Make it Clear If It's Black or White

Marathon day at school pushes Tohru, Yuki, and Kyo out onto the course, but the run quickly becomes about far more than finishing times. A cold has settled over Yuki since the previous evening, and Kyo relishes the chance to finally beat his rival. Trouble arrives in the shape of a newcomer resting on a grassy slope, and by the time the race unravels, Tohru has met another member of the zodiac family and learned the secret behind his split temperament.

The morning before, a bickering trip home from the shops ends with Yuki silencing Kyo by shoving a leek in his mouth, though the effort leaves Yuki coughing. By nightfall he is running a low fever, and Shigure quietly warns him that overexertion could trigger a transformation. At the marathon, Tohru abandons the course to check on a white-haired figure she mistakes for an elderly man, only to find it is Hatsuharu, who has spent three days lost trying to reach the family.

Haru rigs a tripwire that sends a charging Kyo tumbling, then goads him into a brawl until his temperament flips into the aggressive Black Haru. Their fight halts abruptly when Yuki's cough worsens and he collapses from a mild asthma attack. To rush him home, Haru embraces a startled Tohru, turns into an ox, and has her cling to his neck to keep him from reverting mid-journey. Back at the house, Haru recounts how he once loathed Yuki for the old zodiac banquet tale that made the ox look foolish, and how a single honest exchange with the boy dissolved that hatred and became his first love. When Tohru affectionately calls Yuki by his nickname, he flushes and transforms into a rat, confirming Haru's hunch that she has softened him.

The installment draws on chapters thirteen and fourteen of the manga and runs Justin Cook's English direction over a script by Jeremy Carlile and John Burgmeier. Its opening is For Fruits Basket and it closes on Chiisana Inori. Haru cheekily addresses the audience directly, cautioning viewers against copying his rope trick on Kyo, while Tohru also breaks the fourth wall by remarking that the show has drifted into fighting-anime territory.