Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Seraph of the End and everything belongs to its respective owners.

Chapter 1

Finding out that there was some amount of humanity left in the world – that he wouldn't be completely alone – was the first thing that he had thought. Seeing that there were people outside, past the age of 13 – adults – had given him hope that he had more than a year left to live. They promised to help him kill the vampires, to give him the power to do so. He accepted.

The coat they gave him blocked out most of the outward chill from the wind. His feet were numb, but he continued to follow them, refusing any further help until he had lost consciousness. When he woke up again, it was in a hallway of some building, with Guren holding his exhausted body.

The first thing they had done was taken him to a smaller room, where he was checked out by a doctor. This fact alone marveled him; the vampires had never cared for the children, making them fend for themselves. They had removed the coat and stripped him of the stained 'livestock' clothing he had worn for the past four years. Once he was deemed healthy enough, they gave him gray pants and a shirt and had him change.

Afterwards, he was left in another small room containing a bed, lamp, desk, and a small bathroom off the side of the room. It was another surprise to him: the fact that he had a bathroom all to his own was almost too much to think about. The lady that had dropped him off – he assumed that she was a part of the Japanese Imperial Demon Army too from her uniform – said that Guren would be back in a short while.

He was now curled up on the bed, staring at the wall as if it would give him some answers. The blood had been washed off of him hours ago now, but he could still see it on his hands. Mika's blood. He had left them all to die; he couldn't protect them. Some family I was.

The silence of the room made everything come crashing back. He realized that he was wrong – he actually was all alone now. He didn't have a family anymore. They were all gone; all because he had been too weak.

"We promised we would escape together," he whispered, his vision blurring as he stared at his hands. Just a few hours before, they had been laughing at the dinner table while eating curry. Now, they couldn't do anything ever again. He wouldn't see them anymore, and now all he had left…

Who was he now? He had been abandoned by his first family, taken to the Hyakuya orphanage. He had been a part of the Hyakuya family, but now that they were gone…

"You'll always be you, Yu-chan," Mika's voice chimed in cheerfully in his head, "You can't be anyone else. You're just you. Nobody can take that away from you and nothing can change that."

He remembered crying for a long time afterwards. Time didn't mean anything to him. Some part of him wished that he would have been able to die with them, but he wouldn't be able to face them if he couldn't kill the vampires. Just like I promised.

Guren came into the room at an undetermined time, most likely very late at night. Yu hadn't bothered to keep track of the time and there wasn't a clock in the room to tell anyway. The man had something with him, but he hadn't checked to see what it was. It was left on the desk, most likely for when he could think straight.

He dozed off sometime after that, waking when the light of morning streamed through the window. He still felt unbearably weak, but he was able to stand up. His footsteps led him to the desk, finding a package there. Inside was a small notebook and a pen. A note from Guren was attached to the package that read:

Feel free to write anything you need to in this. If you ever need to talk, ask someone to lead you to my office.

The notebook left him numb for a moment before everything came back to him again. A distant memory caused a sour taste in his mouth as he threw the package back onto the desk and crawled back to the bed. He closed his eyes again, surrendering to the more peaceful time.

Mika, the blonde-haired boy, had entered the room they all shared. No one else had been there except for Yu; they had all left him alone after he made it clear that he didn't want to talk. The other orphan hadn't seemed to understand that though.

"I would have wrapped it in paper if we had any, but I couldn't find some," Mika handed him a book with a half-used pen, smiling the whole time. "I know that you've had it tough, so I thought maybe that writing about your time here could help."

"Like a diary?" Yu asked irritably as he sat the 'gift' down on the bed beside him, "that's stupid."

"It doesn't have to be written if you don't want to. You could draw pictures if you want," the smile never left, annoying him further, "you could write about your old family and what's going on here with your new one."

"You're suggesting I make a picture diary? That's even worse," he had avoided the other boy's gaze for as long as he could. A small sigh came from the blonde as he sat down on the opposite bed, drawing Yu's attention.

"I figured that it might help. I know it did for me," the words caused him to finally look into the fellow orphan's blue gaze, "besides, you seem like you could be really creative if you tried."

As tears threatened to overflow again at the memory, he made two promises. He would kill the vampires for his family, and he would never get close to anyone ever again. He would do this by himself until the day he died.

Hello everyone~! Well, this is a sort of backstory fanfiction for Yu that will hopefully fill in some gaps between the end of the first episode (ah, the nostalgia so long ago!) and Yu joining JIDA (basically, the second episode/time skip). This fanfiction is also one part of a larger project that AnimeWolfGirl16 and I are taking on called the Grains of Sand series. It's basically a whole ton of backstory and extras for different characters. She's taking on Mika's part while I'm doing Yu's~! So far we have plans to do Yu, Mika, Guren (yes, I know there are the light novel's backstory, but give it a chance. This is sort of an AU-ish backstory in a sense), Yoichi, Shinoa, Shinya and maybe Krul (that's a lot more than I thought!). So, this chapter was a bit depressing - and some of them will be, considering what Yu has been through - but it sort of sets the fanfiction up. Plus I like writing younger Mika and Yu-chan flashbacks, so expect some of those~! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter for Grains of Sand: Yuichiro and please leave your thoughts in a review (I have most of the major parts planned, but if anyone has any ideas, I might be able to add them in~)!

-AnimeWolfGirl9