Mortality

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Furuba characters. They are copy write and subject to Natsuki Takaya and TokyoPop. Because we all know that if I owned it Yuki would rule the world….(Dramatic music and evil laugh)

I apologize deeply from the bottom of my heart about any spelling mistakes but if you can\'t enjoy the story because of them don\'t complain your just too anal about it!

Enjoy~

Prologue

~I’m not afraid to learn the secrets of the Sohma family, no matter what they may be or what it may do to me. In fact I want to know! I want to know everything about them because I want to be a part of their lives, like they are a part of mine. I want to learn everything I can about Yuki-Kun, Kyou-Kun, Shii-Chan and the rest of the Sohmas. I’m afraid though, that the closer I get to their secret the farther I am pushed away and that one day I will be pushed so far away that I will never be able to see any of them again…ever…~


The morning had awakened a beautiful sunny day that brought hope that maybe Jack Frost wouldn’t be visiting them this year. Any idea of this had gone out the window as the day wore on though, because sure enough by noon the clouds had come rolling in and the entire city seemed to have been placed under an inevitable shadow of doom. Despite the gloom that foreshadowed the coming winter Tohru was as happy as ever as she picked out ingredients to make nabe that evening.

“Oh, wow it looks like it’s going to rain soon. I hope I can make it home before it does I didn’t bring an umbrella and I would hate for everything to get ruined.” She said aloud to no one in particular as her soft brown orbs looked up at the ominous gray clouds that threatened to shower upon her at any moment. Tohru rapped her coat tighter around herself and with a great sigh that meant something like “I can do this!” she trudged along on the long path that would eventually take her home.

She hadn’t been counting on the wind to be as strong as it was. Twice she nearly dropped the bag of groceries and more than a couple of times she almost fell because she couldn’t see where she was going. Somehow, though, she managed to find her way to the house and as she slipped her shoes off she smiled to herself because she had made it all on her own. With ease she slid the door open to greet a dark, empty house.

“I’m home!” Tohru called out, but only silence welcomed her. “Kyou-Kun, Shii-Chan, Sohma-Kun are any of you home?” After checking through the rooms and finding the place completely empty she dropped the groceries off in the kitchen and slipped up to her room to change into something more comfortable.

“I’m home mom. Did you watch the house for me while I was gone?” She slipped off her light brown coat and placed it in the closet as she gave her mom a small smile on her desk. “It looks like it’s just you and me right now. What do you think of nabe? I hope everyone will like it when they get home. You know how picky Kyou-Kun can be.”

Tohru slipped out of the room while she was still talking to her mother, an old habit that didn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon, and proceeded to go down to start dinner. “Hmm that’s odd. I left the door open. I swore I closed it. Oh well you know how clumsy I can be sometimes mom.” She went into the room and closed the door again making a mental note that she had for sure closed it. As she was turning around she stepped on a wet soggy piece of paper and unraveled it.

Tohru I am deeply sorry but we will be late for your delicious dinner. Mii has made positive that I bring her the new manuscript right away at risk of smashing my poor hand. Oh she can be so cruel sometimes. I should be back quiet a bit later. Yuki and Kyou came along with me because they just simply couldn’t stand to see me leave the house all alone at night they are such good boys. Hmm or maybe it was because they couldn’t stand to have me invite Ayame over to watch the house with them while I was gone. Anyway, we will be back as soon as Mine will let us squirm our way out of the office. I just hope I brought the right manuscript oh well. ~Shigure

“Oh so that’s where they went. Well in that case I will make sure to have it done by the time they get home. Or my name isn’t Tohru Honda!”


“Hmm dinner is done but they still aren’t home. Shigure must be having a tuff time getting away from Mine. I guess he really didn’t bring the right manuscript. Oh well I’ll just put it on simmer so that way it’s hot when they get home.”

All of the lights in the Sohma home were slowly being extinguished while Tohru was entirely oblivious to it. As she turned the burner on the stove to simmer she was cast in pitch black darkness, the only light emanating from the softly glowing stove and from the moon that seemed to slice light through the dark thickening clouds. A cold malicious voice echoed through the kitchen, sending spine tingling shivers down Tohru’s entire body and causing her to become as completely still as stone.

“Just the prefect little housewife as always I see Tohru Honda-San.”

Tohru’s eyes became wide with an intermingle of realization and fear as the words registered in her head and the voice brought a picture to match. The words that he had said to her that summer that seemed so long ago screamed loudly in her mind. Don’t get conceited you little bitch. In the end they’ll all come back to me. Because we cannot be apart. So stop trying to destroy our happiness. Stay out of it. Be a good girl. Otherwise you’ll be punished. Oh no, what is he doing here? Why has he come to see me? What if he has come to punish me because I haven’t left? What does Akito want with me? To them I am the closet thing there is to a God…

I have to help them! But how can I help them if I am even afraid to look at Akito? I can never save them if I can’t save myself first. Her legs were trembling and her hands where shaking as she slowly turned around to look at Akito. Tohru could feel the tears weighing heavily behind her eyes as she looked around the kitchen.

But no one was there.

“Looking for me?”

Tohru screeched and turned too quickly back around causing her legs to become intertwined; this combined with her nature talent for clumsiness was the reason that as a lighting bolt shot through the sky and lit the twisted smiling face of Akito that she fell backwards and landed hard on her ass.

“I thought I told you to stay out of our business Honda-San…or have you chosen to try to save them anyway? Hmm?”

Akito squatted down almost nearly on top of Tohru and looked her straight in the eyes as rain began to pelt the home and more lighting scared the blackened night. She was beginning to tremble all over as she stared into Akito’s threatening eyes that seemed to be enabled to suck the oxygen directly from her lungs. Those eyes that have the ability to see right through Yuki-Kun and ignite such a terror that it nearly paralyzes him with fright, eyes that are able to see into Kyou-Kun and tweak the very nerve that causes him both anger and pain, eyes that hold the freedom of every single member of the Sohma family, eyes never wandering, never straying away from Tohru’s, the eyes of a monster.

Never letting his gaze wander he watched her eyes as the tears began to well up and in one smooth, quick motion he slapped her directly across the face.

“Filth!” He hissed at her as she held her reddened cheek and looked down at the floor. Slowly a hand came up to run a finger through her soft brown hair, bringing it to his lips as he breathed in the scent, the scent of Tohru. He let the hair drop back down to rest against her shoulder, taking note of the tears running from her chin to her neck, smiling from with knowing that he was the cause of them.

Akito watched a single tear fall from her eyes, trailing it down her cheek and along the edge of her jaw line before it fell and hit her color bone. His hand came back up slowly to stop it from going any farther. “Like this tear, this liquid that was once a part of your body, must come to an end. So must your time with the Sohma family.” Swiftly his hand reached up to wrap around Tohru’s neck and pin her to the ground, chocking off her air but careful not to break her neck.

Tohru tried to let out a scream but the hand constricting her throat made it very difficult. It finally hit her like a ton of bricks that Akito was going to try and kill her. With this realization she begin struggling back trying to reach at him, claw him, bite him, do anything she could to make him let her go.

But it only served to anger him more.

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head as one of her ribs snapped from Akito jamming his leg into them. She didn’t know weather everything was beginning to get black because of the lack of oxygen or from the pain but suddenly a gust of air shock into her lungs painfully.

He had let go.

Tohru scrambled away from him as far back as she could as he stood up to look at the counter and out over the yard. She ran a hand up her neck while the other clutched her side where the pain seemed to be sending ripple after ripple of ache through her small body.

“You don’t belong Honda-San. You are an outsider, and outsiders are not welcome in our family. You will never save them, and if you think you can you will only bring them more pain.” He turned back towards her a knife gleaming in his hand. “The only thing you are making sure of is that once they are with me that they are going to be punished beyond anything they have every experienced. Can you live with that? Do you think you will be able to sleep knowing that Kyou-Kun is locked away, without anyone to talk to, with little food, knowing that if you had just left that would not have been his fate?

“Or Yuki-Kun, do you want to be responsible for giving him such great pain. Do you want to hurt them Tohru Honda-San?”

Is that all I am really doing? What if I can’t help them, what if I can’t save them, is that the life that they are heading for? I’m not helping them at all. I’m just making sure that once I can no longer be in their lives that they have to suffer as much as possible. How can I be so, so…?

“Selfish, yes you are.”

Akito knelt down and grabbed her hand once more, taking the knife and sinking it in her skin from her palm to her middle finger. The blood began to pour almost instantly all over the floor and onto her. He trailed the knife down her collar bone giving her small slashes here and there all the while with Tohru remaining as still as possible, somehow knowing that if she moved he would slit her throat.

“You have a choice. I can either kill you now and end it all, or you can leave. Leave now, tonight, this very minute without a word to the others, without taking anything, and if you do maybe just maybe I will be lenient on them. Maybe I won’t make them suffer as much. But only if you leave Tohru Honda-San, leave and never ever come back or talk to any of the Sohmas again.”

The tears where running down more fiercely as she looked up into Akito’s eyes. She didn’t want to leave everyone she cared about them so much. But what choice did she have? Was she really saving them or was she only causing them more pain. Was she that selfish?

“But I…I can’t even say goodbye…”

Akito had had enough fun for the evening. He was tired of this and wanted to be on his way before the others got home. He reached out and grabbed Tohru by the hair and began slamming her head onto the floor. “YOU CAN NEVER SEE THEM OR SPEAK TO THEM AGAIN; IF YOU DO I WILL KILL YOU. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? I WILL KILL YOU!”

Somehow though Tohru wasn’t sure exactly how she was able to get Akito to let go of her hair. All she could think of was to run, run as far away as she could. She wouldn’t be a burden on anyone any longer; she wasn’t going to let it be her fault that everyone would be punished.

Tohru ignored the pain in her head or the blood running swiftly how her face and her hand, she stood and ran through the house out of the front door that was now open once more. She wouldn’t go through the forest in the front of the house she couldn’t run into them on their way back. She would never be able to tell them goodbye or let them know how much she loved every single one of them or that she would rather cause herself pain by running than stay and hurt them in the long run.

The mud splashed her legs as she ran as far and as fast as she could. She couldn’t see where she was going with the rain and the wind, all she knew was that she wouldn’t stop; she couldn’t stop. She had to get away, she had to leave so that they would be okay, and she had to help them the only way she knew how. Even if it killed her inside.

Akito stood in the kitchen looking around at the small mess. Her blood had left a large stain on the floor leading from the kitchen to the sitting room and out onto the porch though the rain washed it away from there. He walked over to the stove and turned off the burner. Nabe. He took a spoon and tried some of the stew that Tohru had made for the others. Yuck she is an awful cook as well.

He dropped the spoon on the floor and grabbed the pot and with one swift move threw it on the floor as well. Akito didn’t look back as he left the house, not even bothering to close the door. I will kill her if she dares to come back, if she dares to disobey me. Though I do wonder exactly how Yuki and Kyo are going to take the news. I do hope that they don’t do anything stupid, which would be a very painful mistake on their part. I guess we will have to just wait and see