The ghosts of his blood, living and dead, occupied his rooms when he was asleep. Stealing his breath, like they used to say cats did. The cat was most of it- when he changed, not into the mild kitty-kitty Tohru loved, but into the monster, Akito had seizures. Sometimes they lasted long after Kyo had gone back to himself, shaken and sick with fear and loathing, but nominally unharmed.

That's why he hated him, Kyo. Akito had hated him since before he should have been capable of hate; though, with Ren stalking his poor excuse for a childhood, 'shoulds' held little bearing. It was blood-deep, the hatred, and the dying-god wondered if his father had hated the redhead's predecessor. Probably not. Akira had not had it in his gentle heart to hate anything, even when it would have given him the resolve he'd needed to overcome his weaknesses. He had many weaknesses.

There was a perverse kind of duty that stayed Akito from suicide. It wasn't a concern for his family, really, the voracious things that drew his life out and cowered when he spoke but never took him quite seriously enough. He had control, certainly, but- and he didn't know when he'd learned this- the only way to absolutely control a living thing was by love. He had their bodies, their very lives knit into his soul, but he didn't have their hearts, and so they would always commit treason there even as he kept every other part of them. No, they didn't keep him. The older ones, the ones that could remember a time when he didn't hold the slippery threads of their lives sewn into his skeleton, would keep him alive as long as they could, to spare another child (when it started, he was only a child; Hatori reminds himself of this often), another soul the quiet, painful dirge of divinity. The rest... Akito knows they want him gone. Even if his body holds back their beast-selves.

Because, while he can never replace his zodiac, the family can always produce another god. He is expendable. Suffering is necessary for the other twelve to live, but not his suffering in particular. The thought galls him, when, mostly at night, he lets sacrilege wander through his consciousness like shadows at the edge of his vision.

He needs a bone marrow transplant, because he has cancer again. None of the zodiac match him- they are, after all, animals- but they are a large family, and Hatori keeps records. In a few days, his dragon will lay him open and take out pieces of him, put someone else's dilute cells in. Then he'll spend the next week with needles in his arms and tubes in his kidneys. He will be too tired to scream, or to hurt Yuki when he skirts nervously into the room, suppressing coughs and never looking him in the eye. He'll want to, though, very much, until the wanting makes him vomit.

Nobody is particularly surprised when he hurts Honda Tohru, except the girl herself. But the anger only lasts in the young ones; the older set know that Akito's life is something to be waited through. And sometimes, they hate themselves for knowing.