Fruits Basket, Volume 22 by Natsuki Takaya

Kyo panics when Tohru is in the hospital after falling down and failing to be saved by Akito. But it also makes him aware of how much he loves her and wants to be with her. So, he decides to stop running from his past and make peace with his father, as much as he can.

But his father has no intention of making peace with Kyo, and Kyo realizes how much his father was responsible for his mother's committing suicide, and he leaves his father behind even as his father calls for him to be imprisoned in the room where the Cat has normally been imprisoned on the Sohma family's grounds.

But Akito has already decided to destroy that separate room and regain her own life. She is tired of living like she has and has decided to make her own life. As Kyo goes back to her hospital room to try and beg Tohru's pardon: her friends have told him that she thinks he wanted to break up with her.

But when Tohru sees him coming, she runs, unable to deal with what she feels is the pain of losing him, when she loves him so much. He has to run after her and and tell her that he doesn't want to break up with her: he loves her. He loves her enough that he wants her to embrace him, in public, even knowing the consequences that will occur.

But at that moment, Akhito decides to release the rest of the family from their bonds to her, and when Kyo and Tohru embrace each other, he doesn't become a cat. As they stare in wonder at each other, Kyo pulls back and tears off his bracelet, throwing it into the river.

And all across the city, the Sohma family members begin to feel strange as their animal forms leave them, to be gathered in by the spirit of the God. We hear the story of the animal spirits as they really were, and Aya embraces his employee Mine, Yuki hugs Machi, Ritsu dresses as a boy, Rin and Hatsuharu embrace and cry, and Hattori cries as well.

Finally, Tohru and Kyo go to the Sohma estate, where Akito is dressed as a woman, and she and Tohru embrace. But there is still more to come. Will Akito find love of her own, and what will life be like for the members of the family? Will Momiji's family be allowed to remember him at last? Or will the brightness at the end be dimmed by some things remaining unchanged?

As the penultimate volume of the Fruits Basket series, this volume shines like a bright jewel. The realization of the family that their curse is broken, the looks on their faces as they each embrace the ones they love for the first time without fear, and the sadness on others as they lose part of themselves they have carried with them almost from birth... it was a moment joyful, lovely and sad all at once.

That Natsuki Takaya is able to show all these facets of feelings in the matter of the broken curse is stunning, and she does it with a beautiful minimum of lines. The true story of the curse is revealed at last, but it was never meant to be a curse. It was meant as a way for the God and the Animals to be able to meet and enjoy being together forever more.

Only the cat saw it as the curse it would become, and it wanted things to end naturally. And now, finally, it has gotten its wish. Reading this book made me both happy and sad. While the actual source of the breaking curse remains misty (was it Tohru and Kyo's love for one another, or Akito deciding to release the family members from their commitments to her?) The events happen too close together to say definitively, but I lean towards the second explanation, as the God was the one whose power kept the animals together, so it makes sense that the God (Akito) releasing the members of the family could also end the curse.

In the end, no matter which explanation you go with, this book will also fill you with sadness and joy, joy that the curse is broken, and sadness that this means the series will end. Like a jewel itself, this series is almost perfect, and that it won't be around any more because the story has come to an end, well... I'll sure be missing it.