Aw, that was sad and yet cute somehow.

"Honestly, he’s tired of her obsession."
-I like this one because it does double-time; it's exasperation here, but it's also half of Shigure's reasons for doing everything he does.

There is something aptly appropriate about the image of worshiping fire, stirring up and fanning the flames, to portray Shigure's attitude of, "If I don't push harder than I should and cause trouble, there won't be any changes and I can't get the results I want." It's a good picture.
Probably because Akito also makes a good violent volcano image.

“Perhaps that was because she didn’t need to.”
-Gutshot. He's cruel, but in an expert and precise way. It makes me wince for both of them just reading it.

And the comforting, despite all he's done and is doing to Akito... a parallel to his attitude of, "I don't care, and that makes me a bad person, and I'm well aware of that and yet I do it anyway, which is what makes me even worse."

"It’s a battle he’ll save for another time, when it will accomplish more."
-The way he operates.

"She has never had anyone truly touch her; she stays safe beneath her own globe of fragile glass"
-Which is her entire problem with people. Wanting to be loved and adored without letting love reach her. She wants to close it off so the power can only go one way, yet still wants to claim she has her cake and is eating it too [take that, Mommy dearest].

You have captured wonderfully the apathetic, amoral Shigure. Now I need some sort of vaguely fluffy assurance that their relationship truly doesn't end in a pile of chaotic post-apocalyptic shattered symptoms of trauma. I suppose I'll have to turn to the manga for that, though, because you, like the rest of us, enjoy delighting in the evil...

-Windswift

I assume Akito's angry because Shigure slept with Ren? If I'm wrong, I'm sorry haha...

This was written in such a beautiful style and entirely different from some of the stuff I've been reading recently.
The way you portray Shigure's greed for Akito, even if it might 'shatter her' was just so good.
I really did enjoy this so much. I hope to read more =]

YES. GOD/DESS, ASSORTED PAGAN DEITIES - CAPSLOCK JOY IS HERE. Finally. Katia-darling, my Aya-bot, sweet goddess in human form…

Oh GOD. More.. and… this is too much joy to be coherent for. Dedication. Akigure. “Boundaries”! How do you… oh. Ahem. Stoppit. I am going to just read this through and then come back and review, because I am so beyond patience now.

Oh. Okay. And now to review… ah. I want to make a sum-all statement up here, but… gosh. It just leaves me all - how do you MAKE this feeling in me? I can’t even describe it. Like being exhausted all over except in my chest and, oddly, my arms, which are crawling like there’s a coffee high going on inside them. Which, I don’t drink coffee, but - jittery, you know? Just - Akito’s… desperation, desperate-to-be-calmess, Shigure’s actual calmness like the surface of one of those rivers that’s tearing along and ripping things with it underneath…

“He sits on the floor, watching her as she paces, restless and agitated, across the room.”
- Best opening sentence ever, in retrospect - so sets up how they express their emotions throughout.

“Her hands are pressed to her sides, fingers twisting in the material of her robe, as if she must restrain them; keep herself from clawing out of her own skin.
He knows the feeling, though his hands are folded complacently in his lap.”
- And that, even more. More prettily and explicitly. How very… they’re so much the same, but they go about it so differently. The analytical sort of “he knows the feeling”, not necessarily like he’s feeling it now, but of course he IS, because… Ren, Akito… those two… he’s still HUMAN.

“…her weakness making her voice thin and nearly hysterical.”
- Oh the dichotomy. So much of her in such a fragile little body and all. And it’s all the power that puts her in this mood, gives the entitlement to be angry at all, and then it’s that same power that turns around and makes her such a child about it, expecting things to be fair.

“She didn’t ask my permission!”
- I… oh god. I want to laugh and cry and hold her… can you SEE that request happening? Hatori’s eye would be NOTHING.

“He watches her dispassionately, making his boredom no secret. Honestly, he’s tired of her obsession.”
- He’s such a rat bastard. She’s so… and he’s BORED. Which. Well. He’s the only one who can be, which is what makes him the only one who can match her, but - but. I so want him to baby her exactly as he strives to avoid.

“… half placating, half condescending, stirring the fire expertly.”
- This whole thing makes me so nervous, because… exactly. It’s what he does. But - the whole thing is perched on the edge of the chasm that gets mentioned later. Self-preservation is so not on their lists at all, they’re so busy trying to destroy/save/control each other…

“Perhaps that was because she didn’t need to.”
- At which point my heart stops…

“She freezes in mid step, and it seems nothing moves for an eternity and a half, and then she turns…”
- …and my lungs refuse to take in oxygen. It’s like she could turn right out on, you know, you, and why why why does he have to be so - god. I just have no words.

“She stands before him, her fury making her tower over him, a vicious God, or a woman scorned. It makes no difference to him, he simply watches her across the chasm that cracks and grows at her feet.”
- God. You are so… and I seriously can’t breathe except in little gasps, because - either one of those, and she’s both, and he just sits. there. Mind the gap -!

“He quietly supplicates there, fanning the flames.”
- Favorite sentence in the whole thing. The dichotomy personified. Supplication, because that is what he owes her and what should calm her, but… he’s Shigure. It is his most basic nature to fan the flames, now that he’s imprinted it on himself so.

“How dare you?!”
“It isn’t hard.”
- …What do you have against my continued existence on this earth? I need to breathe for that. No, really. Uf, but it’s so him.

“Her face whitens and twists in rage, and she trembles for a moment, and then raises a hand to slap him, but suddenly she doubles over, pressing both hands to her chest, and begins to cough.”
- Oh love. One weapon to another in a heartbeart. She does know how to use either one, strength or weakness, as a knife. And he’s so detached, but it gets her in his lap, so - boundaries… only then he, with the grabbing, turns it around on her again - the vicious circle, just in those actions - oh. And him waiting until the worst is over to step in…

“He can see she’s afraid, possessed by an old fear, one that ages her quickly, and yet she’s a child in the face of it.”
- …Eloquence and emotion are your slaves. And… I love this so much. The fear. Of being sick, of dying, of losing - losing them, losing anything… they’re so tangled with the winning…

“ ‘But I can’t lie to you.’ he’s lying. But at least he tries to be gentle about it, brushing his fingers softly over the back of her neck. ‘I only said what was true.’ ”
- Okay, no, THAT’S my favorite. The play between truth and lies, and the motivations for either one - which of course is what it all boils down to; he’ll say anything, and make it just a little true because it’s more effective that way, so long as there’s a reason.

“But you did give her your permission, in a way.”
- Oh the logic behind this.

“I never said she could.”
- Again with this, and it… just raises interesting thoughts. Akito letting that happen, if someone had asked her.

“He thinks, ‘do you have the right?’ but doesn’t say it aloud.”
- Thank god thank god… I mean, generally, with fiction, thinking of doing something stands in for doing it - you know they won’t when they think of it - but I practically… ooh. I just had this knee-jerk reaction of panic, like he was going to… and then, that he’s just saving it. He only ever bides his time.

“You started it.”
- That, with “it’s not fair” and her immaturity from growing up too fast… they’re so… ‘mine, mine, mine’, you know?

“ ‘Yes,’ he thinks, ‘But only if you want to lose us too.’ ”
- And now… this thing. How do you always find my most beloved things and… oh boundaries. I so adore them, and the lack thereof… and all the things they can be used for. “And that’s your guiding star, isn’t it - what’s of use.” It could so easily apply to Shigure, that.

“The intertwining of people’s lives; the ways they shape and build and break each other, are all lost on her. She has never had anyone truly touch her; she stays safe beneath her own globe of fragile glass, but she must bare all of them to the world if she wishes to be able to lay hands on them, and so she’ll allow others to enter, even against her will, because she cannot own them, and touch them at the same time, without letting the world filter in at her heels.”
- I… shouldn’t pull that whole thing, in the interests of honesty on the length of the review, but - oh. And that image, of Akito like a rose under a globe… Ahem. But. The whole thing. She’s so much a mistress of control that it’s… so perfect and startling to have it just there, that she has no idea what she’s trying to do. Her world is imaginary, the whole thing.

Ah, the pedestal. Nothing gets me more, and you capture it so perfectly. It’s that… hopeless kind of love. “Lies My Parents Told Me.” ‘Yeah, you love her, I love her, but guess what? Tough cookies. Her big picture is too big; she doesn’t even really see us.’ And Shigure is… well, Dawn. ‘No. I will make. Her. See. Me.’

“…and both of them always head steadily towards her destruction, and the destruction of all she holds dear.”
- So beautiful, so painful…

“When she realizes this, she’ll hate it, she’ll fight it, but in the end, she won’t have any choice but to give into it, because she needs them too much, and she’ll be forced into sacrificing them for that very reason.”
- There. No. THAT is my favorite. The exact kind of paradox that worms into my chest and makes me cry at random moments, because it’s so perfect and horrible. She can’t have them and touch them at the same time, so…

“He knows one day he will tell her this, and he wonders, with nearly apathetic curiosity, if it will shatter her.”
- Because even in love, he’s so damn horrible and cruel and… cold.

“Holding her, rocking her towards exhausted sleep, and gently kissing her, he knows he wouldn’t mind if it did.
He could reach her then.”
- Which, then, juxtaposed with his actions - so sweet - and the rest of his thoughts, and almost-loving, so very Shigure [and I think that should be an adjective of its own, really, because there’s no way to capture the interplay of his ‘because I love you, because it’s good for you, because it’ll hurt you, because it serves the mission’ motivation], oh, so perfect.

I think I abused the word “oh” to the point that the letters O and H need a hiatus, but - well. Look at this. You are… beyond words. All of these to the contrary. Ah. Perfect ending. Boundaries all… mnah.

Chilling.
Very very good and Shigure and Akito in character but Shigure gives me shivers well... so does Akito as Adi found out when she made me jump in the latest fiction. This is just when Tohru goes to live with Shigure Yuki and Kyo isn't it? I assume that's the 'she' that Akito rages.

But the 'He could reach her then' not really caring that she would be hurt and all that she is clinging to would come falling down but you show that he does care in his own way but he doesn't care that it's going to fall as they would be free if all goes to plan and if she is broken he would be able to focus on her and peice her back together and she wouldn't really be able to push him away and demand he goes away.

I also really liked how you described the 'power' and that it works best at distance and how he hates it (how they all must) and even she fights against it.

I hope these rambles have made sense... but I as already said like this :)

"She has never had anyone truly touch her; she stays safe beneath her own globe of fragile glass, but she must bare all of them to the world if she wishes to be able to lay hands on them, and so she’ll allow others to enter, even against her will, because she cannot own them, and touch them at the same time, without letting the world filter in at her heels" - that I really do like very good explanation and very Shigure ways of thinking she doesn't really have much of a choice does she? and that is what angers her the most wanting forever 'unchanging' yet being completly unable to stop the things that change and enter the world she would love to stay closed.