Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ Eyes Of The Dragon ❯ Free Fall ( Chapter 3 )

 

 

She stood near the cage thoughtfully studying its occupant then turned to her second in command. “Find the healer for me. I don't want the new toy to break before I've had my fun with it.”

 

“You are evil, my Lady. That's one of the reasons I like you,” Melee said before wandering off to find the healer.

 

She turned back to the cage and smiled slightly at the unconscious Akito. “You'll learn, spoiled one, what a god really is and finally realize you are no where *near* that status.”

 

Melee returned a few minutes later with the healer in tow.

 

“My Lady, what is it you wish of me?” the healer asked.

 

“See what you can do in healing *that*. I know any effects will be temporary and that they are very ill. But I will not have them die before their time, nor at my hands if it can be helped. Keep it asleep for a while longer if you will. I'd really rather not deal with the screaming at the moment.”

 

“As you will it, my Lady,” the healer said, bowing deeply to first her then Melee before going to work on Akito.

 

“Might I ask why you had me bring the healer instead of a regular doctor?” Melee asked as they walked out of the great hall and into the large circular room where the gazing pool and crystals were held. Set to the side was a massive weaving loom with a tapestry in progress on it. She walked to it and touched a few of the threads very gently; the whole of the tapestry seemed to hum and vibrate lowly under her fingertips.

 

“Do you sincerely believe that Dr. Sohma hasn't already tried everything both Western and Eastern medicine has to offer to make it live and thrive?”

 

Melee nodded. “Point taken, my Lady. I suppose there are things a healer has at their disposal that both studies of medicine either have no knowledge of or choose to ignore.”

 

“Indeed.”

 

“Much as I'd like to stay and see you work with that,” Melee said, nodding to the tapestry. “I have other plans for the day.”

 

“Those *plans* don't happen to involve stalking a certain monkey, do they?” she said, staring down her subordinate.

 

Melee grinned. “No more so than your plans involve stalking a particular dragon.”

 

“Touché.”

 

 

By four that afternoon Aya had managed to get Ritsu so busy in the shop that he had almost forgotten the previous night's fright. At that moment Aya had him standing on one of the tailor's blocks and was fluttering around trying to get the seams of the beautiful silk coat Ritsu was wearing lined up right.

 

Both men jumped a little when the bell over the door of the shop rang. Aya took the pins out of his mouth and turned to greet the customer with a bit more than his usual enthusiasm. Here was someone who knew how to dress, Aya thought, looking the person over. Silk suit, obviously Armani, and shirt with nice Gucci dress shoes and topped off with fabulous Prada tie and sunglasses perched on top of their head.

 

“Good afternoon,” Aya said brightly. “Welcome to my shop.”

 

The other person smiled around the cigar firmly clamped in very white teeth. Thankfully they'd had the decency to put it out before entering the establishment.

 

“It's a very nice little shop. I'm looking for something . . . interesting.”

 

Aya's eyebrows went up. “Define interesting.”

 

“I'll know it when I see it,” they said, once again smiling around the end of the cigar. “And I think I see it now,” the stranger said, starting to walk toward where Ritsu was still standing on the tailor's block, fussing with the buttons of the coat.

 

Ritsu chose that moment to look up and nearly hyperventilated. The person heading toward him had to be the most incredible thing he'd ever seen. The face was something poetry was surely written about. The person's white blonde hair was longer than Aya's, done in a simple braid and pulled over one shoulder. But what captured and held Ritsu's attention and held it was the eyes. Framed in black lashes that were a sharp contrast with the hair, they were a clear ice blue. Ritsu tried to hold still as the individual walked around him several times, seeming to study the coat he was wearing, or at least that's what he presumed they were doing.

 

“Excellent lines, beautiful coloring, I'll take it,” the stranger said.

 

“Oh, the coat isn't finished yet,” Aya said from behind them.

 

“I'll take the coat when it's finished too. But I was talking about the model,” they said, grinning cheekily at Ritsu.

 

Luckily the individual had excellent reflexes and caught Ritsu as he fell off of the tailor's block in a dead faint.

 

“Well, I've never had anyone literally fall into my arms before but I think that's a good start.”

 

 

Hatori sighed and glared at the paperwork on his desk. He had managed to straighten all of his medical supplies, not that they weren't already perfectly straight in the first place, had worked in the small Zen garden for a while, made phone calls to just about every member of the family and paced the confines of his office. He had suddenly realized just how much of a full time job taking care of Akito actually was. This whole situation had shaken him out of his complacency and he began to wonder, for possibly the first time, about his place in the larger world. Needless to say he would go on living long after Akito had passed but what then?

 

He picked up the picture of himself and Kana that still resided on his desk and wondered how his life might have been different if it weren't for the fact that he occasionally turned into a seahorse. He shook his head at the insanity of it all and thought he in particular had been doubly cursed. He thoughtfully stroked the lines of the face in the picture. He turned in surprise when he heard a soft and seemingly exasperated sigh behind him. Finding no one else in the room he was about to chalk it up to imagination and boredom when someone spoke.

 

“You know, moping over the past is most unbecoming of a dragon,” the voice said.

 

Hatori immediately began looking for someone else in the room, when that failed to yield anyone he looked outside in the waiting area, then the treatment room and finally outside. He came back into his office afterward and started looking for hidden microphones, thinking this had to be a joke of some sort.

 

The next time the voice spoke, it seemed to be coming from directly inside of his head. //Is this better?//

 

“Who and where are you?” he demanded. “And what did you mean by referring to me as a dragon?” He was more than a little unnerved that this unseen person knew his and possibly the rest of the cursed one's secret.

 

//I am who I am. As it happens, I'm quite far away from you at the moment. And we, Hatori Sohma, have occasionally turning into a dragon in common.//