General A/N: I don't know, I've been thinking a lot about Akito and Kyo's relationship lately…I would love to write some quality Akito/Kyo shounen-ai but that's impossible…so I settled for this instead. I was meant to post this AkiGure oneshot but since I finished this first, you get it first. XD

Title: Empathy
Rating: No idea. Really.
Character(s)/Pairing: Akito, mentions of Kyo.
Summary: Akito is closely tuned to the feelings of his Zodiac. The rainy night Kyo transformed is no exception.
Warning(s): Noncanon-ness, I guess. But who cares?
Comment(s): I always liked the idea of Akito having godlike or strange powers so I thought, why not? The transformation refers to when Kyo changed in front of Tohru in vol.6.

Why he can't exactly say. But he can hazard a guess.

He feels, at all times, the emotions running through his Zodiac. Only faintly, in little bursts and flickers, depending on their strength. He's learned in the course of his short life to block most of them out, concentrating until they were mere background noise. If he hadn't he surely would've gone mad long ago.

Now one of them is crying out. Screaming. Clawing. Raking white-hot trails across his mind. .

He drags white-knuckled hands down the wet glass of his bedroom window and stares out at the watery landscape.

Who? Who?

Akito feels sick, nauseous. His insides are swimming in grease. His skin and innards feel slick, like he's been contaminated with something nasty. The pores of his skin are sweating something noxious and toxic, discharging the poison his body is accumulating.

But from what? The God shudders. Something has gone wrong in his world. Something is happening that shouldn't happen, something to one of his Juunishi – something forbidden and vile, and the aftershock is flooding back to him, God, the Giver. A gross transformation is brewing and this is the side-effect: all that repressed power, backlashing against his body, filling him with poisonous breath.

A gross transformation…Akito screams in rage. Somehow, his stupid Cat has taken his bracelet off. Hadn't Akito explained to him that he must never remove it? Hadn't he whispered harshly into the creature's ear that it held not only terrible consequences for Kyo but for him as well, each syllable punctuated by a thud to that orange head? Hadn't the kitty nodded his head furiously, sniffling, promising he would never never never take it off? Hadn't he-

Too late.

Pain, pain all over. He falls to the floor, rocked in spasms, that damned monster is transforming – he feels it – it's like being ripped apart –

His insides are twisting and warping, his bones rearranging and shunting themselves into new positions, his skin is stretching and hardening – only he knows they aren't, really, but it's what Kyo is feeling right now so of course he feels it too – he's God, but he can't block these thoughts, these feelings, they're too strong and they overpower him –

Akito vomits; fake feelings or not, his stomach can't handle this and his hideous nausea washes over him in waves. The pain is excruciating. Under no control from him, he feels his elbows twist outward and knees bend so he's crouching like a frog. Stupid, stupid monster…

Kyo's voice shrieks through his head.

DON'T LOOK AT ME!

Of course, it's not just the physical sensations he's sharing…his heart is being torn from the inside from all the misery-self-loathing-despair…Akito can't help feeling he's lost something wonderfully precious (a flower, a precious flower) and this rips a scream from him, a long agonising wail of loss that arches his back and makes him claw his face. He feels hideous, he is disgusting and oh God he wants to just shrivel up and die.

That boy is going to suffer. Oh yes. He'll probably get the beating of his life, or be locked up in the cage early. Akito thinks these thoughts dimly; grasping onto them as they sift through his consciousness. The pain eats at his marrow and he doesn't think he'll be aware for much longer, which is fine with him, everything is warped and terrible, he feels grotesque.

Akito experiences the strangest sensation: cool, soft rain falling on his face. Or perhaps tears, sliding away. He paws his cheek once, before passing out.

When he opens his eyelids again, the rain has stopped. He's lying in bed. Someone has heard his screams and placed him there. Akito sits up, trying to blink blurriness away, his head fragile and aching.

Someone, he knows with awful finality, a certain orange-haired someone is going to pay for this.

Dark, cold currents of thought pass through his mind. He won't forget this. And he'll make sure Kyo won't forget either. That monster will always remember the day he disobeyed God and removed his bracelet, he'll rue it.

That monster will pay.