Kyou slumped against the clammy stonewall.

"Kyon-kyon?" Kagura rushed to his side. "Are you alright?"

"Kagura..." Kyou found himself too exhausted to snap at her. "We've been walking all night. I'm tired, and it's cold down here. Can you just admit that you were wrong about cure being down here? There's nothing down here but spiders, and I'm getting tired of squashing them for you. I know you're not really afraid of them," he sighed, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

Kagura's smile faltered. She couldn't admit to being wrong; the reason being that wrong and lying were two very different things. She wondered if Kyou knew, and was just being polite. He put on a show of trying to be brash and rude, but that wasn't the Kyou she knew deep down, the one Kagura had loved for as long as she could remember.

The two had been walking through the palace's underground tunnels all night, sometimes with Kagura clasping hands with the knight ('what if we should become separated in the dark tunnels!?'), other times chatting merrily at him, catching him up on all that had happened ever since he had left the palace to stay with Tohru's family.

Kagura extended her hand to pull him back up. Something that Kyou did find not entirely unimpressive about the girl was her immense strength, terrifying as it often was. She would make a decent knight with some training, he sometimes thought- as long as he wasn't the one who had to be training her.

With a half-hearted eyeroll, Kyou accepted her hand, allowing Kagura to hoist him back up.

"I think at this point, it would be faster to just keep going until we wind up somewhere, than it would be to turn back around," Kagura suggested, her tone more serious than before. From the maps she had studied before they had set out, this seemed to her like the clearest course of action. She had had a great deal of fun, but it wasn't fair to Kyou to keep dragging him around like this, especially not with the ball coming up later in the evening. She had hoped that they would have run into some sort of danger, tunnels beneath castles were often booby-trapped, after all, to ward off would-be near-do-wells that may attempt to reach the upper floors by way of the dungeons.

She continued to clasp his hand as they traversed the tunnels, Kagura swinging their arms now and then. Kyou's hand was warm despite the coolness of the cellars. Though Kagura had given up her pretense of being frightened, Kyou still made no attempt to pull away from her. He must be tired, she thought, suddenly touched by a fleck of guilt. Often times, she could fool herself into thinking that little actions such as this, came about because he liked her back, but that couldn't be case. It would seem that the gloom of dungeon tunnels was beginning to get to her too, she thought.

After what seemed like another hour of walking, the two finally came upon something that was not dust, a spider, nor cobweb- It was a gigantic statue of a dog, positioned so that it was directly blocking a doorway at the end of the tunnel.

"Now what?" Kyou sighed.

Kagura opened her mouth to speak, but a male voice spoke over her.

"Who dares to pass?" the dog asked. It was clear that the thing was attempting to be menacing, yet the words came out rather conversational.

Kyou knew that voice from somewhere.

"Eek! Save me!" Kagura peeped theatrically, clutching Kyou's arm with a crushing grip. Maybe this misadventure would work out in her favor after all.

"State your business," the carved stone dog attempted again.

"You're the Wizard Shigure!" Kyou pointed at the thing accusingly. "I mean, Shigure enchanted you to sound like him!"

"I haven't a clue what you're talking about," the dog replied.

This was absolutely something that wizard would do. Kyou remembered him vividly from their encounter during his childhood. Not could he not cure Kyou and Yuki of their curses, he was also just plain annoying.

"Ask him what we have to do to pass!" Kagura hissed into Kyou's ear. This was her chance, his chance. Her knight in shining armor would defeat this thing, causing him to fall madly in love as he protected her. The two would then dance together at the ball, there in which true love's kiss would break the curse! This would be the best day of her life, Kagura was now certain.

"Ask him yourself!" Kyou hissed, finally attempting to push her off of his arm.

The statue, however, took this as question enough. It had probably been waiting years for a chance to give some passerby grief.

"In order to pass my test, and enter the Castle Sohma, you must…" the dog paused for dramatic effect, "PAY SINCERE COMPLIMENT TO YOUR COMPANION! Dun dun duuuuun..."

Kyou blanched. Of all the things the guard could have asked him to do, this was... He had been expecting to be asked to…He didn't know…fight a horde of skeletons bare-handed or something. That, he could have handled, but this…

"She's good at scaring the hell out of me!" he shouted.

"Bzzzzzt! Wrong-o!" the guard dog teased.

"Kyon-kyon!" Kagura pleaded. Even if maybe she wasn't his most favorite person, there must be at least one thing about her that he liked, even just a little.

He paused for a moment, turning to look at the girl beside him, brow furrowed.

Kagura, the girl he grew up alongside, the girl who kept his secret. Kagura, with her wide eyes, grey as summer storm clouds, her hair silky dark.

Kagura.

Kyou turned away from her then, instead facing the statue head on, fists clenched, face turning as red as the ribbon on the uniform Kagura wore.

He took a deep breath, and spoke. "Kagura is…strong. Not just her damn muscles, but on the inside too. When she wants something, she won't back down. She's optimistic and cheerful, and it rubs off the people around her… Now let us out of this freaking dungeon!"

"K-kyou!" Kagura cried out, teary-eyed and throwing her arms around him as the statue shifted over and the door began to creak open. "I love you!"