AN: Here we go! Sorry it took so long! Anyway, here it is: The big finale!

The Big Finale: Party Animals

If there was one thing everyone in the Sohma family knew, even those who didn't know about the curse, it was that messing up the New Years Zodiac Banquet was a big NO.

It was the single biggest event in the clan; even Akito came out of his self-imposed solitary to attend. No one would dare attempt even peeking in on the party, forget crashing it or interfering in any other more direct way.

If there was one thing Shigure and Ayame excelled at, it was doing things that they shouldn't.

"So... you want me to just pour this into the drinks?"

Shigure smiled innocently at the boy in front of him. Hiro returned the obviously fabricated expression with an unimpressed glare before going back to examining the unmarked bottle that his much older cousin had just given him.

"Yes! And don't let anyone see!" Ayame chipped in happily. This was simply brilliant of them! The two troublemakers had attempted something like this the year before as well, but their fatal mistake was attempting to smuggle in the alcohol themselves. Every year, the duo was frisked before entering the room (which led to more than their fair share of lewd jokes and plenty of awkward silences), which meant that it was impossible for them to sneak anything in.

But only them.

Getting a kid to do it- someone that no one would ever suspect of helping them- that was genius.

Hiro had been the only choice. He was the only one who was so contrary that no one would even consider him as a possible ally; he couldn't be forced or pressured into anything.

"And what'll I get from it?" He asked in true brat fashion, complete with a cocked eyebrow and one hand on his hip, bottle hanging loosely in his other hand as he fixed his older cousins with a discerning glare.

The two shared a knowing grin before turning to the child and speaking in tandem.

"You get to watch."

Hiro stalked inconspicuously around the edges of the ongoing party. It wasn't yet time for the banquet; this was the general party that everyone was allowed into, 'everyone' being the cat (though Kyo usually stayed sulking in a corner and everyone else was only too happy to let him) and all of the cursed's families. This was the party he was to spike the drinks of; it had only just begun, so no one had gotten their own drinks yet. Pouring the stuff, which Hiro could only assume was alcohol, directly into the container that was holding the drinks would work wonderfully.

The deed was done in mere seconds, but it felt like an eternity as the bottle-necked nature of the container caused the liquid to come out much slower than it could have, and every second it seemed like every adult in the area was turning to look at what he was doing. He set the bottle under the table when it was empty before running off to find Kisa; he would have to make sure she didn't drink any of that stuff.

By the time the Zodiac Banquet was due to begin, Hiro and Kisa (the only two who hadn't drunk any of the provided liquids) were beginning to notice people acting rather strangely.

For the first hour or two nothing seemed different at all (the alcohol had diffused quite well into the drinks and was nearly undetectable), and Hiro had begun to think that yet another of Ayame and Shigure's hair-brained schemes had failed to go as planned.

Which actually didn't happen nearly as often as Hiro implied it did; the two were always surprisingly competent when it came to screwing other people over and causing general chaos.

But, back to the strangeness. It started with Ritsu; who slowly, over the course of an hour, got quieter and quieter in his wailing and moved less and less compared to his usual running-around-like-a-headless-chicken until he was sitting on the ground, slumped listlessly against the leg of a table and whimpering quietly about being a failure.

Most of the others weren't affected nearly as profoundly; a good number of them merely got a bit more snappish (Yuki and Haru included; there had been a terrifying moment where everyone had thought Black Haru had emerged only to realize that White Haru was just being mean), and a number of them smiled more. Rin seemed to be taking a nap in her chair, and Akito was brooding in a corner nursing his drink.

Strangely, the two who had caused this in the first place, and Kyo as well though that was no big surprise, were nowhere to be found.

"The banquet is starting now!" Akito suddenly shouted from his corner, rising to his feet and wending his way towards the door. Apparently, he was even more demanding than usual when drunk. The others began moving towards the designated room as well.

"Stay away from me," Yuki grumbled darkly, glaring as Haru stopped him from tripping over his own feet by pulling him much closer than necessary. He received only a teasing smirk in reply.

"Come on, Ritsu!" Momiji practically yelled. He had no vocal control in the first place, but now he was nearly screaming everything. Ritsu let out a wordless groan in response. "Yeah, of course I'll carry you!" The rabbit hollered as if that was what the monkey had asked, grabbing the older man's feet with vigor and beginning to drag him.

"Dragged through the dirt... it's what I deserve..." Ritsu mumbled as his only response.

"H-have you seen Kyo?" Kagura asked Hatori quietly, having reverted to her shy personality, tugging slightly on his sleeve. Said man let out a put-upon sigh.

"No. He's not allowed in the banquet hall anyway," the dragon stated plainly, the usually tactful man having apparently lost all semblance of his usual social graces in the face of his comrades spiked drinks. Kagura bit her lip, tears building up at the blunt words. Just because Kyo couldn't come in didn't mean she didn't want to see him before she had to!

"Rin," Kureno muttered, poking said girl who was still slumped in her chair. "Rin. Rin. Rin." He poked her with each word, and got a one-eyed glare for his troubles.

After nearly all the Zodiacs had made their way into the banquet hall (which was much more challenging than it should have been), Akito sent a discerning glare around at all of the chairs.

Due to Hatori's blunt words, Kagura had decided to go on a Kyo-hunt and had disappeared, so her seat was empty. Hatori had decided that this wasn't his problem and entered the banquet hall without her, only to be told that since he is obviously the most responsible it's his job to go get her. His seat was also empty, since he had not yet been successful.

Rin was now sleeping at her seat inside the banquet hall, no thanks to Kureno who, instead of actually bringing her into the hall before, had sat down beside her sleeping form and began to talk to the pitcher in front of him about how nice it feels to fly. Yuki and Haru were sent to fetch them, which they did manage to do, but only after Yuki had fallen about ten times, Haru catching him five of those times, which resulted in Yuki yelling and some rather sloppy punches being thrown.

Speaking of which, the cow and rat had been separated as far as possible for the sanity of everyone, because Yuki had somehow acquired Kyo's temper and White Haru had somehow acquired Black Haru's sense of humor.

Not a good combination.

Ritsu was in his chair, but had reverted to his monkey form. Momiji wasn't in his chair. Rather, he was sitting on the table beside Ritsu, singing obnoxiously in a horribly misguided attempt to make him feel better about whatever he was mumbling about now.

But there were two more unoccupied chairs. Two that didn't have such as excuse as the others.

Shigure and Ayame, who had disappeared around halfway through the pre-party and had yet to turn up.

Akito's eyes narrowed as he zeroed in on the seats.

Hatori was so not happy right now. He was obviously slightly tipsy, a fact he had realized soon after his words had sent Kagura on a Kyo-hunt.

And he knew who was responsible as well. Not that it was any sort of surprise, of course. Ayame and Shigure found his total lack of tact when drunk to be absolutely hilarious, probably because it got him a step closer to joining them in whatever insane mindset they were always trapped in. They had made it their personal goal since high school (the first and only, until now, time he had ever gotten drunk) to get him to ingest enough alcohol to cause any type of problem. He had avoided it spectacularly.

Hatori is a smart man after all, so he had come up with some simple rules: don't drink more than a cup of anything they give you; if it tastes funny in any way, don't drink it whether they gave it to you or not; search their pockets for any marked or unmarked bottles before allowing them inside. Not that the last one helped much, seeing as the duo seemed to have some sort of multi-dimensional pouch that they were able to pull things out of, based on the amount of times they'd managed to get that disgusting substance near him despite his rules.

Not only that, though, because the fact that Ayame and Shigure weren't exactly good at acting was helpful as well. Shigure had stopped telling Ayame any plans to get Hatori drunk within the first year of their scheming because the snake would crack under even the slightest bit of pressure applied by the dragon and the whole plan would come spilling out, and the silver-haired male would sit there grinning like he was expecting a treat. This took away one half of the dynamic duo, so the plans were sloppier after that, but luckily Hatori had known Shigure long enough to know when he was hiding something.

Now, Shigure was a fabulous actor. Always had been. He would also never give up any information he didn't want you to have. But he has a face he makes- it isn't radically different from his normal cheerfulness; the smile widened fraction and his eyes a bit sharper than they could be- and Hatori would know it anywhere. Now he couldn't tell what Shigure was hiding, never could, but that face was always an indication that he should look closely at everything.

And they'd finally gotten him. At the Zodiac Banquet.

Was nothing sacred anymore? The least they could do was leave Akito out of it!

"Oh, Kyo, you look amazing!" The voice, obviously Kagura's, pulled Hatori from his inner... Ramblings? Analyzations? Perhaps being drunk made him more scientific, because he hadn't actually been aware he'd made real rules for avoiding cousin-induced drunkenness.

Regardless. He had been sent to fetch Kagura, and fetch her he would.

Opening the door to the building they were in (he hadn't noticed before, but this looked suspiciously familiar...), he was met with not only Kagura and Kyo but the other two missing zodiac as well. The two thorns in his side. The banes of his existence. The cause of a large portion of his problems since birth.

"Hatori!" The two nuisances called, stars practically appearing in their eyes. Ayame's were real; that was hero-worship as usual. Shigure's were covering his smirk, and not very well of the doctor was being truly honest.

"What are you doing in my house?" He asked pseudo-calmly (that's what it was! That's why everything was familiar! Darn them, they had no right to just barge in like that), choosing to ignore the several other things that were strange about the scene before him in an attempt to not one again let his drunk self talk before thinking. One being Kyo's lack of bruises or even fear while Kagura was near, another was that Shigure and Ayame had switched clothes (the most worrying part of that was that he couldn't just shrug it off as them being drunk because he wouldn't put it past them to do it sober), and the last was Kyo's... interesting attire. It looked a bit like a dress, and his hair had been threaded through with flowers (he would also like to believe that was Kagura's doing but knew firsthand that both other men were adept at flora-hairstyles), and seemed to be (heaven help them all) proud of how he looked.

"Not important! We were just heading over to the banquet hall now!" Shigure shouted boisterously, spinning Hatori the other direction and pushing him into leading the march back towards said room.

Hatori let out an almost inaudible sigh as he allowed himself to be directed.

Most would probably brush it off as normal breathing, or maybe a small huff of annoyance, but Shigure knew better. That was a sigh that the dog knew must have been accompanied by a searching look to the heavens as if asking how he had come to even tolerate his two best friends. A sigh that spoke of years and years of putting up with their insane antics and, despite his usual immunity, falling for their tricks once more. A sigh that made Shigure's grin grow even further, because though Hatori sighed at his pushing and Ayame's constant chatter, the dragon allowed them to continue in silence.

And because they were obviously annoying him, which was probably one of Shigure's favorite pastimes (under only "pretend to not have the manuscript done" and directly above "force Kyo and Yuki into a room/meeting/situation/anything together").

The hall had returned to semi-normalcy. Yuki was still glaring at everyone, but was remaining seated (partially because of Akito's outburst a few minutes before but mostly because that traitorous floor was still lurching around and he didn't want to fall over again). Ritsu had returned to human form, but was slumped dramatically in his chair. Haru had ceased making Black-Haru-esque remarks, but was wearing a smirk that contradicted his usual blank face. Kureno had finished his quiet conversation with his own chair, and Rin was now sleeping sitting up with her eyes half open (which, quite honestly, was pretty creepy).

But there were four chairs that had no occupants at all. The mabudachi trio and Kagura still had yet to return.

This was highly worrisome, because Kagura was gullible and Shigure and Ayame were in the business of tricking people into doing things for their own amusement. The fact that Hatori was also out there was only a slight relief, because while Ayame would do anything the dragon said Shigure was not so easily swayed.

Just as Akito was about to order Kureno to go after them, he seemed to be the most sane at the moment, the double-doors slammed open dramatically.

Behind one stood Ayame, and the other had hidden Shigure. They were now positioned dramatically with their arms thrown out, Hatori looking completely nonplussed as he stood between them.

"Presenting," they chorused with manic grins, Hatori rolling his eyes at their antics, "this year's Zodiac dancer!" The two swept off to their respective sides, Ayame dragging Hatori with him, and revealed...

Kyo.

Who was positively beaming, despite the Ayame-style dress-robe he was wearing and the flowers that had been weaved into his hair. Kagura stood a few steps behind and to the left, far enough to not detract from Kyo's spotlight moment but close enough to effectively fawn over him.

Chaos broke out in the hall.

Momiji jumped to his feet on his seat and began hollering about how nice Kyo looked. Yuki jumped to his feet and started yelling about the cat not even being allowed here. Rin fell face-first onto the table, startling herself awake and shooting into a straight-backed posture before beginning to droop again, mumbling about how loud everyone was being. Haru figured that no one would notice him in the chaos, and so ducked under the table and made his way over to the rat before standing up and throwing an rm around said teen without warning. Yuki's screams of rage were now being directed at him rather than Kyo.

Kureno made his way unsteadily to his feet and found himself near the duo who had caused this, who were both explaining the whole plan to Hatori while said man didn't even pretend to be interested, and began gently scolding the rug beneath them all for moving so much.

All the while, Kyo had begun his dance around the table. He spun, probably more than necessary, making sure to pause so he could regain his balance, stopping every once in awhile to make someone watch. After all, this was a performance!

Akito watched his zodiacs in a sort of detached horror as the whole banquet went up in metaphorical flames before his eyes. The cat was in here! He was dancing (if one could call the wild, stumbling motions dancing, but in this case it was the intent that counted)! Ritsu had made his way into a corner and was slumped once more.

Hiro and Kisa simply sat in their chairs, eyes wide and mouths gaping open as the took in the chaos.

"Kisa," Hiro whispered, trying not to move because it might make one of the others notice he was still present, watching as Haru tossed monkey-Ritsu into the chandelier. The listless monkey simply hung from where he landed, moaning about how dying on such a pretty object would be more than he deserved as Kyo pointedly mounted the table and began twirling there instead. Hiro waited until she looked at him before continuing. "We're never, ever going to drink."

AN: I hope you all enjoyed my little foray into nonsense-land! This is the last chapter, but thank you all for reading!