Author: Nemkess
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
Rating: PG-13 for now
Warning:  Fruits Basket/Yu Yu Hakusho Xover

A/N: As final a version as is gonna get written, I imagine. But hey. At least with this one out of the way I can finally move on to Chapter 2, ne?

------------------------------

CHAPTER 1

------------------------------

Shigure's place was a madhouse that night. Half the zodiac had descended upon it and Haru found himself bombarded with questions he couldn't answer.

Kyo held himself apart from the group, speaking only in monosyllables to any questions directed at him and fingering the hilt of his katana until everyone but Kagura got the hint and left him alone. The Ox kept a wary watch on the pair out of the corner of his eye. There was a tension to the cat's body that didn't bode well for the woman if she insited on her pestering.

Across the room, he could see Kazuma-sensei was also patiently waiting. Waiting and observing his foster son's actions around the group in general and Kagura in particular.

The boar had, against all odds and reasoning, held fast to her obsessive devotion to Kyo over the years. Akito's insistence that 'that wretched cat' was still alive had only encouraged her. Eventually, sheer loneliness had motivated her to date a little, but everyone knew that she was just waiting for Kyo to come back and fulfill the promise he'd made, however unwillingly.

It wasn't hard to see the exact moment Kagura lost her temper with the cat who seemed so determined to ignore her. Everyone had been waiting and watching for it after all, no matter how they'd pretended to be too occupied elsewhere.

Hell, Shigure looked downright eager to pull out the old script. Haru could almost hear the dog using that sugary-sweet voice he had. 'Now Kyo, be nice and don't break my house!'

She got that scary look in her eyes and made as if to grab Kyo by the hair and start swinging him around as she had in the old days. Personally, Haru thought she'd lost her mind. The old Kyo might have never put up much of a fight when Kagura went crazy on him, but it should have been obvious that Kyo was not who he used to be.

Faster than Haru could actually see, the cat had grabbed her hands and stood up, pulling Kagura with him. He leaned close and hissed words that only she could hear before dragging her off up the stairs.

Kyo's old room had long since been converted to a guest room, but since Shigure had generously and with only a minute amount of whining offered to let him stay there again, Haru thought that was probably where they'd gone. He certainly wasn't running after them to find out and none of the others seemed all that eager either. The very air around the pair seemed to simmer and the Ox suspected Kagura was finally going to get the point Kyo had spent years trying to make without really hurting her.

"Haru, I don't understand. You just found him wandering in the woods?" The question came from the dog and Haru had to sigh and shake his head.

"It was more like he found me. He was just... sitting there. And I don't know how he got there or where he was before. He hasn't said anymore to me than he has to you." Other than the joke about his getting lost, Kyo'd answered most of the questions Haru'd thrown at him with shrugs or shakes of the head. "What about you, Hatori? You two were in the other room for nearly an hour."

Hatori sipped his tea before sighing and glancing at the ceiling. "Kyo was docile enough for his examination, but the only thing I can really say is that he's apparently lived a very hard life since he disappeared. He has a number of very vicious looking scars; some that I'd say were from wounds as old as six or seven years, some as recent as a few months. He refused to answer any questions about how or when he got them and I didn't feel it was the time to press."

As clinical and detached as his voice was, you'd never know he was talking about a relative who'd just reappeared after seven years of the family thinking him dead.

"Who's going to tell Akito?" It was Yuki who asked from the doorway of the kitchen where he'd gone to retrieve snack foods for everyone. Even though the boy had grown into a man, there was still a tremor in his voice when he said Akito's name that no one was cruel enough to point out. Haru, who was very similar to Kagura when it came to obsessions even if he had learned to hide it a little better, felt his heart constrict.

The room fell silent, no one wanting to answer.

Behind his tea cup, Shigure was smiling. "I suspect he already knows."

TBC