Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Baskets…yet.

Authors Note: I think things will start to pick up after this chapter or so… Just stick with it!

Book of the Cat

Chapter 2

"These books suck!" Kyo shouted in the library. Uo slammed her head down on the table. She looked up at him and glared.

"Must you be so loud?"

Kyo frowned at the people staring at him. He stuck his tongue out, causing a little girl to start crying. Uo stared at him.

"You're such an asshole!" She touched the fading blue spot on her face. It looked like some weird birthmark. Kyo's hair was blue in several spots, and it looked like he had blue freckles across the bridge of his nose.

He glared back at Uo, "It's all your fault!"

"How is this my fault?" she retorted.

"It just is!"

"Whatever. Look at this book and don't bother me unless you find something interesting… like a way to legally kill red headed morons!"

Kyo's face turned red with anger, but he picked up the book Uo handed to him. It looked over 70 years old and Kyo's hands came away dirty from it. However, he managed to smile when he read the chapter Uo left open.

Ancient Egyptians regarded cats as embodiments of the goddess Bast, also known as Bastet (emphasizing the female -t suffix) or Thet. The penalty for killing a cat was death, and when a cat died it was sometimes mummified in the same way as a human.

The Egyptian culture was not the only culture that respected the cat. Many other civilizations saw the cat as an important figure. However, the cat does not, appear in the Chinese Zodiac. Legend holds that the rat, who invited the animals to the Jade Emperorer's Palace to be chosen for the zodiac, forgot to invite the cat, so the cat declared the rat its natural enemy. Another version of this story involves betrayal. As the mice and the cat were crossing a river on the back of an ox to the Palace, the mice pushed the cat into the river so the cat would not beat the mice to the palace. (1)

Kyo frowned at the mention of the zodiac. He knew this story all to well, and he did not care to review it again. He skipped ahead a few pages as the book droned on more and more about the cat and societies that worshipped or hated it. He stopped when a page caught his eye. It was possibly the most boring page in the book, but he stopped on it anyway. It was the citation page. Kyo's eyes were drawn to a book squished at a paragraph near the end.

Zodiac Book of the Cat. 'That wasn't right', Kyo thought. 'Somebody's got their facts mixed up.'

Kyo's eyes traveled to the space next to the title, where someone had scribbled something in the margins. He saw a few words in a cramped writing style.

CAT. FREEDOM. EVIL.

Kyo jammed straight up in the chair, causing Uo to snort awake, but Kyo was too absorbed in his thoughts to notice. He was in shock from what he just read. He wasn't scared by what he read… He was frightened because he could read it.

Those …Those words were not written in any language he had ever seen before.

Uo glared at him. When Kyo finally snapped himself out of his dazed state, his mouth felt dry. He turned to Uo.

"I'm… a … gonna get book.," and he dashed away before Uo could object. Kyo walked over to the librarian. His heart was pounding yet he couldn't figure out why. He didn't even know what was going on. He approached the librarians desk with shakey hands. The librarian looked up with a smile at Kyo.

"How can I help you?" She asked in the kind of voice that a grandmother has.

Kyo asked quietly, "Do you have the book um… Zodiac Book of the Cat… I dunno who wrote it…"

The librarian frowned. "Hmm…. I don't seem to recall that title." Kyo felt dejected. "But I'll look it up on the computer!" she added with a cheery burst. Kyo waited a few seconds as the lady typed away. "Oh dear," she paused, and Kyo once again felt disappointment, "that book doesn't seem to be at this library. There is only one copy of it and that is at the Kanagawa Memorial Library." Kyo hung his head, he didn't even know where that was. "However," the librarian cut in with a smile, "I can have it shipped here if you'd like!" Kyo agreed, and quickly filled out the information card. Then he walked away as fast as he could. He was getting sick of this librarians mood swings. They were starting to remind him of his family members. He smiled at the thought and secretly vowed to ask her if she was a Sohma the next time he saw her.

Kyo sat back down next to Uo, who already had a stack of note cards with information. She shoved a bunch of blank index cards into his hands. And that was how they spent the next few hours, copying notes.

(1) Authors Note: Special thanks to for the fantastic artical about cats that actually mentioned the Chinese Zodiac! Yea Wikipedia!