Fruits Basket: Give me wings

Chapter 19- Time's door

Hi guys! It's nearly the end, for more than one thing. One storyline chapter to go after this, so enjoy it and please comment so I know if it was good enough :) I loved writing this one, so I hope you like it!

Chapter 19- Time's door

The night sky was melting away, and Haruhi hadn’t realised it was already morning. The rush of adrenaline that rushed through her while escaping had kept her standing commanded hunger and every other pain away, and reserved only her necessary functions for escape. But, now she was out of the estate, hand in hand with Tsuneo, all those superfluous things returned with a vengeance, and she felt a hideous rumble in her stomach. Her knees felt like they would buckle, and the wound on her head began to throb unforgivably.

 “Tsuneo?”

“Yes?”

“I think… Well, I know she’s done some really terrible things to us… but I kind of feel sorry for Akito, you know? She needed that guarantee that we would all be there for her, because of that old legend… but you know, we really did betray her. Her way of going about it was wrong- the locking up, the torturing, but her intentions weren’t to make us stay… they were making us see how much she needed us.”

He breathed out slowly. “I… I think I understand what you mean. We cannot hate Akito. That promise is the single most important thing, and it must have been extremely difficult for Akito to let everybody leave the last time around.”

“I just… Is it wrong to forgive her? I’m freakin’ scared of her, she’s crazy and she’s done some nasty things… but what she needed was compassion. I forgive her.”

Tsuneo nodded. “It’s not wrong. Yes, we still bear the scars, mental and psychological, from her treatment, but did we ever understand why she did such things? When did we account for her suffering? We were too preoccupied with our fear, our malice and despair…”

Haruhi had spent a long time thinking about this, locked up in the room. She had also asked herself this before. When did this become a curse? At what point did the humans want to rebel, to get away and live normal lives? God must have been angry for a long, long time, and passed this anger on to Akito to bear. In a way, God needed to let them go, yes, but a vital part was missing from the way they broke that curse fifteen years ago…

“Tsuneo!” she gasped.

“What is it Haruhi? Don’t frighten me like that.”

She realised that she was gripping his hand so tightly that her knuckles were going white. She retracted her hand at once, an apologetic smile on her face.

“Woops; sorry…”

“Say it, then!”

“Last time around, Akito let them all go, but things were incomplete. No-one had truly forgiven each other for what was done- they tried to get away. Things were unresolved, half-done. Akito might have apologised, yes, but the Zodiac didn’t…Everything needs to be mutual!”

She felt like she would pop from this revelation. She had done it, she was sure! Last time around, not all of the Zodiac had fully forgiven Akito… They had run away and not fully admitted that they had wrongs in it too.

 The older generation, now, seemed to have forgiven her. They seemed a little defeatist, and who could blame them? But now everyone was gone, and the older generation had forgiven Akito and admitted their own wrongs, then all that was left was…to hope that Sora, Naoko, Haku and Raiden all felt the same way… Because things would not go smoothly otherwise. Haruhi had no doubt that Sora was fine now, Raiden too (although she could never tell what he was thinking), and maybe Naoko. The real slim hope of Haku being able to say ‘sorry’ and forgive Akito was all they had left.