Fruits Basket Fan Fiction ❯ The New Akito ❯ Yuki Makes His Peace and Remembers It All ( Chapter 13 )
[ P - Pre-Teen ]
By: MitchellsPrincess42405 
Anime/Manga: Fruits Basket Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 05.02.2006 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 268 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Fruits Basket Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 05.02.2006 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.1K | Visits: 268 | Status: Completed
Chapter Thirteen: Yuki Makes His Peace and Remembers It All
Kiri hung up the phone and apprehensively began pacing her room. Would he come? Her thoughts were racing. Ten minutes later, she heard a knock at her window.
“Kiri?” Kenji called quietly. “Kiri, let me in.”
She ran to the window and threw it open so fast Kenji almost fell over backwards. She grabbed him and wrapped her arms around him as soon as he had regained his balance. After a bit of a struggle, he managed to pull himself into the room.
Kiri immediately burst into tears. Kenji’s eyes went wide and he patted her awkwardly on the back. He wasn’t exactly accustomed to pretty young girls bursting into tears in his arms.
“Shhhh… Calm down and tell me what’s wrong,” he said, patting her on the back. “I’ll do everything I can to help.”
After several moments, her sobs diminished, but she still kept her face buried in the front of his shirt.
“You can’t help me. I’ve gone crazy. No one can help me,” she mumbled.
He laughed softly, gently pulling her away so he could actually look at her, and she didn’t look like she’d been getting a lot of sleep lately.
“You aren’t crazy. I’m sure you’ll be fine soon; you just need some rest.”
Kiri shook her head emphatically. “No, I don’t think rest is going to make the homicidal voice in my head go away.” Kenji stopped smiling.
“You’re hearing voices?” He was nervous now, she could tell. “Maybe you should talk to Uncle Hatori…”
“NO!” she practically screamed. “Please, just help me! He says his name is Akito. He was the cursed child before me, and he died a long time ago. He hates Mom and Dad, and everyone else in the family. He’s crazy.”
She stopped and the two cousins stared at each other for a long minute before Kiri burst into tears again.
“Oh my god! The murderous voice in my head is crazy! I’ve gone so crazy, I don’t think even Hatori could do anything at all! You should just run now and save yourself the trouble of waiting!” She was back to sobbing.
Kenji took a deep breath, then grabbed Kiri up in a big hug.
“You can be so crazy you’re in a loony bin, and I’ll still be here for you. I’ll never leave you, Kiri. You’re my best friend and I love you so much.” She was still crying, but now she was smiling too.
“Thank you Kenji.”
He smiled back. “Now, let’s figure out what to do about this ‘Akito’.”
They embraced silently, readying themselves for their next inevitable task.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Mom?” Kiri whispered, knocking gently on her parents’ door. She heard movement of the other side of the imposing door and gulped. Was this really going to work?
“It will all be fine,” Kenji whispered, holding her hand tightly. It was early morning, about a week after Akito had first made his presence known, and Kenji and Kiri had finally decided their only choice was to go to the adults and ask for help. So here they were at five a.m., waiting to talk to Tohru and Yuki, with little chance of being interrupted.
“What is it, sweetie?” Tohru said dazedly as she opened the door in her nightgown.
She blinked a few times, then said, “Huh? Honey, are you okay? Oh, hello Kenji darling.”
“Mom, I have something I need to tell you. And I think I’ve gone crazy.” Kiri began a little awkwardly.
“Just a sec, I need to wake up for this,” Tohru yawned. “Do you want Daddy here too? Because I bet he’ll want to hear this.”
“Yeah, and I need Tami here too.” Kiri surprised herself with this request. But she realized that despite her childish jealousy, Tami was still her sister, and she deserved to hear that her little sister was channeling the angry spirit of a psychopath. Kenji squeezed her hand for encouragement. You can do this, his eyes said very clearly.
And she did. As soon as they were all gathered together, she told her family all of it. Everything Akito said, all the doubts he had put into her mind, the fear she felt, and that he hadn’t tried to contact her for the last day all came spilling out.
“Well…” Tohru began, and then stopped. What was there left to say? They all stood there in silence.
~~~~~~~~~~
Yuki paced back and forth, repeatedly. “What are we supposed to do?” he said angrily.
“I don’t know…” Tohru whispered through her hands. The two of them were alone in their bedroom and they were just as lost as Kiri and Kenji had been.
“He’s dead! Akito is dead! I thought that we were finally rid of that… monster! Why can’t he ever leave us alone?” Yuki cried, his chest swelled with anger and sorrow among other things, but predominantly with fear. How could he fight his daughter’s demons when he couldn’t even see them?
“Yuki, sit down.” Tohru commanded. He did. “Worrying yourself to death won’t help her, and it won’t help you. We’ll find an answer. She’s our daughter, and we will protect her.”
For the first time in years, Tohru spoke forcefully, completely abandoning her sweet, loving, and shy demeanor. Then she began to cry just like her daughter. Yuki grabbed her in his strong, safe, arms and began to cry with her.
“We have to find a way…” he mumbled into her hair.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was night. Kiri had spent the whole day with Tamaki and Kenji, both of them trying to make her happy again. Where was the old Kiri? Now the three of them were fast asleep and dreaming fitfully of tomorrow. Only Yuki stayed awake.
“What are you so mad about?” he asked the chill night air as he stood at his old ‘secret base‘. “What do you want Akito? Do you still hate me? Is that why you’re haunting her?” Yuki knew he looked crazy, talking to nothing, but if Akito’s spirit could talk to Kiri, then it could damn well talk to him too!
“I’m sorry!” he yelled, “I’m sorry you were cursed just like us. For a long time, I hated you; I hated you more than anything for what you did to me. But you know what? I forgive you. I forgive you for hurting me when we were kids, I forgive you for hurting Kyo and Tohru and all the Sohmas! I thought we were past this rivalry.”
“How can you forgive what you don’t understand?” Akito’s hate-filled voice whispered in his ear. “I was the head of the family, I was your master, yet you ignored me. I was always alone.”
“As you wanted it!” Yuki yelled back. “You wanted to be away from us. If you had loved us, we would have welcomed you with open arms, but you pushed us away!”
“You would not!” Akito hissed. “I did love you, all of you, even that damned Cat! I was your God; I had no choice. I had to love you, just like all the cursed ones before me.”
“No!” Yuki couldn’t understand it; Akito had to be lying. “You didn’t love us! You hurt me, physically and emotionally; you didn’t want me to have friends or a family. You want me to be destroyed.”
“I wanted you all to myself. All the Sohma Zodiac members were mine. I couldn’t let you go out and join them. That’s why I hated that Tohru woman so much! She thought she could take you from me!” Akito lamented.
“Tohru loves me! She helped me when I was lost in your lies. Don’t you dare talk to me about her.” Yuki was mad again.
“She left you. She hurt you; you were hurt so bad that you talked to me! Don’t say you can’t remember! You were alone, and you heard me calling out to you. Hatori thought you were going crazy, but I knew you were just tired of being by yourself.” As Akito said all this, memories Yuki had blocked out years ago came back to him; Akito’s voice in an empty room; the despair of Tohru leaving; the pain of being all alone.
“You became just like me! You saw everything I did, but then you forgot. I showed you just how much it hurt to know that I wouldn’t live past twenty-five, but that you would all live to be sixty! I showed you why I was cruel, why I was so jealous. And then you forgot it all.”
“No, no, it’s not true!” Yuki whispered, trying to suppress the memories that kept flooding back. “You were so cruel to us! You were full of malice.”
“I was full of jealousy. I want what you all had; a perfect full life with other, normal, people. I never hated you, Yuki. I envied you. I always have.”
“Then why are you talking to her? Why won’t you leave us alone?” Yuki begged.
“Because you forgot. That woman came back and you pushed me from your mind. You forgot how much I suffered, and how much I loved you. Kiri is free now. I will not talk to her again, so long as you remember that you will never be alone, and that I suffered too.”
And the voice was gone. Akito was gone, but his memories would never be. Laden down heavily with all this new pain and fear and ideas, Yuki trudged home to his family.
Loud voices floated down the stairs as Yuki reentered his home. He ran up the stairs two at a time and found the whole family gathered around Kiri’s room, including Tamaki’s brothers, who had come back from Hana’s house the day before.
“Kiri, are you okay? Kiri sweetie?” Tohru called anxiously.
“What’s wrong?” Yuki asked, running to his daughter’s side.
“I… I don’t know! She just collapsed!” Kenji said. “She was talking one moment, then she fell over and started shaking!”
Yuki looked down at his daughter’s limp, shivering, body. “She’s in shock! Something’s happening to her! We must call Hatori,” Yuki said in a commanding voice, “Someone go…” He stopped abruptly .
Kiri had stopped shivering and was lying perfectly still. Her eyes fluttered open.
“He’s gone. He said he was sorry, Daddy, and he’s gone,” she whispered, gently squeezing her father’s hand. “He took away all the pain too. He… says he’s… sorry…“ She fell asleep immediately following her small outburst. Instantly her sister was at her side, trying to get her to wake up.
“Nothing’s working!” Tamaki signed frantically. “She can’t go back to sleep! What if she never wakes up?”
“Tamaki, I know you can wake her,” Tohru said. “Please! Remember back in America, you saved her then in that alley, and you can do it again!” Tohru encouraged her eldest daughter, afraid that if this didn’t work, nothing would.
Tamaki nodded; she remembered. In a slow, shaky voice, she spoke these words aloud, “Kiri, it’s me, Tamaki. Please wake up. I promise never to leave you again! Please! You’re the only sister I have!” Her eyes filled with tears. “I love my brothers dearly, but I love you too!”
Slowly, Kiri opened her eyes again. “Tami, you can talk!” she whispered.
The room exploded into action. Tamaki’s brothers cheered loudly. Yuki kissed his youngest daughter gently and Kenji pulled her into a crushing embrace in front of all the others.
Tohru and Tamaki moved off to the side a bit. Tohru placed her hand on her elder daughter’s shoulder and squeezed gently.
“Thank you so much, my daughter. I knew only you could save our little Kiri. I love you,” Tohru said, smiling slightly.
“I love you, too… Mom…” Tamaki said quietly, breaking out into a small smile of her own.
Kiri hung up the phone and apprehensively began pacing her room. Would he come? Her thoughts were racing. Ten minutes later, she heard a knock at her window.
“Kiri?” Kenji called quietly. “Kiri, let me in.”
She ran to the window and threw it open so fast Kenji almost fell over backwards. She grabbed him and wrapped her arms around him as soon as he had regained his balance. After a bit of a struggle, he managed to pull himself into the room.
Kiri immediately burst into tears. Kenji’s eyes went wide and he patted her awkwardly on the back. He wasn’t exactly accustomed to pretty young girls bursting into tears in his arms.
“Shhhh… Calm down and tell me what’s wrong,” he said, patting her on the back. “I’ll do everything I can to help.”
After several moments, her sobs diminished, but she still kept her face buried in the front of his shirt.
“You can’t help me. I’ve gone crazy. No one can help me,” she mumbled.
He laughed softly, gently pulling her away so he could actually look at her, and she didn’t look like she’d been getting a lot of sleep lately.
“You aren’t crazy. I’m sure you’ll be fine soon; you just need some rest.”
Kiri shook her head emphatically. “No, I don’t think rest is going to make the homicidal voice in my head go away.” Kenji stopped smiling.
“You’re hearing voices?” He was nervous now, she could tell. “Maybe you should talk to Uncle Hatori…”
“NO!” she practically screamed. “Please, just help me! He says his name is Akito. He was the cursed child before me, and he died a long time ago. He hates Mom and Dad, and everyone else in the family. He’s crazy.”
She stopped and the two cousins stared at each other for a long minute before Kiri burst into tears again.
“Oh my god! The murderous voice in my head is crazy! I’ve gone so crazy, I don’t think even Hatori could do anything at all! You should just run now and save yourself the trouble of waiting!” She was back to sobbing.
Kenji took a deep breath, then grabbed Kiri up in a big hug.
“You can be so crazy you’re in a loony bin, and I’ll still be here for you. I’ll never leave you, Kiri. You’re my best friend and I love you so much.” She was still crying, but now she was smiling too.
“Thank you Kenji.”
He smiled back. “Now, let’s figure out what to do about this ‘Akito’.”
They embraced silently, readying themselves for their next inevitable task.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Mom?” Kiri whispered, knocking gently on her parents’ door. She heard movement of the other side of the imposing door and gulped. Was this really going to work?
“It will all be fine,” Kenji whispered, holding her hand tightly. It was early morning, about a week after Akito had first made his presence known, and Kenji and Kiri had finally decided their only choice was to go to the adults and ask for help. So here they were at five a.m., waiting to talk to Tohru and Yuki, with little chance of being interrupted.
“What is it, sweetie?” Tohru said dazedly as she opened the door in her nightgown.
She blinked a few times, then said, “Huh? Honey, are you okay? Oh, hello Kenji darling.”
“Mom, I have something I need to tell you. And I think I’ve gone crazy.” Kiri began a little awkwardly.
“Just a sec, I need to wake up for this,” Tohru yawned. “Do you want Daddy here too? Because I bet he’ll want to hear this.”
“Yeah, and I need Tami here too.” Kiri surprised herself with this request. But she realized that despite her childish jealousy, Tami was still her sister, and she deserved to hear that her little sister was channeling the angry spirit of a psychopath. Kenji squeezed her hand for encouragement. You can do this, his eyes said very clearly.
And she did. As soon as they were all gathered together, she told her family all of it. Everything Akito said, all the doubts he had put into her mind, the fear she felt, and that he hadn’t tried to contact her for the last day all came spilling out.
“Well…” Tohru began, and then stopped. What was there left to say? They all stood there in silence.
~~~~~~~~~~
Yuki paced back and forth, repeatedly. “What are we supposed to do?” he said angrily.
“I don’t know…” Tohru whispered through her hands. The two of them were alone in their bedroom and they were just as lost as Kiri and Kenji had been.
“He’s dead! Akito is dead! I thought that we were finally rid of that… monster! Why can’t he ever leave us alone?” Yuki cried, his chest swelled with anger and sorrow among other things, but predominantly with fear. How could he fight his daughter’s demons when he couldn’t even see them?
“Yuki, sit down.” Tohru commanded. He did. “Worrying yourself to death won’t help her, and it won’t help you. We’ll find an answer. She’s our daughter, and we will protect her.”
For the first time in years, Tohru spoke forcefully, completely abandoning her sweet, loving, and shy demeanor. Then she began to cry just like her daughter. Yuki grabbed her in his strong, safe, arms and began to cry with her.
“We have to find a way…” he mumbled into her hair.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was night. Kiri had spent the whole day with Tamaki and Kenji, both of them trying to make her happy again. Where was the old Kiri? Now the three of them were fast asleep and dreaming fitfully of tomorrow. Only Yuki stayed awake.
“What are you so mad about?” he asked the chill night air as he stood at his old ‘secret base‘. “What do you want Akito? Do you still hate me? Is that why you’re haunting her?” Yuki knew he looked crazy, talking to nothing, but if Akito’s spirit could talk to Kiri, then it could damn well talk to him too!
“I’m sorry!” he yelled, “I’m sorry you were cursed just like us. For a long time, I hated you; I hated you more than anything for what you did to me. But you know what? I forgive you. I forgive you for hurting me when we were kids, I forgive you for hurting Kyo and Tohru and all the Sohmas! I thought we were past this rivalry.”
“How can you forgive what you don’t understand?” Akito’s hate-filled voice whispered in his ear. “I was the head of the family, I was your master, yet you ignored me. I was always alone.”
“As you wanted it!” Yuki yelled back. “You wanted to be away from us. If you had loved us, we would have welcomed you with open arms, but you pushed us away!”
“You would not!” Akito hissed. “I did love you, all of you, even that damned Cat! I was your God; I had no choice. I had to love you, just like all the cursed ones before me.”
“No!” Yuki couldn’t understand it; Akito had to be lying. “You didn’t love us! You hurt me, physically and emotionally; you didn’t want me to have friends or a family. You want me to be destroyed.”
“I wanted you all to myself. All the Sohma Zodiac members were mine. I couldn’t let you go out and join them. That’s why I hated that Tohru woman so much! She thought she could take you from me!” Akito lamented.
“Tohru loves me! She helped me when I was lost in your lies. Don’t you dare talk to me about her.” Yuki was mad again.
“She left you. She hurt you; you were hurt so bad that you talked to me! Don’t say you can’t remember! You were alone, and you heard me calling out to you. Hatori thought you were going crazy, but I knew you were just tired of being by yourself.” As Akito said all this, memories Yuki had blocked out years ago came back to him; Akito’s voice in an empty room; the despair of Tohru leaving; the pain of being all alone.
“You became just like me! You saw everything I did, but then you forgot. I showed you just how much it hurt to know that I wouldn’t live past twenty-five, but that you would all live to be sixty! I showed you why I was cruel, why I was so jealous. And then you forgot it all.”
“No, no, it’s not true!” Yuki whispered, trying to suppress the memories that kept flooding back. “You were so cruel to us! You were full of malice.”
“I was full of jealousy. I want what you all had; a perfect full life with other, normal, people. I never hated you, Yuki. I envied you. I always have.”
“Then why are you talking to her? Why won’t you leave us alone?” Yuki begged.
“Because you forgot. That woman came back and you pushed me from your mind. You forgot how much I suffered, and how much I loved you. Kiri is free now. I will not talk to her again, so long as you remember that you will never be alone, and that I suffered too.”
And the voice was gone. Akito was gone, but his memories would never be. Laden down heavily with all this new pain and fear and ideas, Yuki trudged home to his family.
Loud voices floated down the stairs as Yuki reentered his home. He ran up the stairs two at a time and found the whole family gathered around Kiri’s room, including Tamaki’s brothers, who had come back from Hana’s house the day before.
“Kiri, are you okay? Kiri sweetie?” Tohru called anxiously.
“What’s wrong?” Yuki asked, running to his daughter’s side.
“I… I don’t know! She just collapsed!” Kenji said. “She was talking one moment, then she fell over and started shaking!”
Yuki looked down at his daughter’s limp, shivering, body. “She’s in shock! Something’s happening to her! We must call Hatori,” Yuki said in a commanding voice, “Someone go…” He stopped abruptly .
Kiri had stopped shivering and was lying perfectly still. Her eyes fluttered open.
“He’s gone. He said he was sorry, Daddy, and he’s gone,” she whispered, gently squeezing her father’s hand. “He took away all the pain too. He… says he’s… sorry…“ She fell asleep immediately following her small outburst. Instantly her sister was at her side, trying to get her to wake up.
“Nothing’s working!” Tamaki signed frantically. “She can’t go back to sleep! What if she never wakes up?”
“Tamaki, I know you can wake her,” Tohru said. “Please! Remember back in America, you saved her then in that alley, and you can do it again!” Tohru encouraged her eldest daughter, afraid that if this didn’t work, nothing would.
Tamaki nodded; she remembered. In a slow, shaky voice, she spoke these words aloud, “Kiri, it’s me, Tamaki. Please wake up. I promise never to leave you again! Please! You’re the only sister I have!” Her eyes filled with tears. “I love my brothers dearly, but I love you too!”
Slowly, Kiri opened her eyes again. “Tami, you can talk!” she whispered.
The room exploded into action. Tamaki’s brothers cheered loudly. Yuki kissed his youngest daughter gently and Kenji pulled her into a crushing embrace in front of all the others.
Tohru and Tamaki moved off to the side a bit. Tohru placed her hand on her elder daughter’s shoulder and squeezed gently.
“Thank you so much, my daughter. I knew only you could save our little Kiri. I love you,” Tohru said, smiling slightly.
“I love you, too… Mom…” Tamaki said quietly, breaking out into a small smile of her own.