DISC: The characters of Fruits Basket do not belong to me. Nor is this story to imply that I know what Natsuya Takaya (who does own Fruits Basket and all it's characters) has in mind for the unfolding character development of Akito. This is just my attempts to better understand this character. Please don't sue. I don't own anything.

AKITO'S MUSINGS

I am God.

I didn't ask for this. I didn't choose to be God.

What do they say, "Some choose greatness while others have it thrust upon them"? Or is it "Some work all their lives for greatness while others are born into it"?

Yeah. That's more like me. Born into it, thrust upon me, yet somehow still I have to work for it. Even though it's NOT my choice.

It shouldn't be that way. Kami knows that I hear that enough from that bitch that I happened to fall out of. It should be easy. It would have been easy – if I hadn't managed to be born a girl. Somehow, that's supposed to be MY fault. My one great sin.

I don't really understand what the difference is. It's not like I know the difference anyway. So I was born female. What the hell difference does that make? I'm their God. Not Goddess. God. I was raised for this. I know what to do. I know how to be cruel enough to be God. I know how to get them to obey my will. What else is there?

But.

It doesn't… It's not enough.

If I think back on it, I don't remember ever wanting to be anything else. I never understood why ANYONE would want to BE a girl.

Once, when I was small, I was out in the garden and I saw a distant relative – a young girl – fall and skin her knee. She cried. Her parents came over and they softly spoke to her. Her mother bent down and kissed her on the knee, and she stopped crying. She hugged her mother and smiled. I remember thinking how stupid that was. A kiss couldn't make anything better. And how weak that girl was. To openly display your weakness by crying – and in public!

Back before the bitch ran him off, my father once kissed my forearm after I scraped it on something.

"Don't cry, princess. Daddy will kiss it and make it all better."

I don't remember if the pain went away. I remember the whore pushing him off me and dragging me away from him by my ear, yelling, "Don't you DARE make him weak! He will be a GOD!" and then as she dragged me behind her, off to sit in the dark closet – presumably as punishment or maybe as education to make me strong enough to be a God instead of a Goddess – she smacked me in the head and said, "Gods don't cry, Akito. And Gods don't go whining to their daddys. Kami-sama – you're nothing but a disappointment!"

I bet that whiny relative never even learned how to be strong enough to not cry. I remember looking at that girl thinking, "I'm glad I'm not a weak little girl. I'm a God!"

And then, as I sat there watching, he came up to me. He was smiling. He was always smiling. He said, "What's wrong, Akito?" and I said, "Nothing, Shigure. Why?"

He brought his thumb to my cheek and rubbed it gently, once. I remember seeing his thumb shine in the sunlight after he rubbed my cheek. He looked over at the little wimp, playing with her mother. When he looked back at me, his smile was sad. He kissed me on the forehead and said, "Let's go play, Akito." And the next thing I knew, he'd picked me up onto his shoulders and was running and spinning until I was laughing so hard I thought I'd split in two.

For quite some time, that was the only type of memory I have of Shigure: laughing and making me laugh.

One time, he was telling me a fairytale about this princess who'd had a spell cast on her by an evil fairy godmother – I think it was the sleeping beauty fairy tale – so that she'd die at a very young age. And after the spell was cast, the evil fairy godmother still wasn't satisfied, so she stole the little girl away from her family who loved her and put her into a dark tower – high above all those who loved her, so that she couldn't be reached by any of them. I must have looked concerned – I was still young after all – and he said, "Ah, don't worry, Akito. The princess will be saved. The young, loyal prince will save her."

I said, "What prince?" and he put his face very close to mine, and looked into my eyes and said, "The one who loves her more than anything. That prince will never rest until the princess is saved from the spell of her evil mother."

"You mean her evil fairy godmother," I corrected him. And he just smiled at me and kissed me on my cheek.

For months, I dreamed of what it would be like to be a princess, to be saved by a handsome prince with dark shaggy hair. But I was never a princess. I was a god.

Gods don't need saving.

… XXX …

Not from shaggy dogs, and not from themselves.

Shaggy dog.

Dogs are supposed to be loyal. Dogs are supposed to be loyal even when their masters aren't.

Was I ever his master? I was his Goddess. But I was never his God. Maybe that explains it all. I thought I was his God, but he never wanted me like that. He wanted… What did he want?

I was raised to be his God. I have to be his God.

He came to me when I was still in my teens. He saw me sitting, staring out at the flowers in the garden. He sat at my feet. He told me I was beautiful.

"How can you call me beautiful? I'm your God!" I responded haughtily.

"I call you beautiful because every one of these flowers wilts in shame when you walk by," he said. There was no sing-song quality to his voice. It was like he was serious. He took my hand and said, "Akito-sama is…" he gazed into my eyes, "beautiful."

I was raised to be a God. I didn't know what to do. Still holding my hand, he leaned up, wrapped his other hand behind my head, and kissed me. My hands pushed on his chest, pushing him away from me, but his hand behind his head held me so firmly. I kissed him back. I… don't know why. My heart was beating very fast, and… I wanted him to. I wanted him to kiss me. When we broke, he just sat there and held my hand.

"Why did you do that?"

"Why did I do what?" he asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Why did you kiss me?"

He stared out at the flowers as he said, "You're… kissable, Akito."

"I'm WHAT?"

"You're…" he had the grace to blush, "kissable."

"I am NOT!"

"Then why did I kiss you?"

"That! Is what I asked YOU!"

He smiled and said, "Dummy. Because I wanted to."

We sat in silence a while, then he glanced at me and asked, "Do you mind?"

I think I might have blushed. I was very young. I remember there was a butterfly that had landed on the iris to my right. I stared at it and mumbled, "I didn't mind." We sat like that for a while. Then he heard the bitch coming, so he left before she had the chance to ruin it.

I should have told him that he was never to kiss me again. Maybe then it wouldn't have gone to here.

And DAMN IT ALL! Why do I STILL!...

I AM GOD! I am not a woman! I will never BE a woman!

He wants to make me a lowly weak woman. He wants me to beg him to hold me again.

Like at the vacation at the beach house. He sat at my side. He didn't even hold my hand. He hadn't touched me since that kiss. Had I done it wrong? Of course not. I'm God! I would know how he wanted to be kissed instinctively… right?

"Inu," I said to him as imperially as I could.

"Yes, Akito-sama?" he responded gaily.

"You haven't been showing your God proper respect."

"Oh?" He looked at me, and there was a darkness in his eyes. But he wasn't touching me. And for some reason I wanted him to be touching me.

"No," I gulped. Then regained my composure. "No, Shigure-san, you have not." I held my hand out for him. "You should kiss my hand and beg forgiveness."

The sun was setting over the lake. He knelt in front of me, and took my hand in both of his. "Whatever Akito-sama asks of me," he turned my hand over and kissed the palm, "I shall humbly attend to." Interspered with his words, he began kissing each finger, and sucking on it gently, then moving on to another digit. "For my lax attitude and lack of deference to the one who rules my heart and body, I most sincerely apologize."

I stared at him in shock. He then pulled me toward him, and before I knew it, we were embracing, and kissing, and somehow, he was on his back on the sand, and I was lying on top of him.

Then, he was on top of me, and he was kissing me, and his hands were all over my body.

Why is it that it's still such a clear memory after all this time?

It hurt. But he kissed me and held still and looked deep in my eyes. His eyes were serious – so serious – when he said, "Not as a God, not as a Goddess, but as a woman, Akito. That's how I love you. That's how I want you." Then I moaned, and he started moving, and the rest is colors and light.

When the world became normal again, he said softly, "I won't give up, my princess, until you're free. I will be your prince. That is my dream."

That's what he said.

And then, I didn't see him again for eight months.

Sometime during that period, I remember turning to that slut and telling her that I didn't want to be a God, that if I had to be a deity I wanted to be a Goddess. I remember her slapping me again and again, telling me that I was a stupid weak idiot. That only men had power, and that if I wasn't a God, I was NOTHING! That the only power women had was over men. And that I was "too much of an idiot to be EVER able control a man."

Sometime during that period, I realized she was right.

She was right. I had to be the God.

I used the jyuunishi to build my power. And eventually, when Kureno promised he would always do anything I wanted, I told him to prove it. I took him to my bed. I tied him to me. He felt so responsible.

Kureno was only a testing ground for me. To make sure that I could master Shigure at last. Become at long last his God.

And then Shigure fucked that bitch. Shigure fucked my mother. And I knew. Everyone lies to get what they want. I've learned it so well.

I thought I wanted to be a princess. But for that to happen, I'd have to be weak.

Kureno tried to tell me once that Shigure only did it because he was hurt. Sometimes I wish…

Wishing is for fools.

I will lie to get what I want. I will protect my jyuunishi – the way that no one protected me. And I'll do anything required to do it.

… XXX …

A shrink would say that all my problems stem from one thing: I hate my mother.

I do. Hate my mother. I hate her for taking everything I wanted and making it dust.

But not for her allowing me to become God. That was her one gift to me.

For that, I at least have to respect her. Sometimes I wish that I could just hate her and have that be that. But I have to respect her. She made me strong. Strong enough to be God.

Perhaps… someday my jyuunishi will understand that.

They are still so weak. And they only have me to make them strong. They don't understand yet, but I WILL do everything I can to make them strong.