response to Lord Sohma's agreement, the entity cast a massive dark ray that showered the entire island. Just before long, some of Sohma's explorers became cursed by the entity's bonding dark power, afflicting them with the malicious spirits of the Animals of the Chinese Zodiac. As a result, the entity forbade them from ever leaving the island in exchange for helping them build their kingdom on the spot, granting them the power and resources as he promised.
At the same time, the entity opened up a portal from the underworld inside the temple, allowing an army various beastmen warriors to provide security and protection for Lord Sohma's people. They are known as the Zodiac Cult.
At first, Lord Sohma felt guilty for letting his fellow pioneers fall under the entity's curse, as well as getting aid from the entity's monstrous forces. However, since his days of establishing the kingdom have just begun, he made his choice to stay in the island for life. In about 45 years later during the first founding of the Sohma Kingdom, Lord Sohma passes away peacefully in his deathbed, leaving his teachings, his knowledge, and his contract with the dark entity to his children and to his future descendants. For Lord Sohma's eldest son, he helped finished the palace built above the entity's temple and proclaimed himself as the first King of the Sohma Kingdom to honor his father's name.
In the first years of the king's reign, he shared some of his wealth with several Sohma barons to establish villages all across the island, expanding the Sohma Kingdom far and wide.
However, as time went on, the warriors of Zodiac Cult grew arrogant and abusing their authority as the Sohma's military force, taking advantage of the people living in the Sohma Kingdom. Some of the people are begging their king to do something about the Zodiac Cult. Unfortunately, the Sohma king refuses to deal with the Zodiac Cult's abuse over the people because he can't go back on the very promise that his father made to the entity that helped them establish their country in the island. Sadly, he continues to sit on his throne inside the palace while letting his own people suffer under the hands of the Zodiac Cult.
Desperate and enraged by the King's betrayal, most of the villages and their barons in the Sohma Kingdom started rebelling against him in hopes of trying to snap his majesty out of his corrupted thoughts, trying to get him to come to his senses. They start off by raiding isolated Sohma arms freighters at several docks, taking up arms against the Zodiac Cults, thus the civil wars begin amongst the Sohma Kingdom. It became worse for wear as the civil war went on and on for many generations as many friends and loved ones are lost under the hands of the mighty Zodiac beast warriors.
With the rebellions against the Kings of the Sohmas going on and on, the Kingdom is forced to be divided into separate areas: the Forest District, the Beach District, the Temple District, and the Palace District. As for the villages outside of all four districts, they remain helpless against the abusive will of the beast warriors of the Zodiac Cult robbing them of the food they occasionally harvest. Even as a Sohma King passes away, the next generation of rulers still keep true to their selfish thoughts as they continue to let the Zodiac beast warriors take advantage of the weak and helpless; a civil war that doesn't seem to end, always remaining the same.
Eventually in 1200 years later of civil war, the armed villagers and the renegade barons are unable to hold their ground against the powerful might of the Zodiac Cult Beastmen, forcing the helpless latter to flee from all four districts with their lives. Since then, no one had attempted to reclaim any of the districts in the Sohma Kingdom. They stayed hidden within the isolated villages for they no longer had anymore power to fight back against the Zodiac beastmen.
It became a dark day for the founding of the Sohma Kingdom ever since...
*Author's Note: Since this is only an Alternate Universe of Fruits Basket, I want to make this story more intense, giving a darker origin of how the Sohmas have been cursed by the Animals of the Chinese Zodiac.*