Title: Experiment 23
Author: Tsubasa Kya
Disclaimer: I do not own " Ouran High School Host Club" or "Inuyasha".

NOTE: I have not yet read the Ouran High School Host Club manga (although Feather insists I will do so very soon) and so I only know the anime and what research I have done online. Character profiles are following the OHSHC anime episode 26, and Inuyasha characters will be in an alternate universe.

Also, this story is the result of a challenge between feathergriffin and myself. We are both taking a similar story idea and seeing how the two of us will interpret it into our own stories. This is my interpretation, and you can find Feather's linked in my profile. We did discuss several ideas for the story before deciding to challenge each other, and there is a chance both stories will be similar. But there is also a greater chance both stories will result very differently. I do hope you will read hers, even if you are reading mine. We will both be posting our chapters at the same time, so bug both of us if you want a new chapter. Her story is titled "What Might Have Been". – TK

Chapter One
What Means the Most

Haruhi Fujioka sighed as her pencil tip broke, feeling more distracted as each moment passed. Her focus slipped away like the white clouds in the sky, and with even more ease than the wind blowing through the trees. Her brown eyes stared at the bare tip of her plain gray mechanical pencil before she raised her free hand to push the eraser down and bring out more of the thin lead.

As her dark brown hair fell into her eyes and blocked her view of the pencil, she sighed for what must have been the tenth time that hour and put the pencil down. What meant the most to her? Someone had posed that question the evening before during the Host Club. It was a young girl who Haruhi had been entertaining.

Truthfully, the girl had been fishing for information on Haruhi, but most of Haruhi's customers were like that. They wanted to get to know Haruhi the boy. All of them were too blind to see that she was really a girl. She almost snorted at the very thought: they were blinded by the dazzling smiles, winning looks, and charming personalities of the other Hosts.

Girls. At least, rich girls… they were all like that. Some of them were worse.

She turned her head and looked out the window, past Hikaru, space being the destination of her distracted mind. It hadn't happened for two years, and she'd had a difficult time dealing with it then, but to have the nightmares return so suddenly… She knew "that" was about to happen. She wouldn't have the nightmares if that wasn't going to happen.

And yet, aside from not sleeping, where was the cure for nightmares? She'd made a promise when she was younger. She'd made a promise to her mother's grave… she made a promise to them. They were counting on her… They wouldn't have to rely on her, if circumstances were different, but that wasn't how life was.

Haruhi watched as the leaves outside turned colors, feeling almost a million miles away from the teacher who talked about things she should be taking notice of, and yet she'd written nothing more than half the date on the page, unable to continue forward. She really couldn't let her grades suffer…for their sakes, if nothing else…

As fall passed into winter, the colorful leaves that seemed green just a moment ago could be plucked from their mother-trees by something so simple as a brush of the wind. And all she could think about was the past. It wasn't behind her, because it was her future.

What meant the most to her? Haruhi pushed her hair out of her eyes, feeling her attention wax further into the realm of nothingness. She could feel people glancing at her out of the corners of their eyes, but even if they did ask if something was wrong, she would remain silent. These people… wouldn't understand a commoner's thoughts. Their worries.

"Haruhi-kun," a cheerful young girl in the lovely female uniform for Ouran asked as several others crowded eagerly to listen to their 'favorite' host talk. "What's the one thing that means the most to you in the whole wide world?"

The question hadn't been asked to startle Haruhi, but it had enough so that the teapot she was using to serve had slipped right out of her fingertips. It hadn't fallen far, but it did cause tea to spill onto the girl's dress, staining the yellow a deeper beige color.

As the girl cried over spilled liquid and a ruined dress, the question still rang in Haruhi's mind, making her body freeze in fear. True, it was a common play by girls, meant to get the host to say, "Nothing in this world could mean more than my spending this and any other moment with you."

Without Tamaki Souh at the club, Haruhi didn't have to worry about the embarrassment of someone fawning over how she was when it was the young girl who was spilled on. Tamaki was odd, constantly fretting over Haruhi. But while Tamaki's customers sorely missed his presence, as did the club, everyone at school knew the reason for his disappearance.

Right at that moment, Tamaki was in France. After a fiasco with Éclair Tonnerre a few weeks earlier during a festival at Ouran High School, Tamaki's father finally took charge, allowing Tamaki to return to France for his mother. Tamaki's grandmother had apparently consented to this as well, though her reasoning was yet unknown. Tamaki had been gone a week so far, and two days previous, his constant and nagging calls ceased, causing worry within the Host club members.

Still, they ran the club in his absence, considering the fact that Kyouya Ootori mostly ran the club even when Tamaki was there.

What means the most to you??

Despite the calls yesterday, Haruhi had just left without saying goodbye. She supposed there must have been some scary look on her face, because not even the fearless twins Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin had followed. The girls who were constant customers of Haruhi at the Host club thought they did something wrong and proceeded to cry, but Haruhi couldn't stay.

She'd left school and run home, fully intending on locking herself in her room and not coming out. She hadn't eaten dinner; her appetite was gone. She hadn't even cooked it for her father.

No, she'd been torn by the question in ways she'd avoided for years. What means the most to you?! Them… And because of that question, she'd dreamt it again. She hadn't been very old when her mother died. She told people it was an accident, and that's what they believed. But it had been an illness that killed her. She died in a car, true…but, that wasn't true at the same time. Disease was the cause, and yet… it was not her mother's disease that did it, but Haruhi's…

Melancholy filled her soul to points of bursting now. Was any of this really worth the effort?

Haruhi put her head on the desk, closing her eyes, willing away the anger and frustration building just beneath the surface of her skin. After school, maybe she should go? Maybe she should see them, and tell them her nightmare…

Why, another part of her whispered. What could they do? Even if she did have a nightmare, what could they do about it?

She heard the door to the classroom open, and looked in spite of her misery. Immediately she wished she hadn't and looked back down at her hands in guilt. It was a face she easily recognized, standing with her father, who for the sake of a daughter in a prestigious school had dressed like a normal man for a moment. Beside the two was Yuzuru Souh, the school's superintendent.

She glanced at Hikaru and Kaoru out of the corner of her eyes. Hikaru and Kaoru seemed to know immediately something was wrong, since Souh himself, Tamaki's father, had made an appearance. Anyone who knew who Haruhi's father was would know that Haruhi was also the recipient of whatever trouble this would bring. Souh didn't often come to the school himself.

She sighed heavily and began putting her things together. There was only one reason why he would come. She hadn't seen him since middle school, and while that wasn't an incredibly long time ago… it felt like forever. The Host club had taken her mind off of her worries at least for this long…

As she buckled her briefcase, Souh spoke in soft tones to the teacher. Finally, she forced herself to look up. The class was staring at him. Her friend, her old friend, stared at her silently. His skin was pale, and his eyes seemed to stare right through to her soul. The class was stunned into silence, and she knew why.

His eyes were unnatural. A deep sun gold. His ears, visible with his long, knee-length thick silver hair pulled back in a braid, were pointed like an elves' ears. He stood with his hands jammed in the pockets of his black slacks. His stance screamed 'danger, approach with caution'.

He looked as she remembered him, the bright maroon tattoos on his face looking like lines of blood. She knew his wrists had similar marks to those, facing inward, and his bangs curved around that deep blue crescent moon. He was a really handsome man now, but his features and the way he held himself seemed to make the room icy. He was unapproachable.

Haruhi felt eyes turn to her as she stood up, including those of her twin friends Hikaru and Kaoru. She bet the only reason the twins could stifle their questions was because her old friend's presence bore down on them and try though they might, words were likely beyond them—just like everyone else.

He was Sesshoumaru Fushiro, and very few could muster speech in his presence. He wasn't as bad once a person got to know him, but until then, he could be the worst, most intimidating man alive. Yakuza lords would have the right to fear him.

Souh turned to Haruhi, clearly done talking to the teacher, and without even needing to be told she walked toward her father and her old friend, carrying her briefcase with her. She did know it would happen again. Deep down, this was inevitable. People were not gods, and they could not live forever.

No words were spoken as they made their way to the exit of the school, superintendent Souh leading the way. Once they were off school grounds, they were left alone and as Souh returned to the school, Haruhi's father turned and placed his hand on her shoulder.

Right in front of Sesshoumaru, he said, "You don't have to go, Haruhi."

Haruhi knew her smile was pathetic even as it formed on her lips. "It didn't have to happen…but it did." It was misery, she realized. She courted death like all other mortals. They all did. Yet, misery seemed to hover around them all like a death cadence. No one wanted it… it was not a friend… but they had it… that feel of impending doom…

Her father sighed and pulled her close into a hug. She released her bag, letting it fall to the ground so she could cling to her father like the lifeline he was. Without him, she would be nothing really. He didn't have to keep her. He didn't have to have her.

But he did…

Still, she had to go. It was time to face the truth once more, and watch as feelings of grief settled in her body with harsh ripples. She released her father and turned to Sesshoumaru… and he simply nodded at her.

Haruhi gave her briefcase to her father before following her old friend to the place where her happiest memories lay, and to where they were. To where a promise was made, and she was welcome no matter what happened to her, or what she did…

To a place called "home".

…To a place where anguish ran like rivers, and sorrow pooled like lakes…

End.