Chapter One (1) Morning ruckus and Visiting the dead.

Kyo rolled over half-asleep. Something was ringing in his ears that sounded like an alarm. He groaned and slammed his fist down on his alarm clock. Kyo moved his head to look at the calendar.

'Sunday February 20th.' Kyo thought sadly. To the others in the Sohma household this was just an ordinary day; but to Kyo, It held a horrible place in his heart. On this day, two years ago, at 12:34 PM his life as he knew it changed forever.

A knock at his door made him jump. "Hey, Kyo-kun time to rise and shine!" Shigure's voice filtered through his door. "Don't want to waste the day in bed know do you?" he asked as he continued to knock on the door.

Kyo didn't respond. Right now he wanted to wring the stupid inus' neck that was standing outside his door making the entire racket in the world.

"Hey Kyo-kun!" Shigure called in a singsong voice. "Kyyyyyoooo-kkuu-!" Shigure was cut off as Kyo's door opened and hit him in the head knocking his senseless

"Would you SHUT! UP!" Kyo shouted. "Leave me alone!" he slammed his door shut and came out a few minutes later dressed all in black and a bag swung over his shoulder.

Kyo stepped over the unconscious Shigure in the hallway and past by a half-asleep Yuki, who had woke up to see what all the noise was about and then fallen back to sleep in the hall.

"Go back to sleep you dumb rat." Kyo said as he past Yuki. Yuki out of reflex sent a punch flying towards Kyo. Kyo ducked and Yuki's leg came flying towards him. Kyo did a backward flip and dodged it.

Yuki choose now to wake up. "Hunh?" he asked dazed.

Kyo shook his head and stood up. Grabbing his bag, he had dropped it when he ducked Yuki's fist, Kyo walked past Yuki without a word.

Yuki watched him walk away then turned to Shigure. He decided to leave the older man there and went back to bed.

Kyo climbed down the stairs and met Tohru at the bottom.

"What happened? Is everyone okay?" she asked

"Just a little morning ruckus, nobody got hurt, cept maybe Shigure, but oh well." Kyo shrugged and walked past her. He glanced at his watch. It was 11:47 AM. "Great." He sighed. It was the first day of the eight and he would be late. 'As usual.' He added mentally as he began to slip on his shoes.

"Oh are you going out Kyo-kun?" Tohru asked. He nodded in reply. "What about breakfast?"

"Not hungry. I'll be back later on." Kyo said as he left the house.

Tohru stared at the door until Yuki came down the stairs, she then ran off to make breakfast.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Kyo stepped through the shrine doors and walked through the little temple. He went through to the site of the graves.

Stepping up to one of them Kyo felt a lump rise up in his throat. He hadn't seen this grave in a year and it killed him to have to come back to it.

"Hello Sakura-Chan." Kyo whispered as he knelt down and wiped some dirt and grime off the name engraved on the stone with his sleeve.

The name shone through with a new light now being clean. 'SAKURA OHYAMA' The grave read. 'She danced her way form our hearts to heaven. Bless her soul.'

"She did indeed dance her way…" Kyo whispered to himself as a single tear slid down his check and splashed onto the tombstone.

Kyo's watch beeped indicating the time. "12:34. 'The Eight Days of Hell' have started now Sakura. But that was in the past. You no longer need to worry about the fires of their wrath." He placed a bundle of cherry blossoms at her grave and he began to pray for her… A snow flake coming down to land on the flowers as it begun to snow.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

It was around six o'clock and Tohru was starting to get worried. Kyo had not come back yet and the snow was piling up. Yuki came into the hall to see Tohru looking out the window for Kyo.

"He'll be fine Honda-san." Yuki assured her. Even through he wasn't so sure himself, the cat was never gone this long when he said he'd come back…excluding the times he went off to train.

"Yes, but I can't help but worry… the snows coming down fast." Tohru mentioned.

"Why don't you come into the kitchen, I'll make you something to drink." Yuki offered.

Tohru sent another look out the window then reluctantly followed him into the kitchen.

Tohru was just about to take a sip of the hot cocoa Yuki had handed her, when she heard the front door slam shut.

Her and Yuki went to see who it was, and sure enough there was Kyo shaking snow of his orange hair.

"You're back!" Tohru exclaimed happily. "I was starting to get worried."

Kyo kicked off his shoes and muttered an incoherent apology before he started to walk away.

"You know you could be a bit more polite to Honda-san. She was worried about you a lot." Yuki said slightly pissed at Kyo's attitude.

Kyo turned around to give Yuki a look that almost shouted the words 'Well who asked you?' But Yuki saw something hidden in his eyes. Sadness. No, more like a deep devastation.

Yuki gasped and Kyo turned away.

"I'm sorry Honda-san. But your energy would be better spent elsewhere." Kyo said in a cracked voice as he headed up the stairs and disappeared into the bathroom.

"But-but…" Tohru stuttered as he left. She like Yuki had seen the sadness behind his eyes and it made her sad.

"I wonder what's bothering him." Yuki said as he walked back into the kitchen leaving Tohru alone in the hallway.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Kyo was lost deep in thought as he heard a knock on his door. Hoping it wasn't Shigure, Kyo went over and opened the door to see Tohru standing nervously in the doorway.

"Oh, hey." Kyo greeted.

"Um, hi." Tohru smiled back. "Dinners ready if you'll join us." She offered.

Kyo nodded, he was hungry, and he hadn't eaten all day. "Sure I'll be down in a minute."

"Great." Tohru exclaimed happily and took off towards the stairs. Before she knew it Tohru had tripped over her own feet and was on a collision course for the steps. "Ahh!"

Kyo had barely had anytime to think as he ran after Tohru with amazing speed and caught her before she could fall down the steps.

Tohru blushed as she realized Kyo had caught her in his arms. "Oh my. I'm sorry." She said.

"It's okay." Kyo replied as he set her up straight. "You're not hurt are you?"

"No, thank you so much Kyo-kun. I would have definitely broken something if I did fall. Thank you."

"It's ok Honda-san. Just be more careful when going down the stairs."

Dinner was an unusually quite affair for Kyo. He didn't speak much; he just stared of into his own little world of memories until he heard Tohru talking to him.

"Sorry what?" he asked clicking back into reality.

Tohru gave him a worried look. "Are you feeling alright Kyo-kun? You've been awfully quite since you got home."

"Yhea, I was sure that by now you would have said something mean and rueful." Yuki said.

Kyo bristled and felt his temper rise but he suddenly felt dizzy and clamed himself down. He hated that he couldn't fine the will to fight during the beginning of the Eight days of Hell. "Oh be quite Yuki." Kyo stated before he got up and left the others at the table.

"Okay. Something's definitely wrong with him!" Yuki stated as Kyo left up the stairs. "He didn't even threaten me."

"I wonder what's wrong." Shigure whispered to himself. "He looked like someone just died."

77777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777