Chapter 1

The cat ran into God's throne room, hours after the zodiac banquet had taken place, huffing and panting, showing that he had ran a fair length in a very short time. He nervously looked up at the god, expecting the worst.

"You are late, the banquet has been finished." God's voice boomed throughout the room, anger swirling in their otherworldly eye's.

"Please!" The cat yowled desperately. "I did not mean to be late! I am sorry!"The cat bowed it's head close to the ground, eye's staying submissively low.

"Is there anything I can do to make up for my mistake?" Fear swelled within the cat's heart, terrible things happened to those who opposed god, arguing that the rat was at fault would not help him at all.

God's eye's flashed with opportunistic thoughts. "Very well, cat, you shall from this moment be my eternal servant, to do as I order."

The cat's paws trembled in fear. "O-of course."

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Soft cream coloured eyelids fluttered open, revealing brilliant ruby red eyes lined with long, dark eyelashes.

Long, straight waves of shining orange hair shifted around the head as their owner began to awaken. Slim legs bent and mildly muscled arms leaned on their elbows to get out of their thin, patched up futon and rolled the rough and thin blanket off of their body.

A mumbled groan left the mouth of a ten year old boy, wearing an oversized, old dress shirt that was apparently used as sleeping wear. Leaning back, the boy stretched his back as far as it would go, which was surprisingly far, sighing when the tension left his spine with a few systematic pops.

Opening the small window next to his bed, the orange haired boy looked at the sun's position to tell the time, sighing in relief. He hadn't woken up late this time, quickly putting on the patched up pair of shorts that reached to his knee's.

Taking off his sleeping shirt, the lean boy replaced it with a plain white long sleeved shirt with a low reaching neckline, showing off his creamy skin and neck, the shirt had a few small holes in it and was stitched and patched up in places, but was otherwise wearable.

Fully dressed, the boy sat on his knee's and crawled over to a square outline on the floor of the crawlspace that was called his room, running his hands over a square outline in the floor before squeezing his fingertip's into it's edges and pulling the trapdoor open, laying it next to him.

He easily jumped down to the floor under the trapdoor, landing quietly in a crouch. He took a nearby broom and pulled and poked at the trapdoor above him until it fitted back into the square outline.

Sighing, he set the broom back in it's place and brushed off the dust on his shirt, frowning and scrunching up his sleeves as they tumbled off of his shoulder's, leaving them bare to the world.

He really wished he could have a smaller shirt, this large one was just too inconvenient. . .

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The boy's name was Kyo, and he had the curse of the zodiac, along with several other people who he shared. . .certain aspects of his life with.

He would not call them his family members or relatives, as they obviously didn't want to be his family at all. For he was cursed by the spirit of the cat, forever outcasting him to the rest of the zodiac.

Kyo huffed and lifted his chin up, acting like a shy pushover wouldn't make them treat him any different, he kept a defiant and harsh look in his eye's and walked along to begin his daily routine.

Unlike the average person, Kyo's 'Daily routine' didn't involve bathing or eating first, it involved making sure the god of the zodiac and the rest of it's members had awoken and eaten before him, because he was the cat and therefore didn't deserve to eat before his betters had.

He arrived at the kitchen and asked the servants who were working in there if any of the zodiac members had eaten yet, the servant said that none of the zodiac members had come to the kitchen yet and Kyo nodded retrieving the cart and the specific meals he was obligated to give out.

The servants of the compound treated him better than the rest did, because even if he was the hated cat, no one wanted to be the first to discover how Akito would punish the one who had hurt his 'toy'. So they treated him politely, but not nicely, they treated him like a stranger who they had just met and nothing more.

Akito had ordered for the cat to never wake him up, and to just leave his meal beside his bed, and carry on waking up and giving meals to the zodiac members, from the highest ranking to the lowest, in that order.

So he first went to the Rat's cage. To be honest, no matter how much hatred Kyo held for the rat, he could never see why Akito treated him like this, whipping him no matter if he did anything right or wrong, it just seemed unfair to the cat.

But he would never say that to the rat's face, Kyo would bite his tongue off before doing that. He unlocked the door to the Rat's cage and entered after giving a short knock.

As usual, the rat was awake when he arrived, Kyo wondered if he slept at all, but it didn't seem like an important enough question to ask.

"Good morning, Yuki-sama." He said, no matter how much it left a bad taste in his mouth.

Kyo took out the plate of food that was made specifically for the rat and placed it in front of him, lowering his head so that his red eye's didn't meet the rat's purple ones.

Even if his pride knelled over and died for bowing at the rat, Akito had beat him senseless the first time he had glared at the boy, and Kyo was fairly certain that he couldn't look at the rat with any other expression.

Plus. . .he didn't want to see the rat's smugness at having the cat act this way to him, he would not allow it.

The rat didn't thank him and Kyo left before he could say anything else.

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The ox didn't live in the compound all of the time, so sometimes Kyo didn't even have to bring him his meals, the ox would leave the compound to train martial arts in a dojo that wasn't near the main house of the Sohma's.

Kyo wished that he could train in martial arts, but Akito had said he would never be able to leave the main house, so having interests that lied outside of it were pointless, and even if Kyo hated agreeing with the man, he couldn't help but see the logic of it, even if Akito was the reason he couldn't leave the main house.

But the ox was staying in the main house today, so Kyo went to his room next.

The ox's room was near the entrance to the main house, because the ox had a terrible sense of direction and easily got lost in the large house, so it was near the entrance and had the symbol for Ox written on it, just for it to be harder to miss.

But even that didn't stop the ox from getting lost looking for his room. . .

The door to the Ox's room was a little roughed up, the door had little chips here and there from being closed harshly, and the handle had little dents, showing the physical strength the ox had.

Kyo knocked on the door before opening it and entering the room, which was ridiculously messy, but it wasn't Kyo's job to clean it up so he ignored it, stepping over the pieces of rubbish and discarded clothes here and there.

The Ox was snoring up a storm in his futon, and Kyo gently took hold of his shoulder and shook it carefully, knowing how rough treatment could bring out the Ox's 'black side'.

It had taken a week for Kyo to be able to do his job without assistance, and that had made Akito very unhappy.

"Ngh?" The ox snorted and blearily opened up his eye's, rubbing his clenched fists against his eye's to rub away their sleepiness. Kyo placed the food down and took a few steps back, preparing for a possibly angry ox to attack.

"Good morning, Hatsuharu-sama." He said, it wasn't nearly as upsetting as saying it to the rat.

"Yeah, 'morning. Thanks for the food" He said without really doing anything but sitting in his bed, his eye's bleary with sleepiness.

Kyo bowed his head before exited the room.

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Next up was the tiger, who Kyo had a personal soft spot for. He could understand how it felt to be abandoned by your family, plus it was just sad the see a baby with no one but a ten year old there to take care of her.

He knocked on the door even if it's only inhabitant was an infant, muscle memory, you might say.

He opened the door and walked towards the crib, holding the still warm bottle of milk that he had taken from the cart.

The room wasn't decorated with the things you would usually expect for a baby girl's room, it didn't have any toys or colourful paint on the walls. The only things that inhabited the room were a baby's cot and a chair to sit in, not even a lounge chair.

Picking the little baby girl up, he sat in the only chair in the room and sat her down on his knee, she played with a piece of hair that fell over his shoulder while he put the small squishy sipping thing onto the bottle(1).

She tucked into the bottle when he put it into her tiny hand's mouth wrapping around the bottle's top.

Kyo cradled her for a moment as she drank her breakfast, feeling the small amount of peace that he found every time he came to feed her. The birds outside sang and tweeted as the sun rose up into the sky, the clouds painting a picture across the sky.

Her mouth left the bottle with a pop and Kyo pulled his hair to the side and over his shoulder before leaning Kisa over his other shoulder, beginning to burp her.

Honestly, he would of cut his hair to a shorter length if Akito hadn't forbidden it, Kyo still didn't understand why Akito wanted his hair to be long, but he'd obviously get in trouble if he cut it, so it was out of the question.

He layed Kisa back into her crib and tucked the blanket back around her snuggly, placing her teddy bear next to her and giving her one last smile before leaving the room.

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Momiji's room was close to Hatsuharu's for a reason that Kyo didn't know, he knocked the door and opened it, having to quickly balance the plate so that it wouldn't fall when Momiji ran at the cat and hugged him tightly, giggling at surprising the older boy.

"Momiji! I could've dropped your food if I wasn't careful!" Kyo scolded the rabbit, glaring down at him, making the rabbit whine about how mean he was.

"Maybe I wouldn't be mean if you didn't act so stupid." Kyo huffed, placing Momiji's food down onto the ground and lightly punching the rabbit in the arm, bringing a squeel from the loud rabbit.

Kyo left quickly and scoffed as a slight smile made it's way onto his face.

Hatori's office was near Akito's, in case the god got sick, and Kyo had to walk a fair way before he came to Hatori's door.

He knocked on the office door and entered, finding the Sohma doctor asleep at his desk, Kana, Hatori's assistant smiled at him and held out her hand to take Hatori's plate of food and placing it on her desk.

"Good morning, Kana-san." Kyo bowed slightly to the sleepy young woman and passed her, to shake the doctor awake, only to be stopped by an abnormally gentle hand on his shoulder.

"He's been awake all night, I'll wake him up if it's important." Kyo was never prepared for Kana's smiles, no one had ever smiled at him like that before she had.

"Okay, Kana-san, I will take my leave" Kyo slightly bowed to her and left the room, taking the cart with him.

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Kyo didn't want to go and give Ayame his food, the snake was weird and kept on picking him up and squeezing him with hugs all the time, but he was obligated to get him his food so it wasn't his choice to make.

He knocked on the snakes door and entered, checking to see if he was still asleep or not.

Unfortunately, he wasn't, so Kyo couldn't wake him up leave him his food and quickly escape like he wanted to.

"Oh! Kyo-Chan! Did you have a bad dream? Do you need me to help you feel better?!" The snake yelled out dramatically and picked Kyo up by grabbing under his armpits, swinging him around easily.

"Ah, ah! No! Ayame-sama, I have your food!" Kyo shrieked out, his head spinning, and as Ayame put him down he dizzily handed the plate over to the snake, leaning against Ayame's bed frame for support.

"Oh, thank you, little Kyo-Chan, did you come all this way just to give me food, how sweet!" Ayame yelled out as he placed it on his bedside table, getting ready to pick up and swing Kyo around again..

"Yes, well, I should be going. . !" Kyo quickly bowed and rushed out of the room, narrowly missing another of the snakes crushing hugs.

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Rin, Hiro and Ritsu weren't staying in the main house today, so he went directly to Kureno's room, which was closer to Akito's room than any of the other zodiac members, but Kyo didn't know why Akito wanted his room closer than the others were.

He unlocked the door and knocked on it before entering, seeing Kureno still asleep in his bed, so he put the plate of food on the table next to his bed and climbed up onto the older boys bed, shaking his shoulder and saying his name.

"Muuuhh?. . ." Kyo always thought the sounds people made when they woke up were weird, especially because he woke up people every day and had a lot of examples.

"Good morning, Kureno-sama, I have brought you your food." The sleepy rooster looked as if he was barely listening, the sleepiness in his eyes staying there.

But he seemed to hear when Kyo said 'food' and smiled and put his hand on Kyo's head, scratching him behind his ear in gratitude, causing a purr to come from the embarrassed Kyo.

"Thanks, nekyo-chan"(2) Kureno immediately started shovelling food into his mouth, paying attention to nothing but the food.

Kyo left the room without Kureno noticing, but that wasn't saying much when it came to Kureno's sense of awareness.

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Neither Shigure nor Kagura were staying in the main house today, so Kyo went to give the cart back to the kitchen staff, looking out of the windows into the sky as he did, he hadn't been outside a lot and the small window in his 'room' didn't look down on anything but the garbage bins out the back of the main house, so he liked to take advantage of the view when he could.

He stopped for a little and looked out of an opened door, hearing the birds sing and the leafs floating through the air, the sight nearly brought tears to Kyo's eyes, but he quickly brushed them away, even if the sight was beautiful he wasn't so emotional that it would bring him to tears.

Kyo sighed and took his meal out of the cart, Akito had never said he couldn't eat outside of his room, and he was very hungry after walking around for so long without eating.

He ate his rice and the pieces of veggies and meat that came along with it, putting the empty dish back in the cart before getting up and continuing to walk towards the kitchen.

But once he was nearly there someone bumped into him really hard, pushing him to the ground and leaving the other person's body over his.

"Hey! What are you doing running around like that!?" Kyo yelled before thinking, only to look up at the person and see that it was the rat.

The rat was breathing harshly and his eye's were dilated in stress or fear, he didn't even seem to see what was around him or who he had bumped into.

"H-hey, what's wrong with you. . .?" Kyo carefully crawled out from under the rat and rolled the rat over so that his back was to the floor.

The rat's harsh breaths turned into choked coughs as he began hyperventilating, his shaking hands going up to his throat, as if trying to break whatever was clogging up his throat.

"Come on, calm down. . .!" Kyo hesitantly placed his hand onto the rat's shoulder, softly squeezing. "You're not making this any easier for yourself. . .!" Seeing no other option, Kyo wrapped his arms around the rat and hugged him, shooshing him every now and then and making soothing noises that seemed to calm down the rat, even if the cat inside of him yowled angrily at helping the cheating rat.

After the rat's breathing became more stable and steady Kyo backed away from him, seeing that the boy's eyes were still filled with stress and fear.

"What were you even running from? Aren't you supposed to be in your room?" Kyo asked as a roaring yell coming from down the hall answered his question.

"YUKI, GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!" Akito came storming down the hall, viciously pushing people out of his way as he came closer and closer towards the terrified Yuki and the confused Kyo.

"Cat! Were you the one to take the rat from his cage!?" Akito demanded, towering over the cowering rat and the confused and scared cat.

Kyo looked over to Yuki and saw that the rat was still scared out of his wits, Akito harmed the rat on a regular basses, what the angry god do when he actually had a reason to be angry at him? Kyo swallowed down his fear and stood up, in front of Akito.

"Y-yes, I w-wanted to hurt the rat." Kyo shakily stated, fear swimming through his eye's.

"YOU PATHETIC CAT!" Akito roared, violently backhanding the cat and kicking him in the stomach as he curled up in pain.

"I COULD HAVE YOU LOCKED UP IN THE CAT'S HOUSE FOR THIS!" This quickly brought Kyo up to his knee's, bowing deeply to Akito until his long hair fell over his face and was splayed across the floor, tears forming and running down his eye's and cheek's.

Akito wrenched Kyo up by the collar of his shirt and threw across to the other wall, making him crash into a stand that had a vase, pushing the vase over and making it smash into the floor, leaving Kyo with small shards of glass in his back.

Even with the glass cutting into his knee's, Kyo scrambled over to Akito and bowed his head down to ground, his shoulder's shaking in fear.

"No! Please, no! I'll do anything! Just please don't put me there!" Kyo begged in fear. No matter how stubborn he was, he did not want to be locked up in the place that the disobedient cats were sent.

"Anything, you say!?" Akito demanded, an idea forming in his twisted head, he stormed over to the pile of shattered glass, picking up the sharpest piece with a sleeve covered hand and walking back over to Kyo's hunched form.

"Look at me, you filthy cat." Kyo reluctantly lifted his head up and looked Akito in the eyes.

Akito knelt down, brushing his hand against Kyo's pale, soft cheek that was wet with his own tears. Suddenly he wrapped his hand's around Kyo's neck and started strangling him, his other hand, the one with the glass shard in it, reached farther back and swiftly slashed across Kyo's neck, making blood spray onto Akito's robes.

The cat let out gurgled screams, the blood flowing out of his throat and into his mouth distorting the screams sound and making him sound as if he were drowning.

The god of the sohma family and rested his head on Kyo's shuddering shoulders and his mouth lied near Kyo's ear, and began to speak.

"This is what you get for lying to me." Kyo's eye's widened, and he didn't have enough time to react when Akito grabbed Yuki's arm and took a fist-full of Kyo's long hair, dragging him by it, causing even more screams to come from Kyo's blood filled mouth, leaving a trail of crimson blood flowing behind them.

It seemed like hours had passed before Akito stopped dragging him, he tossed him against a door and slammed it open, only then did Kyo notice that it was Hatori's office.

Hatori looked up to the door and his eye's widened at seeing the weeping and bleeding cat laying at his door, with the sohma god and the rat, who was also crying.

"Make sure this liar of a cat is taken care of for today." Akito sneered down at the cat and dragged the rat off with him, leaving Kyo still sobbing and bleeding.

Kana ran over and picked up the bleeding boy, trying to sooth him as she carried him over to the operation table in the middle of the office. Hatori quickly got the bandages, towels and stitching items to stop the boy from bleeding.

Kyo couldn't stop himself from crying.

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(1- Kyo's ten years old and hasn't had much education up to this point in his life, he doesn't know what a lot of words mean and one of them happens to be a baby bottle's teat. The only reason he's not that dumb right now is because of the stereotype that cat's are intelligent.

(2- Neko in japanese means cat, I just thought Nekyo was a cute nickname for Kyo and wanted to put it into the story ^-^

(So, I'm pretty sure that Hatori's office isn't connected to the main house, but it was just easier than saying "Oh, yeah kyo can go to that one specific place that isn't in the main house but only everyday making it easy for him to leave unnoticed". Soooo yeah :I

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Hi guys! I hope you liked my new fanfic! Sorry for hurting your favourite little kitten, but I just don't know any other way to write!

P.S: Sorry for the horrifically cruel chapter title.

Please favourite and review! Any criticism is appreciated!