what if god were one of us

She had hurt many people, she knew that, and perhaps Rin was one of the WORST of them all. She had taken out so much of her anger and self-hatred out on the girl that, Akito was only mildly surprised that she came to her with such questions. There were so many excuses she could tell her. Not too long ago, such lies would have easily rolled off her tongue to manipulate whoever she was speaking to or sometimes even to HERSELF. 

@isolatedgod II Plotted thread

It started as a cough that wouldn’t leave. Some people noticed, but most people brushed it off. After all, Hatsuharu, the ox of the zodiac, was /stupid/. He was known for getting caught in the rain, for getting lost and not remembering where he was…this was obviously just a result of him being /stupid/ yet again.

So what if he was a little pale? So what if he seemed tired and sluggish? So what if the other zodiac members were looking at him with worry every single moment he was with them? So what?

There was nothing to worry about.

Until–

He collapsed, blood dripping from his lips and a rattling cough that shook his entire form. Word had of course spread through the main estate, not out of worry, but out of curiosity, out of /spite/.

“Did you hear? The ox is sick.”

“I wonder if he’ll die.”

The maids whispered among themselves, but Haru paid them no mind, sitting in a garden at the main house for some fresh air. Hatori didn’t like to let him out much since he’d collapsed, but…

He needed this. Needed to not be stifled. It felt like he was slowly losing his mind, little by little, from the physical pain, from the way his blood felt like it was hot and cold at the same time.

Something was definitely wrong.

And only Hatsuharu knew what it was.

He needs space and time to heal. That was what everyone had been telling her after she had heard of the ox’s collapse. At first there had been PANIC that had manifested into her nearly destroying her room in a frenzy. She couldn’t lose even one of them, didn’t want to even if they might just be reborn. They were all TOGETHER after so long and so who knew when a new ox would be born? Akito didn’t want to wait, couldn’t wait for the ‘next time’. Though maybe an outsider might have seen it as her caring, most of the maids knew it was the GOD holding on desperately to her zodiac.

She wouldn’t lose them, refused to. She would sink her claws in and keep them there, no matter the PAIN it might bring either of them. 

Day after day, she asked Hatori how Hatsuharu was, always asking to see him but being told that he still wasn’t in a great state. Maybe it was fear that she might LASH OUT at something he said and putting him in more of a severe state. With her temperament, there was truly no telling if she would remain TAME even when someone was injured already.

She hadn’t been planning on seeing him, had merely been walking when she caught the flash of white hair out one of the open doors. Her bare feet came to a stop, grey eyes on him before finally approaching. Was he finally IMPROVING enough for Hatori to let him outside? Or had he merely snuck away as she had done many times before? Akito kept just on the other side of the threshold, gaze never leaving the ox. He didn’t appear sick, didn’t appear to be in as DIRE of a state as the others had made him out to be.

In so many terrible ways, Akito was right. In the end they weren’t all trapped—confined just yet, because Akito allowed them that freedom didn’t they? In the end they weren’t really free. Even as they were allowed lives outside of the estate, in the end: It all came back to this room. To this person who would sooner take an eye, leave a scar, or utter words of harshness before any kindness left their lips. He wanted to slap away their hand, to be angry and guarded. But like a good obedient little cat, that he knew she wanted—he allowed that terrible contact. He allowed all of it because in the end–in this room, the outside world’s rules didn’t matter too much did they?

“……Of course. If–If you wanted it….We’d all be right here. Not out there—not talking to or—getting to know others. Outsiders.” He parrots what he fears, and oh boy does he fear it. Does he fear that reality so much his hands tremble only slightly. “I’m sure you’ll be happy—when the day comes, when we all end up back here. No matter how much they’d all like to act like anything is possible—in the end, you’ll have us back here. We’re all tied to you no matter how much—” how much they all wished it was different. No matter how much Kyo wanted to out run the future already in place for himself. He would end up alone, wouldn’t he? Alone in a darkness that not even Kazuma could help pull him out of.  “How much they would all say otherwise.” 

Ah yes there was those wonderfully manipulative words. The words that end up making him turn himself away from the rest of the zodiac. That made him wish they would all just leave him alone. As he would for sure hear these terrible words, these haunting words echoed in his head.  “…..They can think or say whatever they want. I only care because in the end—they’ll all end up back here same as me. That’s the only reason—I ever give thought to them. They wanna act like I’m the only one—-but they all wrong. They’re all the liars. The backstabbers. Actin’ like they’re so much better because they ain’t the cat.” His hand curls at his side. “Well that’s too damn bad for them.” 

The fact that it was the CAT that seemed to understand better than most was truly pathetic. How the others fought so hard against her, sought to DEFY everything she told them and here the monster seemed to understand the most of all. Fight as they all might, struggle as they might, they would have no choice but to return to her by the end of it. The older members understood such things and it was only a matter of time before those younger would finally GRASP the understanding of their bond. They were all tied to each other and, ultimately, to their GOD as well. But the cat was still the outcast.   ❝  Close but you are wrong. The others will still have each other. And you’ll be all ALONE except for the maids or when I visit.  ❞  At least they wouldn’t be locked away as he would. They could say that much for themselves.

But they were the liars and backstabbers, Akito wouldn’t deny that. Everything she did for them and they merely constantly threw it back in her face. She paused in thought, thinking over Kyo’s words before that grim smile replaced itself on fragile features. One more, she was closing the distance between the two though her form wasn’t as MENACING now that she had been appeased by his words. God could be so very easy to satisfy if the others would only just LISTEN instead of all their fighting. If only they had all accepted her kindness at the beginning then maybe things could be so much more DIFFERENT and better for all of them.

He didn’t know. Of course he didn’t. The others still weren’t allowed to contact him, but when he walked in the room and she mentioned a gift, he couldn’t help but grow excited.

“Oh? Whatever is the occasion~?” He asked, moving to sit beside her. “…Of course I have.” He spoke like of course he was trustworthy, of course he hadn’t done anything in the past to disrupt her trust in him. Of course not.

He was bored, however. Not talking to anyone besides his editor was quite hell, in his opinion. But–he’d finished another manuscript, so there was that.

He had noticed that the other people in the house appeared to be entirely absent and he was curious as to what this gift was. “…I have to say, when you say it like that, I get excited.” Like the dog he was, the idea of being bestowed with something by his /Master/ made him want to bounce around inside.

Akito let a small hum escape her lips as she moved closer to the dog, arms raising up to drape around the man’s shoulders and pull him in. GOOD. He was learning to behave. After all he had said before, that he was never one to listen to her, he was finally BOWING to his god just like all the others. Perhaps soon, she could bring him back into the fold so long as he continued to prove himself. She should have known that his little rebellion streak would come to an END, it was always meant to. Once again, she found herself winning.

❝  Kureno left. I set him free when we went to the beach house a few days ago. Then I just spent some time there on my own but he’s GONE now.   ❞  He was free, that much was true. But in only the CRUELEST of ways. The man had never even really seen it coming but she had grown bored of him. Like a child outgrowing a toy, he no longer served any PURPOSE. The maids and immediate family were the only exception Akito would allow any longer into their lives, into their banquet, their paradise. The rest could burn in the outside world and she wouldn’t care.

Though now it was perhaps a question of how FAR she would go now when one of the others would disobey her. She had stepped in deeper into that blackness and if one of them tried to step out of line again—— maybe she’d FREE them as well.

Even Akito didn’t know, didn’t care. It was in their best interest for them to listen to her anyways.

The moment he felt those slender claw like fingers on his jaw–he knew he had truly stepped out of line. But a part of him? Honestly didn’t care. It would be more of the same wouldn’t it? Being pushed back into that place that Kazuma had tried to push him out of. In the end only resulting in him hyper focusing all of that pain and darkness onto Yuki. Onto his misplaced bet with Akito that kept him going for all the wrong reasons. But in the end, did he care? Not really. If it meant beating the crap out of smug and perfect Yuki—and being seen as real, even by the people that rejected him—he would take it. Still he remains still and quiet all the same. He listens to every vile and terrible word that leaves their god’s lips and he knows they’ll replay over and over in his head. As much as he tries to act unaffected. He trembled and shook internally over what he knew his future would eventually be. 

He swallows hard and chooses his next reply carefully. In a lot of ways Akito wasn’t wrong. His sperm donor of a father was going to leave him to die just like his mother. He was going to abandon him before Kazuma came along and rescued him all the same. Gave him a home as Akito had allowed it to happen. Even though he knew that Kazuma would’ve fought hand and nail as best he could for his sake. “….I know…” he manages to whisper despite himself. “I know what my life would’ve been like. All the other cat’s got the short end of the zodiac stick a lot worse than I ever did. They all—-They all were alone and isolated….I at least—I got….” I got to experience the world, he wanted to add but instead choose his words more careful. “I got it a little bit better. Though I know my place in the end right? No matter what….I end up right here don’t I? I end up right where everyone wants and doesn’t want me right?”

“I know how kind—others are to me, even though I don’t deserve it. Believe me I know every day people look at me and wish I didn’t exist even though I do. I know—I know that you probably have every right to throw me across the floor, or take out my eye but you choose not to. At least you give me that courtesy—for what it’s worth right?” He mutters. “Because in the end, no matter what you choose to do me—couldn’t be any worse than what being the cat has done to me. In the end, I’m the one most guaranteed to end up back here. Because where else—would I be wanted right?”  

Most people would say that a cat can’t be trained, that they are their own being. They would listen to no one, embrace their own freedom, even those that were pets. They existed and acted solely on their own terms. Akito would beg to differ. As he spoke, RELENTING on his attitude, so did her grip on his jaw instead becoming a gentle hand to rest upon his cheek. Her temper would come and go like no other, the god both easy and impossible to appease all at the same time. She would take any SLIGHT as an utter betrayal and and bowing as deserving of a twisted reward. And in her eyes, Kyo was bowing down as he should be, as all the others should. Though he was still rough around the edges, he was a TRAINED cat nonetheless and one that belonged only to her.

❝  There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?  ❞  Her voice had regained its softness, though a hint of MOCKING seeped into her words.  ❝  You all like to see me as the villain when if I truly wanted to, I could have DESTROYED all of you. It’s only because of god’s will that you can smile and laugh or feel any sort of bond with others, no matter how FALSE it might be.  ❞  One day, they would all see. The bonds between them wouldn’t allow them to just leave and even if they could, they would see how truly DARK the rest of the world was. 

Perhaps she had SHELTERED them too much for them to truly understand. She had tried to protect them by keeping them at her side but it had made them spoiled. So naive, so blind to how the world worked.

She had known since she was a child.

The rooster just disappeared.                                 I didn’t know they could do that.                                                                     And Akito allowed that?

She wasn’t deaf to the whispers by the maids, so many of them stupid enough to do it just outside Akito’s room when they thought her asleep or resting. All she had told them was that he had left which was, in a manner of speaking, the truth. But if they knew the full truth, then they’d all be left HORRIFIED at just how far Akito would go. They knew her temper, knew just how sly she could be, but the darkness in her heart had grown into a VOID now that she had the control she had wanted, the banquet together just as she had always wanted. Perhaps one day, the rooster would be reborn but she didn’t care. Kureno had become useless to her and just another INTRUDER into their family. She should have gotten rid of him long ago.

It had only been a day since their return from the Sohma vacation house, since she had called Hatori to come fetch her as Kureno had ‘left’. What he thought of that, she didn’t care. Her only interest in a reaction was HIM. She had still banned the other members from talking to him if only to test how far his loyalty might continue to run after their last encounter. Just to see him sit and wait for his master to fetch him like the DOG he was.

One of the maids had been ordered to summon him to the main house. He wouldn’t refuse, he shouldn’t be that stupid after what she had done for him. The DARKEST reward one could grant another. 

She sat in one of the rooms knelt in front of a table, having sent the other members and the maids to the other side of the house for their own privacy. None of them had any right to the truth as they still hadn’t ATONED for their actions before they came back. Finally, she heard footsteps and the sound of the door sliding open and her attention was turned from the open door to the outside to the man. Almost immediately, the bored expression curled into a dark SMILE. Cruel and teetering on the edges of insanity or perhaps she had already fallen over into its abyss some time ago.   ❝  Have you been BEHAVING yourself at your home? I’d hate for the gift I have for you to go to such waste.   ❞