A/N: I'd like to make a quick shout out to purduepup. You're awesome. Deal with it. Also my beta, Ayasherbear13. I'm so lucky you live right down my road so I can harass you into editing while I eat all the food & steal your manga. Heehee just imagine that empty fridge when we live together. Ah, I can smell the school term coming roomie.

Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran or Inuyasha. I do bake and own exploding cakes... No joke. That's what happens when I bake with Ayasherbear13.

It was a drizzling Saturday. One on which you expected to be able to sleep in and toss and turn to your heart's content chasing whatever hapless dreams followed. Normally on such days she slept until late in the evening when she eventually mustered the energy to wake up and get stuff done. Sadly Kagome was unable to do such because she'd been kidnapped that very morning due to a group of sadistic monsters who she was sure lacked hearts.

Instead of sleeping in and watching cartoons, Kagome was studying her eyes out against her will. It was bad enough that her mother, grandfather, Shippo, and Sota were pressuring her to return to school for a normal life. It was worse with Haruhi breathing down her neck and forcing her to study too, her large pleading eyes aimed at Kagome as Haruhi innocently said she would help after all the hours Kagome had put into tutoring Haruhi in the past. But it was downright hell that the entire Host Club had decided to help her! So at seven in the fucking morning she wasn't greeted with eggs and toast and a bacon smile on her plate. No! She was greeted with an oatmeal bar thrown at her as Shippo pushed her into Honey's car. Somehow Honey had gotten her home number and was now buddy-buddy with her son who was in on forcing his mother back to her education. If she had a voice she'd be cursing them left and right with crass words she'd learned from Inuyasha. She'd rather try to do things on her own time.

And as soon as she'd arrived at the quiet dojo that belonged to Mori's family she'd been tugged into a quiet room where Haruhi was cursing for all she was worth at Tamaki for waking her up this damn early. She was just as happy as Kagome for this whole situation. "I'm sorry Kags," grumbled Haruhi when she caught sight of an irritated Kagome nibbling on an oatmeal bar. "These rich bastards don't understand the word no!"

Kyoya suddenly appeared in front of an owl eyed Kagome and threw a practice test booklet into her arms. "You have three hours to complete this. Once you finish you will return it to me so we can see where your strengths and weaknesses lay."

"We promise to fix you breakfast," began Kaoru, leading Kagome towards a room where there was just a desk, a chair, a pencil, and a calculator. She was so angry Kagome was tempted to bite Kaoru if she couldn't use her priestess powers on him.

"After you finish your practice test of course," finished Hikaru, coming up on her other side to push her with Kaoru into the room and shut the door behind her. "Nothing says motivation-"

"Like a plate of food," chirped Kaoru. They shouldn't really be saying anything since all of the club members had eaten breakfast that morning unlike the commoners. Kagome had smelt the syrup on their mouths before she'd been forced into that dismal room.

Kagome stared mutely at the door wondering what the hell they'd all eaten for breakfast. Pure sugar? Her stomach grumbled at the thought of food, something better than an oatmeal bar. "You have 2 hours and 57 minutes now. I suggest you begin at some point," came Kyoya's voice. Was there a camera in the room? Kagome glared at the door and stuck out her tongue just in case there was a camera, for good measure she flicked up the middle finger too. Damn them. Damn them all!

Kyoya was busy typing away at his computer while the other hosts entertained themselves. It seemed Kagome's father hadn't died of any illness. He'd been the ideal image of health, but he'd been a doctor so it was expected of him to be as fit as a horse. Touga Higruashi had died of a car wreck driving home from working at the hospital. Records showed that he'd pulled an extra shift, coincidentally at the Ootori Hospital, before leaving. He'd been hit by a teen driver, though Kyoya briefly wondered if Touga would've been able to avoid that teen driver had he more rest. He made a note to look back at the videos from that night otherwise he might actually begin to feel guilt at the thought of her father's death. Kyoya would like to know that his family business hadn't been the cause of a death that could've been prevented. It was a possibility that he would like to rule out.

Aside from checking on the entirety of Kagome's family, Kyoya was currently checking the status on one of the many admirers Kagome had during high school. Hojo. The son of a pharmacist who helped supply Kyoya's family. The right calls had confirmed that the boy had been head over heels over Kagome, possibly still was, but she'd never really given him a chance. Kyoya sifted through about an hour's worth of suitors and sadly all of his main candidates were alive. No boys close to Kagome had perished therefore no candidate for the guy she'd been in love with. Kyoya almost growled out in anger. Could finding information on someone really be so hard? He picked up the phone and resorted to an underhanded tactic that he'd used on Haruhi as well. He called Kagome's mother.

Haruhi and Kagome were wolfing down the breakfast buffet that rested in front of them. It should've been lunch but Kagome had been craving breakfast since she'd missed it. It was downright cruel of them to keep not only her, but Haruhi as well from eating.

Meanwhile, Kyoya was finishing up grading her practice test. "Not bad," he muttered, peering up at her from under his glasses. "You just barely make it as an idiot in Ouran. You should be proud of yourself, that's just one step ahead of Hikaru."

Kagome paused and threateningly swerved her eyes from her spoon of eggs to his face, back and forth, wondering if she hit him with the food now would they stop pestering her? Hikaru was glaring at Kyoya too and was silently urging Kagome with his eyes to do it. "You do that and I'll add more to Haruhi's debt for you dirtying my clothes. And don't think I don't know what you're doing behind my back Hikaru." The twin peered hard at Kyoya's head looking for an extra pair of eyes. Kagome spooned the eggs into her mouth, deciding not to waste them on such a prim guy. One day she'd get him back. She vowed it. Stupid ice prince. He gave Sesshomaru a run for his money.

The Host Club members whispered amongst themselves, breaking down into groups from their best subjects. Tamaki and Kaoru were great at literature. Kyoya excelled at math and he informed the club members that Haruhi, who was currently gorging her bottomless stomach, was prominent in that area as well. Honey and Hikaru were science whizzes. And Mori was a history buff… when he actually chose to speak. "Not that she needs any help with the history," commented Kyoya. He was surprised since there were even a few art artifacts and pictures in the booklet and she'd answered what dynasty they were from just by looking at them. Normal entrance exams never had such questions, but entering the prestige Ouran High School you had to be prepared for everything. That had thrown him off for a bit. However, it made sense since she'd supposedly traveled a lot of places that she would get to take in art from around the world. "She received a perfect score in that area. I've never seen someone answer every single question correctly." He was the only other student who'd come so close to perfection on in that department. He'd missed just two answers.

"We're going to take turns tutoring you," chirped Tamaki, coming to sit between Kagome and Haruhi who were almost through eating their grub. "As soon as you're done eating you're going to be tutored with Kaoru and me first! Oh, fret not little princess! Your future is in our capable hands!" Kagome looked at Haruhi with eyes that said to kill her now and take her out of her misery be it death by chopsticks, spoons, or a pencil. Haruhi gave her a look that said she'd kill Kagome if she could somehow return the favor.

"Bossy rich bastards," Haruhi grumbled to which Kagome nodded in agreement with those sentiments.

Kagome was shut up in a room with Kaoru and Tamaki.

Kaoru was actually a great tutor. He was going over words with Kagome and their definitions, giving her little odd clues to remember them. He'd actually created a matching game with a bunch of the top hardest words and their definitions. It definitely had a twin flare to it as Kagome flipped over cards from memory to match them. When she'd flip up cards that didn't match Kaoru would ask which definition did that word belong to and Kagome would scribble away on a piece of paper her answer. It was repetitive, but got things through to her. Tamaki was having a fun time sitting beside her playing the game too, he was really getting competitive. "Boss this is for Kagome's help not you," reminded Kaoru. He was easier to get along with than Hikaru, though it was odd seeing him without his other half even if said twin was just in the other room.

"I know, but she needs competition to get her motivated," replied Tamaki. She gave a roll of her eyes to Kaoru. Tamaki was just a big kid at heart.

As easy as pie as it was with Kaoru doing the definitions Tamaki though was harder when it came to tutoring her. He was flamboyant and insisted on acting out stories and reading in dynamic voices that half the time Kagome forgot what the questions were after the excerpts. Kaoru would have Tamaki slow down. But the duo never stopped acting out the excerpts just because when Kagome laughed it was adorable. She didn't make a sound, but she ducked her face so cutely with her hands covering her mouth as two dimples popped up on the sides of her pink cheeks.

Kagome was practically dancing when they stopped studying for her thirty minute break. During that time the hosts found that Kagome was like Honey in one aspect… she had a sweet tooth and went straight for a piece of triple layered chocolate cake. Four pieces of cake later and she was ready to go again all hyped up and bouncy.

Round two: Mori.

Kagome had left the door open because the silence was killing her for that's what they did. They sat in complete silence. It wasn't a bad thing necessarily. Kyoya was leaning against the couch outside of the room watching them with interest and taking notes. It was like Mori and Kagome were telepathic. She'd skip over the things she knew by heart and went to the subjects that weren't so familiar. Mori paused to point to something on the paper that he was sure was incorrect, Kagome swatted his hand away and opened up a history book that sat near them to correct him instead. Safe to say that Kagome didn't really need tutoring with history. They were over in under fifteen minutes.

Meanwhile, Hikaru and Tamaki were playing video games while Karou cheered them on and Honey ate his twelfth slice of cake. Haruhi was snoozing in an armchair.

Round three included the sweetest host and the most bipolar. Honey and Hikaru. Where one twin had all the sentimentalities of a sweetheart, the other one was gruff and huffed about. Hikaru kind of reminded her of an irritated Inuyasha riled at the world for no reason. Did he ever show a soft side to anyone aside from Kaoru?

"Okay Gome-chan, do you understand why those protons cancel out?" Kagome nodded. "Yay! Now we eat cake as a reward," cheered Honey, he pulled out a cupcake from out of nowhere. Kagome's eyes widened and Hikaru slumped in his seat. Without Kaoru he was off balanced and it was hard for Hikaru to work kindly beside Honey whose solution to every problem was sweets, sweets, Usa-chan, and more sweets.

Hikaru's fist hit the table and you could practically see the vein in his head throbbing. "We can't keep stopping for cake every time we explain something to her Honey! It'll take forever!"

The little Lolita looked up with big wide teary eyes at Hikaru. "But Hika-chan its cake. There's always time to stop for cake." Spoken like a true lolita.

"But not after every problem. That'd be about fifty cakes," complained Hikaru as he scanned the problems they had ahead of them. They were still on problem seven.

"Just fifty," pouted Honey depressed at the lack of sweets. Hikaru and Kagome shared a look full of disbelief. Kagome wrote on a piece of paper and discreetly slid it to Hikaru.

Since we're learning science, is it possible that Honey has a black hole for a stomach and therefore isn't able to gain any weight because weight doesn't exist in black holes? Or is there another field of gravity around Honey that makes him seem lighter? Maybe he's an alien...

Hikaru actually sighed and his features seemed to soften just the slightest towards her. "I don't think even Einstein could solve that Kagome." Hikaru face palmed his forehead and scratched his hair as he came up with a plausible solution to their problem. "Honey, how about you eat a cake for every time I explain things to Kagome?"

Kagome expected to hear the words 'Fatality' echo around her when it came to the last round. Math. She detested math with a passion that rivaled the distaste Haruhi had for Kyoya's charging her for every blasted thing whenever he could. And she was up against a rock and a hard place because her lovely tutors had two different styles of instructing. Haruhi was the sweet and nurturing tutor who would placate Kagome when she got something wrong. Kyoya would straight up irk her with a demeaning comment.

"You forgot something Kagome. Again." She looked up at him wishing she could tell him off. If anyone came close to making Kagome open her mouth and speak up it was this guy here. He irritated her in ways even Inuyasha hadn't been able to. You see with Inuyasha she could handle him fuming like a baby. When someone was being straight up blatantly mean to you and yelling it didn't take much to yell back. This guy reprimanded you as nicely as he could! Kyoya was like a snake disguised as a kitten and she half expected him to sing his poisonous fangs into her and end it all. Kagome brought down the eraser and furiously scribbled away the work she'd just done, all the while glaring at him. "Oh, you didn't have to erase all of it." Damn him if he didn't sound amused at her antics!

"Kyoya, if she's going to learn you should be gentler," huffed Haruhi. She glanced back and forth between the two really wanting to escape the tension in the room. Haruhi half expected one of them to shoot the other with laser beams with their eyes. "I'm going to go get some tea." And Haruhi left the two to their own devices. Kagome scribbled away on a bit of paper and passed it to Kyoya with an attitude that was apparent to anyone who looked at her. Kyoya never even thought that Kagome could be considered 'talkative' with the fact that she never spoke, but her note said otherwise. It also said that she was peeved at him… then again, aside from the note, she was giving him the stink eye.

I'm not completely incompetent. Maybe if you treated me like I wasn't an idiot and actually explained things I'd get them right. Nobody's perfect and I'm not going to understand things if you just point out my mistakes.

He cut a glance at her. "I know you're not useless. If you were I wouldn't be helping you." Was that an actual compliment from him? It sounded like a compliment, at least one in his manner of speaking. Ah, she'd take what she could get. "You just rush too quickly through your math problems trying to get them over with. If you actually take the time-" He was cut off when she raised a finger in front of him to give her a moment as she hastily wrote away.

I go quick because I hate it. Especially when my tutor isn't explaining things to me. Explain how to do them slowly and I'll give you a clue about myself. Otherwise I'm running out of this room ASAP.

She was challenging him. And making demands. Normally this didn't fly with him and he'd tell the person in his own way to take a hike. "Fine. I will. I would have believed you to have preferred Haruhi explaining things to you though." Kyoya scooted over until he sat right beside her. He was intimidating to most people; to her she didn't even scoot away. Her sapphire eyes met his straight on, never wavering just to show that she was not going to back down no matter what he did. "Your threats to run from this room are empty," he pointed out. "Clearly this is something you want, otherwise you wouldn't have consented to all of this."

True. But it isn't an empty threat. Consider this, if you hadn't changed your tutoring ways I could go in there and ask Haruhi or one of the other members. Tell them you're useless as a tutor. There goes your reputation.

"You wouldn't do that, you're too nice."

I could try.

He smirked at the determination on her face.

Haruhi's great at explaining things, but she babies too much.

"I agree completely Kagome."

And so Kagome gave him a clue. It was something her father had taught her when she was a child. A riddle to solve. She was good with riddles, her life had been one huge riddle to begin with. But she reworded it to suit the many riddles surrounding her for Kyoya.

Everything about me is in this riddle. Where I went. What happened… everything.

That caught Kyoya's interest upon seeing those words. His strength was in everyday riddles with the events that happened around him. How hard could cracking a riddle on paper be?

Open it after you've finished teaching me. I need incentive first.

He nodded his head to acknowledge that he agreed to her terms. Then Kyoya reached out, brushing arms with her for the calculator, and began to show her step by step how to solve the problem. "You keep forgetting to add the two exponents not multiply them. And for the next problem on the monthly mortgage you forgot to move the decimal points with the accumulated interest." Kagome quickly went to fix her mistakes as she began to comprehend things. "How you go about your solutions are correct, but you leave out the smallest errors." He leaned on his knuckles quite lazily for his reputation and yet still maintained a frigid air about him. How could such a handsome face hide such coldness? Kyoya began to proceed explaining in slower terms how to do certain problems that had appeared as a foreign language to her. He even made up problems for her to do on the side just to check and see if she was paying attention. She was. And Kagome was catching on way quicker now that they were set at a good pace. She took the pencil from him at one point, their hands briefly brushing in a contact that made Kyoya's breath hitch, and corrected a problem before he even explained it.

And that was how Haruhi found them when she peeked on them through a crack in the door. Kagome and Kyoya's shoulders were comradely brushing against each other as their heads were ducked in serious studying mode. Haruhi silently backed away deciding that they were getting further in their studies without her. Besides, Kyoya was actually spending time with someone and he actually looked normal for once.

Kagome clapped her hands when she finally understood one of the harder equations and tossed Kyoya a dazzling smile of gratitude that left him momentarily frozen. His heart actually skipped a beat and he'd lost track of his words. Kyoya quickly cleared his throat before he continued on with his demonstration. She brushed back a strand of onyx hair behind her ear to reveal a smooth arched neck. For a moment Kyoya just stared at the expanse of it and couldn't stop himself from noting the light smell of flowers that clung to her. Kyoya had to admit it, Kagome was far prettier than any of Ouran's girls. She had an unnatural beauty and he was finding himself increasingly attracted to her. The deep color of her hair that didn't come from boxed hair dye, the eyes that didn't need contacts, her curvy figure that didn't diet or have a personal trainer. She was a young woman in all senses of the word just looking at her. But where she had looks, brains, and irresistible charm the other girls had wealth and social standing… two things his father would prefer any girl brought into their family to be in possession of. Catching his own thoughts Kyoya wondered exactly when he'd been thinking of bringing her to his house.

"I don't understand it," he murmured. Kagome's deep blue eyes snapped up to him, seeming to twinkle in confusion. Those eyes really were something peering at him in a creamy light face. Normally you had to have some foreign genes in you to get such astounding features, but not her. He'd done research on her and her family had been in Japan for hundreds of years in the very same area she was from. Ironically enough she may live at a shrine, but myths said she was descended from a demon marrying a priestess. Poppycock and fairy tales. There probably was indeed a priestess, but the demon was undoubtedly a wanderer, a drifter of the sorts thus the term 'demon' was given to him.

"You were very active in school." Kagome shouldn't have been shocked that he'd looked up information on her. "You were part of the debate team, you sang in the school choir, and often went to school games to cheer." All activities required speech which is what led the confusion to Kyoya.

Kagome did wonder how Kyoya had been able to get all this information on her without breaking some laws... and then she remembered his family owned their own police force. It was uncomfortable to say the least that someone so close to her age could so easily do a personal background check on her whenever he wished. "And yet you can no longer speak…" He stared at her for a long moment and she chewed on her bottom lip, fingers fidgeting with her pencil. "Can you speak Kagome?" Kagome took a deep breath before looking up at him and gave a small shrug. It wasn't that she knew if she could or not… she honestly hadn't a clue because she hadn't tried since the incident and she wasn't about to try any time soon. She wasn't particularly close to anyone and she'd already lived this long outside of school without opening her mouth so now she was used to it.

Honestly… a huge part of Kagome was scared. If she opened her mouth what would happen? Would she wail out her grief for days on end? Would she scream at the Fates for what happened? Would she curse Naraku? Begin chanting a spell to keep her powers in check? Would she be able to stop calling out for his name hoping he'd return to her? Would her voice croak and show her that she really had become a mute? So many questions that she couldn't answer and she feared all of them…

The last time she'd spoken had been for him.

This thing all things devours:

Dragons, demons, maiden's hearts, flowers;

Gnaws swords, bites steel;

Grinds the legendary stone to meal;

Slays cursed beings, ruins town,

And beats wells on hills down.

The answer was time. Most would be stumped by this riddle but he'd solved the overall riddle after sitting down for a good twenty minutes. But what did time have to do with where Kagome went? The way she wrote things would make you assume that she was taken by time. But everyone was taken by time.

And all the words she'd replaced in the riddle, obvious clues as to what had happened to her. He had a feeling she was given him everything, that it was staring him in the face and he couldn't solve it. Kyoya began typing away on his computer. He was going to look at the replaced bits individually before connecting any of them together. Dragons and demons. Then he would look at the next pieces until he could connect them. Maybe she had been part in a traveling expedition locating all mythological places in Japan with important legends. It sounded like an odd job for someone to have but he'd seen quite the many odd jobs.