When Yuki finally drifted into consciousness, it didn't take him long to figure out that he was laying in his bed at Shigure's house.

A few things kept him from immediately jumping up and rushing down the stairs to find Tohru and yes, even that stupid cat- one of which was a massive headache that seemed to dispel any possibility of movement. He lay there for a moment, realizing that the pain was not just coming from his head. His entire body ached, like he had slept at an awkward angle for days and days.

So he contented himself to thinking.

Yuki only had vague memories of what happened that night at the exchange student's house. What had begun as a nice dinner with friends had quickly become a battle of wits- and it had all gone downhill from there.

It had been Ayame who had approached him about their new friends first. Late Thursday night, the snake had showed up at Shigure's door, just as Yuki was preparing for bed. Initially he was resistant to his brother's request to see him, but when he finally gave in, he immediately knew something was off.

Yuki walked into the living room in his pajamas to see Ayame and Shigure sitting at the kotatsu, talking quietly. His brother broke the conversation, looked up at him and gave him a small smile.

"Ah, Yuki, come sit."

The words were simple and gentle, but the tone left no room for argument. As Yuki came and sat across from the snake, Shigure stood up and began to leave the room.

"You're not staying?" Yuki asked. Shigure shook his head slowly.

"Ayame has asked that you two speak to each other alone. I believe it's a private matter." But his eyes spoke volumes- whatever Yuki's brother was here to discuss, the dog already knew.

As soon as Shigure left, Yuki was forced to look across the table, and was surprised to see that Ayame's attention was not focused on him, but on stirring the ice in the glass of water that sat in front of him. The rat took this opportunity to really look at his brother. His eyes were narrowed, and his brow furrowed in deep thought. A slight frown played on his normally sunny features.

"Is something wrong, Ayame?" If it was something that made his brother act this out of character, then Yuki knew it had to be big. Ayame stayed silent for another few moments, and didn't look up at him when he finally did speak.

"Kureno is in the hospital. Someone broke into the main house."

"What? Why? Was it Akito?" Yuki's mind was racing- who would attack the normally pacified rooster?

"No, but we assume that's who they were looking for. Kureno was waiting in Akito's rooms waiting for him to come back from an appointment with Hatori."

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Indeed. And as terrible as it sounds, it was probably a good thing he was. If one of the maids hadn't heard an altercation going on in the room and alerted someone, the attacker might've gone on to hurt many other people."

Yuki nodded slowly. A million questions hovered in his mind, but he could only verbalize one.

"Why?" It was vague, but Ayame seemed to understand what he was implying.

"Though it may not seem like it sometimes, the Sohma Family is very prominent in business affairs. We have connections that stretch the entire world- and with those connections come both good and bad relationships. Among a few others, one of the theories is that an assassin was sent by one of our business rivals to do away with the head of the Sohma family, and obtain a portion of our wealth. Terribly old-fashioned and rather dangerous, but it does happen sometimes."

"What are the other theories?" Ayame finally stopped stirring the water-most of the ice had melted by now- and looked up at the rat with piercing gold eyes.

"There's nothing official, just… musings, I suppose."

"What's that supposed to mean?" From the way his brother was observing him, Yuki knew there was more to the story.

"Well, there was a bit of evidence left at the crime scene that points in different directions, but nothing substantial enough to begin pointing fingers with." Ayame paused, and then continued, his eyes straying to the wall behind Yuki's head. "At least, not if you didn't know the circumstances."

"Where is this going, Ayame?" The teen was getting frustrated- his brother had always been somewhat of an enigma, but this was going too far.

"What's wrong, Yuki, can't two brothers just talk?" The phrase came off as mocking, like Yuki was supposed to know exactly what Ayame was going on about.

"Yes, two brothers can talk, but it's getting late, and I have school in the morning. So if you'll excuse me-" He stood up and began to leave, but his brother stopped him.

"Yuki." The voice was cold and seemed accustomed to giving orders. It was a voice that had haunted Yuki's childhood, and popped up a nightmare every once in a while. His mother's voice. Akito's voice. The blood froze in the younger teen's veins. "Don't walk away when I'm talking to you."

Slowly, the rat turned around and stared at his elder brother. When Ayame saw Yuki's expression, he seemed to realize what had just happened- the person whom he had momentarily regressed to. His eyes widened in realization, and he put his head in his hands.

"I'm sorry, Yuki, just… just, please, hear me out."

Hearing this, the rat sat back down, slipping his feet a little ways underneath the kotatsu, but otherwise making no comforting movement towards his brother. Yuki was still on edge.

"What I came here to tell you is that I'm very worried about the safety of our family- and you know I'd do anything to keep you safe." Ayame gave him a pleading look, but Yuki's face remained distant- the familiar mask that had protected him throughout his life, until Tohru arrived.

"Where they found Kureno, Shigure and I were asked to sniff around the area to see if we could find any clues that would be out of the sight of normal humans. We found a few things…"

The conversation had put Yuki on the edge, confirming previous suspicions- where had their new friends come from? Why were they so easily accepted into the Sohma family? The rat hadn't fought it at the beginning- it was nice to have friends he wasn't related to. Nowadays even Tohru felt like a sister, (though he knew Kyo didn't share his sentiments).

But as time went on, it became apparent that things were not all as they appeared. There was just something… off about the three- something that Yuki couldn't place. At least, not at the beginning.

The events of the night before slowly became clearer.

Sakura was the problem. She had taken and knife and attacked them with speed and accuracy not found in a normal high school girl. She had attacked her own friends- but something had prevented her from killing them.

The rat remembered the looks on Naruto and Sasuke's faces when Sakura had flipped the table. They had been just as surprised as Tohru and the Sohmas- or at least appeared it.

Yuki sighed and resolved that as soon as his body stopped aching, he would talk to Shigure about what happened, and confront Naruto and Sasuke.

'I knew that pink hair couldn't be natural.'

XXXXX

She flew through the trees with amazing speed. The tatters of her black dress rippled behind her like a shadow of the wind.

XXXXX

Sasuke picked up the last piece of glass off the floor of the living room and held it in his hand. It wasn't large, but the edges were jagged from being broken- just small enough to be overlooked, yet just sharp enough to be dangerous.

'Like someone else I know.' He let his thoughts drift to the events of the previous night. It was a part of his mind that he hadn't dared to enter yet. He wouldn't go there right now, though. Not when he could hear Naruto ordering take-out for their late lunch.

Sasuke dumped the glass into the trash bag he was holding, tied the top of the bag into a knot and placed it on top of the other two bags in the corner in a neat little pile (the Uchiha was particularly adept at cleaning, thanks to years of living alone). He started to leave the living room, when the infamous blonde stuck his head out the doorframe.

"Hey Teme, the food will be here in half an hour- or it's free!"

"Hn."

The Uchiha slipped down the hallway into his bedroom, silently shutting the door. Then, in a rare moment of visible exhaustion, he allowed himself to collapse onto his bed face-first. Sasuke finally let his mind wander towards his pink-haired teammate, and the events of the night before.

He hadn't known. He didn't think Naruto had either. But given the circumstances, he shouldn't have been surprised that she would try something like that. He just hadn't anticipated that it would feel so… real.

'That's probably how she felt when you left.'

The thought made Sasuke abruptly sit up. When Sasuke had defected, he hadn't made a scene and tried to kill everyone, like Sakura had- well, not physically, anyway. But to the person who had always claimed to care about him, who had been the one to watch him actually leave the village that night, it might as well have been a kunai to the chest.

She'd begged him to stay- and he left her unconscious on a bench.

His fists clenched the dark blue bedspread as he recalled her actions the previous night. She'd slashed him across the chest with her kunai- not intending to do damage (if she'd wanted that, she could've easily brought the whole apartment down around them with her insane strength) but drawing enough blood to make the attack seem realistic. He'd caught her eye, and the amount of madness there (albeit mostly fake) was unnerving to see in someone who was like the rock of their team. But the real shock had been the unbreakable resolve she'd let show in those big green eyes. She wasn't unsure, and she had no regrets about what she was doing- it was what was necessary. He knew the feeling, because it was the same one he'd known when he defected.

Sasuke unclenched his fists and stared over at the mirror sitting against the wall near the door. In its reflection, he saw a young man who'd won countless battles, and overcome staggering odds to achieve greatness. He also saw a young man who'd made countless mistakes and stepped on whoever he needed to in order to obtain his desires. Last night, he'd seen both those young men in Sakura.

Unconsciously tracing the line she'd made across his chest with her kunai, Sasuke couldn't help but think how appropriate a slash across the heart seemed, now that she was gone.

XXXXX

"Hatsuharu!" Hatori called, walking towards the cow's room. A familiar head of black and white hair appeared in the doorway.

"Yes, Hatori?"

"Have you seen Momiji? He asked me for a quick checkup a few days ago to look at his cough, but between Kureno getting attacked and dealing with… certain people, it slipped my mind."

Hatsuharu cocked his head to one side, expression remaining unreadable. "By 'certain people', you mean Yuki and the cat's new friends, right?"

Though he didn't show it, Hatori was a little taken aback by how quickly the cow had figured it out. People really didn't give Haru enough credit- even though he was very quiet (when he wasn't Black), the boy really was quite observant .

"You don't have to tell me anything, but I'll tell you what I think," the teen went on, staying more or less expressionless, "We know they're not normal- probably not by a long shot- but why does that make them a threat to us?"

The doctor sighed. "We don't know what they are, and we're not taking any chances. Especially after Kureno was attacked-" Hatori cut himself off before he revealed too much about what they'd found at the scene of the crime. "We can't afford not to be careful- you know that."

Haru nodded. "Alright. I haven't seen him since yesterday, but I can help you find him if you need him right now." It took Hatori a moment to realize that he was talking about Momiji.

"No, he'll come around eventually, I'm sure." Hatori turned around to head back the way he'd come. "If you see him, send him to my office."

As the dragon turned the corner and left his line of vision, Haru decided to go in search of his blonde cousin anyway. It was odd that the rabbit hadn't come visit him at all today, and he missed the enthusiasm his visits brought. Even though they were so different, Momiji and Haru had been best friends since practically infancy- partially because they were the same age, and partially because they just balanced each other out. Where Haru was steady and often colorless, Momiji was bright and lively; where Momiji kept his emotions locked in a little box, Haru let his out in sporadic bursts of "black" madness.

The blonde was also Haru's most cherished confidante when he needed to vent, and he knew that he was Momiji's. The cow desperately needed advice concerning the tumultuous not-quite-relationship he was having with Rin, so he slid his door closed and set out to find the rabbit.

XXXXX

Momiji awoke and immediately emptied his stomach of all its contents. Coughing a little and shivering afterward, he looked at his surroundings; he appeared to be in a small, dark, concrete cell. The bars appeared to be made of a thin metal of some sort, and didn't appear very strong. The blonde crawled forward and placed his hand on one of them.

As his fingers enclosed around the bar, the rabbit saw a momentary flash of bright blue sparks before his body was thrown backwards and hit the concrete wall behind him with a painful crack. He fell to the ground and whimpered, faintly wondering if he'd broken a rib.

"Nasty, yeah?"

Momiji hadn't even heard the person approach the cell, but he vaguely recognized it as the voice of the blonde man who'd knocked him out on the street. Trying to look up, he saw the man grin smugly at him. "That's one of my jutsu, yeah- I stole it from some guy in Lightning Country, and it uses chakra to electrify anything you touch." The man licked his lips and grinned cruelly. "So keep tryin', to escape, yeah? It's entertaining."

Momiji just whimpered a little bit, trying to bite back tears as the scary blonde man laughed at him.

"W-what do you w-want from m-me?" He got out breathily, trying not to take in too much oxygen and irritate his ribs. The man stopped laughing and leered at him.

"We don't want you, yeah- we want what's inside of you." He put his hands on his hips. "We need your demon for power, yeah. But Danna says we have to wait until we have all of you to perform the extraction, so you'll wait here in the meantime, yeah."

Momiji let in a harsh breath as he realized what the man was talking about. Hot tears escaped his eyes as he curled into himself, trying to block out the pain in his chest and in the man's words. Sobs began to wrack his body as footsteps signaled the man leaving.

"Don't worry little Jinchuuriki," the man called behind him, "You won't be alone for long."

XXXXX

Hatsuharu, for the life of him, could not find Momiji anywhere. He'd searched the Sohma compound high and low, inner circles and outer circles (secretly, of course- couldn't have Akito getting mad over nothing) but there was no sign of the blonde. No one had seen him, either.

"Momiji, where are you?" Haru let out a breath, letting a little bit of frustration seep into his tone. He looked up at the darkened sky- it was definitely no longer summer. He'd only been searching for a few hours, but the October night had crept upon him too quickly, with the stars twinkling mischievously, like they knew something that he didn't. The cow frowned and sat down on a bench in one of the outermost circles, trying to come up with places where the rabbit could be.

"Hatsuharu-sama!" A woman- a maid, he thought- rushed up to him, breathing heavily. "Someone just told me that they saw Momiji-sama by the front gate!"

Grunting a quick "arigatou" to the woman, Haru rushed off towards the front gate, which was only a quick walk from where he sat.

There, standing underneath the two large streetlamps that lit the front of the Sohma compound, was a familiar blonde boy, staring out at the street away from Haru.

"Momiji!" The cow called, and the figure seemed to stiffen, then turn slowly toward him. He smiled at the approaching figure.

"Hatsuharu."

"Are you okay? Where have you been?" Haru stopped when he was close enough to his cousin to touch him. Normally Momiji would've jumped up to hug him, or touch him in some way- because that's just what Momiji did- but this time, the blonde just kept smiling at him.

"I had to see someone." The German teen's movements seemed unnaturally stiff and disjointed as he took Haru's hand and looked up into his eyes. "I have to show you something."

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Haru knew this was a bad idea. Something was wrong with his cousin- his eyes, which were normally brown and warm, seemed lifeless and unfocused. He wasn't acting like his normal, bubbly-self- hell, he wasn't even acting like the wreck of a child that he was in the rare moments when he let his walls come down. Nothing was normal about the rabbit in that moment, even by Sohma standards. But the strangest thing by far, was that instead of being soft and warm to the touch, his skin felt hard and cold.

Almost… wood-like.

"Where are we going?" He asked as the blonde dragged him out of the light, down the street and away from the safety of the Sohma compound.

"Don't worry, Hatsuharu." The blonde didn't turn around or slow, but his grip on the cow's hand tightened as he pulled him into the dark.

"You'll understand soon enough."

XXXXX

I'm just going to write this Author's note like I HAVEN'T been gone for an obscenely long time (but I apologize). This chapter was hard for me, and I'm still not completley sure I like the way that Sasuke's part came out. I know this doesn't clarify a lot (in fact, it probably just makes more questions), but it's the beginning of the set up for the more important, plot-aspects of the story.

This chapter is both darker and longer than most of the others- can you see how my writing style has changed in almost a year? Poor Momiji, it killed me to write about him, but it had to be done. Thanks for being patient with me- next chapter, we'll finally get to see some of the loose ends from the dinner all tied up, so look forward to that!