Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1- The Manslayer of Legend.

The wolves, my love, will come
Taking us home where dust once was a man
Is there life before a death?
Do we long too much?
(And I believe in fairy-tales)
-Nightwish, Seven days to the Wolves

 The wind tickled the edges of trees, inviting branches to sway and running invisible hands over flowing grass. Encountering an area where the only resistance was strange blocky forms, the wind rushed through, alleviating the stench permeating that godforsaken place. Raw dirt showed amongst stubborn patches of grass, evidence of men trampling their way through again and again. Rough wood had been structured into large sheds in a slipshod manner, gaps between the boards two inches wide in places.

The exception to this poorly constructed rule was an old barn. The wind explored the façade before moving on, letting the odor of man and dog, blood and urine rise once more. Inside the barn bales of hay were piled high in a rough oval that took up most of the space. Around the arena other bales of hay that would serve as seats for the spectators were scattered on the floor.
Men moved around the barn floor, talking, placing bets and taking seats. In one corner a man stood by a cage, running a stick across the top and sides, causing the obviously enraged rottweiler within to throw itself, snarling, against the thin metal bars that held it.

In contrast, on the other side of the barn a different beast in a cage ignored those around him, eyes closed and ears pressed flat against his head. Not many were betting on this one, arrogantly named “Battousai” by his owner. It was claimed that he was a wolf, but he looked too small to be one, and the glaring fact that his fur was an unusual shade of red where common wolves were gray gave further disbelief to this notion. At the moment the only visible sign that Battousai might be any kind of fighter at all was the wicked-looking cross-shaped scar on the left side of his face.

Men clamored around, trying to get a rise out of the wolf, throwing empty, or sometimes half-full beer bottles or cans at the cage, kicking at the wires, and daring each other to stick their fingers through the mesh. No one actually did. Battousai ignored them, eyes closed against their leering faces, keeping himself centered in the cage to avoid getting poked or probed.

He could hear the men move away in disinterest, to place their bets on the rottweiler, and opened eyes a most unwolflike shade of violet. Soon they would throw him into that ring again, that small circle that had become his world. The musty scent of dust and hay rising as men shifted, pounding on the walls that trapped him, trying to distract, to enrage. He would face off against another creature, most often a dog, sometimes something else, something wild that the men had managed to catch.

At first, he had spent long futile minutes trying to avoid fighting his often-crazed opponents, and even in victory, he spared their lives. He didn’t anymore- it was a mercy. Many of the humans here would send their dogs into the ring again, despite wounds, and the injured animal would be ripped to shreds in the next fight, satisfying the lust these men had for blood, if not for a good fight.

Battousai sighed, he could almost smell the wind, the hint of sun-ripened grass and dew-coated leaves that was the outside world. Almost.

“Alright, Battousai,” came the human called Izuka’s voice, followed by burning ash from a flicked cigarette, not a smart thing to do, in a barn. With a snarl and eyes that had inexplicably turned to true wild amber, the red-furred wolf backed away from the hideous odor. Izuka, the man who fancied himself the owner of the wolf he’d named Battousai. A thin weasel of a man, dark hair that was gathered into a short tail and eyes that constantly measured the human concepts that were so important- things like profit, and power, not protection, not loyalty. He knew better than to expect loyalty from his captive.

Two men who worked for Izuka came forward to attach ropes to the hooks on the front of the cage. Battousai let them, their fingers out of range, separated from vengeance-driven fangs by human-wrought steel. The wolf did, however rise to a bracing crouch as they dragged his prison toward the arena, trying to ride with the jerks and uneven pulls. There was a hole in the round wall where the front of his wire cage would fit, waiting for the door to be lifted, releasing captive animals into the ring.

Battousai sniffed in interest- this was the first time he’d fought in such a temporary setting. Izuka had had him for eight turns of the seasons now, two of which had been dedicated to making sure that Battousai would be able to kill in the ring. Until recently, they had lived in a city, a horrible place that smelled of grime and human and a hundred poisons that they threw into the air, the fighting pens had been of wood, constructed carefully, not thrown together as this one seemed to have been. Battousai growled softly, Izuka had fought him again and again in those rings, until the humans there recognized that when Battousai was fighting, it was foolish to place their bets anywhere else, no matter how he looked. Now they were here, experimenting, Izuka’s greed insatiable as he tried to swindle these country folk out of their money. Disgusting.

Still…this the first time that the hated place that smelled of death was so close to true wilderness, trees that stretched back into forever in the shadow of a mountain, where he knew that snow would cover the ground, eventually, to be kicked up by pack-mates at play… No. He stopped the thought firmly. No Pack.

Across the arena he could hear his opponent howling incoherent abuse, somehow implying that he’d had two mothers and that both of them had done something fairly improbable-- Battousai rose to his feet to get a better look at the probably-drugged rottweiler.

The men were having difficulty getting the cage into position, as easily one hundred and fifty pounds of hard muscle kept throwing itself against the bars.

‘Kill you,’ it garbled out in a slobbery snarl, ‘kill you, rip you, tear you!’

Battousai felt his lip curl in disdain- the dog was completely shattered. He’d fought an easy dozen that were just the same, dogs that had been worn past endurance of thought to the basic response of mindless slaughter. Some humans liked how ruthless it made them- at least Izuka recognized if his fighter couldn’t think, he couldn’t hope to beat another that could.

“The betting areas are now closed!” Shouted a man in cowboy boots and a ballcap, acting as unofficial announcer from where he stood on the hay that made up the wall of the ring. Judging by his unsteady wobble he’d already had some of the beer that was being served in copious amounts. “Alright gentlemen, we’ve got some new blood out here tonight,”

“Can’t wait to see it!” Someone else hollered, to raucous cheers. The announcer grinned,

“Izuka’s Battousai, the wolf,” there was a world of skepticism in that word and Battousai snarled-- just because he was smaller than they thought a wolf should be…

“Against three time champion, Jones’ Akuma!”

Akuma? Devil? Battousai shook his head; can’t they come up with anything more original?

“Oh,” Izuka said cheerfully, knocking more cigarette ash in the red wolf’s direction, “another Akuma, hm? This’ll make the seventh one- maybe I should call you devil-slayer,” he laughed as Battousai sent a smoldering amber glare up at him.

“Now let the match… begin!”

The cage doors were raised with simultaneous heaves- the rottweiler charging for the wolf that stepped almost leisurely out of his prison. Battousai sidestepped the reckless- but trained-for lunge as though the other animal were moving in slow motion.

‘What is your true name?’ he asked, pulling back from snapping jaws, never quite pausing as he circled the dog.

‘Kill!’

‘Your name!’ Battousai demanded, dodging a lunge that would have ended with jaws crushing his windpipe.

‘Akuma!’

With a snarl of frustration, Battousai dropped to a crouch as teeth met where his neck had been moments before. Realizing his error, the rottweiler tried to pull back to get his own exposed throat out of the line of fire- too late.

White fangs met in his throat, tore their way back out in a spray of crimson that painted the formerly-white muzzle and chest of the wolf.

‘How…’ the dying dog wheezed amidst the disappointed shouts of the spectators, ‘how…’ he had never fought something like this… something that didn’t fight with straightforward aggression….
Battousai stepped close to his fallen opponent, letting his muzzle drop to just touch the muzzle of his opponent.

‘What is your name, unfortunate one?’

‘Why… do you care…?’ the rottweiler’s vision was going, and he couldn’t seem to order his mouth to snarl the way that he wanted to… was that a whine? From him?

‘I know the name of every dog I have killed in these arenas. I do not forget. You will not be forgotten,’ the red and white blur of a wolf assured him, now seeming so much more red than white… Blood on his paws… the dying dog thought muzzily. Mine. Akuma was the name these humans had given to him, but there was that old name, the one that a boy in sunlight with a green ball that tried to escape him had called… Called laughing with a funny tilt to his voice…

‘Arnold.’

‘I will remember it, Arnold.’

‘Good…’ the black and tan dog almost smiled, eyes clouding over for good as a final choking wheeze escaped him.

Battousai raised his blood-drenched muzzle. Everywhere the men were rioting, arguing with the desperate air of those who have lost more than they had. All but Izuka, who was leaning against the hay wall and grinning, satisfied that his plan to come out to the sticks had worked.

Fool, the Battousai snarled, baring teeth in a solemn promise. You think I will forget that you are the reason I must do this? That I will not try, as I have tried every day since the day you stole my freedom from me, to escape, to kill you? That last was inaccurate, it had only been after the first dozen attempts to escape had failed that he had been ready to commit the sin of killing a human.
One man argued too strongly about his lost money and was shoved backwards into the hay wall. The top level of the hay shifted, teetered uncertainly- Battousai stared at it, willing the bale to fall as Izuka shouted for his men to rope the wolf and get him back in the cage. The man who had crashed flailed in his unseen struggle to get upright, clouting the precariously balanced hay in the process- And. It. Fell.
The Battousai was running before the hay had even landed, before the men with ropes had time to do more than step forward. Reach the short section of wall and jump- so good to use those muscles again- clear the hay to land on the dusty floor of the barn, dodge the hands that reached for him, snarl to make them back away- because chikuso, he was not tame and he was going to die before anyone put him back in that cage…
Over to the side of the arena, where he could see Izuka’s pale face, cigarette falling from nerveless fingers, terror a bittersweet tang in the air, overriding even the hated smoke curling from dust-and-hay covered ground.
Battousai sprinted toward the man who had fancied himself his master, a horribly inexorable shape of red and white and burning amber eyes, muscles that bunched and a blood-drenched muzzle coming ever closer. With a powerful leap, Battousai launched himself into the man- he may have been small for a wolf, but no one could ignore his weight with that speed behind it. Izuka toppled, hands raised to try and shield his face, his throat- jaws that could crush bone found his hands, and mangled fingers instinctively pulled away with a shriek of pain- pain that was no longer that of crushed bones but a horrible wet sensation of air-should-not-be touching there and a gurgle that rose instead of a scream from his savaged throat.
Amber eyes glared down at him, hot and unrepentant, splashes of crimson marking an enraged face, even as Izuka could feel blackness pulling at him.
He chuckled, a horrible sound as the smell of smoke faded from his senses, even though he was pretty sure that the smoke wreathing around Battousai’s frame was from the barn being on fire, and not the fires of Hell coming up to claim his soul. Not yet, anyway.
“All right,” he choked out with another chuckle, Battousai pinned back his ears and growled. “I guess we’ll call you Battousai the man-slayer…”
And then the world really did go black.

Chapter Text

In the sheltering shade of the forest

Calling calming silence
Accompanied only by the full moon
Howling of a night wolf
And the earth under my bare feet...
...The Elvenpath

-Nightwish, Elvenpath

Kaoru Kamiya wasn’t having a good day. The little tanuki-marked wolf had been hunting since dawn took over the sky, with only one hastily-gulped mouse to show for her pains.

Muttering dire imprecations against small furry prey-animals Kaoru worked her way toward the tall elm tree that was her friend Tae’s noontime haunt. The silvery-gray wolf peered up into the branches, blue eyes searching.

“Tae?” she called, “Tae, are you there?”

A muffled sound of protest filtered down from the leaves, then sleepy brown eyes looked down at her.

“Kaoru?” the bobcat shifted, crawling out onto a more visible branch, “I was sleeping.”

Kaoru grinned at her unusual friend. They had met seasons ago, when a then-new to the area Tae had wandered into Kaoru’s den. Both were keenly aware that if Kaoru’s family had still been alive, or if either of them had been expecting young, that first meeting would have been violent and short.

Instead, the two females had sensed the presence of another who shared their pain, the pain of something-that-was-supposed-to-be-there gone, and had fallen in together. It helped that, as far as bobcats went, Tae was very unusual, and sociable.

Now Tae lived in the area, frequenting the elm tree as a favorite place to sleep, although her den was elsewhere. When all else failed, one female would find the other for help on the hunt. Tae had an uncanny ability to know-or guess- where prey would be, and Kaoru had the sheer tenacity necessary to chase down some of the longer-winded animals that made up their food supply.

“Sorry, Tae,” Kaoru apologized, the darker mask-shaped fur around her eyes bunching slightly, “I haven’t been able to find much today- any suggestions?”

Tae sighed, regarding her stubborn young friend with warm brown eyes. It was no secret that the reason Kaoru tried harder for prey was because she was so miserable at finding any. Her family had died before she could be taught any refined techniques, leaving her relying on instinct that was good enough, usually.

“I heard the pack scaring rabbits earlier,” Tae said neutrally- no one liked the local pack, she was almost as glad as her friend that the tanuki-marked wolf wasn’t a part of it. “Chased them out into the south meadow- idiots,” she spat, eyes narrowing, “the pack cleared out hours ago- the rabbits should be working up the courage to head back to their holes by now.”

Kaoru bobbed her head in a short nod and flashed a toothy smile at her friend, “Thanks Tae.”

“Come back when you catch something,” the bobcat ordered, “I’ve got some new gossip for you.”

The tip of Kaoru’s striped tail twitched, “You know there’s only so much I’ll listen to about how dumb the pack is,” she warned, turning to go on her way.

Tae waved a spotted tawny paw, “No, no, no,” she corrected, “I’ve heard rumor that Battousai the manslayer escaped.”

Kaoru paused, looking back at her friend. In the territory Tae had come from before she’d known a dog called Wraith. Wraith was an abandoned fight-dog who told stories of a strange wolf that didn’t fight the way the others did. When the humans had come into Tae’s territory and stayed, leveling trees and constructing strange monuments, the bobcat had fled, losing track of Wraith in the process, but had kept up with stories of the strange fighter, who had become something of a popular legend.

But… “Manslayer?” Kaoru echoed, ears tilting back uncertainly. Her own ears leaning slightly toward her skull, Tae nodded.

“It seems he killed five humans when he escaped- the newest member of the pack was talking about it.”

Kaoru shook her head- another new pack-member? Gohei couldn’t possibly expect to support them all on this land, but the way that he accepted any big male who wandered into the area…

With another word of thanks to her friend, Kaoru set off at a trot through the trees. As she drew closer to where the trunks thinned out into open meadow, Kaoru slowed, casting about for a clear scent, straining her ears for any hint of noise- it was this that prepared her, turning to look just as a small brown-gray form burst from concealing undergrowth, long ears flat against its back and dark eyes wide in terror. Kaoru caught the rabbit in mid-leap, ending the poor thing’s fear quickly. Lunch dangling from her jaws, Kaoru looked in the direction the rabbit had come from. She couldn’t really smell much- but that was probably the fault of the rabbit just below her nose.

But she could almost hear… straining her ears, she heard clearly for a moment- a labored breath, the rustle of attempted movement. It was quick work to find a place for her prize to hide- there was no way that she was going to risk losing the opportunity for a full belly just to satisfy her admittedly overactive curiosity. Moving carefully, the gray she-wolf stepped through the undergrowth, always listening, always smelling, looking last of all, determined that if what lay ahead was a threat, she could turn and run before it got more than a vague impression that she was even there.

The trees thinned a little further, and Kaoru slowed her pace a little more, scenting the air for a direction when the sounds quieted. The faint scent of unfamiliar wet fur came back to her and the tanuki hesitated- would this be another member of the pack? Just because she couldn’t smell the pack’s scent didn’t mean it wasn’t there… With steps even more cautious than before, the female picked her way forward, the scent growing stronger as she did.

Exhaustion, she tasted in the air, the bitter tang and labored breaths of one who could not run anymore, and then she could see him low in the undergrowth. A… dog? He can’t be any bigger than I am, Kaoru realized. The maybe-dog breathed deeply where he lay on his stomach, resting a white muzzle on white paws. The dog, a funny red color with a white underbelly, had backed himself into a V where roots split from the trunk of a forest giant to plunge into the earth. Protecting his back…?

The strange dog, if he was a dog, lay with closed eyes, but his ears were still more or less erect, twitching to pick up small sounds. For a moment Kaoru forgot her caution, was he asleep?

The step forward that she hadn’t planned made a rustle so quiet she barely heard it, but the male by the tree jerked as if bitten, wide violet eyes opening to find Kaoru, every muscle under his oddly-colored pelt suddenly tense. And looking at that pelt… He’s soaked to the skin, the tanuki realized with some surprise.

“Hey, are you okay?” Did he swim the river?

Tired purple blinked at her, and the strange dog tried to rise, white legs shaking with effort. I was right- he’s only a little taller than me and… Kaoru tried not to be obvious in her dismay- but… he’s starved. I can see his ribs. Wet fur stuck up at odd angles, but the shape of the body was still clear- bones just a little too sharply defined- perhaps not truly starved, but definitely malnourished.

“This one is fine,” Kaoru shook herself as he spoke, a low tired voice that tried to be cheerful, but couldn’t quite manage without more energy. “This one only thought to rest…”

“You must not be from around here,” Kaoru mused with thinly-veiled curiosity, this one? No one around here uses that to refer to themselves. The river had been a pack-boundary in the old days, and it was still a good step from here. How had he managed to get from there to here still wet enough to look as though he’d been dunked fifteen minutes ago instead of an hour? “You’re on pack-land, it’s not safe to rest out in the open.”

“This one is a Rurouni,” the strange dog explained, a tired smile hovering around his muzzle, “sessha did not realize that he had wandered onto claimed land.”

You didn’t realize… but you’re still being careful, Kaoru thought, having your back to a tree, jumping at the slightest noise… Rurouni, huh… are you wandering away from something specific, I wonder? Sympathy warred with common sense, considered damp red fur and tired purple eyes. He may be a stranger, but he’s completely exhausted- even if he does attack, I’m sure he’s not expecting someone like me to know how to fight back.

“Well, Rurouni, you’ve been on pack-land since before you crossed the river, and I honestly doubt you’d make it across a second time.”

The violet eyes were noncommittal, ears a darker red than the rest of his fur twitched slightly, in what Kaoru was pretty sure was not agreement.

“Perhaps this one could petition your pack-”

“They’re not my pack,” Kaoru growled quickly, “And Gohei would never listen to a dog.”

An exasperated sigh permeated the air, ears flicking peevishly back toward the skull, “This one is a wolf, that he is.”

Kaoru blinked in surprise, “But you’re so little!”

The stranger closed violet eyes, muzzle drooping slightly with the air of one repeating something for the hundredth time. “Yes, one is a small wolf.”

And so are you, the tanuki scolded herself, “Well, even if you are a wolf, there isn’t much chance that Gohei will listen to you, especially if you don’t want any trouble.”

Crimson shoulders shrugged, fur tugged into small spikes by the motion, “Then this one would appear to have no choice but the river.”

“No,” Kaoru shook her head quickly, ears anticipating her coming embarrassment and angling themselves back, “You can stay at my den until you’re rested enough to move on.”

Shock pinned the Rurouni’s ears back, opened violet eyes wide, amusement trickled through Kaoru- she’d asked a variety of creatures to stay with her since her father’s death, but this was the first who had reacted with utter bewilderment.

“How can you possibly be so trusting of one you have just met?”

Gray fur made a shrugging motion, nonchalance, Kaoru had long learned, often had a better effect than earnestness.

“It’s not the first time I’ve sheltered a stray. It probably won’t be the last- and I can take care of myself,”

“Be that as it may,” the Rurouni began, having to stop as he staggered, trembling legs trying to fold beneath him. The tanuki marked wolf was by his side quickly, small furry warmth supporting him on one flank.

This close, her deep sky blue eyes burned into him, daring the scarlet-furred beast to refuse her help again.

“This one is sorry to be a bother Miss.”

“Kaoru,” the female corrected, “Kamiya Kaoru, and it’s no trouble.”

“Thank you, Miss Kaoru,” the Rurouni noticed an annoyed glint in his new friend’s eye when he failed to abandon the ‘Miss’, but went on anyway, “your offer of hospitality is greatly appreciated.”

With careful steps the wolves made their way through the woods, only turning aside from their path for Kaoru to hurriedly retrieve the rabbit, which would not be enough for two creatures of their size, but that was blessedly already caught.

The whole way back to her home, Kaoru was on high alert, half expecting Gohei or one of his cronies to catch them before they made it to the relative safety of the den. When the hazel branches that masked the entrance came into view, the tanuki would have sagged in relief if she hadn’t felt that to do so would drop her guest.

She left the Rurouni’s side long enough to lead the way through the whippy twigs into the hollowed-out earth beneath. The den was too large for one wolf- when Kaoru’s father had taken the abandoned fox den and enlarged it he had not counted on only one member of the litter surviving.

Head low to avoid brushing the dirt ceiling overhead, Kaoru gave a tentative sniff at the back door of the den- no one had used it since her mother died when she was still a pup, it had caved in enough that even for a small wolf like the tanuki, passage was difficult at best, a time-consuming endeavor which would include copious amounts of digging. Her nose assured her that no one had passed through, and the gray female turned to regard the odd wolf stepping into her den.

“You work on that,” Kaoru ordered, slinging the body of the rabbit at the red-furred wanderer, who had abandoned the effort of remaining upright in favor of laying down before his legs gave out. Purple eyes regarded the meal with something like bewildered curiosity. “I’m going to see what else I can find,” the tanuki continued over her shoulder as she stepped to the entrance and wormed her way out of the earth and through the supple branches once more.

In her absence, the Rurouni eyed the rabbit, stomach giving a pleading sort of rumble. But if he ate the rabbit, then what would his host eat? There was never any guarantee that a wolf would find prey when she needed it. With an unhappy sigh he lowered his muzzle to rest on the dirt floor, inhaling the she-wolf’s home-scent and breathing it out again, causing grains of soil to skitter away from his nose. Maybe after he rested for a bit he would be strong enough to hunt again.

It took great effort for Kamiya to keep from charging to the rabbit warren- she was still hungry and her new guest looked as if he could eat three rabbits before there would be any difference in his starved expression. Still, rushing would only scare off any chance of dinner.

She had almost made it there when a sharp crackle in the trees caught her attention, just in time to avoid getting a face full of tawny-spotted fur as Tae leapt from her tree to land just in front of her canine friend.

The cat’s eyes were wide and worried, whiskers quivered as her bobbed tail made an effort to lash back and forth.

“Where have you been?!” the bobcat demanded, “You never came back- I thought that Gohei’d tried to force the issue- I was looking everywhere for you-”

“Tae!” Kaoru broke in quickly, knowing from experience that if she waited for her friend to stop before explaining, the cat would only work herself into hysterics. Some of the frenzied light dulled in the feline’s eyes, enough that Kaoru felt she could venture to rest a furred cheek against Tae’s for a moment- brief contact to reassure the cat that she was not alone.

Tae was quite peculiar for a bobcat- most of them were very solitary- avoiding even others of their species with extreme prejudice, but Tae had been raised by humans. From the time she was a wobbling fluff ball with milk teeth, the bobcat had been kept close to her human family, until the need for social contact was definitely overdeveloped. This wouldn’t have been a problem, but the family had abandoned her- packing up and moving away from the semi-forested area where they had always lived. Less than half a season later other humans came with strange beings that belched black smoke and destroyed all of the trees- Tae had fled in a panic. As a consequence, the bobcat held a deep-rooted fear that those she cared for might disappear.

“I’m all right Tae,” Kaoru continued, “and I’m sorry I worried you- I’ve picked up a stray.”

“Another one?” Tae’s ears twitched in something approaching amusement as the last vestiges of terror leeched away, relaxing enough to delicately sniff at the scent hanging around her friend.

“He’s starved,” Kaoru continued, ignoring her friend’s expression at the idea of a strange male in the tanuki’s den. “He’s just passing through- and don’t worry, at the moment I don’t think he’s strong enough to survive an attacking butterfly, let alone cause trouble.”

The bobcat snorted at this assessment,

“So you’re hunting again.”

“Yes,” Kaoru agreed, burying her instinctive irritation at her friend’s tone- she wasn’t that bad of a hunter.

“I could help,” Tae suggested, “we could try the deer trick again.” The gray wolf hesitated, then shook her head,

“No… if we got one the Rurouni would have to leave the den to get to it, and Goehi’s pack might catch us in the open. We’re better off sticking to prey we can carry.” Tae’s ears twitched in silent agreement and the two set off for the rabbit warren once more.

Even with Tae’s help, it took several failed attempts before Kaoru could get her jaws around a furry dinner- it was torture to her poor shrunken stomach to lay it aside to help Tae get one- but fair was fair.

At last the females had what they had come for, and Tae retreated up a tree to get started on hers, opting out of meeting the Rurouni until he was better settled- no need to startle the creature. Moving in a slinking, start and stop brisk walk, Kaoru began to cover the distance back to her den. She had learned early that if she wasn’t careful with her meals, she was likely to lose them; a lone female wasn’t enough to make the pack think twice. Even if Kaoru could defend herself, the food was invariably gone by the time she had space to lick her wounds.

Pausing a moment in the cool shade of a moss-covered boulder, Kaoru listened hard, laying the rabbit down to clear her nose to try and get a fix on the scents around her. They warned her just in time to get her back well up against the boulder, plant herself firmly over her kill and not start in surprise as the pack appeared from the trees around her.

Her muzzle wrinkled, but the tanuki held back the flash of teeth that would make it a true snarl, looked like all the jokers were here- or all the ones who counted anyway.

Nagasawa, one of the few true wolves in the pack, his expression not quite a lustful smirk- everyone remembered what had happened to Kihei- but close enough that Kaoru’s hackles were rising with the need to remind the rangy male just what no meant. Watanabe, the other wolf, acting as Nagasawa’s lighter colored shadow with the bored expression he’d had ever since he’d wandered into these parts. Nishiwaki, the right-hand hound of the surviving Hiruma brother, cowering in his leader’s shadow.

And that leader… Gohei.

Unconsciously, Kaoru set her stance a little more firmly. Gohei Hiruma was a dog, though not one of any recognizable breed. He was big, dark brown and thick-furred, with a tail that arched in a proud curl over his back, setting all of Kaoru’s independent instincts on edge. It had never come to a true fight between them, though the tanuki admitted that was as much luck as anything- the others might think Gohei wanted one of the only females who had dared to stay in the area to join him- Kaoru knew better. He wanted her dead.

“Well, well, well, the Kamiya whelp,” Gohei said with menacing humor, the tan fur surrounding his eyes bunching in equal parts mirth and hostility. Kaoru bristled, biting back a retort that would have certainly gotten her into deeper trouble. There were three others out there besides the ones that she could put names to- Gohei’s control over his pack wasn’t good enough to warrant the unprovoked slaughter of a breeding-age female, but insult would get her killed.

Nishiwaki sniggered, quailed slightly under a glare from his dark-furred boss.

“What do you want, Gohei?” Kaoru bit out into the silence following that chuckle, ears twitching to keep track of the pack members, ready to explode out of her waiting stance if any entered her range.

“What do we always want?” Nagasawa stretched, stopping just shy of her range, his posture as loose as a contented housecat, “You could still join up with us,”

“I’d rather sniff a porcupine’s tail,” Kaoru snapped back, aching to get over there and start breaking bones. Nagasawa looked slightly hurt, gray ears flattening slightly- though more likely it was annoyance, Kaoru had lost track of the times that she’d spurned the wolf’s advances. Watanabe was chuckling to the side, ignoring any glares sent his way with careless ease.

“The offer won’t last much longer, Tanuki.” Gohei said, finality coating his every word, “soon, this forest will be ours, and those who aren’t with us, will be against us.”

I’ve been against you from the start idiot, Kaoru snarled mentally, allowing white fangs to show in response to the threat, and you know it too.

“Enjoy running around the forest while you still can.”

Keeping her jaw tightly clenched, Kamiya allowed the parting shot, watching intently as the pack slowly made their way back through the trees. It might go against her nature to allow scum like that to say what they pleased- but she had someone depending on her to make it back to the den.

Of course, she spat scathingly at herself as she picked up the rabbit and set off again at a quicker pace, it couldn’t be that you’re scared- that you managed to get one of them, but that you’re too terrified to fight all of them at once. Angrily, she shook herself to get rid of the thought. Her father hadn’t raised a coward, or an idiot. She’d had no choice with Kihei, and maybe her father could have taken on seven large canines, but she was fairly sure that she couldn’t, and didn’t want to try while she could still talk her way out of it. Though she would die before she groveled.

Her mood sour, the gray wolf pushed her way through the hazel. Within the den, the red-furred Rurouni awoke from his doze and violet eyes watched his host enter, ears pricked for any stray noises. He supposed that the growl that bubbled in her throat when she saw the uneaten carcass on the floor might count as a stray noise.

Then again, he thought, suddenly looking up into a face full of irritated blue eyes surrounded by dark gray fur, this might be fairly common.

Kaoru struggled to rein in the growl that had already been thwarted at least twice today, opting to unclench her jaw and allow the rabbit to drop to the dirt floor of the den. The quiet thud was very loud in the growl-deprived stillness. The tanuki took a moment to breathe, trying without much success to ease the tension that had every hair on her back standing on end in the primal response to annoyance. The scent of the den helped some, smelling as it always did of cool earth and the last time that Tae had visited. Her guest’s scent was a thin veneer over the familiar, a hint of wet fur still clinging to the air, though the Rurouni was by now completely dry. Wet fur and… wind. Endless wind, the smell of having run so long and so far that who you were was stripped away into the endless motion of air against fine facial fur and cold nose.

How far had he traveled?

And why the hell hadn’t he eaten anything yet?

Because right there, in the middle of what should have been calming scents, was the unmistakable odor of meat.

“You didn’t eat anything,” her tone, Kaoru noticed with pleasure, was calm and detached, almost friendly. Dark red ears angled back toward the Rurouni’s skull, wary purple eyes watched her. “Why?”

“It would have been rude,” the Rurouni’s voice came back, sounding better than it had when they’d met, even if he hadn’t eaten, the she-wolf decided, he must have slept.

But this was a peripheral note, most of Kaoru’s mind locked on her irritation, and she’d never been very good at suppressing her irritation.

“Look you here you dumb- argh!” she broke off in a snarl, pacing the length of the den, “Idiot! I said to go ahead and eat it- do you have any idea how many of your ribs I can see?” Not as many as before, thanks to thick fur having dried out but still… “I don’t know how long its been since you ate or what was so important that you couldn’t take the time to find something to eat, but you,” she was leaning back into his face now, hardly noticing his instinctive retreat from the wrinkled muzzle before him, “are going to eat that rabbit. Now.” Turning with an agitated flick of her striped tail, the tanuki-marked wolf snagged one of the rabbits on the floor and stalked over to her accustomed spot, lying down to glower at her guest.

For his part, he seemed surprised by her outburst, hesitantly, violet eyes trained on his watchful host, he picked up the rabbit and brought it close.

Kaoru sighed, dropping her attention to her own meal, feeling the niggling edges of embarrassment beginning to worm their way through irritation.

That had certainly been well-handled. First running into the Pack and now… she shook herself. The forest might not be safe, she might run into the any member of the Pack at any time, but this was her place. No one came into her den if she didn’t want them to.

“Did you have trouble?” the Rurouni’s politely curious voice distracted Kaoru and she looked up, scrutinizing that red and white face.

“Are you saying that I take too long?” Irritation still peppered her voice like an overspiced dish, and she turned back to her meal, knowing that she was being horrible company.

“No, no, of course not.” The Rurouni assured quickly, he sounded like he meant it too, which made the tanuki feel worse. “This one was just wondering if you had perhaps run into the pack you were so insistent that sessha avoid.”

Kaoru froze, gaping at her guest in stunned disbelief.

“How did…” she was sure none of the pack had gotten near enough for their scents to linger around her. Purple eyes were placid, even as red-furred ears twitched in something that had to be relief.

“This one did not know, it was merely a guess,” a definite relieved smile wreathed the wolf’s muzzle, “sessha was merely hoping that he was not the only reason you were upset.”

The tanuki opened and closed her mouth several times before she surprised herself by laughing.

“Sorry,” she shook her head contritely, “Father used to say I could give a grouchy bear lessons in hostility any day of the week.”

A snort of easy laughter from her companion was her answer, and Kaoru relaxed a little- he obviously hadn’t taken it personally.

“He sounds like a loving parent indeed.”

“He was,” Kaoru agreed, feeling that familiar ache that came whenever she thought of her father, with a steadying breath, she forced herself to answer the unspoken question, “he died four seasons ago.”

Sympathy and knowledge of the grief a lost parent caused looked at her from across the den.

“And that was when you started taking in strays?”

A shake of a gray-furred head, “No, we were doing it long before that. There’s a human place less than a day’s run from here, so from time to time we get lost dogs wandering through the area.” She shrugged, a ripple of fur following the motion of her shoulders, “some of them I direct back to the town, some of them just pass through.”

“Some join Gohei?” the question was as quiet and calm as anything he’d said to her. Kaoru flattened dark gray ears against her skull, feeling a snarl trying to pull at her lips…

“Some do.” She gritted out, “But if I think that they’re going to join up with that slime I never bring them here.”

Surprise and no small amount of skepticism crossed the Rurouni’s face, “Does he not know where you den?”

“Oh, he knows,” Kamiya said, glaring at the entrance, “he’s just not fool enough to pester me here. At least,” she amended, remembering her earlier confrontation, “not yet. But there’s no need to bring someone I don’t trust into my home.” The Rurouni blinked as the female returned huffily to the scant remainder of her meal. What on earth would have elicited trust in him…?

“So,” Kaoru started, putting some interest in her voice, “are you wandering anywhere in particular?” the Rurouni shook his head, “Looking for someone?” Kaoru tried again. Another shake, at the tanuki’s annoyed glance, the red wolf elaborated,

“No, sessha left his pack long ago. This one does not think that they would be pleased to see him again.”

“So you’re…” the tanuki trailed off, ears leaning back; the red-furred wolf smiled again, this one just tinged with sadness, his voice a study of unshakable calm.

“A lone wolf, Miss Kaoru. One without pack, traveling without destination. A Rurouni.”

Kaoru fought back her instinctive flinch at the words and the feelings of desolation they evoked. It was something that she had never been comfortable with- she had no pack, but she stubbornly refused the claim of lone wolf- those cast out by their packs or those who hadn’t yet succeeded in starting one- that sadness wasn’t hers. Orphan she could, and did claim. But…

“I’m almost a lone wolf myself,” she admitted into the silence following the Rurouni’s statement, surprising herself, but answering his honesty with honesty. “I’m lucky though- I have a good friend and the occasional stray to look after. It’s not a pack but… it’s something.”

Something that feels more and more like nothing, she thought glumly to herself. Kaoru had never been in a pack in the truest sense of the word- the large family groups that lived and hunted together. For a long time the only one beside her had been her father. But she could feel that deep ache in her bones- an ache that for all Tae’s friendliness, the bobcat didn’t understand. Kaoru was supposed to live among others of her kind, and every day that she didn’t the ache of instinct unfulfilled shifted a little closer to painful grief. Maybe, she hoped, glancing at the wolf across the den, then back down to the earth between her forepaws, maybe someday one of the strays will stay. And I won’t be alone anymore.

A rustle from outside the den startled both of the wolves, Kaoru noting absently that the Rurouni was already on his feet as she rose, ears pricked toward the opening of the den. It sounded like…

“…completely uncivilized, can’t believe the nerve of those, those, puppies! One on one- ooohh I’d send those lap dogs back to their mothers before they’d ever heard me coming…”

The tanuki relaxed, shaking her head with a smile at the uneasy red wolf. Glancing back at the entrance, she raised her voice,
 “We can hear you Tae!”

“Well that’s the point isn’t it?” the bobcat retorted archly, emerging from the short tunnel and immediately turning to clean the dirt from her fur. Kenshin stared at the spotted feline in open curiosity. Kaoru fought-and lost- a short battle with her amusement. It was amazing how wide purple eyes could go.

“Rurouni, this is my friend, Sekihara Tae. Tae, this is the Rurouni.”

The red furred wolf blinked. Tae left off cleaning to move into a liquid stretch, retractable claws digging into the floor. Turning, she regarded the other visitor,

“So you’re Kaoru’s latest stray. I’m her friend, Tae- and in case you’re thinking of trying anything, let me tell you that you do not want to fight a bobcat.”

Kaoru groaned as the other wolf blinked again, sitting down and observing the feline with a head tilted slightly to the side.

“One has no interest in fighting you Miss Sekihara, or Miss Kaoru. Sessha is merely passing through, that he is.”

Tae stared hard at the canine, expression unreadable, then rounded on Kaoru.

“You said he wouldn’t cause trouble,” she accused,” You didn’t say he looked like a lost puppy!”

“Oro?!”

Kaoru managed to look at the small, red furred wolf for a moment, took in the cocked head, the ruffled fur, the confused tilt to the ears and the large perplexed purple eyes- it was the eyes that sent her over the edge into laughter.

Puppy indeed.

“So Kaoru, did you want to hear the latest?” Tae asked, whiskers twitching in anticipation. Kaoru shrugged, directing her gaze toward her other guest.

“Have you heard of the Battousai, Rurouni?” the red furred wolf blinked in surprise.

“Battousai?”

“I can tell the whole thing again,” Tae cut in, “I don’t mind.”

Kaoru shook her head, dark ears giving a small amused twitch, she addressed the Rurouni once more. “Battousai’s a wolf who’s a pretty famous fighter in some circles. Tae’s been listening for gossip about him for seasons and seasons.”

“You have too,” the cat scolded, eyes narrowed in annoyance, “heaven knows there’s nothing else to talk about with the pack ruining the territory the way they’ve been doing.”

“It’s something to do,” Kaoru agreed, nodding to her friend. “Go ahead, Tae.”

“Well,” the cat began, annoyance forgotten and whiskers a-twitch with excitement, “it begins in a far away place. To the north lies a land with long harsh winters, where wolves rule by the fang.

“In this land there was a pack besieged by other packs, blood flowed so often that the snow seemed permanently red. Numbers dwindled daily, as unworthy wolves fled their noble leaders. All seemed lost. It was then that a new wolf joined the battered pack- a wolf that seemed as though he had risen from the bloodstained ground. A male with no history or pack. He swept over the pack’s enemies like a divine wind- and the beleaguered pack began to not only hold its own, but expand and triumph. The wolf was called Battousai. It was a name whispered from creature to creature in awe and fear- until at last it came to the ears of the humans. A dark man heard of Battousai, and coveted.

“Through base trickery, he captured the wolf and gave him a new arena for his skills. He became a legend among even the men, for his ferocity, for never leaving an opponent alive. But Battousai was no pet, no toy, and he plotted and schemed- with the knowledge that he could- that he would- break free. And on a moonless night, with the wind shrieking warning, Battousai turned on his captors- and engaged in high crime- he killed men. His fury at being held was such that the none of those who had so much as seen him caged were left alive. Then, after the grisly work was done, he walked into the darkness and vanished without a trace.”

“That’s not how you told it before,” Kaoru pointed out with a roll of her eyes, “You just said he was angry at being kept.”

“And I’m sure he was! But it makes a much better story now that he’s escaped.”

The tanuki snorted good-humouredly, “And that’s not even taking into account his supposed appearance.” She pointed out, “It’d be pretty hard to miss a huge wolf with eyes like fire.”

Tae’s ears flattened a little, “You’re taking all the fun out of it!” the cat accused, “if you think about how rumors twist things then… the story is probably boring in real life…”

“Probably,” Kaoru agreed, glancing over at her guest. The Rurouni lay still, dusky eyes placid in a crimson face. Noticing Kaoru’s questioning glance, the Rurouni smiled a little.

“A curious story,” he allowed quietly, voice betraying neither interest nor boredom.

“Had you heard it before?”

The wolf shook his head, “Sessha does not believe so.”

“That’s strange,” Tae commented, “it’s a fairly popular rumor- I was still able to keep up with it here, and I first heard it at my old home.”

Red fur rippled in a shrug, the wolf’s expression faintly sheepish, but not offering a defense.

“It’s not so surprising,” Kaoru countered for her silent guest, “after all- I didn’t know about it until you told me.”

“That,” Tae informed archly, “is because you don’t know how to ask your strays the right questions.”

Kaoru rolled her eyes at the cat, fighting back a yawn. It was nice to have food in her belly again. The soporific sensation filling her veins was far from the compelling tide brought on by the few times that she and Tae had brought down a deer, but she still felt drowsy. Glancing over at her guest once more Kaoru twitched in sympathy. While the stranger had been attentive to their conversation, his head had now sunk to touch the ground and his shadowed eyes were half-lidded in exhaustion. Apparently the earlier nap hadn’t been enough.

Tae had noticed, shooting Kaoru a look, she inclined her head toward the exit. Taking the hint the Tanuki reluctantly stood and followed her friend outside, stepping quietly to avoid disturbing the Rurouni, who had apparently settled into a doze.

Outside the cat turned to face Kaoru, normally smiling face serious. “Is he sick?”

The tanuki hesitated, “He doesn’t smell like it,” she answered slowly, “but he might get that way if he keeps pushing himself as hard as he must have been.  I think he just needs rest,” memory of protruding ribs mocked her, and Kaoru frowned, “And food. Lots of food.”

“Peace, quiet and a few good meals,” Tae agreed quietly, large eyes turning to survey the woods. “I’m not saying that I don’t think you want to but…” the cat shook her head, a pawful of claws appearing to clench in the dirt, “Kaoru, it’s not safe!”

“He won’t-” Kaoru began angrily, was cut off by an aggrieved yowl,

“I know he won’t Kaoru! What about Gohei? If he finds out there’s a rogue male in his territory being sheltered by the only female in the area, don’t you think he’ll try something?”

“Tae…”

“I’m just worried! I know you want to help him- I do too, but drawing Gohei’s attention to him would be a death sentence- for him at least, maybe you too.”

Kaoru growled, her posture straightening and her head coming up to glare at her friend. “I will not allow fear of that addle-pated mutt to keep me from doing what’s right!” Glancing back at the den, she lowered her voice, which had risen more than she would have liked, “The Rurouni can stay as long as he wants to, I’m not going to drive him off the way he is now, if I did, I would be no better than Gohei.”

Tae sighed, ears flattening slightly, “I’m not your enemy, Kaoru.” It was a mild reproof and Kaoru felt a flash of guilt, Tae wouldn’t want to send the Rurouni off in his current state either.

“I know…” the tanuki sighed, feeling her ears incline back, “I know that you’re only worried… but…” she looked at the entrance again, “I have to help. It’s…”

“Your instinct,” Tae allowed, her face still in the aloof cast she wore when her feelings had been hurt. “You’ve never stopped looking for a pack.”

The gray-furred canine shrugged moodily, “Maybe,” she allowed, bringing her face forward to brush cheeks with her friend. Her spirits lifted a little when Tae brushed back, letting the wolf know that she was forgiven. “I’m going to get some sleep. You keep safe, all right?”

Tae shook her head, “You keep safe.”

Then the cat was gone, vanished into the trees, and Kaoru turned back to her own den with a sigh. The Rurouni lay where they’d left him, eyes closed and form relaxed in sleep. Shaking her head, the tanuki made her way to the opposite wall of the den and curled up, she thought for a moment, just as she was closing her eyes, that she’d seen a glint of violet from the eyes of her guest. But sleep was insistent, and claimed her quickly.

Gohei glared with narrowed eyes at his followers. Nishiwaki sensed his displeasure and his tail was jammed firmly between his legs, Nagasawa didn’t appear to notice and Watanabe just plain didn’t care, eyes closed as if he were sleeping again. Lazy wolf, the massive dog thought in disgust, eye roving among the other members of his pack, they’re all lazy. Proof of that fact glared up at him from the hazel-green eyes of the newest challenger.

The pit bull stood strong in the forest clearing where they’d found him on the edge of their territory. His muzzle was red from the lifeblood of one of Gohei’s malcontents, a mutt that lay prone at his conqueror’s feet. Short dark fur covered the fighter’s muscular frame, and clipped ears stood skinny and straight on his powerful skull.

I could take him, Gohei assured himself, dog’s probably used to humans pulling a fight apart before any real damage gets done.

That the dog had been owned by humans was without a doubt- a thick black collar encircled his neck and he was far too well-fed to be feral. Still, Gohei couldn’t ignore the slain dog at the intruder’s feet.

“What’s your name, stranger?” he growled, keeping his stare on the newcomer. The dog straightened, a white patch on his throat becoming visible as he lifted his head.

“Caesar.” Hazel eyes scanned the pack, “Who are you?” Growls echoed among the nine remaining canines at Caesar’s disrespectful tone. Gohei pushed himself to his feet, braced by the reaction of his followers.

“I am Gohei. I rule this land, this is my pack.” The black and tan dog paced forward, eyes fixed on the pit bull, “We will give you a choice, stranger.” Gohei could hear his pack, even the apathetic Watanabe move to encircle the dog. “I am impressed by your skill. You can join us if you want. We have good game and a large territory. If you just obey me, these things can be yours as well. If you will not…” Gohei bared powerful white fangs at the smaller dog, “you will die here.”

Caesar’s expression didn’t change, but Gohei could almost see him weighing his chances, himself against the nine of the pack and Gohei. For a tense moment, the mutt wondered if they would have to rush the former pet after all- then the head moved in an accepting nod and the tension seeped out of his shoulders.

“Agreed.” Tails among the pack began to cautiously wag and wet noses leaned forward for a closer sniff of the newcomer, who ignored them to maintain eye contact with Gohei.

“Where are you from, Caesar?” the pit bull glared back at a dog who had sniffed too close to his back leg- the mutt backed off.

“South.” Hazel eyes looked back the way he had come. “My person was a warrior who trained me well,” tactfully he did not mention or even look at the corpse at his feet. “We had gone to compete in a fight, I was to fight the Battousai.” Caesar lifted his head in fierce pride, “Among those of us with wit remaining, Battousai is a legend. To fight him- to kill him, would be the highest honor.” The fangs he bared in the macabre smile evoked by this thought made Gohei’s fur bristle along his spine.

“And who is Battousai?”

“A wolf, they say. I saw him that night, stained in the blood of the first dog to fight him, a wicked cross-shaped scar on his cheek and eyes like twin flame.” Caesar’s eyes were half shut, his gaze distant. “This was a week ago. The night that I was to face him he escaped, killing the human who had owned him and setting the ring ablaze. Some died in that fire. I was separated from my person.”

“Hmph,” Gohei snorted speculatively, “so there’s a wolf on the loose somewhere.”

“Somewhere nearby,” Caesar corrected, his face tense with anticipation, “I was trailing him. Seems that he crossed into your territory a day ago.”

“Did he now…” Gohei rumbled quietly, “I think its time we met this Battousai. Nishiwaki!” the foxhound stepped forward, “Get Caesar to show you the trail.”

The two dogs peeled off from the group, noses to the ground. There were a few tense moments of casting about, then Caesar found it, and Nishiwaki took it up.

Not long after the pack came to the river that had been the pack boundary in the days of Koshijiro Kamiya. Without preamble, the pitbull stepped into the current and battled his way across. Gohei felt a stab of annoyance as his followers milled about on the shore, reluctant to enter the water since there was a dry ford upstream which the pack always used when crossing.

Snapping at the reluctant Nishiwaki’s heels, the black and tan mongrel drove his follower into the river, barked a command at those still hanging back, and plunged into the cold wet.

The current wasn’t terribly strong here, a slow, insistent push that picked up downstream to a headlong race, dashing itself against the smooth heads of boulders. It was a matter of moments before his pack joined him on the other side, everyone shaking and spraying their comrades with water. The sun was beginning to set when the foxhound and Caesar led them to a patch of ferns, and stopped.

“Boss…” the hound began hesitantly as the pit bull snorted, raising his head.

“A female.”

Shouldering his way between his two subordinates, Gohei put his nose to the ground and inhaled. The growl built in seconds.

“Kamiya. It’s time we dealt with that little brat.” The big dog had started off again before he realized that he wasn’t being followed, his pack looking at one another nervously. “Cowards!” he barked, “There’s only one of her and eleven of us! She stands no chance!”

Faced with their boss’ ire, the group began to move forward again.

“No one wants to go,” Watanabe noted quietly to Nagasawa, pacing easily beside him at the back of the line.

“Well yeah,” the slightly darker wolf cocked an ear at his companion, “Before, maybe, any female’s a good one. But who knew she would fight that well?”

Watanabe shrugged, dull amber eyes unreflective.

“I knew she would.”

Snow fell on red, paused a moment, purity surrounded by savagery, and then was gone. The world skewed crazily, and white fell on black… stayed… stayed… more and more white, covering that infinite, oddly precious, oddly empty black. Snow fell on black- and purity vanished in a blaze of accusing crimson.

The Rurouni started, a violent twitch, silently rising half to his feet before his mind could catch up and remind him of where he was. With a deep breath, he stood all the way, scent of homey earth and his host- feet twitching in slumber, slowing his racing heart. No blood.

With a frown, the Rurouni surveyed Miss Kaoru. It had been foolhardy of him to accept her offer of sanctuary- especially when he knew her precarious position of being packless in claimed land. If discovered together, anyone he could think of in the days before the ring would have believed they were foolishly trying to establish their own pack in already-claimed land. But the degree of worry her friend Miss Tae had shown… there was something more going on here, some situation that his presence could only exacerbate. Well, he sighed, stepping noiselessly toward the entrance, it would be poor gratitude indeed to bring harm down on Miss Kaoru’s head.

Things would be better if they weren’t associated.

Paws met the ground in a curiously muffled sensation as the forest, a hazy green in the darkness, moved around her. Kaoru slowed her pace as she approached her den, unspeakably nervous. Two of Gohei’s minions had spotted her as she patrolled the edge of the territory she still thought of as her father’s. She didn’t dare stick around and wait for them to call the rest of the pack; flight had seemed the best option. Hazel branches swayed in the wind, rustling of home. She carried on toward the entrance, head low as her shame caught up to her. Shouldn’t she have been able to fight the invaders? Her father had raised no coward or weakling, and it hurt to think he might be disappointed in her. One wolf can’t hold this territory, she reminded herself, and no one would go up against the full weight of a pack alone.

“Slinking back home with your tail between your legs?”

A voice (how had she not noticed someone so close?) sniggered nearby. Kaoru whirled, panic raising the fur on her hackles. A dog about her height, with thick brown and white fur stood from his position lying among the ferns. Kihei Hirmua. The smile he graced her with was slimy as the trail of a slug. “Koshijiro would weep.”

Kaoru flinched back at the name of her father, at the voice of her private fear.

“Out alone again?” Kihei shook his head in mock concern, “Oh Kaoru, Kaoru, it must be so lonely to be without a pack.” Time jumped, the world shuddering under her gaze, and the unpleasant dog was right beside her, fur brushing against her side as he circled- and how had he gotten so close? “But you could join a pack, little Kaoru, we would welcome you. You wouldn’t be alone.”

The gray wolf sprang away from the dog, a bristling snarl rising from her throat.

“Leave me alone you pervert!”

Kihei bared a fang at her, “Females shouldn’t talk so loud!” Kaoru didn’t answer, except for the growl rumbling from her chest. Kihei snorted, and made as if to walk by her- feinting a bite at her shoulder as he did so.

Kaoru did not feint- low to the ground; she lunged and snapped, catching the dog’s front leg in a grip that could have crushed the bone, but instead only savaged flesh.

“Warn first,” her father’s voice echoed in memory, “sensible creatures will retreat rather than attack. Always give them the chance. Life is sacred.”

Kihei gave a screaming yelp, tearing his bloody paw from the tanuki’s teeth. Kaoru kept her mouth open after releasing the foot, not wanting to trap the taste of the dog’s blood on her tongue.

“Leave. Me. Alone.” She repeated, soundless snarl pulling at the flesh of her muzzle, ears pricked toward the danger before her. Kihei had murder in his eyes, with a vile curse he launched himself at the wolf.

The brown dog may have been short, but he was stocky, and his charge bowled Kaoru over in a frenzied tangle of legs and striped tail. The tanuki didn’t fight the motion, instead throwing herself into it, back rushing to meet the ground, hitting with bruising force, away from the bared teeth of her opponent, who had expected her to instinctively fight being forced into the vulnerable subordinate position.

Rather than trying to squirm to the side, the young female kicked out her legs, holding Kihei back from her soft belly and exposed throat. Her forelegs she held stiff, while the back legs kicked relentlessly at her opponent.

Kihei snarled, his own paws scrabbling at her face. Kaoru winced as blunt claws dragged down her cheek; her legs shook with the strain of holding back the muscled mass crushing downward. White paws reached to dig at her face again, and the tanuki snapped, biting down full force on her attacker’s foot, feeling slender bones give way with snap after satisfying snap. Kihei drew back with a sharp whimper, useless paw cradled close to his chest.

With the absence of his weight above her, Kaoru surged to her feet- barely having time to brace herself before heavy muscle slammed into her again. But not so forcefully as the first attack, Kihei being unable to get up any real momentum with his injury. Fangs closed on the loose skin of her scruff, a shallow bite that Kaoru realized with a chill, had been meant to snap her spine. She tore away from the hold, funneling the pain of tearing flesh and ripping fur into speed, turning she lunged low.

A flash of white fur with red splashes, then she was below the jaw and buried her teeth in her opponents neck.

“All life is sacred,” she remembered, “including your own. You have the right to defend your own existence. Sometimes we must kill to survive. It’s what we are.”

Kihei reared, both forepaws, even the ruined one, coming to push at the gray wolf crushing his windpipe. He angled his head, shorter muzzle snapping, trying to find purchase on the smooth skull of his opponent. Kaoru hung on grimly, ears pressed flat.

The struggles grew more frantic, and the tanuki-marked wolf tightened her hold- they had come back down to all fours now, the dying dog trying to push her away with one leg around her shoulders as his world grew dark at the edges. Darker… and darker…

Kaoru panted, shaking next to the small-seeming body of a brown and white dog, whose small brown eyes stared at nothing, a black spotted pink tongue lolling out of the slack mouth. The female’s legs trembled beneath her shuddering frame, her ringed tail clung to her back legs. Trying to fight back the fear that pressed down on her like a tangible thing, she looked around.

A pale gray wolf sat quietly in the shade of a nearby tree. Watching her.

Terror rose in a roaring bile as she recognized the silvery pelt- Watanabe. The apathetic wolf rose from his position quietly, and Kaoru crouched in a defensive snarl, every hair on her body standing on end.

“What a mess,” the wolf commented tonelessly, not moving any closer to Kaoru and the fallen Kihei, his expression mild as though he faced a mud puddle. Dull amber eyes caught wide blue. “What are you going to do now?”

With a jolt Kaoru awoke, panting against the remembered fear beating at her subconscious. Putting her head down she closed her eyes and forced her breath to even out, wondering wearily how long the nightmare was going to keep plaguing her. After a moment, she settled once more, her thoughts finally branching out from the ruthless cycle of what-could-have-been to wonder if her violent awakening had disturbed her guest. A thoughtful inhalation brought her the answer even before her head jerked up to look frantically where he had been lying.

The Rurouni was gone.

Kaoru surged to her feet, thoughts like startled mourning doves whirling with tempestuous wings. Where, when, why? Had he stepped out to hunt? Was he still hungry? Or had the Rurouni decided to leave? Without telling me?

Either way, she had to follow, if the pack caught him… He should have let me know! I could have guided him to the closest boundary!

Ears tilted back with worry, the tanuki scrambled out of her den in a frenzied rush, skidding to an abrupt halt in the open. Her nose and ears belatedly warned her of what her eyes had already discovered. The pack was here. All of them. The eleven dogs and wolves stood in a loose semicircle around the entrance to Kaoru’s den. Cornering her.

Panic bloomed in the small female’s chest and she froze, the knowledge of fight warring with the cry for flight. There would be a fight- she couldn’t break their circle, and even if she did, the she-wolf knew that while she might outpace the two wolves in Gohei’s employ, they could outdistance her. That left choosing the battleground. Either out here, in the open where she could dodge and use her nimble limbs to their full advantage- but also where the pack could easily surround her and attack from all sides. Or she could retreat to the hazel-shrouded entrance of her den, sacrificing her mobility, but protecting her flanks.

Decision made, Kaoru retreated a slow step, before whirling to dive for her den entrance, coming to a halt as she met the grinning face of one of Gohei’s mongrel followers, a shaggy-furred dog she’d never gotten the name of.

She’d taken too long to decide, and now the field was chosen. Kaoru turned again, looking into the haughty face of Gohei once more, hoping that none of his followers would attack without his order.

“Running away Kamiya? Anyone would think you didn’t want to see me.” Gohei chuckled mirthlessly as a pitbull Kaoru didn’t recognize shifted his weight restlessly beside the large dog.

“What do you want Gohei?” annoyance masked the apprehension in her voice as Kaoru settled into a defensive crouch. “I’ve said it before, I’m not joining your pack.”

“That’s right…” Gohei bared his teeth, “Trying to start one, aren’t you?”

“What?” the blue-eyed wolf asked with a panicked jolt. He knows about the Rurouni, I hope that idiot really did leave!

“Don’t play cute Kamiya, it doesn’t suit you.”

“Enough of this,” the pit bull growled, stepping forward menacingly.

“Caesar!” Gohei snapped, furious, there was a silent battle of wills between the two males. Kaoru felt sure that in a moment they would leap on each other in a fury, and she could slip away in the confusion. The tanuki was just tensing to run when a sharp pained yelp split the air. The would-be combatants jerked apart, swerving to look at the culprit. Kaoru sagged slightly, fighting back despair at her lost opportunity. Watanabe, the source of the loud cry, was busily pulling something from between his toes with his teeth. Getting out what appeared to be a stone, he let it drop, and looked up to meet the stares of those around him. Shrugging off their curiosity, the wolf sat down with a long, theatrical yawn.

Gohei scowled impressively at his subordinate, then shook his ruff bad-temperedly. “This is pointless. Where is the Battousai, Kamiya?”

“Battousai?” Kaoru didn’t have to feign her surprise, “You think I was sheltering the Battousai?” A laugh bubbled up, and the tanuki just managed to cut it off before it turned hysterical, “It wasn’t the Battousai, just a wanderer passing through.”

The dark pit bull snarled at her, “It was him! I know the scent of that wolf!”

The Rurouni? Battousai? He doesn’t look like he’s ever been in a fight… the memory of a stark cross-shaped scar marring the left side of a red-furred face blossomed in her memory, … in his life. It can’t be right… Kaoru shook herself, bristling,

“And I know that the wolf who stayed with me was a good one, not some legendary lover of slaughter.”

Gohei growled. “I’ve lost my patience, Kamiya.”  His dark eyes locked on hers, “Kill her.”

The world dissolved into a vortex of heat and fur. Kaoru spun, ducking under the shaggy-furred dog that had lunged, trying to take her from behind. In a fluid movement she reached up to snag his hind leg as it passed overhead. A quick twist helped him on his way to the ground, then there was another dog charging her, low and swift. Steeling herself, Kaoru met the charge head on, both canines rising to their hind legs in a deadly parody of a human’s dance.

The dog’s sheer weight was forcing her back even as she tried to push away, should have dodged! Was her frenzied thought as the shaggy dog she had tripped seconds before took a lesson from her book and seized her hind leg in his teeth, yanking the crucial support out from under her.

The world tilted as she lost her balance, her fall feeling oddly slow, Kaoru could see the dog she had wrestled with following her motion, and turned her head to keep her neck out of reach of those jaws for a moment more. She could see Gohei, standing off to the side, waiting for his pack to bring her down before coming in to avenge his brother’s death. The other dogs were thick on either side- Kaoru hit the dirt, squirming to avoid the dog bearing down on her and kicking out with her free foot to try and dislodge the hound still holding her other leg captive. Another set of jaws clamped down on the struggling leg and panic rose in a steady crescendo. The dogs closed in around her- Kaoru couldn’t see the woods anymore, she could feel the heat from their breath, stifling her and her eyes closed in an involuntary wince.

“Release Miss Kaoru.”

It wasn’t a loud demand, but something in that calm, faintly angry tone hinted that ignoring the speaker would be a fatal mistake. Kaoru’s eyes shot open, face to face with a set of white fangs that had halted far too close to her neck for comfort. The dogs surrounding her were turning to look- and she couldn’t see through the press of bodies, but that had sounded like the Rurouni, and what was that idiot doing back here?

Annoyed at her poor visibility, Kaoru pushed herself up on her forepaws and turned to bare her fangs at the two dogs holding her back legs captive.

“Let go.” The two startled dogs looked at her, then at each other, before gingerly opening their jaws. Barely resisting the urge to kick the pair in the face, the tanuki scrambled to her feet.

The dogs who stood around her in a loose circle, six of the eleven were all looking to Gohei who stood a little way off, Caesar on his left side and Nishiwaki on his right. Nagasawa and Watanabe were still under their tree, Nagasawa slightly confused, while his lighter companion looked mildly interested. These five were all staring in the same direction. To the north, there was a natural rise to the land, and at the top of this rise stood a red wolf, looking taller than Kaoru had supposed, his merry violet eyes strangely grave. And like a damning brand, that cross-slash of white fur on the left side of his face.

“Rurouni…?” Kaoru was only aware that she had whispered it when those dark eyes turned to her, and his grave expression softened, just noticeably.

“Are you all right, Miss Kaoru?”

Not trusting her voice, the she-wolf nodded, trapped in the bizarre standoff.

“That’s the Battousai?” Gohei laughed, throwing back his head in his mirth, “It’s a shrimp!”

The pitbull on his left was inching slowly forward; head low to the ground, “Battousai…”

Kaoru searched her wanderer’s face for a refusal of the title, felt her gut clench when she saw none.

“You will leave Miss Kaoru alone, that you will,” the wolf instructed, “any quarrel over my presence here should be taken up with me.” Slow steps brought him down the gentle incline, the impression of height receding as he did so. Gohei gave a choked-off snarl,

“You think you can tell me how to run my territory?” Fury shook his voice, and Kaoru realized that he’d probably never faced a challenge like this to his authority before. “Kill him,” the order was a low rumble, “make him die slowly!”

Kaoru tensed as the dogs around her fanned out, attention riveted on the red-furred newcomer. The Rurouni’s face was impassive, the tip of his tail twitched before lying still.

“Those of you wishing to avoid injury should leave now.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Nishiwaki laughed, moving away from his master’s side to approach the motionless opponent, “You’re the one who’s going to end up in pieces!”

The hound lunged for his opponent, his pack-mates following in a concerted rush upon the wolf. The Rurouni, the Battousai… moved in a red blur, and Kaoru found herself standing stock-still, all thought of helping him with his foes banished from her mind. That speed was impossible, what if she got in the way of his strike and he couldn’t compensate? Yelps of pain and snarls of fury rose from the melee, and Kaoru only had glimpse of a few images at a time in the press of bodies- red fur whirling in a tight circle to face a threat on his rear, a swift lunge upward that displayed the white underbelly, but dragged a hapless dog along for the ride by the neck. The dog was tossed aside, landing with a skid outside of the vortex, and twitched, getting back to its feet shakily. As another dog in the mess dropped, the detached dog ran away, giving the plaintive whimpering call that puppies sounded when they’d been hurt. The next dog to be thrown aside was Nishiwaki, then another, and another… with shock Kaoru realized that the Rurouni didn’t need any help. He was going to win.

As Nishiwaki fled, Gohei snapped. With a howl of,

“You worthless bunch of weaklings!” the large dog threw himself into the fray. Nagasawa finally abandoned his post by Watanabe (who showed no intention of fighting,) and joined Hiruma. The other dogs had now abandoned the fight, scattering in every direction- one of them nearly colliding with Kaoru in his haste.

The Rurouni ignored the oncoming wolf, cool eyes following the thundering Gohei. The red wolf turned slightly, presenting his flank to the furious dog in what seemed to be an insulting taunt. What happened next took Kaoru a precious moment to work out.

The Rurouni had held his position to mere seconds from the punishing weight of Gohei slamming into him, then allowed one foreleg to bend to the ground and thrown himself sideways into Gohei’s lunge, causing the doge to stumble- the mutt then rolled across the incline created by the red wolf’s back to land in a confused tangle of his own limbs on the other side. All of this happened very quickly, and by the time that Kaoru had worked it out, the Rurouni was already turning to deal with Nagasawa, who was coming in low and fast. A clean jump carried the red wolf gracefully up and over his opponent, landing; he seized the gray wolf by the scruff as he passed, the movement seeming almost languid. Pivoting his entire body, he slung the gray wolf aside. Nagasawa snarled and made to get up, only to be blocked by Watanabe, who stood over his friend with a warning shake of his head.

Kaoru tore her gaze away from the disbelieving look of Nagasawa to turn back to the ongoing fight. Gohei had scrambled back to his feet, now moving in for a punishing bite. The Rurouni seemed to give a resigned sigh, and red blurred into motion again.

Gohei gave a howl of pain as blood splattered the ground. For a moment, Kaoru thought that the wolf had killed him as the dog succumbed to gravity’s insatiable pull. But it was simpler than that- a deep wound had appeared on his left foreleg, which was crumpled and limp beneath the dog’s heavy frame.

“Leave this territory,” the red wolf said quietly, looking down on the crippled Gohei, who was snarling and trying to regain his footing.

“I wouldn’t, Gohei,” Watanabe’s voice was calm and disdainful, “You’ve never understood wolves. One who acknowledges when he is beaten we will not kill, but those who attack in futility and pride will be cut down without mercy.”

“Watanabe,” Nagasawa started, his expression mulish, his friend cut him off with a hint of annoyance,

“I don’t like it here, I never have. This was not a pack. I don’t care if you aren’t done moping over Hatsumi, I want to go home.” The wolf stepped away from his friend, allowing him to rise. Nagasawa cocked his head at the lighter colored wolf as though he wanted to say something, then shook himself and began to slink away. Watanabe followed with a civil nod to the tanuki and red-furred wolf, his bearing erect and oddly focused. Both wolves ignored the cursing Gohei, who pushed himself to his feet, his slashed leg dangling uselessly as he began to hobble away.

“Finally,” with a shock, Kaoru realized that the pit bull, Caesar, hadn’t participated in any of the previous fighting. Now he stood in eagerness, cropped ears erect and quivering with anticipation. “The preliminaries are over, Battousai.”

“If you seek neither this territory, nor to bring harm to Miss Kaoru, we have no cause to fight.” The Rurouni said quietly, watching Caesar, his posture not relaxing.

Bared teeth were his answer, “I will not miss my chance to fight,” Caesar snarled, “I won’t let you run away again!”

The dog and wolf began to circle one another; both experienced enough to realize that a straightforward charge would be useless in this fight. Caesar feinted, Battousai didn’t react, didn’t instigate, simply kept up his easy trot around his opponent. Snarling, the pit bull darted close again, this time slamming his muscular frame up against the Rurouni, mouth open for a wounding bite. The Rurouni melted back from the pressure; his own long muzzle becoming decorated with spots of red as he scored a minor hit on the dog’s shoulder. Furious, Caesar turned again, moving in low to the ground, arcing up for a shot at the red wolf’s throat. Tempting white fur moved back as a matter of course, and powerful paws pushed against the ground to send the wolf into the air, landing lightly out of immediate reach.

“Coward! Come back and face me!”

“This one has no desire to kill you.” The Rurouni shook his head remorsefully. “Will you not turn back?”

“I’m no cur,” the pitbull spat, eyes narrowed with hate, “Once a fight begins, I don’t run away!”

“Then you leave me no choice…” the Rurouni whispered in true regret, eyes never leaving his opponent. It happened quickly, after that. Caesar dove in low once more, perhaps trying for the neck again, perhaps hoping to trap the wolf’s leg and reduce his mobility. The red wolf moved in a leap again, and the pit bull spun to find the place where the wolf would land. Powerful jaws from above closed with unerring accuracy upon his neck, snapping shut with full force. A loud pop sounded through the trees, then silence, as the dog collapsed. The Rurouni stepped to the side, purple eyes almost heartbroken as he bent his head to the body, nose almost touching the sluggishly bleeding shoulder.

“You deserved better than this life,” he paused, “sessha is sorry, for not learning your name.”

“Gohei called him Caesar.” Kaoru supplied quietly, moving with slow steps to stand beside her guest. Weak gratitude lit his eyes for a moment, then vanished into the crushing sorrow that met the tanuki every night. “So…” Kaoru ventured, trying awkwardly to break the silence.

“Sessha is sorry to have brought such trouble to your door, Miss Kaoru.”

The tanuki shrugged, “You didn’t. Gohei’s been looking for an excuse to come after me since his brother…” she trailed off, looking down at the corpse. “You know, it’s funny. I didn’t expect you to be the Battousai,” she slanted a gaze at him, watched as his ears flattened slightly in what seemed to be chagrin.

“It is not something sessha wishes to remember,” the Rurouni mumbled, “This one did not mean to hide the truth from you.”

Kaoru shook off the apology with a toss of her head, “Everyone has something that they don’t want to talk about. So,” she sat, ringed tail laying out beside her, “what are you going to do with your new territory?”

“Oro?”

“Oh, come on, you just drove out the local pack all on your lonesome. The land is yours, you know that.”

“Sessha didn’t think of that,” the beleaguered wolf replied, eyes more than a bit confused, “the territory belongs to you Miss Kaoru.”

The tanuki snorted, “And we’ve seen how well that works out,” she pointed out acidly, ears tilting back in annoyance. “I can’t hold a space this big all on my own, I need help. Yours, maybe.” Brash confidence failed her, and she couldn’t meet his eyes as her ears pinned themselves to her skull in embarrassment, “if you wanted to stay, that is. I wouldn’t mind.”

Silence met her request, and after a moment, Kaoru stood and turned away. “Before you leave, could you at least tell me your name? It feels silly to keep calling you wanderer, and Battousai isn’t much of a name.”

Even though her ears hadn’t informed her of his departure, the tanuki had to restrain herself from turning back around to be sure that the red-furred wolf hadn’t simply slipped away like smoke through the trees when she’d turned her back.

“Kenshin Himura.” His voice was quiet, reflective and maybe a touch… glad? How long had it been, Kaoru wondered, since the wolf had gone by his name?

“Well, Kenshin. Thank you for saving me.”

There was a rustle of movement, and Kaoru let her head droop in defeat. He had to be gone.

“The day may come when sessha cannot but choose to wander again, Miss Kaoru,” came a voice from directly behind her, and the tanuki turned to see a sunny smile on the furry face of Kenshin, “but if you will allow him, sessha would stay here awhile.”

It wasn’t a promise to never leave, but at the moment, Kaoru didn’t care, relief washing over her body in a tangible wave- she wouldn’t be alone anymore.

“You are welcome here, Kenshin,” she assured the wolf with a smile, already planning on showing her guest the boundaries of the territory. Something occurred to her, even through her relief, and she turned to glare at the wolf.

“You better not think this is going to be a regular thing.”

“Oro?”

“I mean it!” Kaoru snapped, “I’m not some pampered housepet who can’t defend herself, so don’t expect to come rescue me all the time!”

Japanese Vocab-

Sessha- Translates to something like “this unworthy one,” Kenshin’s method of referring to himself.

Oro- a nonsense word. Translates to something like “huh?” Kenshin’s catchphrase.

Tanuki- a raccoon dog. For the purposes of the story, I’m changing the definition to a wolf with raccoon-markings.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3- Kids today…

And if I make it through today

Will tomorrow be the same?

Am I just running in place?

If I stumble and I fall,

Will I get up and carry on?

Will it all just be the same?

Good Charlotte- Young and Hopeless

“Move slowly,” the whispered instruction barely tickled her ear, and Kaoru fought the urge to flick it to get rid of the sensation, “slide your paw forward as you set it down— remember, you have all the time in the world.” Carefully following the advice, the tanuki eased another agonizing half-step closer to the grouse. For its part, the woodland hen seemed oblivious to its hungry stalker, small head bobbing as it searched for food among the grass.

Kaoru exhaled quietly, ears completely trained on her prey. She had never been so close to one of the easily startled birds before. The tanuki shot a glance at the completely-relaxed red wolf at her side. Last week, after a particularly bad day of hunting, Kaoru had loudly wailed that she didn’t know why she had so much trouble. After cajoling, a reluctant Kenshin had suggested that she couldn’t stay under cover long enough to get close to her faster prey. He hadn’t said it quite that way of course, but since then the wolf had been teaching her the finer points of stalking. Another scooting step forward brought Kaoru to the edge of the concealing undergrowth; an encouraging nod from Kenshin braced her.

The bird moved slightly, turning away from the wolves, head cocked in curiosity as it displayed a mottled brown back to the concealed predator. Muscles surged and Kaoru broke from cover, feet pounding the ground in loud alarm. The bird looked back at the oncoming gray death and with a warbling cry flapped its wings, bringing it a little way off the ground- Kaoru met it in the air, teeth closing down hard as she carried it back down from her leap. Dark gray paws impacted the ground as the avian died, small head lolling to one side.

Gingerly, Kaoru laid down her prize, trying to get dusty feathers out of her mouth and turning with a tail that couldn’t help but wag to Kenshin, who was smiling and stepping out from cover.

A rustle alerted the female, Kenshin’s purple eyes widened in perplexed surprise and Kaoru spun back around. A small brown and white shape broke from the undergrowth on the other side of the small clearing in a headlong sprint- the tanuki had an impression of wild fur and paws too large for the small frame as the racing animal passed right in front of her, snapping up her kill as it did so and taking off again, noticeably slowed and looking absurd, the bird almost as big as the creature carrying it, and the wings dragging uselessly on the ground.

“Hey!” Kaoru yelped, taking off after the little thing running off with her dinner, “Bring that back, thief!” A few quick strides brought her alongside the little bandit, and a calculated shove bowled him over. White paws that were oversized in comparison to the rest of the scrawny body flailed ridiculously as he went head over heels, releasing the filched fowl with a cry of alarm.

Moving quickly, Kaoru used a paw to drag her meal away from the cursing pile of fur, that secured, she stood over the diminutive marauder. It was a puppy, she saw now, its messy brown and white fur stuck out in ungroomed spikes, and a tail that curled up over his back told Kaoru definitively (if the color had not) that the pup was a dog. Blazing brown eyes glared up at her from beneath a furrowed forehead and pointed brown ears.

“Let me go you ugly!” the puppy growled, white paws shoving against her face to push it away. Ire snapped at the female’s heels,

“Who are you calling ugly you dirty little runt!?”

“The ugly hag in my face!” the puppy snarled, wriggling in attempt to get loose. Annoyed, Kaoru planted a dark gray paw on the white stomach below, pressing to keep her captive in place. A muffled yelp escaped the small canine before he could stifle it, and Kaoru frowned.

“Miss Kaoru?” Kenshin’s voice brought her back from her thoughts.

“It’s a puppy,” Kaoru answered the Rurouni, turning to face him but careful to keep pressure on the dog she’d pinned. The part of her mind not still seething with annoyed rage (the very small part, concerned with such things as breathing and forming understandable sentences) noted a concerning lack of fat to cushion her paw- she felt fur, skin and bone. A puppy ought to be chubby.

“What is a young one like yourself doing so deep in the woods?” Kenshin sounded vaguely surprised as he approached.

“I am not a puppy!” the small body under her paw squirmed in indignation, fiery brown eyes blazing with impotent rage, “I’m not a young one either! And it’s none of your business where I go!”

“When you’re in our territory stealing our food it is my business!” Kaoru snarled irritably.

A bark of laughter split the puppy’s muzzle in a mocking grin.

“Your territory? A mangy wolf and a scrawny dog can hold a territory now?”

“Mangy?!” Kaoru growled as Kenshin sighed again,

“This one is a wolf…”

The pup rolled his eyes expressively in response, “Suuurre. I wasn’t born yesterday you know,”

“Oh, really?” the tanuki cut in snidely, the dog glared.

“I know what scrawny is when I see it, I also know that you’re going to be in big trouble if Gohei catches you claiming his land.” The puppy smirked, a small fang showing from beneath a slightly curled lip, “I’m sure you know him, big fella, eats shrimps like you for breakfast.”

The tanuki snorted with self-satisfaction, “Oh yeah? And what does that make you? Gohei cleared out of here last week. Now,” the she-wolf leaned forward, shifting her weight to press down a little harder with her forepaw, “Maybe you can give me a straight response. Why’d you try to steal my prey?”

“Hungry, perhaps young one?” Kenshin suggested after a moment’s stubborn silence saw the smirk vanish.

“No I wasn’t!” came the angry refusal, “and for the last time I am not a young one so stop calling me that!”

Kaoru didn’t know where Kenshin was finding the patience to smile apologetically to her captive, but she was beginning to wish she’d let the red wolf handle the capture and interrogation from the beginning, especially since the tanuki seemed to be making such a mess of it.

“Perhaps if sessha might know your name then…” Kenshin offered with that same cheerful calm.

“Yahiko Myogin,” the puppy snapped out, “I’m the son of Samurai, so watch who you’re pushing, ugly!”

Kaoru was only able to splutter incoherently in the face of the insult while Kenshin plied another question to the spiky-furred pup.

“Well, Yahiko-kun, are you lost? Miss Kaoru and sessha would be happy to escort you home.”

The puppy growled all the more fiercely, “What- do you think I’m some kind of belly-dragging housepet? Do I really look like the kind of dog that needs a human to look after me? I’m not lost, I’m not hungry, and unless you’ve got something for me, I’m not sticking around here any longer!”

The tirade lost any credibility it may have had with the dubious adults when it was followed by the grumbling whine of a stomach that had been empty for a long time.

“All right then, Yahiko-kun,” Kenshin’s voice was gentle, with a quick turn he picked up the almost-forgotten bird and laid it alongside the still-pinned Yahiko, both wolves taking note of the ravenous expression lurking behind canine arrogance. “We seem to have insulted you most grievously, please take this by way of apology, and if you should ever be truly hungry, Miss Kaoru or this one would be glad to show you how to catch your own.” Sensing her cue, Kaoru removed her paw; within a blink the scruffy dog had rolled to his feet- then hesitated, gaunt frame tense as he examined the proffered fowl. After a moment the thin chest puffed out and the spiky-furred head lifted, chocolate-brown ears canted back as smoldering eyes spoke of disdain.

“You think I need handouts from mutts like you? Huh, I was just picking on you for being soooo excited,” Yahiko snorted down his short nose in derision, “Who’d want that thing anyway? It’s half feathers!”

“There’s nothing wrong with it!” Kaoru snapped, leaning over her kill possessively.

“It would appear that we may do nothing but insult you,” Kenshin observed with a self deprecating smile, Yahiko paused, half turned to flee from Kaoru’s sudden motion, his frame tense as he stared at the red wolf. The Rurouni’s smile widened, purple eyes holding angry brown in their gaze, “Take care, and hold tight to that pride of yours.”

With an uncertain look, the scrawny dog took off in a headlong rush in the direction of the human settlement, glancing behind him to be sure that the odd duo weren’t chasing him.

“I don’t’ know about humans,” Kaoru found herself remarking, “But someone ought to be looking out for that pup, if only to teach him some manners.”

“Indeed,” Kenshin agreed, ears still pricked forward as though he could still hear the pup already beyond the range of Kaoru’s ears, “he certainly wasn’t lacking in fighting spirit. What could have happened, one wonders, that would have left him so alone.”

The tanuki shook her head, staring moodily at her once-prized catch, no longer feeling very hungry or accomplished.

“Maybe Tae will want it.”

Yahiko slowed as he left the trees, risking a long look over his shoulder as he slunk out of the cover of the forest. No sign of the weird pair following him, but the nervous puppy didn’t relax, picking his way through long grass and shrubby weeds that the humans mowed down every moon or so, he berated himself for his failure.

“Don’t lose that pride of yours,” he mocked, dark ears flat against his head and voice a low scornful mutter. “Yeah, real smart Yahiko- pride’s good enough to live off of, right? All a nose in the air ever did for anybody was make the meat taste sour and get folks killed.” That bird had tasted all right before his capture, the smell of fresh meat cruelly tempting a stomach that had long since driven the puppy to eat grass.

But after that strange red wolf (who’d ever heard of a red wolf anyway?) had started talking to him, even the thought of that tender carcass had made his shrunken stomach churn warningly. “Well, you’re screwed, Myogin.” The puppy snorted harshly to himself, moving at a brisk trot through the exposed space, grass and prickly weeds bending reluctantly for his passage. “Better hope that you find something to bring back, or they’ll take it outta your hide.”

The grass was shorter now, sparser from shod feet trampling it down for impromptu games of baseball and soccer, so Yahiko picked up his pace again, heading for the concrete world of the humans only a few feet away.

Soon his claws were clicking rhythmically on the sidewalk as the young dog moved in a quick, slinking sort of motion, every sense alert for an approaching threat or possible food-source. When Gasuke sent him out on a food run, he expected that food would be brought back. Of course that didn’t mean that ‘the runt’ as he had been maliciously dubbed, would be getting anything like a fair share.

Damn Yakuza thugs…he growled quietly to himself, turning aside a moment to investigate a trashcan that smelled tempting- but the humans had put a rock on the lid to discourage any scavengers. Greedy jerks. Not like they want it any more anyway…After circling the trashcan once more, and deciding that it would be a waste of energy to try toppling it, the puppy slunk away once more. Gasuke wouldn’t be pleased if he brought back trash again, the hostile Doberman making a pointed “request” for a change in menu that had prompted Yahiko’s desperate trip into the forest.

And subsequent humiliation.

It was too late now, he knew- it had taken him the better part of the day to slowly work himself into the forest, cautiously at first, unsettled (never frightened) by his new surroundings. And he had tried to hunt on his own. The puppy simply didn’t know how, and the idea of asking for instruction from any one of the gang members who held him in highest contempt was laughable. Desperation, and the knowledge that the day was wearing short had brought him almost face to face with a daft-looking bird, which had quickly become a dead bird.

Yahiko had seen wolves before, when Gohei had visited with “Boss” Tanishi and brought three of his lieutenants. The two he’d interrupted had been similar in build but vastly different in color and… purer? Than the wolves that had traveled with Gohei. More wild, maybe.

A feral being at heart, Yahiko prided himself on being able to tell when an animal was tame. And those two… hadn’t been. Which meant that it had been more than foolish to try and steal their prey out from under their noses- it had been suicidal.

With a growl, the puppy shook off that line of thinking, peering with concern (never anxiety because that implied fear) at the sky beginning to take on the blush of dusk. He would be expected back soon, and he didn’t have a flea-bitten thing for the syndicate.

Something that smelled vaguely appealing and disgustingly human bounced on the ground in front of his nose, and Yahiko came to an abrupt stop, staring at the little food pellet on the sidewalk. He considered it a bad sign that he was hungry enough to want to eat it- regardless of where it came from.

“That’s all I can spare for a mutt like you,” came a condescending voice- a little too nasal to pull off the superiority with any threatening overtone, and definitely too young. Yahiko glared up at the puppy behind the fence,

“And what makes you think I’d ever be desperate enough to eat your dusty leftovers, Yutaro?”

Yutaro, a purebred akita, scowled at the hungry dog on the other side of the fence, the dark brown spot around his eye bunching as he did so.

“And what makes you think I’d care if you starved you little brat!”

Yahiko rolled his eyes and made a show of stretching nonchalantly, “You’re just sore because you’re stuck in that little patch of grass.”

“Oh yeah? Like you’re doing so hot out there- what happened to that big catch you were supposed to make?” the mostly-white pet jeered, jerking his head to indicate the forest back the way his sometimes-friend had come. The stray fought back a telling wince, shrugging off his failure with a show of bravado.

“Bah, nothing but skinny featherbrained birds in there- not worth my time, especially with all the wolves.” He grinned daringly at the other puppy, white teeth bright in the fading light, “Stole a bird from them, just to prove I could, but they were so pitiful I let them have it back.”

“You sure that they didn’t catch you and take it back?” Yutaro scoffed, Yahiko lowered into a ready-crouch as he snapped back his reply,

“Like they could! Anyway, are you brain-dead? If wolves catch you on their land they won’t waste time, they’ll just kill you. Actually,” he cocked his head to one side, “they’d probably eat a fat fusspot like you- I’ve seen deer that didn’t have so much meat on them!”

“Stuff it, brat,” Yutaro growled threateningly for a moment, but there wasn’t much heart in it. Both puppies knew that of the two of them, Yutaro was the healthy one, Yahiko on the constant brink of starvation. With a sigh and a frown, the purebred akita shook off the light irritation of teasing,

“So what are you going to do? You don’t have anything to take back to the others, right?”

Yahiko felt his lip curl in response, instinctively looking toward the Yakuza’s hangout,

“Who cares? It’s high time they take care of themselves anyway.” The flat statement was bitter and hopeless, the words meant to convey carelessness, but the tone breaking the image.

Yutaro shrugged a little, and sighed, “I keep telling you that if you just showed yourself to some humans and looked pathetic- not that it would be hard for you- you’d get fixed up with food and a decent place to sleep. It worked for Ronin and Shinai, didn’t it?”

Yahiko glared at his friend, brown eyes smoldering dangerously, “It wasn’t like that,” he growled, voice tight with anger, “they didn’t decide to leave, the humans stole them.”

Nobody brought up his lost siblings, nobody.

“Yahiko,” Yutaro sighed, trying to reason with his friend.

“Can it Yutaro,” the puppy growled, looking over his shoulder toward the overpass by the river.

“What are you going to do?” the housepet went back to the problem, “You don’t have anything for them, right?” Silence was the only reply, and Yutaro felt a snarl pull at his muzzle, “Don’t go back to them.” The puppy wasn’t sure if he was advising or pleading, “There are other ways to stay alive.”

“Around here?” Yahiko responded scornfully, “No there’s not. Besides, I’m not some cur that’ll run away with my tail tucked while I still have debts to pay.”

Yutaro bit back a scathing reply about strays not needing pride. He’d known Yahiko’s mother after all, and after a week of pestering he’d gotten the scrawny puppy to explain what had happened.

The purebred akita sighed theatrically, settling back on his haunches. “Be careful then little Yahiko, if those guys even stepped on you, you probably wouldn’t survive.”

“Watch who you’re calling little, puppy.” Yahiko retorted, bristling on instinct, sensitive as ever to the small size caused by poor nutrition that he seemed cursed with.

“Watch who you’re calling puppy, idiot,” Yutaro growled back, but his heart wasn’t really in it. Maybe later, when his friend wasn’t facing at least a ‘punishment’ and at worst his own death, Yutaro would be able to bicker whole-heartedly once more.

Yahiko rolled his expressive brown eyes, “You’re slipping,” he informed the other archly, “You might want to practice before I get back.”

And on that jaunty note, the little akita-husky mix loped off down the street, heading faithfully (and foolishly, in Yutaro’s opinion) for the overpass.

Tae was dutifully impressed with Kaoru’s catch, enough that the young wolf relented and settled down to eat her bird, Kenshin declining her offer to share in favor of relating their strange tale to the cat half-napping in the tree above them.

“Sounds like the Suhei syndicate is at it again,” the bobcat offered at the conclusion, her ears slightly flattened and expression pensive.

“Suhei syndicate?” Kaoru repeated, trying to remember if she’d ever heard the name before. Tae caught her eye and shook her head,

“It’s a pack of yakuza dogs on the south side of the human settlement, they usually don’t venture into the woods.”

“How did I miss hearing about them though?”

Tae’s spotted fur rippled over her shoulders in a shrug, “I go much closer to the town than you do for my gossip,” the bobcat pointed out, “You only go there when you have a stray to return,”

“What do you know about them Miss Tae?” Kenshin inquired calmly, diverting what could quickly become an argument between the two females. Tae stretched a little, balancing expertly on her branch despite the somewhat precarious movement.

“There’s not much to tell. The Suhei Syndicate is a pack of dogs living on the outskirts of the human settlement. Pretty violent fellows, but they don’t usually come into the forest. They cause some trouble for the folks in the town, hunting livestock, terrorizing pets… normal wild animal behavior… except,” she hesitated, “I heard a rumor about them saying that they’ll find stray puppies and make them go around stealing, dangerous stuff usually, dog food from the store, human food from campsites, until they get killed, one way or the other.”

“So that kid…” Kaoru muttered in horror,

“Was sent on a suicide mission,” Tae finished grimly. Kaoru boiled to her feet, brown feathers fluttering away from her soot-colored paws in the wind raised by the motion.

“We can’t let this go on!”

“I don’t know that we could stop it altogether Miss Kaoru,” Kenshin’s voice was hesitant and regretful. “Even if this one puppy were to be saved, to change the habits of an entire pack-”

Kaoru shook her head furiously, dark ears pinned back, “That’s the excuse of someone who doesn’t want to help! I can’t believe you! Well I can’t leave that puppy alone in a situation like this!” ignoring Kenshin’s surprised look, the seething tanuki sped off in the direction of the town, ringed tail disappearing rapidly from view.

Tae shrugged carelessly, smiling sympathetically at the flabbergasted Rurouni, “Kaoru does that sometimes. She doesn’t mean it, she just gets excited, and unless you tell her that you are going to do it and explain that you want to plan… all she’ll do is run off without thinking things through.”

Kaoru’s paws ate ground quickly, carrying her in the direction of the town. Tae had said that the Syndicate was to the south of the humans, but she had also said Battousai had eyes of twin amber flame, and the tanuki had yet to see Kenshin with any color other than violet. Not that she had gloated about this to Tae. The Rurouni hadn’t told Kaoru not to tell Tae of his other name, but he hadn’t told her that she could either. It was his secret, she’d finally decided. Let him worry about whether he wanted to tell the gossipy feline or not.

So far, judging by Tae’s complete lack of trying to pry his life story out from behind clenched fangs, Kaoru was betting on not.

The tanuki didn’t slacken her pace until she reached the edge of the trees and what she supposed was the pack boundary- with neither Kenshin nor herself rigorously protecting the boundaries against “invasion” it was getting tricky to remember where they were. Still, the sparse trees marked the end of her easy concealment. The gray female peered out to the grassy and devoted plain and smiled tightly. The sun was going down, casting fiery orange hues on the sky, and deepening shadows on the ground. With a fluid motion the she-wolf slipped from the tree line, her gray fur seeming to soak up the shadows that she was now traveling in, exchanging one kind of concealment for another.

The human settlement was impossible to miss by any of her senses, sickly yellow lights flickered on, casting jagged black shadows, murmuring voices melted with the humming of machinery, echoing endlessly in her sensitive ears, and the smell… A smell of things burning, things wholesome as well as spoiled, appetizing and disgusting mixing in the all-encompassing cloud that was the scent of the humans themselves. The assault on Kaoru’s senses was a distraction, but one that she’d learned quickly to push aside. While the town didn’t feel quite real in the way that the forest did, death or discovery could come quickly for any creature not paying enough attention.

The warm colors of the sky were still the vibrant fiery hue of sunset as Kaoru made her way into the town, moving low to the ground and sticking to shadows.

Despite her tendency to shelter strays, Kaoru rarely ventured into the settlement herself, usually only taking her lost wards to the field that bordered the woods, where they were confident of showing themselves to a human and being returned to their homes. Sometimes however, a dog was unsure, and Kaoru would venture into the town alongside them, wandering until the lost one recognized some incomprehensible landmark and sped off with joyous barks and wagging tails. Town dogs…

No such landmarks guided the tanuki, just a halting, cautious journey south under streetlights buzzing to eerie life.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” a young accusatory bark perforated the dimness and Kaoru froze, looking with annoyance for the cause of the sound. Pale in the encroaching gloom a brown-spotted white puppy with a tiny curled tail resting on his back glared at her from the other side of a chain-link fence. The tanuki paused, regarding the little thing, then moved closer to his yard.

The puppy-about the same age as Yahiko- seemed surprised at her approach, clearly he’d been unable to see her clearly when he sounded his first alarm. It wasn’t as though she were huge or anything, but Kaoru knew that even among wolves, her looks were outlandish.

Blue eyes stared down at him, and the well-fed puppy braced his legs more firmly to strengthen his stance.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded again, but couldn’t seem to get up the same aggressive volume as before. “This is my place.”

Kaoru instinctively surveyed the puppy’s tiny yard and snorted.

“Then I’m not bothering your place, am I?” she pointed out. “I’m looking for someone- a little skin-sack your age that calls itself Yahiko. Seen him?”

The puppy bristled impressively and backed up a pace, staring at the invader suspiciously with flattened ears,

“Who wants to know? What do you want with Yahiko?”

“Kaoru. And as far as what I want with him- I figure that someone ought to tell him that those precious Yakuza he’s playing pet for are planning to kill him.”

The puppy cursed, something Kaoru was almost sure he had picked up from his street friend. “That moron! I told him not to go back- the syndicate hangs out at the human’s road-bridge on the south side of town by the river. If you hurry, you might catch him, but he’s probably there by now. I’m Yutaro, I don’t know if my name will help any, but at least he’ll know I sent you!”

Kaoru acknowledged the directions with a nod, and was halfway down the block by the time the puppy had made it around to his name, as she crossed the street he howled after her, forepaws braced on the quivering fence, “Tell him to stop being so damn proud!”

Yahiko scowled at the river’s edge, the concrete construct of the overpass lurking in his peripheral vision. It was one thing to act brave in front of Yutaro, who’d never been beyond that tiny grass-patch called a yard without a human. Out here, he was ashamed to admit, it was hard to make himself go back.

The puppy sat with frustrated misery on the bank, shoulders hunched forward and staring moodily into the tepid water, lit gold by the dying sunlight. He knew he was too proud; he always had been, even though he was aware that he no longer had anything to be proud of. Debt or no debt, he didn’t want to steal for the yakuza anymore and he snarled against the thought that the red wolf’s words had influenced him- this was his decision.

And it made sense, sooner or later he was going to get caught in his thieving- and he would be killed. Better to get out of that now and find some other way of paying back Tanishi. Maybe he could figure out how to hunt the cunning, vicious rats that crept out of the drainage pipes at night…Because there was that pride again. Leaving a debt unpaid? Aside from what Gasuke and the others would do to him, the thought of running away turned his empty stomach.

“There he is! Hey Runt! You forget where you live?!” Yahiko fought off the flinch that threatened to send him toppling forward into the water and stayed where he was, every underfed muscle on his frame going taut. That sounded like Tomo, the court jester of sorts, but he was too much of a wimp to ever pick on Yahiko by himself so… Clearing his mind the way he’d taught himself, Yahiko took a long breath in through his nose.

Yeah. Gasuke was back there too.

Tomo was pacing toward the motionless puppy, big paws thudding against the ground with tell-tale whumphs. “Runt, we’re talking to you! Did the ickle puppy forget where home is? We’ve been waiting for you!” It took every scrap of self-control Yahiko had (and some that he was pretty sure that he had borrowed two years in advance) not to whirl around and yell right back at Tomo that the smelly cold place under the human’s noisy road was not his home. Home had been with his mother, in the sweet-smelling dirt of the east side of town. But he stayed put, this was going to be bad enough as it was. Tomo was at his side now and made a show of sniffing around the puppy with his short amber snout, and pawed him with one of his clodhopper feet. “Hey Yahiko, where’s dinner. You did find something to bring back, right?” the puppy didn’t have to look to know that the hazel eyes were gleaming in anticipation.

Tomo was a court jester all right- and all of the humor in this court revolved around pain.

“I don’t have anything for you!” Yahiko finally snapped, glaring sideways up into that face, aware that Gasuke, the really dangerous one, had yet to say anything. “I’m sick of going around stealing stuff for you bum-lickers!”

That, Yahiko realized as Gasuke bowled him over from behind to roll feet over tail, desperately trying to avoid falling in the river, probably could have been worded better.

Gasuke, a powerfully built Doberman with cropped ears and docked tail seized the errant puppy by his back leg and yanked hard- Yahiko swallowed a yelp, managed to turn it into a grunt that he assured himself sounded very adult as the skin parted under sharp teeth and he was flung skidding across the grass-spattered ground.

Tomo looked almost comically surprised over to one side, not quite daring to interrupt the black and tan dog as he again walked up to the puppy, this time grabbing hold of the loose skin of his back and lifting. This time the little akita-mix was unable to stop the pained response from coming out sharply- but it hurt, he was sure that Gasuke’s teeth had almost met in the skin of his back, and he twisted frantically, aware that this made the pain almost unbearable, but desperate to get down.

The Doberman wasn’t having any of it, turning; he flung the puppy again, toward the overpass, where the rest of the gang would be waiting.

The journey was tortuous for Yahiko, every now and again he would manage to get to his feet and stumble in the direction that Gasuke was “herding” him, but Tomo (who had decided to join in on the favorite sport) would knock his legs out from under him again, and it would be time for another game of fetch.

At last the consistency of the ground onto which he was being hurled changed from dirt to dirt-coated concrete, and Yahiko could hear the other members of the Syndicate stirring from where they’d been lying in various states of sloth past the ringing of pain in his ears.

“Well, it’s the runt,” Asano yawned lazily, the bird dog stretching up and out from where he’d been lying on an abandoned tire, “did he try to run away?”

“I’m more interested in where he thinks the Boss’ dinner is,” Gasuke growled, planting a black paw on Yahiko’s head to keep his face in the dirt. “You want to share what you told me with the rest of the family Yahiko?”

The puppy struggled with the effort of lifting his head high enough to open his mouth- the black and tan dog above him wasn’t easing up. “I told you,” he managed to grind out, almost shouting to be sure of being heard, “I’m not stealing for you any more!”

Gasuke shook his head, dark eyes pitiless, voice dripping with concern that a child could see through, “See boys? See how bad our pet is being?”

Asano gave a low chuckle and fell in alongside Tomo as the jester and the third dog of their pack, Chijin, a gray mutt of unidentifiable breed, began circling Gasuke and his pinned captive.

“We can’t have that, can we?” the bird dog’s words were almost regretful, the toothy smile on his face entirely insincere. Tomo sniggered, unable to keep his comments to himself,

“Gotta punish the kid, right Gasuke? Never grow up right if they don’t know who’s boss.”

Well that’s definitely not you. The puppy bit back the retort. It wasn’t hard, speaking had been a real challenge earlier.

With a deliberate motion, Gasuke withdrew his paw and stepped back to join the now-halted circle. Yahiko sprang to his feet instantly, hackles rising at the laughter emanating from behind him, he fought the urge to turn and kept his gaze locked on Gasuke.

This is going about how I expected. The puppy thought grimly, trying to block out the throbbing ache of the bite on his back and whining protests of his mistreated legs. His only chance would be to explain himself now before the Yakuza had thrown themselves into their favorite pastime.

“Listen,” the puppy began, refusing to back down, “I’ve decided-”

“Yahiko!” the brown and white puppy jerked, breaking eye contact to stare incredulously up the concrete incline that led to the road. It was that ugly female!

Ignoring the dogs surrounding the puppy, the oddly-marked wolf came down the incline in a quick trot, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” her voice was accusing, and Yahiko felt his ears flattening in embarrassment before he could stop them- because she sounded just like Kanbi had whenever she was especially annoyed with him.

“Hey! Who are you?” Asano growled out, the closest in the little circle to the rapidly-approaching female. Angry eyes the color of summer sky fixed on the speckled bird-dog dismissively,

“I’m not here to talk to you,” she growled out, and Yahiko was sure that the whole group knew that she was talking to all of them, “I came to talk to Yahiko.”

The puppy could only watch in dumb silence with a shocked expression that he knew looked silly as Kaoru came to a stop in the empty space between Gasuke and Asano, prudently standing a little farther back than the Yakuza dogs.

“Yahiko,” she sternly addressed the bloodied scrap of fur that stood frozen in the middle of the circle, his ears were completely flattened in surprise and apprehension now, and even that high curly tail had come down from his back- though it wasn’t tucked between his legs, always, the puppy would have his pride. “If you keep stealing stuff for these thugs, you’re going to either die or turn into them,” she bit out quickly, ears angled to pick up on any movement that the adult dogs might make as she focused her gaze on the nonplussed puppy.

Yahiko blinked expressive brown eyes, then glanced from side to side at the faces of Gasuke and Asano, unable to help himself. “Do you even know where you are, crazy lady?” he muttered, not liking the way that Gasuke was almost smiling.

Kaoru bristled at the quiet insult, but was stopped from saying anything by the muscular Doberman shifting to look at her, head cocked in a manner that was almost friendly.

“And who are you, miss?”

Yahiko shuddered in horror as he recognized that expression, and the movement released muscles that had been locked up. Quickly, he slipped from the circle and skidded to a halt in front of Kaoru, the motion kicking up dirt into her face and causing the female to shake her head in annoyance, but the puppy was already wheeling to face the four dogs again.

“She’s nobody! Just some crazy wolf that I met in the woods!”

Gasuke had lowered his head a little, as if trying to talk to Yahiko on his own level, but the tense nature of his frame revealed the truth of his preparation to attack, “I think the lady can answer for herself Ya.Hi.Ko.” the puppy had time to think that he really hated the way that Gasuke said his name before he was seized around the scruff by Asano.

Probably, the bird dog had intended to throw the puppy again, but Kaoru was having none of it.

With a growl that seemed too large for her smoky frame, the tanuki launched herself forward and latched onto the bird-dog’s floppy ear with punishing sharp teeth. Asano yelped, Yahiko tumbling from his open mouth to land in an awkward heap on the ground. Kaoru released the bird dog to raise a brow at the little puppy,

“You okay?”

Yahiko glared and didn’t respond, opting instead to barrel forward at the incensed Asano, who was coming at Kaoru as she ignored him. His weight was puny as he threw himself headfirst into Asano’s chest, his teeth too small to be very effectual as he tried to latch onto the bigger dog’s shoulder, and Yahiko knew that now he was in for it no matter what he said.

Why oh why had that stupid girl come?

Gasuke let out a sharp bark of command as Yahiko sunk his tiny fangs into Asano’s shoulder, trying to find a good grip before…

Jaws closed around his midsection with bruising force and yanked to drag him from his opponent. As the world swung crazily, Yahiko could see the birddog he’d bitten straightening with a snarl, bleeding from the right ear and shoulder. Tomo was coming toward the puppy, held captive by Chijin. Gasuke was standing with an amused expression as the wolf snarled at him, running toward the Doberman with hostile intent blazing in her blue eyes.

Chijin tightened his jaws a little further and the puppy couldn’t help the sharp whine that spilled from him. Asano was up and Tomo was there, their adult frames blocking his view of the world- but only for a minute. Kaoru descended on Tomo like an avenging whirlwind, her sharp muzzle finding the skin beneath his shaggy brown fur and ripping open his shoulder. As the mutt yelped, leg crumpling under the force of the injury, the captured puppy could see past him again for the briefest instant to Gasuke, still standing where he’d been with a malicious smirk exposing his fangs.

Kaoru had never reached the dog, distracted by the sound of Yahiko’s distress.

The she-wolf moved past Tomo as he tottered unsteadily, turning to snap at her without quite knowing where the female was. Chijin stepped nervously back from the threat bearing down on him, unable to defend himself with Yahiko still in his mouth. Kaoru seemed quite determined to fix that problem, however.

In a gray blur she caught up to the slow-moving dog, jaws that could snap a deer’s leg closed with extreme prejudice on Chijin’s ratty gray tail.

The instant yelp of pain- so much more piercing than anything that Yahiko had let slip, was almost comical. The gray mouth opened reflexively, and the puppy tumbled, landing on the ground half-winded but staggering to his feet as soon as he could manage.

Kaoru was in the thick of things now, Asano and Tomo leaping on her with snapping growls, the female snarled her own reply and did her best to avoid the slavering jaws aimed her way, trying to back up so she was no longer in the middle of three angry males.

Yahiko could see through the rapidly-shifting legs of the dueling adults with a numbing horror that Gasuke was pacing steadily toward the knot of furious fur now.

“Yahiko!” Kaoru snarled, and the pup jerked in surprise, he’d only been distracted for a minute, but now Tomo, instead of snapping at the Tanuki’s heels, had turned to go after the akita-husky mix, the gory mess over his left eye giving testament to why he’d chosen to go after a softer target.

A growl built rapidly in the puppy’s chest and he launched himself forward at the onrushing muzzle. In a move that was pure instinct the young dog latched onto the soft, fleshy black nose of his would-be attacker. Tomo gave a piercing howl as small sharp teeth easily penetrated the tender skin, shaking his head from side to side in an effort to dislodge the puppy, who was growing quite tired of being flung around like a litter-mate’s plaything. Still wagging his head from side to side, the older mutt raised a paw to try and scrape his hanger-on loose. Yahiko barely had time to register the painful pressure of blunt claws dragging down his form before sharp teeth closing on a hind leg overwhelmed his senses.

Without regard for the state of his comrade, Gasuke yanked, welling red from the patch of missing skin still held by Yahiko’s stubborn fangs appearing on what was left of Tomo’s nose as the puppy was pulled clear of his opponent. For a sickening moment, the akita-mix was suspended by one hind leg, his entire body screaming in distress, but with a painful wrench Gasuke tossed him again, and the puppy slid across the concrete, stopping at the very edge of the manmade material, where composite stone ended at the river began.

Revolted, the puppy gagged out the chunk of dog’s flesh that was in his mouth. It was much harder this time to stagger back to his feet, trembling limbs shot never-ending pain up to his body and the puppy could feel his fur beginning to clump together, each strand bound by blood to the strands that surrounded it.

A sharp yelp pierced the heavy air, followed by an angry snarl. In revenge for his own wounded tail, Chijin had bit down on Kaoru’s. The furious tanuki left the bites she was inflicting on Asano’s neck and shoulders to round on the gray mutt gamely clinging to striped fur. Rearing up on her hind legs, the storm-colored wolf brought her forepaws down on Chijin’s back, holding her in place for the deep bite she quickly administered to that back. Again, Chijin released what he held with a howl and the tanuki slipped like mist through the rest of the pack to stand beside Yahiko on the riverbank.

“Ready to go now, kid?” the wolf panted out after a moment, fighting back a feral light in her blue eyes with effort, though she didn’t turn to address the wounded life propped on trembling legs beside her. The puppy bristled angrily, fur standing up sharply in red-matted spikes,

“Who asked you to stick your nose in you ugly girl! I had everything under control!”

Kaoru’s expression had left annoyance in the dust three days ago, eyes snapping with renewed blue fire.

“Don’t you get it? You’ll die if you stay here!”

“Don’t you get it,” Yahiko snarled back with equal force, “I’m not leaving!”

The tanuki’s ears twitched and she took a deep breath, preparing to lay into the puppy again.

“Would your refusal to leave have something to do with the debt these dogs lay at your feet?”

Kaoru gave a start of surprise and looked back over to the incline that she had descended mere moments before. Kenshin was coming down at a steady pace, red fur glowing like the embers of a fire where the fading sunlight touched him, his calm question reverberating through the air to the small puppy that watched his approach with wide eyes.

The yakuza dogs shifted, still turned toward the female and pup, but their heads inclining toward the newcomer, who they watched with suspicion.

“My-” the puppy swallowed against that weak word that had slipped from him, calling on anger to strengthen his voice, “My debt is none of your business!” his small brown and white frame was vibrating with conflicting emotions.

He had to stay standing; he just wanted to lie down…

He had to be ready to fight; he didn’t want to get hurt anymore…

He must stay where he was; he wanted to run...

He wanted nothing more to do with any of these damn adults; he just wanted to go home!

“Kenshin,” the tanuki at Yahiko’s side started, taking a step toward her friend, only to stop with a scowl as the dogs that lay between them sent up a cacophony of growls at her movement.

“Miss Kaoru,” the Rurouni smiled, “I apologize for my lateness that I do,” the smile turned to self-deprecating humor, “I’m afraid that this one is not well acquainted with the town. However,” he continued, violet eyes finding Yahiko again, “One did meet a puppy called Yutaro who was able to give guidance.”

The little akita-mix felt heat rush into his ears, that little rat! He should never have told the overbred pet about his debt!

“Was he right in telling this one,” Kenshin went on as the sun finally dipped below the horizon, drawing warmth along with it like a final breath, “ that this debt concerns your mother?”

Yahiko shook his head against the burning sensation that hovered around his eyes and clogged his throat with babyish whines, “So what if it does?” Yahiko bit out, recognizing with horror that his voice was beginning to crack, anger not enough to hold it steady anymore, “The yakuza took care of her before she died.” The puppy turned to look at Gasuke, who stood untouched next to his bloodied companions, the beginnings of a toothy smile stretching across his muzzle, “And I’m going to pay it back,” the puppy howled, “but I’m sick of stealing! I’ll hunt the game down myself!”

Gasuke burst into sharp barks of laughter, throwing back his head to expose his chestnut-marked neck as he lost himself in gales of humor. Tomo, Asano and Chijin were chuckling now too, quivering slightly on their weakened legs, but gamely laughing on.

“Why are you laughing?!” Yahiko snarled wildly, “I will!”

“What’s all this racket been?” a grumpy voice cut through the laughter, and the four dogs subsided, looking expectantly to a vague shelter in the shadowy recesses of the overpass. Out from the gloom came a low figure, an English bulldog, stumbling heavily from the shelter of piled refuse where he had been sleeping.

Gasuke watched Tanishi’s approach with condescending patience. While things in the pack might be done in the bulldog’s name, he rarely took part in any activity with his subordinates anymore, and it was well known to everyone but Tanishi himself that Gasuke was jockeying for the position of lead dog. The bulldog fixed watery eyes in a smushed face on Yahiko.

“You’re saying that you don’t want to steal anymore, Yahiko?” wrinkles shifted as he shook his bulky head, “Yahiko, even you must realize that surviving isn’t about pride. A puppy as small as you should only worry about doing what we tell you, and let bigger things come later.”

The puppy bared his teeth; “I’m not doing it anymore!”

“Geh,” Tanishi scoffed in a wuffing motion that sent the wrinkles on his muzzle flying back and then forward. “I don’t know where you got the idea that you could walk out on us kid, but you’re crazy. Gasuke,” he ordered, the Doberman slinking forward on confident paws. Yahiko felt Kaoru tense beside him, but every muscle on his own tiny body was already wound tighter than he would have believed possible.

“I’m not running out on my debt!” The puppy insisted, seeing Kenshin perform an oddly fluid movement that seemed to lower the crimson wolf’s center of gravity. “I’ll pay back everything I owe!”

Gasuke laughed again, shaking his head from side to side as he advanced on the female and the pup, “Your debt, little Yahiko? Don’t tell me you actually believed that story that we fed you about taking care of your mother. What use is a sick female to anyone? It would have been a waste of food to fatten up someone who was obviously going to die.”

The puppy felt as though the tightly wound muscles that made up his body had reached their breaking point- why else would he be shaking all over, why else wouldn’t his eyes focus on anything, only stare with horror out into the distance beyond Gasuke?

Kanbi, Mother, Mom…Kanbi of the silver fur and curled tail, Mother of the ice-blue eyes and patient smile, mom… the one thing that had held his world together after he lost his siblings.

And she died because these bastards pretended to try and save her. She died because I believed that they would try and save her.

It was the loud howl rumbling its way through his chest and ripping itself out of his throat that alerted Yahiko to the fact that he was moving, barreling toward the madly grinning Gasuke. Time was moving strangely, the beginning of Kaoru’s warning bark came only as he was two strides from his hated foe, as if the world had slowed down- but he was moving so fast, he could feel it in the burning pain of his abused legs as he forced them to move faster still. A red blur flashed in the corner of his eye as the puppy reached the Doberman and launched himself at that long pointed face, soaring past the left eye, which followed him with some surprise as the powerful jaws snapped down on the air where the puppy had been. Yahiko bit down on Gasuke’s erect left ear with extreme prejudice and held on, grinding his jaws to try and tear through the tender skin and cartilage.

The world had dissolved into maddening chaos- flashes of silver-gray fur furiously fighting with amber-brown and speckled, glimpses of scarlet burning through the fabric of the world, and the black and tan of Gasuke, the gangster so close, his rank stench filling the puppy’s nose.

The yakuza Doberman howled his pain in a guttural roar, shaking his head from side to side, Yahiko’s brown and white body flopping like a fish out of water, anchored in place only by his deathgrip on the other dog’s ear. With an impossible twist of his head, Gasuke managed to seize the puppy’s right hind leg- but Yahiko refused to yelp and loose his hold. Disgusting blood was filling his mouth, but he had finally perforated the ear completely.

Clenching down to secure his own grip on the white limb, Gasuke gave a strong yank, in a bizarre slingshot motion; Yahiko was ripped away from the Doberman’s skull.

The young dog however, did not leave without a trophy; a bloodied stump remained where a once proud ear had stood.

Yahiko had made a mark. Gasuke would never be able to forget him.

Gotcha, you bastard, the puppy thought feebly as the tattered remnants of the ear fell from his slack jaws. Gasuke was slinging him again, throwing him to skid across the concrete. Wonder if he meant to do that, Yahiko wondered a little sardonically as he hit the unforgiving ground and rolled to a skidding stop, not sure if his time he would be able to force himself to his feet. Would’ve been smarter to break my leg, drop me, and kill me.

But that was the last thought that the beleaguered puppy had time for as now, he finally got a glimpse of the fight that had been going on without him.

Chijin had a crushed paw, which he cradled to himself as the dark gray dog slunk away from the fight, eyes full of fear that he would not be allowed to retreat- but he wasn’t the only one. Tomo still had use of all four legs, but his shoulders and haunches were liberally peppered with painful-looking bites, bleeding freely as he took off as fast as his four paws would carry him.

Asano was on the ground, twitching, probably not even conscious anymore, one floppy ear half-gone and a deep gash above his eyes busily staining his face a familiar red.

Kaoru had managed to bowl over Tanishi somehow, despite the bulldog’s lower center of gravity and was snarling down her long sharp muzzle into his short blunt one. A rank smell of urine was emanating from the downed leader.

For a moment, Yahiko didn’t see Kenshin, then some instinct that he couldn’t explain compelled deep brown eyes to look up.

The red wolf hung in the sky like the inverted crescent of an eclipsed moon, impossibly high, but streaming back down to earth in an incredibly graceful expression of speed and power. The hapless Doberman below the wolf never knew what hit him, one moment the dark yakuza was stalking toward the prone Yahiko, the next he had been seized by the neck and hurled bodily into the river.

The splash was terrific, the sight of the dog struggling against the current that pulled him downstream even more so.

With a final growl of some choice words for his pack’s idea of fun, Kaoru let up Tanishi, and the bow-legged dog took off after his followers.

And then there were only the wolves and the puppy.

“I wasn’t sure if you were going to come, Kenshin,” that ugly female was telling the red wolf, but her voice sounded a little distant, a little cloudy, even though she wasn’t standing all that far away from Yahiko.

“This one never said that he did not wish to help Miss Kaoru. One was only pointing out the difficulties in doing so.”

Peh, grownups… talk a thing to death if you let them… with a low groan, Yahiko forced his legs to cooperate, shoving against the pain even harder than he had to push against gravity to try and regain his feet.

“Are you okay kid?” Kenshin was at his side now in worry, offering a solid red and white shoulder to lean on, crouching to be of service. Yahiko snapped at the proffered assistance,

“I’m fine!” he growled, holding wobbling legs straight by sheer determination, brown eyes focused on the tilting ground, and therefore missing the concerned gazes that met over his head.

“We’d better get him to some help,” Kenshin was saying to Kaoru now, talking about him like he wasn’t even there!

The female hesitated, looking at the beat-up scrap of fur that heaved out ragged breaths, her ears pinned back.

“It might be best to get him to some humans for help.”

Kenshin’s voice was thoughtful; “Yutaro told me that his family is moving away soon, to a place with more room for him. They might take one more…”

“NO!” Yahiko howled in annoyance, glaring up at his rescuers. How dare they make the suggestion of placing him with those furless fleshpiles! These wolves didn’t understand!

Humans had murdered his father Samurai when he wasn’t needed anymore. They’d trained the proud Akita to be a guard dog, to be ruthless to intruders, then had him killed when the company moved on, convinced he would be too hostile to ever go into a normal family.

Humans had planned to drown his mother’s puppies (drown him) when they’d realized she was pregnant. Only Kanbi’s swift escape had saved the lives of her offspring. Only because of his mother’s courage had Yahiko even been born.

Humans were the ones who took Ronin and Shinai away, and without the help of his siblings, Yahiko hadn’t been able to take care of their mother when she’d needed it most. In a way he was glad he didn’t know where his older brother was- having mom die was bad enough, admitting to Ronin that he’d failed to save her was unthinkable.

“Yahiko!” Kaoru scolded, visibly restraining herself from touching the injured puppy- and likely sending him toppling over, “it’s what’s best for you. You need someone to take care of you!”

“I’m not a pet!”

“Well you can’t go out there alone!”

“Perhaps he should stay with us, Miss Kaoru.” Kenshin remarked thoughtfully, a smile tugging at his mouth as he regarded the fiery-eyed duo.

“WHAT?!” Two heads, one gray and masked, the other brown and bloodied, turned as one to stare at the Rurouni. Kaoru’s mouth was working but no sound was coming out, Yahiko, however, never seemed to be at a loss for words.

“Who would want to go and live with you two mangy bums! Nobody asked for your help!”

Kenshin ignored him, focusing on the female that he regarded as the rightful owner of their territory, “We’ve agreed that someone needs to look out for him,” he pointed out calmly, “and you said that you were in the habit of picking up strays.”

Kaoru snorted expressively down her nose, then sighed, “Oh, all right, Kenshin. We can see how it goes.”

The red-furred Rurouni turned with a smile to the puppy,

“So you see, kid, it’s all worked out.”

Yahiko snarled in his face again, “I don’t want to go with you! And I’m not a kid!”

Kenshin gave a heavy sigh, “This one can’t seem to help but insulting you. Perhaps one day you will forgive.”

And in a move that completely shocked the puppy, the red wolf reached over and grabbed Yahiko by the scruff, the way that his mother used to carry him when he’d done something especially stupid, and started walking down the river toward the beckoning darkness of the forest.

The first stars shone through the city gloom, as the sound of the puppy’s curses filled the air.

It was really pretty lucky that Yahiko was so small- being held by the scruff had become uncomfortable since he last time his mother had done it. Likely if he’d been fed properly, it wouldn’t have been a good idea. Of course, the puppy didn’t feel that it was a good idea anyway. He’d finally stopped squirming a few minutes ago, when Kaoru had run back to town to let Yutaro know that his friend was all right.

The puppy could admit that it was nice of the wolves to think that the pet might be worried, but Yahiko had flatly refused to see the smug Akita while being carried.

The red wolf holding his scruff in gentle teeth plodded along, the inviting wood (inviting for the wolf anyway, the akita-mix qualified sourly,) drawing closer with each step.

The silence was growing oppressive, and Yahiko fought to keep back the steadily building unease. He couldn’t see the wolf carrying him; those teeth already near his throat… Stupid! He shoved the fear back again, why would they go to all of the trouble of rescuing me just to kill me themselves! He caught the thought only after it had slipped past. Not that I needed their help!

“Hey, you,” the puppy finally called back in exasperation, wishing he could twist to see Kenshin’s face. “Can you put me down now?  I can walk.”

The quiet steps continued onward, and Yahiko was sure that he was being ignored. But, impossibly, the wolf slowed and lowered his head, allowing the akita-mix to get the earth under his paws before releasing his furry scruff. Despite his claims of being fine, Yahiko had to stagger a few steps before he caught his balance again.

“The den is this way,” the red wolf commented, tactfully overlooking the puppy’s bumbling attempts to keep his feet and walking more slowly than he had been, one purple eye trained on his young charge.

Yahiko didn’t budge an inch, until finally, the Rurouni was forced to stop and look questioningly into those blazing brown eyes.

“Why are you doing this? Whatever you think you’re going to get from me, you’re not!”

Kenshin cocked his head to one side, regarding the angry puppy with an almost quizzical expression.

“Miss Kaoru and this one are not trying to get anything from you, Yahiko.”

The puppy snorted, “Yeah, sure. You’re just helping me out of the goodness of your hearts.” The tone was scathing, and for a moment Kenshin only blinked in response, then a slow smile twitched at the corners of his muzzle.

“That sounds about right, Yahiko. One can’t speak for Miss Kaoru of course, but this one does know what it is to be alone in a hostile world. With luck, such a fate will not be accorded to you.”

Half-formed sarcastic comebacks died unsaid in the puppy’s throat as he looked at that peaceful smile, a smile that seemed almost to invite the brown akita-mix to vent his ire on that face. A twinge of pain pushing its way insistently through Yahiko’s body was what finally made him decide to step forward.

It wasn’t as if he was going to stay forever or anything, he didn’t owe these wolves a thing after all, if things got too weird, or they started treating him like a moving target, he’d split. Take off somewhere over the horizon where nobody knew him, and maybe he’d be strong, as strong as Kenshin had been when he arced through the air to send Gasuke, the immovable Gasuke, tumbling into the river.

So maybe he’d stay for a bit, maybe he could learn to be strong. Gritting his teeth against the complaints of his body, Yahiko began to follow the red wolf.

With an exaggerated yawn the red wolf flopped down in his customary spot, head angled so that his nose pointed to the door. Stretching a bit, Kaoru moved to her position on the other side of the den and curled up, ringed tailtip just touching her nose, she kept her eyes half open.

Yahiko stood where they’d left him, still in the middle of the den, looking back and forth at the adults in slight confusion. Then, with that brash confidence that made her so want to pin him, the bony white chest puffed out, the tousle-furred head came up, and he proudly walked over to a spot in between them and laid down.

It didn’t take the tanuki long to notice that the puppy was having a hard time getting comfortable. He tossed and turned, getting up twice to change his position entirely. Kaoru was about two seconds from grabbing him by the scruff and shaking him silly when she heard the low whine. She raised her head, fixing the puppy with alert blue eyes, noting peripherally that Kenshin had turned one ear to their new charge.

The whine had been quiet, and obviously not something the young dog had wanted his rescuers to hear- an unconscious exhalation. He was now curled up, laying still, every muscle stiff under his spiky coat and his eyes screwed shut with such force that it had to be contrived.

And abruptly, it clicked, and Kaoru could have snapped at her own heels for not realizing it before. Moving quietly, she stood and padded over to the puppy. She knew that Yahiko knew exactly who was there and how close they were- his tiny chest was moving up and down with rapid breaths and his ears twitched constantly. Aware of a certain silent Rurouni’s scrutiny, she lay down, pressing her back up against the small quivering mass of fur and closed her eyes.

One, two, three.. she counted grimly to herself, aware that if she had miscalculated, Yahiko would at any second be leaping up and demanding to know what she was doing. But if she was right, and what they had here was a case of a puppy severely missing the contact of his mother… slowly, she felt the stiffness go out of the figure she’d pressed up against, and soft puppy warmth molded itself bonelessly against her spine.

When Kenshin awoke later, it was to the sight of Yahiko curled into Kaoru’s stomach, while the wolf wrapped around him in a shape like a crescent moon.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: Bad Dog

Throw it all away, throw it all away!
I keep on screaming but
There’s really nothing left to say
So get away, just get away!
I keep on fighting but
I can't keep going on this way

-Hollywood Undead, Sell Your Soul

A piercing yelp rent the night, the pounding paws that sounded frantic retreat a staccato beat against the hard-packed earth. The hunter’s moon lit the scene as clearly as noonday sun, but with far less warmth.

A snarl sounded, followed by a rumbling growl as a white dog with brown-black splotches threw itself into the roiling fray.

The impromptu battleground was littered with human refuse and the footprints of dogs that had fled the fight, as well as the whining bodies of the dogs who hadn’t been able to run.

The splotchy stray yelped as it was thrown clear of the brawl, coming to an abrupt halt as he fetched up against a discarded tire. Silence fell heavily on the clearing except for the groaning breaths of injured dogs.

A loud snort blew human-garbage scented dust away from a fleshy brown nose and the white dog, still conscious and staring at the challenger through one horror-filled brown eye (the other glued shut from the blood sluggishly oozing from the gash in his brow) tried to back up, pressing himself more firmly against the black tire.

The tall challenger of the junkyard dogs shook himself, unruly spiky fur swaying before settling back to the half-erect position it enjoyed on his lanky frame. Mismatched brown and white paws took a step forward— too close to the beaten white dog for him to feel comfortable.

“You win!” the bloodied dog groveled, scrabbling against the ground to push itself closer to the tire, further away from the strange dog that had so easily wandered into his territory and defeated all his packmates with hardly an injury to show for it. The stranger paused; brown eyes underlined by creamy fur lighting on his foe in something like surprise.

“Well, yeah,” the brash voice was insulting, but the white dog was not about to throw himself back into a fight with that monster. “I kinda figured. Ché,” he snorted again, as if the smell of the battleground disgusted him. He raised his head to stare up at the full moon, glaring balefully down at him, spotlighting the curious black marking on his back, which meant Evil in one of the human languages. “Aren’t there any tough guys around here? This fight was so Boring.”

“Boring.” Yahiko yawned theatrically, watching from the corner of his eye as Kaoru’s lip curled just one millimeter further. Another three comments and she’d snap. The female who was, by now impatiently, trying to show him the borders of their territory (hers and Kenshin’s anyway,) had a hair trigger temper, which Yahiko took great pains to purposefully set off at least once a day.

Kenshin was harder to read, a smiling warm adult who didn’t get mad, and actually made the puppy want to wrangle a complement out of that scarred face. It was weird.

Better to stick with familiar, predictable anger.

Better to make sure that even when Kaoru snapped, he wasn’t really in danger.

“Who cares where the boundary is?”

Kaoru’s movements had taken on a jerky, uneven rhythm, quite unlike the lithe grace that she had encouraged the puppy to emulate when moving through the forest.

“Because,” the she wolf gritted, “anything that lives in our territory belongs to us to hunt. If another pack comes in and hunts here, they’re stealing our food.”

“I still don’t see why it matters,” the spike-furred puppy shrugged. “You let strays wander through all the time.”

“That’s different…” Kaoru shot a look at Kenshin, the crimson-furred rearguard who had seemed quite content to let Kaoru take on the role of teaching their new charge.

“Not every territory is as lenient as this one, Yahiko,” the Rurouni chimed in obligingly. “Most packs are larger than ours and must guard their food jealously. If a pack can take over another’s territory, they will do so.” Violet eyes were grave, “Trespassing in another pack’s land is a serious offense; it has been the death of many lone wolves as well as young ones who didn’t realize the danger. That is why it is important that you recognize the boundaries and never cross them unless Miss Kaoru or myself is with you.”

Kaoru shuddered a little, gray fur rising and falling in a ripple. Yahiko frowned, glancing at the female, then back to the placid Kenshin.

“Were you ever a lone wolf, Kenshin?”

“One was.”

The frown deepened. “If it’s so dangerous, how did you get through other wolves territories?” Memory flashed, a scarlet blur decimating the Suhei Syndicate, but Yahiko shoved it aside. Kenshin might be a good (an absolutely amazing) fighter, but the syndicate weren’t the toughest guys out there. Kenshin gave a wry chuckle.

“Well, if one is quite sneaky and very fast, sometimes it is possible to make it through.”

It was apparent by the unmoving frown that Yahiko wasn’t entirely convinced.

“… And just walking around lets them know this is our territory.”

“Among other things,” the red wolf agreed, stepping nimbly around a fallen branch. Kaoru took up the instruction again, striped tail cutting a swaying arc in the midday air.

“Patrolling the boundaries like this lays down our pack-scent, and gives warning that this place is occupied.”

“Our… pack scent?”

Dark gray ears bobbed as Kaoru nodded, moving steadily forward. “Yeah. We each have an individual scent, but when we come together and start living in the same place we rub off on each other. That mingled scent becomes the pack scent.”

“Gross! That means I have to smell like you?” Not that Kaoru smelled bad exactly. At least, not bad like Gasuke or Tomo, but it was going to be hard convincing enemies that he was tough if he walked around smelling like he’d just had a roll in summer grass-flowers.

“I do not stink!” Kaoru snapped back, ears flattened as she glared at him, offended and angry all at once. Oh, Yahiko realized, That was three comments, wasn’t it…

And now Kaoru was looming in the way that the puppy had come to realize meant that she was going to bowl him over and pin him again. Fat chance!

No fool, Yahiko darted off into the forest, hearing the faintly sweet-smelling female charge after him like a juggernaut.

“YAHIKO!!”

Over the half-buried rock, through a pile of fallen leaves, Yahiko left all plans behind in his headlong rush, trusting to adapting instincts to keep him from crashing, as he had the first few times Kaoru had chased him. The very first time he hadn’t realized quick enough that he ought to run away when the tanuki got mad. She’d knocked him over in a rough (but gentle compared to the yakuza) buffet.

The small pack would never know what she had intended to do next, as the puppy had launched himself into a fight with the female. After a scuffle, in which Kaoru still didn’t hurt him, even though he bit down really hard on her foot, Yahiko was subdued and life went on. Just like that.

It was beyond bizarre, knowing that even when Kaoru and Kenshin were mad, were fighting with him, he wasn’t going to get hurt. Too bizarre, and who knew how long it was going to last? Better to run. He was definitely getting better at running.

Skid around the base of this wide oak to slingshot in another direction and- Yahiko’s plan crumpled in an impact of furry body on furry body, and he fell in a tangle of limbs with the yowling cat that he had careened into.

Kaoru came up behind them in half a heartbeat’s space.

“Tae! Are you all right?”

Is she all right? Yahiko thought indignantly, feeling a prickle of claws through his thick fur and holding very still as the bobcat picked her way free of their tumble.

“Kaoru?” the spotted feline answered her friend, finally clearing herself from the brown and white puppy.

Yahiko scrambled to his feet quickly, keeping the bobcat between him and Kaoru, though the tanuki seemed to have forgotten her desire to smear him across the fallen leaves.

She was glaring at him, a little, tailtip twitching in a way that said he’d forgotten something and if he didn’t remember soon she’d educate him. And Tae looked a little miffed as she licked pale fur on her chest flat.

“Sorry,” Yahiko mumbled, his mother’s lessons nudging at him. “Wasn’t looking where I was going.”

And that was it. Tae nodded amiably at him and then turned back to the adults. No rubbing his face in it, just acceptance.

“I was looking for you, Kaoru.” Tae told her friend cheerfully. “I was wondering if you wanted to try the deer trick, the herd’s moving through.”

“The deer trick?” Kenshin echoed, a curious tilt to his head. Kaoru nodded briskly.

“Sometimes Tae and I will share a kill. In the deer trick, we find the herd, plan a route and Tae sets up an ambush.”

Tae grinned, whiskered twitching. “Kaoru is so stubborn— she just runs a deer over to where I’m waiting and,” she shrugged, examining a pawful of claws, “death comes from above.”

“You chase deer?” Yahiko’s eyes bugged out of his head. “They’re huge!”

The yakuza had never gone after anything bigger than they were. When they had bothered to go after anything at all. Kaoru rolled her eyes, but Kenshin answered first, almost blandly.

“Elk are larger yet, and moose are monstrous, but it is possible to bring down either.”

The dog and tanuki stared at the wolf, who smiled in a way that wasn’t quite oblivious. Kaoru shook herself and looked doubtfully at Yahiko.

“The deer trick might be a good idea.” The puppy couldn’t tell if Kaoru still thought he needed feeding or didn’t think he would be able to keep up with the adults on a hunt. Either option was condescending, so he made sure that Kaoru caught his scowl.

“Sessha would be interested to see your hunting methods,” Kenshin remarked thoughtfully. “There is always something new to learn.”

Kaoru’s ears tilted back just a little; surprised that Kenshin hadn’t volunteered to help. Though now that she thought about it, it would be pretty dangerous to attempt a hunt like this without first seeing what the other was likely to do. Koshijiro had always said that learning to know what a partner would do without worrying about speech or watching your back was the most important part of a hunt.

Besides, someone would need to keep an eye on Yahiko, and Tae still seemed to be under the impression that the Rurouni was an affable puppy. Strong enough to fight off small dog-packs with Kaoru, but certainly not an exceptional fighter.

“Okay,” Kaoru agreed, feeling anticipation of the hunt shivering up her spine like clear moonlight. “Where did you see the herd, Tae?”

Kenshin kept a dark red ear on the sulking puppy trailing along behind him. Yahiko had been told in no uncertain terms by all of the adults that he was to stay out of the way and stick with Kenshin.

The Rurouni did feel a certain sympathy for his reluctant charge, feeling like the most useless pack-member was never easy, but the wolf had clear memory of sharp black hooves that could deal deadly damage to an untrained hunter.

“Here should be fine, Yahiko.” Kenshin eased into some thick undergrowth, which had a clear view of the gnarled old tree that Tae had chosen to launch her attack from. The spotted feline was well camouflaged in the upper boughs, sinking into the quiet calm of the predator who must catch their prey by surprise.

Yahiko surveyed Kenshin’s chosen concealment moodily, Chocolate-brown ears flat against his head in irritation.

“I don’t see why Kaoru should get to go alone.”

Kenshin grabbed the worry that wanted to drag him off after the female by the scruff and gave it a firm shake to quiet it.

“Miss Kaoru knows what she’s doing, that she does,” the red wolf replied patiently. “And until we’ve gotten a little more used to each other, it would be unwise to hunt something so dangerous.”

Yahiko frowned at that, red-brown eyes thoughtful— but aggressively so. Yahiko, Kenshin had learned, didn’t do much peacefully—even think.

“More used to each other? How long have you and Kaoru known each other?”

“Less than a moon.” Kenshin trained his senses on the copse of trees that shielded the herd from view, hoping that Yahiko wouldn’t press the issue. He wouldn’t lie to the puppy, but as of yet only Kaoru knew about the past that he had fled, and something told him that life would be simpler the longer that he could keep it that way. Yahiko was opening his mouth to ask the Rurouni about it when the red wolf silenced him with a violet glance, signaling the puppy to get down and stay quiet.

It gratified the wolf immensely to see his wayward charge comply almost instantly, focusing his own untrained senses on the copse that Kenshin had been observing.

For the next few heartbeats, anyway.

After about a minute of no apparent change in the forest around them, Yahiko turned to the adult again, opening his mouth once more, ears now back in annoyance at having been brushed off the first time.

A pale brown form burst from the trees, a small-seeming silver-gray shadow tight to its heels. Yahiko reeled back in shock and Kenshin tensed.

The doe seemed young and strong— never a good choice for a wolf. Kaoru seemed to know that though, running out of range of the delicate-seeming legs and the wicked hooves that ended them. When the dark-eyed beast veered to the right or the left Kaoru picked up her pace to run alongside the creature and make it leap away, herding it to force it to pass beneath the tree.

It was a technique that Kenshin had seen before, but never implemented with only one wolf to drive the prey and a bobcat of all things lying in wait.

Wild-eyed the deer passed below the twisted tree and Tae landed with enviable precision on the narrow back, claws outstretched to keep her on top of things. The doe convulsed, flanks shuddering, as it seemed to go berserk. The deer leaped and twisted, bucked and charged blindly about the woods in the desperate attempt to dislodge its furry attacker. Kaoru ducked around its heels, trying to keep the doe from getting away— but by now the deer was beyond caring about the sooty predator at its feet. Kaoru had to scramble aside to avoid being trampled, and the deer charged off.

Straight toward Kenshin and Yahiko’s hiding place. The Rurouni felt the puppy go rigid beside him, and a quick glance confirmed that the youngster was paralyzed, all thought of flight lost in the face of the oncoming giant.

Another glance confirmed that Tae was still in no position for a killing blow and that Kaoru, realizing where the deer was heading, was already beginning to move in closer than was safe.

The red wolf burst from concealment in a concentrated leap, the frightened doe’s head came up instinctively as it fought to slow or change directions. The white patch of fur where the neck connected to the jaw was a target that he couldn’t miss.

Kaoru came to an abrupt halt, coming just short of flying into the crazy tangle of limbs that was Kenshin and Tae. The red wolf and frazzled bobcat tried to extract themselves from their tangle in flurries of movement that only seemed to add to the problem.

Kaoru had seen, in that crystal-clear moment when she had known that the doe was heading for her pack (for an untested pup) and the familiar red and white arc of Kenshin had burst from concealment. With cool clarity the tanuki had seen Tae’s claws lose their grip with the deer’s sudden deceleration and the calculation in the typically inscrutable Rurouni’s eyes, as a slight shift of his lithe body in the air carried him into Tae’s path. Yahiko stood on the sidelines of the scuffle, unruly fur standing out just a little more stiffly than usual. But his eyes were regaining focus, coming back to the present with a jolt. Though with a ruckus like the one laid at his paws, it would be hard for anyone to stay in dreamland.

“Miss Tae! Your claws!” Kenshin yelped as the aforementioned weapons scraped down his side.

“Hold still!” the bobcat yowled back, fur bushed impressively and her bobtail a thick bristle. With whimpered “oro’s” of distress, the red wolf managed to stop his comical squirming long enough for Tae to get clear. The cat did so with a leap, turning at once as she landed to try and lay to rest the spotted fur on her shoulders.

“Never,” she managed between licks, “want to do that again.”

“Yahiko slow down!” Kaoru scolded. “It’s not going to go anywhere!”

Yahiko, Kenshin noted, wasn’t heading the warning in the slightest, ripping large mouthfuls out of their hard-won meal and hardly swallowing before going back in for another bite.

“Yahiko, you’re going to-” Kenshin took up the warning, “-choke.” Too late. The puppy coughed, small sides heaving for a moment as Kaoru hovered nervously by his side before he visibly swallowed and raised his head in a weak glare at Kaoru’s “we tried to tell you!”

The already-familiar bickering faded into the background as Kenshin let himself relax. Their adopted charge was still unused enough to the prospect of ready food to keep this squabble from escalating into anything that the Rurouni would need to concern himself with.

Surreptitiously violent eyes scanned the slight frame. One week since they had dragged Yahiko home, literally by the scruff of his neck. Thanks to careful feeding, the curly-tailed dog had grown some, another inch and a scattered few pounds ensuring that he couldn’t be carried in the undignified puppy-hold for any length of time. But that extra inch also meant that the scattered pounds weren’t showing up as well as any of the three would like. His ribs were no longer visible, but his flanks were still too lean for a growing puppy, and his shoulder blades had a tendency to jut out at sharp angles.

Sure enough the young wolf and dog soon turned away from each other in a huff, the latter falling back on his meal with only slightly reduced gusto while Kaoru hesitated a moment, looking off to the west, where her bobcat friend had gone.

Tae had eaten with the small pack for a little while, forcing down jumpy instincts at allowing other predators near her food before calling it quits. Kenshin had helped the feline pull free a leg for her to eat in the solitude and safety of her trees, with a standing invitation to return to the kill whenever she liked.

Kaoru’s charcoal gray ears flicked back and forth a few times before she turned back to the meal once more. The two wolves and the dogs ate in partial silence, disturbed only by the repeated admonishment to “slow down, Yahiko!”

Kenshin, predictably, was the first to hear it. Moving slowly so as not to alarm his companions, the red wolf raised his muzzle from the food and almost idly licked his chops, as though merely taking a break from eating. Kaoru was the next to notice, sharp blue eyes taking in the Rurouni’s fixed stance, ears and nose angled toward something upwind. Brow furrowed, the tanuki copied his pose until she could hear what had caught his attention.

Yahiko, busily eating, jumped when he heard the quiet mutterings nearby, red-brown eyes turning almost instinctively to the adults. Kenshin was already moving forward on completely silent white paws. As the Rurouni approached, the muttering grew more distinct.

“Jerk. Didn’t have to run me all the way out to the middle of nowhere. I just got in town! Can’t a guy catch some honest sleep anymore?”

The voice and the scent that accompanied it on the light breeze were male and young, but still an adult. Definitely more Kaoru’s age than Yahiko’s.

“Gah, getting angry makes me hungry. Gotta be something to eat around here.”

Kenshin could see the young interloper now, a lanky beast whose tall gangly frame told the tale of one who hadn’t received adequate nutrition in his early seasons to fill out as his frame would suggest, but the muscle on that frame gave testimony that such starvation was a thing of the past.

The stranger had honey-brown fur with dirty white socks on all four paws and an underbelly of the same. A funny black marking spread across his back, and his brown eyes were alert despite his careless demeanor.

Wolf? Or dog? Kenshin caught the thought as the stranger came to an abrupt halt, shaking his head as if to clear it.

“Gotta make sure you aren’t on anybody’s territory Sagara!” he chided himself, with a roll of his eyes he sat back on his haunches in a careless movement. “Guess I better check where the local pack is and where the boundaries are.” He lifted his head, sucking in a breath that swelled his ribcage impressively and exposed a creamy white underjaw.

Kenshin stepped forward smoothly. “The pack boundary is quite a distance behind you,” he offered cheerfully as the stranger staggered in surprise, gathered air expelled forcefully as brown eyes bulged. “And the pack is here.”

“Don’t do that!” the stranger griped, shaking himself to resettle fur that was almost as spiky as Yahiko’s.

“One would apologize for startling you, that he would.” Kenshin offered, hearing Kaoru step out to stand alongside him, Yahiko a reluctant shadow. The puppy wrinkled his nose at the newcomer.

“Who do you think you are, anyway?”

Kenshin spared a moment to wonder if the rudeness could be excused— the three of them did have a rather valuable meal mere steps away after all, but swiftly decided that the question was moot anyway, as Kaoru instantly took the offending puppy to task.

“Yahiko, manners!”

“S’alright missy,” the stranger shrugged again, this time lazily, his tail thumping the ground. “I’m a trespasser an’ all. Name’s Sanosuke Sagara. Folks mostly call me Sano.”

“I’m Kamiya Kaoru, that’s Kenshin, and the rude fluffball at my feet is Yahiko.”

“Fluffball!” Yahiko yelped. “You-you ugly broke-faced mutt!”

Kenshin stepped neatly between the two before it could come to blows, and smiled at the mildly interested newcomer.

“So, Sanosuke, what brings you to our territory?”

Kenshin heard Yahiko settle back on his haunches with an annoyed snort.

And this is why he will never think trespassing is serious, the red wolf acknowledged ruefully. Because Miss Kaoru and this one never treat it that way.

The hazel-hued canine shrugged black marked shoulders carelessly.

“Ran into some humans back in town who wanted to cram me into a crate. Gave ‘em the slip but…” brown eyes flickered between Kaoru’s and Kenshin’s, completely passing over the puppy glaring from between them. “No offense, but all these trees look the same.”

Kenshin could almost see Kaoru mentally assigning Sagara the label of “town dog,” but it didn’t seem to fit. Sano sat, towering above the wolves with a lazy, contented air, none of the nervous excitement or panic that city-bred dogs usually showed when outside of their concrete haven. Sano had been in the woods before…

“Your sense of direction must suck.” Yahiko turned his nose up. The spike-furred stranger bristled slightly, ears flattening.

“Look,” Sano said, trying not to glower and loosing the battle, “being a puppy buys you some leeway kid, but it’s a bad idea to mouth off so much even with your folks around to back you up.”

“I’m not his mother!”

“What part of me looks related to them?!” Kaoru and Yahiko snarled— more, Kenshin guessed from the apparent insult of it being suggested that they were family than actual anger at Sanosuke.

“It’s okay,” the red wolf soothed his irritable companions, watching how their guest had stiffened from the corner of his eye. Keeping his most innocent smile firmly in place he red wolf turned to face the brown dog again. “We are a rather unusual pack, that we are.”

“’m beginning to see that,” Sanosuke muttered under his breath, Kenshin pretended not to hear.

“This one believes that earlier you were complaining of hunger, that you were. If it is acceptable we have a meal that we might share with you.”
What?!” Yahiko yelped, yelped again as Kaoru trod deliberately on his footpaw.

“I don’t mind if you don’t, Kenshin.”

“I mind!” Yahiko insisted, but a toothy grin was already spreading across the stranger’s face.

“You had me at meal. I’m starving.”

While starving didn’t seem to apply to Sano, ravenous certainly did. Yahiko circled the remains of the deer nervously, unwilling to continue eating next to Sano’s never-stilling maw, but Kenshin and Kaoru ate a few bites more to be polite. Sano didn’t seem to mind.

Settling himself back on his haunches, the lean dog licked his chops with a contented sigh.

“Now that’s a meal. That’s the worst of sticking it out with the townies— anything you get is half-rotted even when it’s fresh.”

“How would you know the difference?” Yahiko sniped, glowering at the remains of their once-impressive meal. Sano pinned his ears back, but Kaoru snapped off a response first.

“So help me Yahiko, if you’re rude one more time I will let Sanosuke go after you, and you’ll deserve it!”

Sano chuckled, “Look out there half-pint, big sis isn’t going to watch out for you any more!”

“I already said we aren’t related stupid! They’re wolves, I’m a dog, how would that have even happened?!”

Brown fur rippled in a shrug, the black marking on Sano’s back dancing as the hairs that comprised it shifted.

“Didn’t say anything about blood, kid. Sisters is sisters and brothers is brothers. It’s written all over the pair of you.” A white-socked hindpaw rose to dig at an itch on the side of Sano’s head. “But speaking of wolves and dogs, what did you think I was?”

“A dog obviously.” Red-brown eyes flicked to his hero, then back at the interloper. “Kenshin aside, I’ve never seen a wolf that wasn’t gray.”

“Only half right on both counts.” Sano dug a little harder for a second, then shook himself.

“A hybrid?” Kenshin supplied with faint interest.

“The same,” Sano agreed, “Wolf father, dog mother, mixed up kids.”

“I’ve never met one before,” Kaoru admitted. “Though I think Tae knew one or two at her old place.”

“We’re kinda scarce in the wild,” Sano nodded, “but really not all that special. Just more likely to get taken for some tame mutt and chased around by humans.”

“So are you new to this area then, Sanosuke?”

“Yeah, wandered in two nights ago, I’ve been living in the junkyard, looking for a decent fight.”

“For a… what?” Kaoru blinked. Sano grinned, displaying all of his teeth.

“A fight, a tussle, a scrape. I wander around looking for anybody tough enough to be a challenge.”

“Why?” Kenshin asked, perplexed. Sano shook his head in an abortive movement.

“It’s just what I do. I like an honest fight with no hard feelings, but any kind’ll do. I really just can’t stand to see injustice you know? Rubs me the wrong way, like seeing a bird underwater or something.” Sano’s eyes glinted, turning hard in the late afternoon light, “Only trouble is most bullies can’t fight worth anything.”

“That does seem to be the way of it,” Kenshin agreed ruefully. Sano’s ears perked up instantly.

“You’re a fighter, Kenshin?”

The red-furred wolf retreated a subtle half-step with a smile. “Oh no, this one’s skills are nothing to speak of.”

Yahiko frowned, ears tilted back. “What are you talking about Kenshin?”

Kaoru jumped in, quickly moving between Sano and Kenshin, her striped tail bristling.

“Kenshin doesn’t believe in fighting for no reason,” she insisted firmly, stance daring the lanky fighter to press the issue. Sanosuke smiled, but his ears had lowered a fraction.

“All right missy, all right! Don’t suppose you want a fight then?”
Kaoru snorted, but relaxed. “There’s no point in it.”

“Like I said, no hard feelings. I know I’m a fighting fool and most folks aren’t.” The hybrid pushed himself to his feet in an easy motion, towering over his companions. “If you ever change your mind though, you can always find me over in the junkyard. I’m not planning on wandering off for a spell.”

Kenshin smiled, but made no comment on the offer. “Well, would you like this one to guide you back to the town, Sano?”

The hybrid shook his head, “Nah, I’ll make it back if you just point me in the right direction.”

Kenshin had doubts about that, but did as requested and gave Sagara some brief directions. With a jaunty farewell, the visitor left them at an easy peace.

“What a weirdo,” Yahiko muttered derisively.

Sano set an easy pace for himself, a jaunty stride that made his plumy tail sway idly from side to side. There was no particular hurry to get back to town, and the weight of a full stomach was a comfortable incentive to keep a steady pace. It was nice, the lanky hybrid reflected, to be on friendly terms with a local pack for a change. If two wolves and a dog made a pack…

It was a shame that Kenshin’d turned down the chance for a scuffle— anybody with a scar like that across his face had to be some kind of fighter. Most brawlers, you got that close to their throat, they were as good as dead, that Himura wasn’t implied that the red wolf was something… special.

Sano let his tongue curl in an impressive yawn, shaking himself. It had been a long time since he’d had a real challenge, he might just be projecting on that Kenshin guy.

A hideous yowl split the air and Sano winced, ears flat to his head as he looked around. Nothing amiss was visible, but he could hear hissings and spittings coming from somewhere to his left.

Catfight… the brown hybrid deduced, none of my business.

At least, it wasn’t until his sensitive ears caught the growling of dogs from the same place. Almost wistfully he eyed the path that would lead him back to town, aware that once he left it, his chances of finding it again were slim at best.

But between a fight and trotting on back to the junkyard, there was no real contest.

It was easy to find the scuffle, in their anger the contenders had become quite vocal. Four dogs surrounded a squalling bobcat. The cat’s fur was disheveled, standing on end to double her size as wide eyes stared with animosity at her tormenters. A nearby tree had deep gouge marks, testimony to the cat’s attempt at escape.

She didn’t seem injured, the dogs who circled her were keeping a healthy distance from the slashing claws, bleeding lines on the flanks of those who had gotten too close a stinging incentive to keep back. The cat was in a panic, hyper aware of all that was around her, and was the first to notice Sano taking stock of the situation. Despair swamped her features, sure that the stranger was here to help he mongrels that tormented her. As if the hybrid had needed another reason to interfere in he uneven fight.

“Oi,” he said, annoyed. The four dogs looked over at him in surprise. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Mind your own business, mutt,” a dog who looked like some sort of hound advised, irritated at having to split his attention between the cat and the interloper.

Subtly, Sano shifted his weight, easing brown and white paws into a position that would allow him to spring forward with devastating force.

“You see, it’s kinda funny. I met the local pack, I know I’m still in their territory, and they didn’t mention you. I’m getting a pretty convincing hunch that you don’t belong here.”

“You got a long snout in our business,” the spoke-hound growled. He jerked his head in command at a shaggy tan dog on his left. “Get him.”

Sano was moving forward to meet him almost before his chosen opponent had broken from the circle. Shaggy tan tried to go in low; most dogs did when trying to fight the tall hybrid. With a feral, fanged grin, Sano turned, bulling a muscular shoulder into his opponent’s charge, deflecting teeth from their intended target and seizing his attacker’s neck between his own teeth. The other dog froze in consternation, with a muffled evil chuckle Sano slung him away, watching with amusement as he fetched up against a tree with a yelp.

“That wasn’t very nice of you,” the fighter observed with a roguish grin. “Sending your guy after me all on his lonesome.” The brown and white hybrid cocked his head to one side, “If you’re going to stand a chance, you gotta come all at once.”

“Nishiwaki…” one of the other dogs muttered, glancing between the leader hound, the still-spitting bobcat and Sanosuke’s fanged grin. Nishiwaki hesitated, then straightened with a show of bravado.

“Last chance to leave, stranger.”

Sano rolled his eyes. “Are we gonna do this thing or not?”

With bad grace Nishiwaki and his two remaining dogs stepped away from the bobcat, who was up a tree and peering down from her chosen limb in seconds. Sano paced forward to meet the dogs.

“Well, I was spoiling for a fight. Guess beggars can’t be choosers.” The hybrid launched himself into the brawl with reckless abandon, adrenaline and euphoria wiping out conscious thought and leaving behind pure action and reaction. Nishiwaki moved to attack Sanosuke’s flank, trusting his cohorts to keep the fighter busy. Sanosuke took the punishing bite to his shoulder without even a wince, a thick ruff of fur protecting him from the worst of the damage. With an almost disappointed sigh, Sano turned his head and closed his jaws around the back of Nishiwaki’s neck. Maintaining his grip, the half-breed pivoted the rest of his body, prying Nishiwaki’s jaws loose from its hold. The hound put aside for a moment, his cronies fell swiftly. Under Sano’s undivided attention, Nishiwaki followed suit.

Sano rolled his shoulder blades, trying to ignore the bad taste in his mouth that always came after a boring fight.

“Now,” the hybrid said meaningfully, “try to keep out of other folk’s territories.”

Nishiwaki was struggling back to his feet, none of the dogs were seriously injured, all should be able to stumble away.

“Who are you?”

A hard glint came into warm brown eyes, “My fight name is Zanza. I’ll take any comers over in the junkyard if you want to have another go.”

Silence bit down on the defeated thugs, ignoring them, Sano looked up the cat in the tree. His ears twitched slightly as they left, but, defeated, they no longer held any interest for him. “You okay, miss?”

“Fine,” the cat managed after a moment, the bite of her claws in the tree suggesting that she had no plans of coming down. Sano didn’t particularly blame her.

The fear-raised fur was lowering now as the feline began to relax. “Thank you so much for your help!”

Sanosuke grinned, “No trouble, I was in the area anyway. Any idea why those jokers were hassling you?”

Tawny spotted fur rippled in a shrug, “I’m friends with someone who embarrassed them recently.”

“With guys like that, it must not have been too hard.” The brown hybrid cocked his head to one side, “I’ll let you get on with your day ma’am, but do you think you could point me in the direction of town?”

It took Sano an inordinately long time to make his way out of the woods and back to the junkyard. The bobcat he’d rescued had been kind enough to point him in the right direction but, as often happened to the fighter, the right direction quickly became lost amid the myriad of other directions.

The sun had gone down as he walked, and brisk wind heralded coming winter as it prodded the wolf-dog, raising the thick ruff of fur on Sano’s neck to block the chill. The moon had risen hours ago, but with the retreat of its brighter brother it now shone strongly, illuminating the already-familiar contours of human refuse and cluttered desolation.

Sano sighed, trusting his keen senses to warn him if any dog planned an ambush of revenge, and picked his way through the rubble. He already knew his way around here; towns were easy, in their sleazy, grimy way. One smell always meant the same thing, everything was disgusting, but in being so, was predictable. The forest was pure, sickeningly pure. He’d never be able to find his way through a place like that again.

Locating the tattered couch the alpha junkyard dog had used as a personal bed, Sano leapt up and sprawled out, sinking into the broken cushions and yellow padding. Brown eyes surveyed his conquered land briefly, before closing.

Fickle fortune had left Gohei’s side. A moon ago, he and his followers would have been living like lords off of his vast territory, secure, strong and well-fed. Now the former leader of a rapidly-dwindling pack gnawed on the sparse remains of roadkill. Reduced to carrion— and not even identifiable carrion. The crippled mutt glowered at indiscriminate fur and crushed bones.

Crushed, the way that his forepaw had been crushed by a tiny warrior, crushed, like the control that he had once enjoyed over his land. If he stayed here, the pack would only continue to dwindle, dogs who had once flocked to him for his strength felt no terror in abandoning him now. It was clear to Goehi that there was only one thing to be done— go back and kill that arrogant red-furred bastard and the Kamiya girl, take back the territory that he had rightfully stolen to begin with. But none of what was left of his pack were willing to fight the wolves again.

They’ve all lost their nerve. But with any luck taking out that kitty-cat Kamiya was always talking to would snap them out of it. It was a simple enough thing, simple enough that Gohei saw no need to go personally. Let the whelps enjoy a kill on their own and remember the good old days, they would come trotting back to his leadership with wagging tails.

Having removed everything he could from his “meal,” Gohei turned and walked back from the side of the road, into the long grasses. His heavy frame rocked in uneven rhythms as he moved, the front paw that Battousai had savaged refusing to properly take its share of weight. The big dog made it back to his temporary hideout, some almost-overgrown long-forgotten culvert, and settled lazily on the cool concrete, intent on a nap in the fading heat of the day.

The dry crackle of snapping grass woke him, and Gohei growled in irritation. From the loud rustlings emerged faithful Nishiwaki, flanked by only two other dogs. The growl deepened; the hound had left with four. Desertions were coming thick and fast since Gohei’s defeat.

“Nishiwaki,” he acknowledged his lieutenant, voice carrying the anger that had been in the growl. “Where are Han and Paco?” Nishiwaki, it seemed, was too tired to even flinch back from his master’s tone. “We ran into some trouble.”

Gohei’s ochre eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, you ran into trouble? I sent you out to make trouble. Are you telling me you couldn’t even do that right?”

The dog on Nishiwaki’s right, a dark gray creature with short curly fur who answered to Jack, bristled.

“Someone picked a fight with us! How were we supposed to know that one mutt would be that good?”

Gohei laughed in derision, and Nishiwaki flattened his floppy ears at the sound. “A new guy, boss, and tough. Fought off the three of us at once.” Tactfully, Nishiwaki didn’t bring up the pack members that had deserted on the way to, and coming back from the forest. “He said his name was Zanza.”

The laughter slowed, stopped altogether as Gohei’s dark brown brow furrowed in thought. “Zanza…” his ears stood straight up as a slow grin split his muzzle to display prominent teeth. “This is perfect.”

“Boss,” Nishiwaki shook his head so hard his ears slapped the sides of his skull, “he’s on their side!” Awkwardly, Gohei pushed himself to his feet, favoring his crippled paw.

“Zanza,” he growled in satisfaction, “is on no one’s side. Now, where is he?”

It was cold, not death-cold but scared-cold because everything had gone gray and blurry so that he couldn’t see where he was. And he was alone. The warmth of the man-den with his parents and those curiously-shaped gentle paws the humans had but didn’t walk on was gone. But he knew why it was gone and he wouldn’t be going back.

If only he could see where he was so he might know where he was going— but everything had run together and was indistinct in that murky sea of grays. Out of that fog stepped something— something warm and real with sharply defined patterns of black and white that touched but did not mingle. And a quiet smile that made the rioting grays surrounding him settle so that he could see where he was and where he was going, where they were going, because surely now he wasn’t going to be alone again…

A loud –crack- of angry thunder escaping from a cylindrical prison, and the world dissolved into a chaos of grays again.

The brown hybrid woke with a violent twitch, the misused springs of the ancient couch groaning in dismay at the motion. Damn dreams… he growled quietly, resettling himself on the sparse cushions.

That fight earlier hadn’t been anything like enough. Not enough to enjoy, not enough to exhaust, not enough to evade the damn dreams that haunted his nights. I didn’t want to move on so early, but if I can’t find a worthwhile fight soon… Sano felt his lips curl back a hair, threatening to expose sharp teeth. Physical fights were his forte, the twisted depths of his subconscious was something he preferred to avoid altogether. Moodily, the fighter allowed his eyes to close again, though his mind was far from sleep. He didn’t want to see the junkyard right now, just the same as any of the other junkyards or alleyways or culverts he had slept in for the majority of his life.

It was the smell that alerted him first, Sano kept his eyes closed, but felt his spiky pelt begin to bristle as powerful muscles were pulled taut. Apparently, the dogs from before hadn’t taken the time to invest in brains since their defeat.

Sano tracked their progress with his ears, trying to keep his face relaxed and smirk-free as the dogs entered the yard and picked their way toward his couch.

It was a little contrived, pausing for dramatic effect before allowing his eyes to snap open and pin the interlopers with a glare, but Sano saw no harm in standing by the classics. His brown gaze raked two dogs staring down at the lanky figure sprawled on the broken sofa and a third’s hindquarters as he abandoned the other two with all haste.

Two on one. Not good odds. A nasty sort of smile was hovering around Sano’s muzzle. For them.

“Oi,” the fighter growled almost lethargically, “it’s rude to wake folks, you know?” He stretched, observing his “guests.” One was the hound dog he had tangled with earlier, dismay clear on his chestnut-marked face and the nervous shifting of his white pawas giving loud testimony to the dog’s desire to be anywhere else.

The other dog was bigger, covered in thick dark fur with a tail that curled up over his back. An experienced, fighter, Sano quickly noted the left forepaw the dark dog held limply off the ground.

Disgust soured his mouth. “If you’re here to buy a fight, I’ll have to refuse. I don’t fight cripples.”

Dark doggie bared his teeth in a snarl, but quickly composed himself. “Nishiwaki tells me that you’re Zanza.”

“What’s it to you?” There was something devilishly delightful about being outside of a pack hierarchy. Tall dark and lame was just about grinding his molars at the disrespect he was being shown, but there was really nothing that he could do about it.

Nishiwaki shifted again, easing back a step. Sano watched the retreat with one eye, but the dark dog appeared oblivious, his attention centered on Zanza.

“My name is Gohei, and I have a proposition for you.”

Nishiwaki turned and fled. Sano watched with a cocked brow as Gohei turned with a snarled “Coward!” and stumbled on his bad leg, winding up shoving dirt with his snout.

“Look buddy,” Sano drawled, finally seeing fit to jump down from his couch. “I’m not going to handle your internal disputes for you.”

Gohei shoved himself back to his feet with a move he’d gotten far too much practice at in the last few weeks.

“Hear me out,” it was almost amusing to hear that impotent rage simmering in Goehi’s voice as he struggled to control his temper.

Hiruma took a moment to breathe through his nose, forcing his thoughts to resettle so he could carry on with his plan. It wouldn’t do to antagonize Zanza, the half-breed was notorious for his rude bearing and unwillingness to submit to authority—anyone’s authority. As no one Gohei had ever heard of had beaten the young fighter in a quest to teach him respect, it seemed unlikely that this would change.

“I want to let you know about a fight opportunity.” Torn between the instinct for a dramatic pause to build suspense, and speaking quickly so that Zanza wouldn’t lose interest, Gohei wound up taking a short, sharp breath. “One that will challenge even you.”

The grin slid off the fighter-for-hire’s face, the wolfish lines of his face showing through as he stilled. “I’m listening.”

“I used to lead a pack of dogs in the forest near here.” Gohei’s face darkened with the memory. “Then that no-good wolf showed up and took over the territory.” He gritted his teeth in effort to force out the hated words, “Bastard defeated my entire pack at the same time.”

“And you want me to do… what, exactly?” Sano’s eyes had narrowed dangerously, but Gohei plowed on ahead.

“I want you to make the woods run red with the blood of Kenshin Himura.”

Sano’s ears flattened and the fur along his spine began to bristle, “Don’t get yourself confused, pal. I’m no hired murderer. I do clean fights— it’s up to the opponent whether they live or die.”

Gohei’s tongue ran over his chops nervously, “Of course not. All I want is that Himura guy put in his place.” The crippled leader’s ears flattened pathetically, “He can’t come around trashing established packs for the heck of it.” Shaking himself, Sano looked sidelong at the mutt who had invaded his junkyard.

“You know, I’ve met Himura. Of the two of you, he seems a helluva lot more trustworthy.”

Gohei seethed, grinding his teeth together, “He may play at the harmless wanderer, but it’s just a ploy. That wolf has no honor. But then,” Gohei sighed, head lowering, eyes surreptitiously locked on Sano’s expression. “You wouldn’t expect a fair fight from Battousai the Manslayer.”

Despite having watched for it, Gohei was unprepared for the ferocity of Sano’s response. The hybrid snarled, ears pinned flat against his head and wrinkled muzzle displaying all of his sharp teeth. Gohei was bowled ears over tail in a swift move from the lanky fighter, trapped with his chestnut underbelly exposed and lethal fangs inches from his eye.

“If you’re lying to me, I swear I’ll kill you!”

Gohei tried to press himself into the ground, “I’m not! I swear it! That crazy fighting pet killed one of my pack!”

Sanosuke growled, backing away from the dog to pace restlessly. Gohei lost no time in regaining his feet, eyeing the hostile warrior appreciatively. There was the fighter at last, always lurking just below the surface, ready for any challenge. If anyone could cripple that damn wolf, Zanza could.

Sano fought back a growl as he bulled through the underbrush into the Battousai’s territory. Alone, he had stressed to his “employer.” This fight was for Zanza alone, not for some power-grubbing dog to cheapen by his presence. For two bits Sano would gladly thrash Gohei and leave him sobbing… like he had thrashed the dog?

Battousai, the growl ripped through his chest at full force. He should have paid attention to what his instincts had been trying to say earlier. A red wolf with a cross-shaped scar on his left cheek, absently commenting on the nature of opponents in fights. Battousai the manslayer, the monster who fought his own kind for the human’s profit, living in the forest like he deserved to be here.

Never.

NEVER.

Sano didn’t know quite where he was heading, but that didn’t bother him, his feet could always lead him to a fight.

Kenshin paused in his last patrol, red ears turning to better catch the forest sounds. Kaoru had taken Yahiko back to the den.

While the puppy might deny it (and would, given any opportunity) he needed his sleep at this stage in his life.

Dragging his thoughts back from their foray into the den, Kenshin prodded them back towards the task at hand. There was a wild crashing and crackling of low plants being trampled and brushed aside as something (probably a predator, prey animals tried not to make so much noise) moved through the forest without concern for stealth.

A quick check of the informative evening breeze made Kenshin’s brow crease in slight unease. That was Sano, but the smell, and Kenshin could think of only two reasons for the hybrid to be barreling through the territory.

The first was that he had never found his way out in the first place, which was possible, but unlikely.

The second was that he had come back for some errand, and the reckless abandon with which the brown dog threw himself through the trees suggested that it was not an amiable one.

With silent thanks that Kaoru and Yahiko were out of the way for this— whatever it was, Kenshin ghosted through the trees toward the sound of vegetation in distress.

The fighter was easy to find.

“Sanosuke,” Kenshin called, halting his acquaintance’s rough passage through the outskirts of a small bush. The fighter’s abrupt stop brought an eerie silence to the wood. Kenshin found himself shifting into a deceptively harmless stance that would allow him to react quickly to any move that Sano might make.

The hybrid turned slowly to face the wolf that had come up behind him. “Kenshin,” his voice was tight with anger, his hazel-brown eyes hard. “I’ve come to fight with you.”

Kenshin frowned, feeling his own eyes narrow fractionally in response to Sano’s challenge. “One has already told you he does not desire to fight.”

“Afraid I can’t take that answer today, Kenshin.” Sano paused, “Or rather, Battousai.”

The red wolf stiffened slightly, the fur on his shoulders beginning to bristle as muscles tensed. Sanosuke gave a low mirthless chuckle.

“You know, I gotta admit, that’s a good disguise. Even a fighting fool like me didn’t see through your act.”

“This one does not act, that he does not.” Kenshin’s voice was level, his face immobile as he stared at the intruder. “But one does wonder whether you are acting, Sanosuke.”

Sano snorted, “Cut the word-games, Battousai. I’ve come to fight with you.”

“Then allow this one a question, Sanosuke.” Kenshin didn’t wait for an acknowledgement of his request. “What grievance brings you against this one?”

“I guess I can answer that. Not sure you’ll like it though.” Zanza rolled his shoulders back, loosening his frame. “Fellow named Gohei told me who you were. He thinks I’m doing this fight for him.”

“But…?”

“I have my own reasons,” Sano’s face was closed, hinting that the conversation was as well. “All I care about right now is defeating Battousai the Manslayer.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: The Origin of the Evil

And I’ll survive, paranoid

I have lost the will to change

And I’m not proud, cold-blooded, fake

I will shut the world away

Fall!

-Breaking Benjamin, I Will Not Bow

Yahiko glared at the obstruction in his path. The obstacle appeared unfazed by the heat of the puppy’s gaze. Kaoru didn’t budge from where she sat blocking the exit of the den.

“I thought you guys were supposed to be showing me around. How is making me stay in here helping me figure out where the territory ends?” Yahiko growled, settling back on his haunches. Kaoru was bristling slightly; fur raised in response to the irritation of arguing with her young charge the whole way back to the den.

“I don’t particularly feel like dragging you back here by the scruff because you wound up too tired to walk! Kenshin’ll be back in a little while, he’s just doing a quick run-through.”

The akita-mix puppy made a show of rolling his eyes in disgust, stalking over to the patch of bare earth that he had staked out as “his.” He would never admit it aloud, but lying down and letting his body curl into itself to avoid the light chill that came with night felt good, the weariness that had been haunting his bones ebbing to a dull whisper.

“Pah, like you could drag me back anyway,” Yahiko muttered, eyes half-closed. It was worth the comment to hear Kaoru’s quiet and quickly suppressed growl.

It wouldn’t do to let her think that she was getting the last word on the subject after all. The puppy watched as Kaoru allowed herself to grumble about his contrary nature for another half-minute before standing with a stretch that sent her ringed tail in a lazy arc over her back.

“I swear-” her voice was no louder than the growl had been as she moved away from her guard-dog position at the entrance. Yahiko would never know what she planned to follow that with.

Kaoru froze, head turned slightly back toward the entrance with a frown etching itself with deep lines into the features of her face. Yahiko felt his ears straighten from their half-relaxed position, angling toward the entrance to see if they couldn’t catch whatever was disturbing Kaoru. Was Kenshin coming back already? He must have been moving pretty fast to have finished so early. That or he hadn’t done a complete patrol, but Yahiko didn’t think that was the case. Kenshin was a pretty thorough guy.

Slowly, Kaoru turned to face the entrance, inhaling deep breaths through her nose to see what the scents coming from the outside could tell her.

Her summer-sky eyes widened, every muscle in her slight frame suddenly tense, even her ever-twitching tailtip immobile.

Yahiko could hear what she’d been hearing now, a steady crunch of forest detritus underpaw, along with the odd sound of something dragging or scraping along what the creature stepped on.

The she-wolf moved in a shadow-hued blur, placing herself squarely in front of Yahiko, facing the entrance with a growl rumbling through her throat. The puppy was scrambling to get to his feet when the stranger made it into the den.

“Gohei,” the name pried itself free from Kaoru’s throat in the form of a snarl.

Gohei grinned, carelessly displaying all of the teeth he could manage. “Kamiya.”

Yahiko had seen the former owner of Kenshin and Kaoru’s territory before, once, when the forest dog had visited with Tanishi. He hadn’t seen the former leader since his encounter with the two wolves that had adopted him, however. Gohei practically reeked of human refuse and roadkill, his frame a few pounds lighter than it had been, giving testament to his new status as scavenger. And the left paw that he held off the ground, begrimed with the dirt of the forest floor, was definitely new.

“You were beaten, Gohei!” Kaoru warned, “Leave this territory now!”

Yahiko was faced with the sudden uncomfortable realization that if not for his presence, Kaoru would have already thrown herself into battle with the larger dog.

“Peh,” Gohei’s lips peeled back to display his gums and the fangs rooted in them. “I don’t remember getting chased out by any female. And that wanderer isn’t coming to save you.”

“What makes you think I need his help to clear out a cripple like you?” Kaoru threw back quickly, shooting a glare at Yahiko as the puppy inched to stand beside her rather than behind. Sure he didn’t really like Kaoru, of course he didn’t, but Gohei probably wouldn’t think twice about trying to kill him.

“We both know the truth,” Gohei moved forward slowly with that peculiar gait of his, “we both know that you’ve never had the guts to face me.” The dark head turned slightly, so that Hiruma regarded the pair with one malice-filled eye, and gave them an excellent view of his teeth. “Hope you like this hole, Kamiya. You and the brat will never see the outside again.”

“We’ll see about that!” Yahiko snapped, launching himself toward the intruder.

He was entirely unprepared for the sharp tug as his scruff was caught by pointed teeth and he was hauled back. The world moved dizzily for a moment, there were massive fangs before him, closing on the air where he would have been in a spine-breaking chomp, but there were teeth behind him too, wrenching the puppy away from the danger.

Kaoru pivoted, slinging Yahiko back behind her and pushing at him with her head in frantic movements— desperate to get him out of harm’s way and to face Gohei once more.

The tanuki shoved him back, cramming Yahiko into a tight space that smelled of stale earth and his own fear. The tanuki whirled, blocking the collapsed exit, turning to face the intruder and taking a solid stance. Every line of her silvery gray body screamed it— she was not going to move. No one was getting to Yahiko.

The puppy shuddered, already spiky fur standing on end.

Kanbi had stood like that only twice in his life. It was his first real memory, still hazy on the edges, like viewing the human settlement through mist. He had been very young, lying exhausted in a fuzzy puppy-pile with his siblings, eyes that had just recently cracked open against the summer sun and tiny triangle ears still deaf to sound.

But he could see, and smell. Could see his mother stiffen, staring into the summer grasses that sheltered her family from view, could smell the sudden fear.

Kanbi stood over her puppies in an eerily silent world, braced for an attack she couldn’t see. Memory that far back was tricky— but Yahiko thought he remembered a strange dog finding them, and leaving quickly. That hadn’t been important. What was important was the feeling of safety that had wrapped around him, the awe he’d felt at the strength that he’d seen on his mother.

But it had been an illusion.

The day that the yakuza had come Kanbi took the stance once more. Yahiko was still young enough, still grieving over the loss of Ronin and Shinai enough, that he had cowered behind his mother’s legs rather than facing the strangers like the guard dogs he was descended from.

Gasuke was there, as Tanishi spoke to his mother about safety and food. The Doberman had prowled their small home as the other dogs trampled the concealing grass flat in their carelessness, leaving their small home naked on a hostile plain. Gasuke had circled, and circled, and finally just brushed Kanbi’s shoulder with his. The stance was broken in an instant.

In the place of a hostile mother-dog was a cowering former pet who had never been in a fight, and who was already ill from starvation.

That stance seemed to promise protection, but…

The mental image of his gray-and-white mother shifted to a silver-and-gray Kaoru falling. And red, so much red… red—Kenshin!

Yahiko squirmed around in the niche Kaoru had shoved him into. According to the tanuki, this used to be a secondary exit from the den. The puppy attacked the pile of earth and loose stone between him and the open air with white paws, scrabbling desperately.

He could hear the sounds of the fight starting behind him, he wanted to turn and watch, but he had to see what he was doing, he had to go get Kenshin.

A pained yelp rent the air and the accompanying burst of furious energy saw dark earth crumble beneath Yahiko’s digging. There was an opening. Small, oh so painfully small, and twisty with old tree roots rupturing the tunnel ceiling and floor, but there was an opening, and Yahiko could smell fresh air tricking through the darkness.

With a last look backward at the confused jumble of silvery-gray and brown-black fur, Yahiko wormed his way into the opening, for once blessing the small stature that allowed him to pass with difficulty instead of barring his way.

Panic was a staccato beat in his chest, he could hear the snarls and growls of the fight he’d left behind, but ahead there was nothing but darkness. Twice Yahiko rammed his nose into the dirt when the ground rose unexpectedly and he was crawling on collapsed tunnel ceiling rather than compacted tunnel floor. Three times he bounced his head off of the roots snaking down from the ceiling, the last time he was convinced that it was not a root at all, but rather a nasty hard rock.

It should have been slow going, but Yahiko crawled forward with reckless abandon, dislodged dirt trickling down warningly onto his back, and every now and then a dislodged rock thudded down behind him, followed by a shower of the earth that had held it in place.

But the puppy didn’t slow down, he couldn’t, because he couldn’t hear the fight anymore and that was more terrible than he could bear. What if he was already too late?

The tunnel terminated as a small hole— so small that Yahiko could barely scrape himself past it into the cool night air. In the open again, the puppy wanted to collapse from sheer relief but didn’t dare. Kenshin, he had to find Kenshin.

For the first time the puppy wished that he’d paid better attention to the territory lessons Kaoru’d been trying to pound into his skull. He had emerged at the base of an old elm tree, probably the owner of the roots that had so assaulted him on his journey. Over his shoulder, he could just see the hazel leaves that hid the den from around the base of another tree. With as long as the tunnel-journey had seemed to take, he had been sure that he would emerge somewhere far from the den, rather than just a stones-throw away.

Gotta find Kenshin… which way did he go? The panic beating at his narrow chest was urging Yahiko to just pick a direction and start running, yelping all the while for help! He struggled with the impulse, pushing it aside with difficulty, as if he wrestled with flesh and blood rather than his own panic. He didn’t know which way Kenshin had gone, and the territory was big enough that just picking a direction would almost certainly not lead him to help. Kaoru needed him to be smart right now, not some stupid scared puppy.

Yahiko forced himself to hold still long enough to take a deep steadying breath through his nose. As he did so, a faint scent tugged at him. The smell of endless wind over the last warm day in autumn. Kenshin!

Yahiko took off after the elusive scent, willing it to get stronger, to lead him to its owner as he careened through the forest. Kenshin!!

Ever since Sano had mentioned the name of Battousai, Kenshin’s face had shut down. The self-deprecating humor that the red wolf wore like a second skin had vanished, and the cheery violet eyes were guarded, assessing.

Sanosuke shifted his weight, sliding his paws into a stance that allowed him to react quickly. This wouldn’t be a fight like other fights, the hybrid allowed himself a grim smile, this was going to be a challenge.

Kenshin hadn’t visibly shifted his position from the guarded stance that he had opened the conversation with. The fighter-for-hire waited two heartbeats longer before realizing with a surge of annoyance that Kenshin wasn’t going to start the attack.

A low growl reverberated in his chest and he tensed. Great, now I look like the bad guy. Well, he’d played the villain before, but he hadn’t expected that it would be necessary when facing a fiend like the Battousai.

The brown hybrid rushed forward, expecting to slam into the red-furred killer and bowl him over. The impact never came. Light as autumn leaves on the breeze, his opponent leapt over his headlong rush to land almost delicately behind Zanza.

Sano whirled, paws skidding on the rough loam of the forest floor, cutting an arc that brought the red wolf into view once more. The bastard didn’t even look smug.

So headlong rushes were out of the question— that almost neutralized the advantage the hybrid had with his larger size and weight. Moving slower to get close would give him a greater chance to hit— but with far less force.

Sano moved in a series of quick steps to close the distance, snarling in annoyance when Kenshin moved to the left, keeping the space between the two combatants constant without retreating directly.

“Fight me!”

“There is no reason to-” Kenshin broke off, his posture shifting from evasive to alert. He raised his head, eyes scanning the forest to their right, his ears pricked forward and nose twitching slightly as he inhaled with the deep breaths characteristic of picking out a scent.

Okay… so I could attack him now…If I wanted to feel sleazy for the next three weeks. Sano grumbled, the chain of thought breaking off as his ears caught what Himura’s obviously had.

The reckless snap of abused greenery as something charged through it, the sobbing breaths of a creature pushed past endurance, moving by will alone.

The puppy from earlier, Yahiko, burst into view through the undergrowth. His chocolate-brown ears were flat against his skull, red-brown eyes wide and terrified as he sucked in gasping breaths. The young dog cried out as he saw the red wolf, what was probably supposed to be a name, but his oxygen-starved lungs didn’t let him finish. Going too fast to come to any sort of graceful stop, the puppy went into an undignified skid, fetching up against Kenshin’s white forelegs before stubbornly pushing himself back onto his trembling paws.

The kid looked up at the Battousai as if he were the last hope of the world, and something about that churned in Sano’s stomach.

“Yahiko? What happened?”

Yahiko sucked air twice more before he could answer. “K-kaoru!” he managed, gasping, “Gotta help Kaoru! Gohei… in the den… gonna kill her!”

Kenshin swore, a word that had Sano reflexively looking at the puppy for a reaction. Yahiko’s legs had given out again, and he’d given up talking in favor of trying once more to catch his breath.

Kenshin looked down at his young charge, out at the forest from whence he had come, and over to Sano in quick movements, purple eyes filled with calculation.

“This will have to wait, Sano.” There was no room for argument in that voice. Not that Sano was planning on arguing. He hadn’t been hired to kill anybody, whatever Gohei might think. Much less a female.

Battousai glanced at the puppy at his feet again, gauging the likelihood of Yahiko keeping up. Slim, Sano knew, very slim.

“Go on, Battousai,” Sano said gruffly, jerking his head towards the woods, “I’ll keep an eye on the kid.”

Kenshin flinched visibly, darting a glance down at Yahiko, who was suddenly staring at the wolf as though he’d grown two heads that could breathe fire.

Oops, looks like somebody didn’t know… Hard not to feel guilty for spilling the beans with expressions like those.

Kenshin shook himself free of the paralysis first. “This one will explain later, Yahiko.” Without a backward glance, the red wolf vanished into the undergrowth. Sano sat back on his haunches, impressed despite himself at the speed and silence Battousai had moved with, the leaves had barely trembled at his passing.

Guess that’s why he didn’t worry about leaving the kid with somebody who was trying to fight him earlier. It was hard to argue with speed like that.

Yahiko was struggling again, white legs shaking with strain as he forced himself to stand once more and took a few stumbling steps after Kenshin. Sano rolled his shoulder blades as he got back to his feet.

“You gonna be able to make it, kid?”

The glare that Yahiko shot him was positively withering. Heh, get some height and weight on him and we’ve got ourselves a professional death glare…

“Of course I can!” the puppy snapped, letting the momentum from a stumble carry him forward another step.

“Good,” Zanza caught up in a few easy steps, standing beside his self-imposed charge, obviously waiting for the kid to keep moving before he started off. “Because I don’t want to carry you. So lead the way, kid. And while you’re at it, tell me everything you know about Kenshin.”

Dark brown moved toward her in a half-controlled lunge, seeking to bowl her over—and she couldn’t doge because Yahiko was right behind her in the laughable shelter of the collapsed tunnel. Kaoru set her feet a little more firmly and tried to angle her head so that Gohei couldn’t get at her neck with his fangs.

The impact drove the breath from her lungs, her slender legs folding like brittle sticks with the force of Gohei’s body being propelled into her own. She could feel the dark dog bite down hard at the loose skin of her shoulder, fought back a yelp of pain as his teeth tore through her flesh. It’s a superficial wound! The chastisement forced her to swallow the cry of pain.

Kaoru scrabbled to get her feet back under her; no sooner than she felt the compacted earth of her den beneath her paws she sprang forward at Gohei, mirroring his bite to her shoulder with one of her own. With a grunt of annoyance the massive dog threw his weight to one side, pinning Kaoru against the wall. She was unable to stop the surprised yelp as her breath left her body for the second time in so many minutes.

This was madness, she was smaller, lighter and much faster than Gohei, but all of those were liabilities, not advantages in this confined space. Unable to move freely, she was left facing an opponent twice her size and strength.

If only she could get him to follow her outside the den, where his strengths would be turned into weaknesses! But she didn’t dare, not with Yahiko still in the den. It would be too easy for an enraged Gohei, rather than following her, to turn and kill the brave pup.

Gohei’s weight shifted, trying to angle his ungainly body so that he could deliver a crippling bite, but the shift gave Kaoru enough wiggle-room to squirm free in a sudden burst of smoky silver. Turning, Gohei snapped at the tip of her ringed tail as she went by, just missing it.

Not bothering to slow down Kaoru raked Gohei’s side with her teeth, careful not to make the mistake of stopping or slowing this time. With a sharp growl of rage Gohei turned ponderously, his lame paw dictating his speed. If only they were outside! Speed was Kaoru’s ally, but she couldn’t’ get up enough of it in this tiny den!

Dimly, he female realized that she wasn’t as afraid, not quite as afraid as she’d always assumed she’d be when fighting Gohei. Most of her concern was for Yahiko. I guess it’s harder to be scared of them when you’ve seen them lose.

Kaoru wheeled for another attack, even if the glancing blows wouldn’t bring the behemoth down, they would at least make him bleed. With Gohei turning the wrong way, Kaoru was confident that her new attack would connect.

The yelp that tore itself from her throat was equal parts pain and surprise as, despite turning the wrong way, Gohei managed to his head around quick enough to catch her back leg. Not, she was sure, what he was aiming for, but no small prize either.

The blunt claws on her front paws scrabbled at the ground as Gohei, with a tremendous heave, slung the female across the den.

The force of the impact with the earth wall made Kaoru’s vision go dark for a moment, as abused lungs sent a sharp reprimand to the rest of her body. Gritting her teeth, the she-wolf pushed herself back to her feet, shaking her head to rid it of the lingering blackness.

She had landed almost on top of Yahiko’s hiding place. Taking her focus off Gohei for a moment, she risked a quick glance inside. The puppy wasn’t there.

NotThereNotThereNotThere.

Unseeing, Kaoru turned back to the approaching Gohei. Where had the puppy gone? Obviously not back out into the den. Through the exit? It had collapsed years ago but… He got out. And since he hadn’t come through the front entrance to try a suicidal attack on Gohei’s flank… he went to get Kenshin.

Relief nearly turned her bones to water, resolve strengthened them again. With Yahiko no longer trapped, there was nothing to keep her fighting in this confined space.

Kaoru felt a fanged smile part her lips as she sneered at Gohei, “Is that all? I should have kicked you and your goons out when you first started sniffing around my home!”

Gohei growled, still approaching with his three-legged hobble. Feeling lighter than she had since she’d chased Yahiko that morning, Kaoru danced easily to the side of Gohei’s approach, fighting back the urge to nip playfully at the hulking dog’s heels. She made up for squashing this impulse by jumping up to grab the tail that always curled up over Gohei’s back and yanking hard.

The surprised yelp was worth it.

Releasing her prize, Kaoru turned and pelted for the entrance.

“I’ll kill that brat of yours, Kamiya!”

Irrational fear nearly made her turn around. Wwhat if Yahiko hadn’t really gotten out?

But Gohei’s wordless roar of fury as he discovered Yahiko’s disappearance reassured her. Then she was squeezing through the dirt, brushing past the hazel branches concealing the entrance.

Cool night air was a welcome relief from the rancid stench of Gohei polluting her den.

Kaoru pivoted, allowing the suddenness of her motion to make her skid as she spun to face the half-concealed hole.

They were in the open now.

“You’re mine, Gohei.”

The large dog emerged from the shadowy recesses of the earth to face the silvery wolf in the moonlight.

“Kenshin’s already on his way,” Kaoru informed the other canine, flexing the tense muscles in her back as she settled into a reactive stance. “But I think I’ll finish you before he gets here.”

Gohei snorted. “Zanza won’t let his prey go so easily.” A toothy smile, “So many in this world who want revenge on the Battousai.”

With an effort of will, Kaoru pushed all other considerations out of her mind. She would be no help to anyone if she didn’t deal with Gohei here and now.

Stepping lightly, the tanuki began a careful fighter’s circle counter-clockwise around Gohei. Her opponent turned with her in brief controlled stumbles, his good leg able to lead the turns. Kaoru picked up her pace to a slow trot, keeping her gaze fixed on the prey in the center of her circle.

Snarling, Gohei increased his own speed. The tanuki waited until he was committed to the new pace before turning abruptly to go the opposite way. Gohei stumbled, nearly fell as he tried to compensate, suddenly stuck with his near-useless leg on the inside of his turn, unable to support his weight. He glared at the slim female, but it was fight to follow Kaoru’s circle or leave his back exposed to the she-wolf.

It’s not going to matter in a minute, Kaoru knew, I can go faster, he really can’t. She kept the increase slow, trying to keep it unnoticeable so Gohei wouldn’t just snap and lunge at her. As long as he thought he could keep up this circle-game he wouldn’t directly attack, not when he knew it would be child’s play to avoid a lunge out here in the open. No, he would try to keep her close as long as he could, try to get her close enough to connect. Kaoru increased her speed the barest fraction more.

And wait, and wait, and— Gohei stumbled again, attention shifting for a crucial moment from the tanuki to his own treacherous paws, trying to find a stable footing.

Now!

Pelting forward Kaoru launched herself into a headlong attack, teeth closed over muscles and fur, Gohei roared his fury and the world dissolved into dark brown fur and flashes of silver. Gohei shifted, trying to pin the female under his weight, but Kaoru released her hold on the dog and melted away, reappearing on his strong side to savage it as the fighter struggled to regain his balance.

“Give.” Kaoru dodged a half-wild snap in her direction, darted back in for another punishing assault. “It. Up. You. Bastard!”

And there was opportunity, and jaws closed hard on a dark hind leg, yanking it out from under the dog. Gohei went down in an undignified heap, swearing, struggling to get up.

Kaoru stood over him, a clear, strange light in her eyes. “Give it up Gohei. You can’t win.”

Gohei swore again, then froze, looking at something over Kaoru’s shoulder.

Three guesses as to who… Yep. Kenshin.

The red wolf assessed the situation quickly, relaxing minutely when he took in Kaoru’s victorious position.

“Well, it seems this one need not have hurried.”

“Kenshin…” Kaoru blinked, taking in the distinct lack of loudmouth puppy at the Rurouni’s side. “Where’s Yahiko?”

“He is safe, that he is,” Kenshin reassured, gaze sliding past Kaoru to land on Gohei. With a guilty start, the tanuki realized she had stopped paying attention to the former leader as soon as Kenshin showed up.

“Gohei,” the red wolf moved forward to stand beside Kaoru. “Have you seen now how pointless this is? Whether or not this one is here, Miss Kaoru is more than capable of defending this territory.”

The words sent a bolt of warmth straight through Kaoru, tingling straight down to her toes. Gohei snarled soundlessly, regaining his feet but unwilling to attack when the Battousai was present.

“Get out of here,” Kaoru said to the defeated intruder, “don’t let me catch you in our territory again.”

Gohei was forced to slink away under the watchful gaze of the wolves.

Yahiko was a closemouthed kid, Sano was forced to admit. The fighter was reduced to an exchange of sorts in order to get the kid to say anything at all about his life. Not that Sano could really blame him. Yahiko was a bundle of exhausted nervousness, answering Sano’s questions in short sentences, distracted by the urge to race ahead to Kenshin and Kaoru. Sano debated picking the stumbling puppy up a few times, each time remembering the fierce determination in those red-brown eyes, setting out after Kenshin without stopping to rest.

He could sacrifice his own impatience for his interrupted fight to spare the kid a little dignity. As a former tag-along puppy himself, Sano would rather have walked himself into the ground than suffer being carried like a newborn.

“How much farther?”

“Halfway there,” Yahiko answered, half-panting.

Nice to know where you’re going. The thought echoed wryly through Sano’s mind, noting the steady passage of trees and already concluding that he was pretty lost. But Yahiko seemed to know where he was headed.

“They should be this way, Miss Kaoru.” Battousai’s voice, coming in faintly through the underbrush. Yahiko’s dark brown ears sat up straight and his head came up sharply.

“Kenshin!”

“Yahiko!” That was the little Missy’s voice answering, shortly followed by the silvery form running into view, tailed by a red shadow. Yahiko broke into a shuffling run himself, too tired to hide his relief that his surrogate sister was all right. Closing the distance between them, the puppy buried his head in the fur of her chest. Kaoru seemed surprised for a moment, then bent her head to rest her chin on the puppy’s head with a faint smile.

“Battousai,” Sano greeted. The cat was already out of the bag, right? No need to mince words. Kaoru flinched at the name, but not in surprise, Sano noted, her blue gaze darting instead to Yahiko for the pup’s reaction.

Battousai didn’t react at all, either to accept or refuse the title.

“Now that you’ve got that little business over with, I’d like to get our business over with.”

“One has said it before, Sanosuke, this one has no desire to fight with you.”

Sano’s patience was worn thin, unruly brown fur beginning to stand up in a ridge along the hybrid’s spine. “You don’t get to duck out this time, Battousai.” The words were a growl, “You turn away and I’ll go after your back.”

Not his usual style, but if the Battousai was half the fighter rumor said, cheap tricks like that wouldn’t work anyway.

Kaoru snarled, the puppy glued to her side openly staring at the hybrid in shock. “You coward!”

“This doesn’t concern you or the kid, Missy. I’m not fighting for your territory or any crap like that,” Sano cut her off before the female could work herself into attacking, hazel eyes burning into still violet, “I’m just here for the legendary Battousai the manslayer.”

“Kenshin-” Kaoru tried again, quieted when the red wolf shook his head slowly.

“I don’t understand you, Sanosuke. You are a creature of honor. What has twisted your nature so much that you would seek violence?”

Ghostly gray eyes flashed in Sano’s mind, making him toss his head to jar the image loose, shove it back into the darkness.

“Sappy stories aren’t meant to be told before fights,” he heard himself say distantly, “Right now I only want to defeat the Battousai, the wolf said to be the strongest of the human’s pets!”

The wolf finally reacted to that, violet eyes darkening as he paced a few subtle steps away from Yahiko and Kaoru, distancing them from the fight to come.

As if I’d go after females and pups. But that didn’t matter, finally, Battousai had acknowledged that there would be a fight.

Finally.

Sanosuke charged forward, ready for an attack but keeping a close eye on the Battousai’s posture, alert for the shifting muscles that would serve as warning of another leap. Even watching for it Sano nearly missed it.

The wolf’s slight frame shifted, gathering itself, and then the killer was in the air again. Sano scrambled to get himself around so he could face where Battousai would land. It was ungraceful and uncoordinated next to the red wolf’s effortless leap, but it got the job done.

“Could see you that time, Battousai.” The fighter warned, “Your little trick ain’t gonna work much longer.” Which wasn’t necessarily true, seeing was a long way from catching, as any empty stomach could attest.

Sano didn’t wait for a response before springing forward again. This time he leapt when Battousai did, trying to collide with the smaller wolf in midair. It should have worked, there was no reason for it not to work.

He left the ground just after the Battousai did, rising into the air to try and meet the wolf intent on evading him. Battousai rose higher. Up and over Sano’s charging leap, letting the brown hybrid pass beneath him, snapping wildly at white footpaws just out of reach.

Sano landed heavily, balance thrown off by his wild attempt to attack in midair. Snarling, he turned to face the Battousai, but the red wolf wasn’t there.

A tingling on the back of his neck, guard hairs standing up in alarm was the fighter’s only warning to look up. In the bare second before the attack Sano’s mind registered the red wolf over him like the shadow of death, posture oddly similar to that of a pouncing fox, and then down, with more force than he would have expected from that tiny frame and a shoulder laid open to the bone so cleanly that it almost didn’t hurt.

The ground met the fighter, the anvil to the Battousai’s hammer.

The red wolf landed quietly to one side, still looking fresh and unwearied. A cheer started from the bystanders that Sano had forgotten about, faded away as the fighter pushed himself to his feet without more than a bare grimace.

For the first time since the fight began, Battousai smiled. “It would seem that one blow won’t work on you.”

Sano couldn’t help the answering grin. “You kidding? My strong point’s my stamina.” That, and the stubborn nature that had him pelting forward once again.

This time Battousai didn’t leap away, in a move that took Sano completely by surprise, the red wolf charged to meet him.

The distance between the narrowed, vanished, Sano bulled straight ahead, aiming for an impact that would daze the smaller wolf, knock him off-course and leave him vulnerable. Instead, at the last possible second Battousai swerved, and fangs raked a line down Sano’s flank as red wolf passed him by. The fighter turned, ignoring the sharp pain of his shoulder as the movement stressed it, Battousai had enough advantages without Sano leaving his back open.

The red wolf was still moving, swinging in a tight arc that brought him toward Sano again. There was no time for more than a step in the Battousai’s direction before another searing line appeared on the hybrid’s other flank.

Then another coming from the other way, and another.

Sano was the center of a bizarre wheel, stuck pivoting to meet the Battousai’s lightning attacks as the red wolf continually wheeled and hit from a new direction. Blood oozed from a dozen shallow gashes, a stinging reminder of Sano’s position in this fight.

Not one of them was near the hybrid’s throat.

“Bastard,” the insult came out as a whisper, whirling once more, Sano repeated it as a roar, “BASTARD! I will not lose!”

An oncoming lupine face masked in crimson, narrowed blue eyes and a damning white X across his left cheek. Sano braced himself for another injury, frantically searching for a way to turn the Manslayer’s charge to his advantage. Too late he realized that Battousai wasn’t going to shear off to one side.

One red furred skull connected solidly with one brown furred skull and stars exploded behind Sano’s eyes. His legs crumpled beneath him and the world slid nauseatingly in and out of focus.

Conversation around him sounded distant and tinny, as though he heard it through one of the human’s pipes.

“Are you alright, Kenshin?”

“Yes.”

“Damn,” that was the kid’s voice, “That Sano guy wasn’t kidding. The Sekihotai are serious business.”

“The Sekihotai?” Battousai’s voice went sharp, knowing. Shouldn’t have mentioned that name to the kid…

Captain Sagara…

 “We’re very fortunate, Sano,” spoke the gentle voice out of memory. “Our kind is often mistrusted, or taken advantage of-”

“But with the Sekihotai, we’re all pack!” Sano finished eagerly, looking up at his hero.

Souzou Sagara (stubbornly referred to as “Captain” by most of the Sekihotai) was like him, a hybrid. In a bizarre clash of ideologies, the captain was half wolf, half border collie. Unlike true wolves, his marking didn’t fade into white or intermingle, the black on his shoulders and back was solidly black, the white on his chest and legs utterly white, and his right ear, rather than standing erect, flopped forward to half-cover one gray eye.

Captain Sagara laughed at the puppy’s enthusiasm.

“I already know I’m lucky, Captain.” Sano’s tail beat the ground, stirring dirt from the ridge on which he sat, overlooking the clearing where the rest of the Sekihotai rested. According to Sanosuke, he was he luckiest puppy alive. Born as part of the human’s quest to earn money through breeding and selling hybrids, Sano had escaped to the woods. It was luck that he had wandered onto Sekihotai land and met the unusual pack’s charismatic leader.

The Sekihotai was a band of misfits, dogs that had become lost, been abandoned or been born feral, hybrids that had occurred naturally or, like Sano, found their way to the wild, and one or two true-wolves looking for an accepting place to call home. None of the members were actually related, as with wolf packs. To Sano’s young mind, it was paradise. Captain Sagara was friendly and wise, even the local wolf-packs were coming to accept the strange band as equals.

Sano stretched, tongue curling in a huge yawn. “Captain? After this spring, we’ll have families, right?”

Souzou glanced over to where Iris and Ginjo lay making eyes at each other and smiled. “It certainly looks that way, Sano.”

“Oh.” The puppy paused. “Then I guess everybody’s gonna have a family name, huh.”

Captain Sagara nodded gravely, his show of seriousness belied by the amused twinkle in his visible eye. “I suppose so.”

“I don’t have a family name.”

A repressed smile pulled at the corners of the border collie/wolf’s muzzle at the dejected tone, hunched shoulders and flattened ears of his young charge.

“You could pick one,” the elder hybrid suggested, “like your friend Katsu.”

A brief frown wrinkled Sano’s face, cleared faster than morning mist in direct sunlight. “What about your name, Captain? Could I use your name?”

“Sanosuke Captain? Sounds a little weird, don’t you think?” Souzou laughed as Sano pounced on him, trying to instigate a session of play-wrestling.

“Caaptain! I meant Sagara!”

“Sanosuke Sagara. Still pretty weird…” Souzou stood, easily shaking off the playing puppy and watching him sprawl bonelessly on the ground before collecting himself once more with a shake. “But it’ll do.”

A huge grin split Sano’s features, seeming even bigger because of the larger adult teeth he had gained only last week. “Wait’ll Katsu hears about this! What kind of last name is ‘Tsukioka’ anyway?!” With a whoop of elation, Sano pelted down the rise and into the main Sekihotai camp to look for his friend.

“Captain! Captain!” a hoarse voice brought Sano’s dash to a halt, and he looked back to see a thin dog of indiscriminate breed haul himself up the Captain’s ridge. Souzou turned to face the messenger, his black and white tail trailing behind him in a half-lash.

“Shindo?”

Sano recognized the name, if not the dog it belonged to. The other Sekihotai talked about him sometimes, the arrogant well-muscled dog that had vanished a scant month before Sano came to join them.

“Got to move,” the emaciated dog panted, “humans’re coming!”

Captain Sagara swore. “And you’ve led them to us.”

A fanged smile, the toothy grin of famine, split Shindo’s muzzle. “That doesn’t change what has to happen.”

“Everyone!” Sagara barked out, thin the silence following the call the noises of approaching humans was too audible. “Scatter! Hide! With luck, we will meet again!”

The crack of a gunshot broke the air, an over-eager twolegger firing off a shot before he had the range.

The Sekihotai broke, scattering in every direction. The world dissolved into confused images as Sano stood rooted in fear. Shindo, streaking away from the Captain for the safety of dense forest, Iris and Ginjo running side-by-side, stubbornly refusing to separate, CRACK, Ginjo fell. Sano couldn’t see if he got up again as one of the feral dogs tripped over him, knocking the puppy flat. The adult kicked himself free of Sano with a snarl, sprang for the trees and fell with another world-shattering crack.

Sano stayed down, dazed. Where was Katsu? Where was the Captain? He thought he saw the dark puppy he called friend for a moment, hiding under a shadowy shrub, but when he looked again there was nothing there.

“Sano!” the Captain! The older hybrid was at Sano’s side, scanning the puppy for injuries. “Get up, Sanosuke!”

Another crack, Sano stumbled to his feet.

“Follow me!” And the world narrowed to keeping up with the black-and-white figure in front of him.

They had waited too long, he had waited too long, missing the mass-exodus of dogs and therefore remaining anonymous, but the humans couldn’t really keep up on their spindly legs, couldn’t easily find a path through the woods for the noisy machines that carried them through the woods at greater speed. And the Captain couldn’t run as fast as he normally would, not without leaving the puppy running all out beside him.

“Why’re they chasing us, Captain?” Sano gasped, his own memories of warm, caring humans at severe odds with the reality of the hunters behind him.

“Just run, Sanosuke!”

“But we weren’t doing anything wrong!”

“Sano!” heeding the urgency in his leader’s voice, the puppy shut up and kept running, grateful for the need to suck down the oxygen fueling his flight, keeping him from giving voice to the heart-rending whines pushing at his ribcage. The sounds of the pursuing two-leggers dropped farther and farther behind, but refused to disappear entirely.

Sano was stumbling with exhaustion, wishing his Captain would stop and pick a place to hide when the border collie mix changed directions abruptly.

“Captain?” Sano panted out, trying to fit a wealth of questions into the word, all he could manage at the moment.

“They won’t expect us to go to a human settlement,” The Captain’s voice was grim. “We can hide there for a time.”

Sano’s pointed ears lay flat against his skull—the human settlement? He hated that place, it was noisy and smelly and too easy to get lost. But if the Captain thought it best…

Under the cover of a moonless sky, the pair of hybrids skulked past the outskirts of the city and into the town proper. Captain Sagara led the way to an empty culvert, allowing his stumbling charge to curl up for a few fitful hours of sleep. The Sekihotai leader stayed awake a while longer, black and white face turned towards the wilderness from whence they had come.

“Easy now,” the voice was low, distorted almost to the point of being unintelligible. Sano grumbled a little in protest, nosing his face a little further into the Captain’s shoulder. “We don’t want to spook them.”

Spook who? And why were they talking about it so loudly? He was trying to sleep.

Bleary hazel-brown eyes opened, blinking away the sleep-dirt that had accumulated in the corners. Sano was quite ready to tell off whoever was muttering so nearby when there were two tired Sekihotai right there.

Shapes resovled themselves slowly, strange in the psuedo-twilight of the concrete culvert. There were the slim black shoulders of the Captain, his face relaxed in repose, there was the yellow sunlight-framed entrance of their temporary den, noon sunlight blocked by twin pillars of shadow. Sano squinted at the anomaly for a moment, wondering who had awoken him. Then the two pillars moved, resolving themselves into two humans with noose-capped metal poles in their hands.

A sharp yelp of alarm reverberated down the tunnel into blackness and Captain Sagara came awake with a start. Taking in the situation at a glance the Sekihotai leader jumped to his feet, a growl reverberating through his frame as he stood in front of his young charge.

“Crap,” one of the humans muttered, catch pole wavering in the face of Souzou’s bared teeth. The other shot a sideways glare at his companion before switching back to Sagara.

“Easy…” his voice soothed, “no one’s going to hurt you…” Contrary to his words, the catch pole in his hands shifted, trying to loop the enlarged noose over the Captain’s head. The Sekihotai bit at the twisted metal with a snarl, the other catch pole moving forward to encircle the leader’s extended throat. Captain Sagara fought, backing up and tossing his head violently back and forth.

“Sano, run!”

“But, Captain!”

“Go!”

With a backwards glance Sano disappeared into the pitiless depths of the culvert, chased by the human’s curses and his Captain’s struggle.

It was a little tricky to find where they’d taken the Captain, but, alone, Sano found he had nothing but time.

Deeper within the city was a squat compound of concrete called Animal Control. It was here Sano found his leader.

Memories skipped, because a confused jumble as Sanosuke was aware of lying on the forest floor and sneaking around the concrete prison at the same time.

The Captain’s anger that Sanosuke had put himself at risk to find his hero, the sight of dogs in cages, barking madly at the small intruder but kept from touching him by chain-link metal.

The Captain’s order to leave, go back to the woods. The first command he had not obeyed.

Skulking in shadows for over a week, dropping by after dark to reassure himself that Souzou was still alive. The men who came to look at the dogs, saw the Captain and broke into excited whispers. The head of the canine prison, unsure but unable to keep a hostile dog when there was someone who wanted it. Captain Sagara loaded into a crate and put in the back of a truck. The difficulty Sano’d had in finding it, following it, because now there wasn’t any time, though he was no less alone.

His final meeting with Captain Sagara, his leader’s calm deliberation and quiet order that Sano was Not. To. Watch. The last order disobeyed.

Confusion as the Captain was thrown into a pen with another dog. Shocked rage as the men ordered them to fight one another.

Fierce pride as the Captain refused to fight a fellow canine for the human’s pleasure. Numbing horror as the men who had taken him called the Captain a cur and…

Sano groaned, memories slipping back into their usual dull pain rather than the fresh agony he’d relived while unconscious. Apparently he hadn’t been out quite long enough though…

“The Sekihotai?”

“A unique pack of feral dogs unrelated by blood, intensely loyal to their leader. Six seasons ago there was some sort of treachery and the leader was lost. The Sekihotai never regrouped from the tragedy.” Battousai’s voice, grim, the bastard. As if he cared anything for the Captain!

“Kenshin,” that was the Missy, “how did…?”

“He became a legend among those of us made to fight,” the red wolf’s voice was distant, as if his eyes focused not on the forest around them, but dust and pain and iron bars. “The story of his courage in refusing to fight their battles was often repeated.”

“Like—” Sano coughed, bloodshot eyes opening to glare at the red wolf, “like you know anything about him, Battousai. Human’s pet, drenched in the blood of dogs.”

Shaking, Sano pushed himself to his feet to glare down at the smaller wolf, who stared back impassively. “You were all cowards!” The hybrid continued, hardly aware of what he was saying anymore, the black bile he’d stored in his heart for so long coming up at last. “If you’d refused to fight, if all of you refused to fight…”

Battousai tipped his head to one side, as if watching the final pieces of a puzzle slide into place. “So. This is the reason you fight.”

“You’re no better than the humans!” Kaoru sputtered, “Going around picking fights for the fun of it!”

You think I don’t know that? But fighting, fighting is the only way I can forget…

“The reasons why we must fight are not always clear, Miss Kaoru.” Kenshin-Battousai’s voice still calm, defending him. “I recognize your claim, Sanosuke,” the red wolf paced forward, leaving behind a thunderstruck female and pup, “We will settle this now.”

Finally…It was almost calming.

All finesse had fled Sano’s already rowdy fighting style, all plans driven away by the fierce ache of his skull, the dull weeping of his injured flank and the all-consuming burn of rage in his heart. If he didn’t lash out, it would destroy him, he knew it would.

Kenshin-Battousai dodged around Sano’s wild lunges like an autumn leaf evading the clumsy jaws of a puppy. I’ve got to hit, just one hit. When did he stop worrying about winning and just think about a hit? But still… Just one!

Battousai swerved to avoid another charge, desperate, Sano managed to turn with him, and finally red fur was just—in—reach… Vanished from before his eyes and a startlingly gentle pressure of teeth gripped his throat from below.

Not piercing, not even bruising, just there.

Sano froze, trying to angle his head to that he could see— but all he could make out was the top of a blood-red head.

Slowly the fangs slid free, and Kenshin stood before him once more, another unreadable expression settling over his features.

“Why didn’t you finish it?” Sano rasped, unable to shake the feeling that his throat should be hurting.

Kenshin shook his head slowly, “This one has no reason to wish you dead, Sanosuke.”

“And the ones you killed for your human masters?” Sano growled, “Did you have a reason to kill them?”

A quiet sigh, violet eyes that bore the sadness of the world. “Sessha was a tool for destruction long before such as they took me. The human who held me was shrewd. He would not kill me. When this one refused to fight. When this one lost purposefully.” Violet eyes closed, shutting off that window to inner agony. “Sessha wearied. Seeing opponents killed in grotesque ways for losing, seeing victors torn apart in battles they had not recovered for. And this one… this one already knew the weight of sin.”

Sano blinked, I’m not sure that lets him off the hook…the fighter wondered doubtfully, wavering.

“This one is sorry for what happened to your leader, Sanosuke. As with any who fought, this one holds a share in the blame. If my life would bring you peace, it would be given.” Kenshin shook his head. “But this one knows that it would not. All that is left for those that still live is to remember how loved ones lived, and died.”

“Pretty words.” Sano eased gingerly to a sitting position. Now that the adrenaline was seeping away exhaustion was clawing its way up his bones. Distantly the fighter wondered if they would mind very much if he just lay down here.

“They aren’t just words!” Kaoru was shouting, but didn’t seem to be really angry anymore… just upset. Weird.

“You come here griping ‘Battousai’ this and ‘murderer’ that, but you don’t know a thing about Kenshin! He’s an idiot who’s always putting himself into harms way to save others.” She paused, “To save me. He doesn’t want to fight! Don’t forget that you’re the one who started this!”

“He saved me too,” Yahiko’s voice came quietly, fiercely. The puppy stepped forward, ears pinned, voice rising to a shout, “Kenshin saved me when there was nothing in it for him, and if you still don’t understand that he’s just trying to help then I’m gonna have to fight you and straighten you out myself!”

The kid was really serious, so Sano tried not to laugh. It was easier than he thought it’d be, darkness was creeping in at the corners of his vision, but he still had something to say.

“We’ll see. I wanna…” the forest was going distant, sounds hollow and thin. “I wanna see for myself. Just how you live.”

The last thing he could make out was a shadowy smile on a red-and-white muzzle, and, like a ghostly echo, the same smile on a black-and-white muzzle. Captain Sagara?

Kaoru watched the fighter fall, his unfocused eyes sliding shut. Is he still alive? She didn’t want to ask it, she really didn’t want to ask but she wanted to know…

“Is he dead?” Yahiko’s voice broke the stillness in a hushed tone. Yahiko!

“No, Yahiko,” Kenshin had padded over to the downed fighter, his expression still graver than Kaoru liked. “Just exhausted. This one had to deal with him pretty harshly.”

Which sounded a little strange since Kenshin hadn’t been trying to kill the hybrid, but then, Kaoru knew it was a lot harder to fight someone you weren’t trying to hurt when they were actively trying to hurt you.

Yahiko moved closer to the fighter on wobbly legs, his face near the body so he could sniff at the unconscious fighter. “Think he’s gonna want to fight again when he gets up?”

Kenshin sighed, “This one would hope not, but it is possible.”

“Guess this stuff happens a lot huh? With you being Battousai.” Yahiko was very carefully not looking at either of the adults.

Kenshin winced, “Yahiko, this one’s intent was not to deceive…”

The spike-furred puppy shook himself, as if brushing off damp leaves that had clung to his back. “It’s okay. I’d,” a massive yawn had his tongue curling in the middle of his sentence, “I’d probably keep something like that quiet too, if it were me. But it’s nice to know there’s a reason why you’re strong as a demon.”

Kaoru felt a yawn of her own split her muzzle, the excitement of fighting was gone now, and she was exhausted. Considering, she eyed San’s immobile fame.

“What are we going to do with him? We shouldn’t just leave him here.”

Especially not with the smell of his blood permeating the area. Kenshin smiled, not quite a Rurouni smile, but moving slowly away from the blue-eyed grimness he had held to during the fight.

“Why don’t you take Yahiko back to the den and get some rest, Miss Kaoru? This one will keep watch over Sanosuke.”

Yahiko snorted, sitting heavily next to Sano. “Are you kidding? That whole place reeks of Gohei.” Rich brown eyes rolled in exasperation, “No way I’ll be able to sleep in that stench!”

I’m going to be nice to you. Kaoru resolved, hiding a grin, grateful for the excuse to stay. With an unconcerned stretch, she walked over to Yahiko and lay down with her back to his. “Looks like we’re staying out here with you, Kenshin.”

The first thing Sano was aware of was a splitting headache. Really, really splitting. Like some human had grabbed his ears and was yanking them as far as they could away from each other, the rest of his head in shrieking pursuit.

Ow.

The thought staggered through the hybrid’s brain sluggishly, trailing waves of pain.

After a few minutes of trying not to think the pain settled into a dull ache, grumbling but ignorable. The rest of him reported in slowly, aching itchiness that meant the wounds on his flanks had scabbed over but were still tender, a cleanness to the air that meant he wasn’t in the human settlement. Still in the forest.

Hazel eyes opened warily, ready to slam shut should the headache reappear.

The little missy and the kid were curled up next to, but not touching him. Kaoru’s silvery frame wrapped around Yahiko’s earthy one. Cute. Which meant that Kenshin…

The fighter turned his head, unsurprised to find that violet eyes were awake and watching him.

“Sanosuke,” came the wary greeting.

Sano groaned. “I think you broke my skull.”

Kenshin grinned wryly, “This one has quite a headache as well.”

“Keh.”

Hesitation, then, “Sanosuke…”

“Might as well call me Sano,” the hybrid rolled over Kenshin’s start. “I’m gonna be hanging around for a while.”

“Oh?”

“Talk is cheap,” Sano said bluntly, “All these words about you being such a good guy… I’m gonna see for myself just what you’re living for.”

A heavy yawn interrupted him, and Sano let his head droop back down onto his paws. “So, guess you can’t go off somewhere without my say-so, huh, Kenshin?”

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: The Howling

I feel they’re getting closer

Their howls are sending chills down my spine

And time is running out now

They’re coming down the hills from behind

 -Within Temptation, The Howling

Oi… I know he’s supposed to be a nice guy but this is ridiculous. Ridiculous, but oddly… normal. Lying around someone’s den for weeks at a time while flesh knit its leisurely way back together was a pretty good way of getting to know folk.

Kaoru had dropped the hospitable “lets-all-be-nice” act by midafternoon of day one when it became apparent that Yahiko wasn’t going to change his behavior (or misbehavior) for anything.

And Kenshin… Kenshin just kept smiling along, intervening at appropriate moments to keep Kaoru and Yahiko’s brother-sister squabbles from getting too violent. It was weird. Especially how, despite knowing exactly who he was, the dog and tanuki seemingly saw no problem in attacking the Rurouni.

As they were doing now.

“I can’t believe you’re taking his side in this!” Kaoru’s frustrated voice broke through his ponderings, drawing attention back to the present argument.

Kenshin smiled uneasily up into Kaoru’s annoyed muzzle. The she-wolf had him pinned on his back, one sooty forepaw on his chest to keep the red wolf from squirming away.

Sanosuke watched, fascinated. There’s something so wrong about this, and it’s weird because it doesn’t feel weird. The first day? Definitely. The first week? Sure. But now? Kenshin let himself get beat up every day, and it wasn’t really surprising anymore. He can dodge, but he doesn’t. He didn’t fight back either, only offered token struggles to get up every so often.

“Well, Miss Kaoru, Yahiko does have a point, that he does.”

“Hah!” Yahiko blurted, expression turning smug.

“He should start trying out hunts.”

Kaoru shook her head, letting the Rurouni up, but her flattened ears gave testament to her continued annoyance. “I’m not saying he shouldn’t! I just want to know why you think I should be the one to teach him!”

“Wait, what?!” Yahiko backpedaled as Kenshin rose to his diminutive height. “What does this clumsy girl know about hunting?!”

“Why you little…”

“Miss Kaoru is quite an experienced hunter,” Kenshin pointed out calmly, “and, Miss Kaoru, teaching someone will encourage you to closely examine your methods, which will greatly improve them.”

“But Kenshin,” Yahiko whined, “I wanna hunt with you!”

The red-furred wolf shook his head. “Someday we will hunt together,” Kenshin agreed gently with the crestfallen puppy, “but today you hunt with Miss Kaoru.”

“But why?” the kid kept complaining as Kaoru gave up and started herding the puppy out of the den. Kenshin just shook his head, gentle smile firmly in place.

“There will be other hunts, Yahiko.”

The kid gave up with bad grace, allowing Kaoru to push him out of the den with flattened ears.

Sano yawned and stretched, keeping one eye on the red-furred Rurouni who lay down a few feet away.

“That wasn’t real nice of you, Kenshin.” Purple eyes fixed on him, a quizzical smile hovering around a pointed muzzle. “The kid practically worships the ground you walk on.”

The smile faded, violet eyes somber, “This one is aware of that, but it will be better for him to learn from Miss Kaoru, that it will.”

Because you don’t want him getting any more attached to you. Sano’s eyes narrowed as he took in the older wolf. Kenshin was planning to leave, maybe not today, or tomorrow, or even next season, but the Rurouni was ever so delicately holding himself back from being a part of Kaoru and Yahiko’s pack (Sano didn’t count it as his, not yet, but maybe…)

The former fighter-for-hire wasn’t sure Yahiko knew what the Rurouni was doing, but Kaoru did on some level. Sano hadn’t heard much about what had gone on before he’d showed up, but it was easy enough to figure out. Until Kenshin had come into her life, Kaoru had been alone. Most wolves weren’t meant to be alone, and the little missy didn’t seem like one of the few exceptions. The female was worried about Kenshin leaving, as though the red-furred wolf was some sort of charm that kept the rest of them here.

“You planning on going back?” Okay, he wasn’t sure if that confusion was part of Kenshin’s act or if he’d really lost the older wolf. “Wherever you were before the ring.”

For a moment Sano wondered if Kenshin would answer the same way he did when he was trying to reassure Kaoru, with a smile and ignorant confusion, deflecting the question. But he didn’t. The red wolf was quiet, pensive, staring off toward the entrance of the den.

“No,” violet eyes were grave, “this one would not return…”

“Hey, Kaoru,” Yahiko looked over his shoulder, back the way they had come. Kaoru stopped, waiting for the young dog to turn and face her again. No insults, this must be big.

“Where’d Kenshin come from?”

The slow blink felt strange, so Kaoru tried it again. Still oddly detached. “What do you mean?” her voice sounded funny too, calm, polite.

Yahiko fixed a red-brown gaze on his white paws, scuffing a fallen leaf back and forth between them. “I didn’t mean that, I mean before. He was born wild, right?”

“R-right.” Not that he’s said much about it... “It doesn’t matter where he came from.” Ah, that sounded like her, “He’s with us now.”

Yahiko looked back once more before turning to follow the tanuki once more. Apparently putting it out of his mind.

The female wished she could do the same. Where did he come from? Tae said he was from the north but… Kaoru snorted her opinion of the cat’s reliability. And I can’t just ask him. Kenshin never talks about his past and that’s no accident. Well, that wasn’t quite true. She had tried (unsuccessfully) to grill him on his origin and destination when they first met.

“Sessha left his pack long ago. This one does not think that they would be pleased to see him again.”

But that didn’t make sense. Kaoru didn’t have a lot of practical knowledge on packs (except to know that theirs was very unusual) but Kenshin was valuable. A flat-out amazing fighter, as skilled in bringing down prey alone as a group of wolves working in tandem, careful with young ones and wise enough to know when to fight and when to negotiate. He should have been missed, wherever he came from. Someone should be looking for him, but it had been over a moon since he arrived and the only ones looking for Kenshin had been doing it based on his ties (severed, mangled ties) to the humans.

Nothing about his old territory or allegiances. She had nothing really. No information. Tae would only take a query about the fabled Battousai as invitation to tell the whole story over again. Maybe Sano knows something… The fighter had been traveling for a while; maybe those big snooping ears of his had scooped out something useful.

Kaoru led Yahiko down to the rabbit-warrens, then made the puppy stand aside and watch as the tanuki quickly and efficiently cornered a rabbit away from its burrow and killed it. The she-wolf went a short way off to try and avoid alerting any more of the rabbits and settled in to wait for Yahiko.

The puppy had been abnormally quiet while watching Kaoru’s hunt, brown eyes intense as the akita-mix tried to soak in everything he was being shown.

Now if only he would pay that much attention when we’re trying to teach him about the boundaries! Kaoru sighed, eating her catch absent-mindedly as she thought. Tonight the odd pack was planning on going on a night patrol, Yahiko’s first, since the pup generally seemed to be more active during the day. Maybe he would pay more attention in a different setting. Lost in her musings, the she-wolf finished her meal and settled in for a long day.

Kaoru blinked, surprised to see Yahiko standing in front of her, every line of his growing frame filled with self-assured pleasure, and a fat rabbit dangling from his jaws. With his mouth full, he couldn’t say anything, but his eyes demanded that she say something.

The tanuki paused, wracking her brain. On one side, the kid had done well and should be told so. On the other side, if she told him he might (would) get cocky and become even more of a brat. Where’s my dad when I need him?!

She was taking too long, the puppy was slowly losing his attention demanding pose, the curly tail moving down a fraction, his ears beginning a slow movement toward lying flat. Aw, crap.

“Good job, Yahiko.”

The ears and tail were back up as if they’d never moved, juvenile arrogance lining the kid’s frame. Gingerly he laid down his prize.

“Heh, that was easy! I don’t know why you make such a big deal about it.”

Yup. There was the attitude.

“That’s great,” Kaoru continued as if she hadn’t heard the pup. “Go do it again.”

Sano looked up from his lazy position on the ground as Yahiko and Kaoru made their way back into the clearing by the den. “Ah, the mighty hunter returns.”

Yahiko came to a stop, letting the rabbit tumble from his jaws as he sat with a supremely smug expression on his face. Kaoru followed with two more rabbits, dropping them beside Yahiko’s.

“So how’d he do?” Sano pointedly ignored Yahiko’s puffed out chest, making the puppy bristle defensively.

“What do you mean ‘how’d I do?” The dog snarled in annoyance, indicating the rabbits with a jerk of his spiky-furred head.

“And how many of those did you catch, kid?”

Kaoru flopped down on her stomach, putting her forepaws over her ears and sliding them off in a trick she’d learned from Tae that helped to get a lot of the itch out of the triangular appendages.

“Yahiko did very well,” she managed, giving Kenshin a look for saddling her with the puppy for the better part of the day. “Those rabbits are all his.”

“Yeah, and if I don’t like your attitude, I won’t give you one,” Yahiko groused, using his white paws to gather the rabbits closer to his sitting form.

“Yahiko…” Kaoru started with a sigh, wondering if she’d have to get up and resolve the problem. Thankfully, Kenshin was on it.

“This one is glad that you were so successful Yahiko,” and there was the calming smile, moving in to talk the touchy puppy into giving up the food before Sano moved in to just take it. Already full from her own rabbit, Kaoru let herself drift off for a short nap.

Kaoru was woken after about an hour by a gentle nudge on her shoulder. Bleary-eyed, she searched for the obtrusive object responsible. Kenshin was just withdrawing his paw.

“Forgive this one, Miss Kaoru, but we were going to take Yahiko on a night patrol and he was threatening to jump on you.”

Kaoru blinked up at the sheepish red smile for a minute, her brain taking its precious time to work out what the Rurouni had said.

“What…? Oh. Thanks, Kenshin.”

A tinge of relief colored the smile, evidently pleased that the temperamental female hadn’t taken exception to being woken up. Kenshin moved away to where Yahiko was fairly bouncing in place, eager to go out on his first night patrol, and Sano was eyeing the dog as if he was very much considering sitting on him.

Kaoru stood with a yawn and a stretch, giving herself a good shake to try and convince her body that it really was time to wake up now.

The travel order was established without much formality. Noting her half-awake expression, Kenshin took the lead with Yahiko, while Sano and Kaoru moved more slowly at the rear.

The tanuki waited until Kenshin and Yahiko were a good distance ahead before turning to Sagara.

“Hey, Sano?”

The bigger fighter looked back at Kaoru with a smile, “Yeah, missy?”

Kaoru felt herself smile in return. She liked having Sano around; he was easy to talk to and didn’t seem at all interested in giving her orders or moving to take over their odd pack, content to follow Kenshin’s lead. And Kenshin trusted him to follow that lead. I guess that’s what a Beta is like…

“Do you know anything about where Kenshin came from?” Kaoru faltered under the brown stare her question was met with, breaking eye contact and trying to control her flinching ears, “You know, before?”

There was a pause, and for a bad moment the tanuki thought that the hybrid was going to laugh at her. “Ain’t this something you should be asking him?” Sano sounded only mildly curious, but he had a brow raised. She could hear that slanted expression.

The she-wolf clenched her jaw for a moment, looking ahead to where Kenshin was pointing a trail-sign out to Yahiko. Out of earshot. Apparently.

“He… doesn’t talk about it. And I don’t want to bother him.”

Sano snorted good-naturedly, “So you’ll bother me instead, is that it?”

Kaoru rolled her eyes, shaking off her unease with the motion, “I just wanted to know if you’d heard anything. I mean, you’d heard of him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the fighter muttered, then paused, eyes scanning the canopy overhead with a distant look. “Most of what I heard…” he began slowly, searching out the words, or his memory, “was after he was already in the pens. Life there… it’s like a nightmare, and to hear the other dogs talk, he was like the King of Hell. You fought him, you died, everyone did.” Sano shook his head, ruffling the fur along his back, “Before that… rumors vary, so take it all with a grain of salt, but the only thing that stayed the same in most of them was that the Battousai came from a war-torn pack to the north.”

Blue eyes sought out a scarlet figure, patiently listening to a nosy puppy’s endless stream of questions. “Do you believe it?” Her second question was quieter than her first.

Sano exhaled. “Yeah. Kenshin’s not the first from the pens I’ve had to fight,” the hybrid shrugged, “Stuff happens, dogs get loose. But those dogs… there’s something… broken about them,” he tried to explain in halting terms, “Something wrong with the way that they think. Those dogs see you, and it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, they’re after you fast and hard and they don’t stop.” A flinty look came into hazel eyes, “It’s like they don’t know any of the rules on how to live with anybody else, or they’ve had them beaten out of them.

“You lose a fight with one of those freaks and it’s over. They don’t recognize submission or surrender, show ’em your belly and you’re gonna get it ripped out.” A heavy sigh,

“Kenshin’s not like that. He..”

“Doesn’t want to fight,” Kaoru filled in softly, Sano nodded,

“Yeah, but more than that. He knows the rules on how packs live together.” The hybrid shrugged again, “I don’t think that’s anything you don’t already know.”

“Probably not,” Kaoru agreed, “but thanks.” It always goes back to the north…

“Could you two move any slower?” Yahiko’s voice came back to the pair, tinged with the impatience of the young.

The tanuki looked up; Yahiko was scowling, shifting with the need to move on, Kenshin stood quietly to one side, that enigmatic smile masking his expression.

“We’re coming,” Kaoru snapped back at the pup, trotting to catch up to Kenshin and Yahiko, “Not all of us need to go charging around all the time.”

That, of course, brought an indignant rebuttal and a surly question about the quality of Kaoru’s looks, launching the female and the puppy into a familiar argument.

The unusual pack was crossing the northeast corner of the territory when they heard the howling. By unspoken agreement, the group came to a halt on a small natural plateau where the ground had leveled off and the trees didn’t grow so close.

“What’s that?” Yahiko twisted his head this way and that, triangular ears moving independently of each other to try and collect the sounds more effectively. “I can’t quite make out what they’re saying…” The effort on his young face was plain, well mixed with the frustration of almost… there…

“They’re howling,” Kaoru replied absently, trying to focus on the soul-tingling sounds on the night wind. “There’s a trick to listening to it.”

“It’s an older way of talking,” Kenshin elaborated, “more idea and feeling than words.” The red wolf fell silent, listening, and Kaoru took up the instruction once more.

“Usually, we use howling as an affirmation of our territory—we are here, this is ours—that sort of thing.” Her ears twitched, shying away from listening for a second before returning to their posts. “But that’s not what they’re doing…”

The sound rose and fell in eerie waves, multiple voices giving cry to one thought.

“Intruder… enemy…” Sano picked out easily, a humorless grin appearing and disappearing rapidly. “I’ve heard that before. Usually about me.”

“Something… black?” Yahiko ventured, face screwed up in intense concentration.

“A description-name,” Kenshin clarified, lip curling as if tasting the name. “Kurogasa… one who wears black on his head?”

The next message needed no translation, a sharp cry and splintering of voices into individual fears. Danger! Murderer!

“We’ve got to get over there!” Kaoru shifted, only just holding herself back from a headlong sprint into Uramura’s territory. The tanuki locked gazes with her companions, lingering on Sano’s brown eyes.

The hazel hybrid cocked a brow at her, “No need for the look, Missy, I’m with you.”

Yahiko would come no matter what, so that left… Kenshin.

The red wolf still stood, every muscle locked in place, intent for any communication after that terrified wail. Only the wind through the trees answered. It makes you wonder, Kaoru shuddered, if there’s anyone left to save.

“I know we aren’t supposed to trespass, but the Uramura’s are good neighbors and…” Kaoru trailed off at the decision already etched into somber violet eyes.

“That they stopped to warn rather than flee…” Kenshin shook his head, stepping out of his locked position fluidly to move down the incline, “Whatever hunts them does not mean to stop at their territory, that it does not.”

It will come to us… hung in the air, unspoken. Kaoru struggled to swallow past a hideous lump in her throat, watching as Yahiko gave a convulsive shudder, ears flat to his skull, but stubbornly standing straight despite it all. Sano cocked his head to one side, coolly observing again. Kenshin glanced back at the small pack,

“We should hurry.”

The run north to Uramura’s territory was swift and breathless; part of Kaoru was in awe at how quickly they fell into a seamless formation, Kenshin ahead, Sano just behind, Kaoru and Yahiko keeping up the rear. Is this what running in a pack is like? The world felt strangely… complete, right, even though they were racing toward an unknown danger. Kenshin set the pace, mixing ground-eating runs with brisk walks to keep up their strength to face whatever awaited them in the strange territory, even Yahiko was keeping up well.

They approached the edge of her territory, and the no-man’s-land that lay between it and the Uramura pack. Sano and Kenshin crossed the boundary line without even slowing, probably, Kaoru reflected sourly, because they were used to slipping between territories. Yahiko followed without problem, still unconvinced as to the seriousness of trespassing, which left only Kaoru, crossing over into the narrow stretch of land between the two territories which belonged to neither side, then over into her neighbor’s land with a shudder.

The Uramura’s had been great neighbors in her father’s day, which meant that neither side had trespassed on the others territory. She’d never actually met the wolves that comprised the pack, only heard them in the howls they sent back and forth. But still, they were a link to the time she’d shared with her father, a set of familiar voices that stretched back into her earliest memories. The horrible silence after the distressed howl rose in her mind again, and Kaoru picked up her pace, closing the distance her hesitation had made.

In front, Kenshin’s muzzle lifted ever so slightly, seeking out the scent of the wolves that called this territory home. Now their path changed, veering away from true north to the northwest. I hope it’s not too far... Howls could carry for many miles. If the Uramura pack had been deep within the heart of their territory for the howling, then Kaoru’s small pack would never reach them in time.

The ground rose beneath their footpaws in a gentle slope, the earliest beginnings of the mountain range that crossed the Uramura’s territory. Yahiko was beginning to tire now, stumbling in his run and breath becoming ragged around the edges, but this time Kenshin didn’t slow. His dark red ears were pricked forward, listening to something just over the next rise. Straining, Kaoru caught the sound too. A low chuckle. Evil, the thought rose in her mind like a chilling mist, the laughter ominous as a viper in her path. Weak noises of movement followed the soul-chilling sound, a low whine, and the horrible rattle of a creature’s last breath.

Kenshin and Sano burst over the top of the ridge in a single leap, Kaoru and Yahiko scrambling behind.

The sight that awaited them made Kaoru move to shield Yahiko’s gaze, but the puppy dodged her abortive attempt to stand beside her, eyes wide in the small face, ears flat to his skull.

The rise had hidden a small clearing from view, exactly the kind of plateau that Kaoru herself used when howling. On the ground, flung like storm-tossed debris, was the Uramura pack. Blood, there’s so much… the coppery stench of it clogged her nostrils as the red of it clogged her eyes.

The alpha male and his mate lay side by side, the male’s eyes glazed over in death, the red spilling from his throat offering up the cause of his demise. The female was still alive, barely, the light of her eyes fading even as Kaoru watched, her entire body was contorted to an unnatural angle, spine snapped in half by strong jaws. There, a young male whose face was a ruin and whose chest no longer rose or fell, there a battle-scarred female who wouldn’t live to turn these injuries into scars, half-curled around a small… Kaoru choked back a plaintive whine, valiantly trying not to be sick. Is there… anyone left to save…?

Movement broke Kaoru free of her shock, wide blue eyes trying to seek out a survivor. A dark shape separated from the trees encircling the clearing, moving forward slowly. Unease coiled to a hard knot in Kaoru’s stomach, the hairs along her spine standing on end, nose still overpowered by the stench of blood.

Moonlight seemed to quail away from the creature, shuddering against illuminating that form for as long as possible… until there was simply no choice.

The wolf was tall, shoulders rising above Sano’s even, a muscular frame masked by thick fur in the colors of a traditional wolf writ dark. The top of his head looked like a black cap, covered in startlingly dark fur. But the most bizarre were his eyes.

The whites were gone, irrevocably gone, replaced by black. The blood vessels in his eyes had burst long ago, the fresh red dulled to night; only the iris seemed to retain color, pupiless teal marbles lit by a maniacal inner fire. It was like looking into the eyes of madness itself.

A low rumble came from Sano’s chest, his spiky-furred head low and the tips of his fangs just visible. “Who the hell are you?”

The stranger moved around the clearing rather than into it, approaching the small pack in an arc. “And here they are… more worthless insects with no lives…” that villainous chuckle rose in the air again, Kaoru wanted to shake herself free of the sound, as if it were some sort of clinging ooze weighing her down, but she didn’t dare move and draw the wolf’s attention. “Good… stay and play won’t you?” the wolf grinned, mouth opening to reveal pointed teeth, “It isn’t any fun if you run away.”

“Kenshin,” Kaoru found herself whispering, ears almost flat to her skull, “his head…”

“This one sees it, Miss Kaoru,” Kenshin answered equally quietly, eyeing the black fur that spread from the stranger’s ear tips to just above his brows. “ ‘One who wears black on his head’… Kurogasa.”

“Oh?” Kurogasa raised a brow, “Someone heard that little message they stopped to send? It’s not the most impressive nickname, but I’ll take it.”

“You’ll take it?” Sano snarled, “Why the hell did you kill them you bastard?!”

“Why?” Kurogasa dropped his smile for a moment, staring at Sano with those weird eyes, “It’s natural for the weak to be killed by the strong. What about you?” That smile, slow and chilling as poison in the veins crept back across Kurogasa’s muzzle, “Are you strong or weak?”

Kenshin shifted suddenly, blocking Kaoru’s (and from his indignant yelp, Yahiko’s too) view of the stranger. The echo of… something washed over the shielded pair, chilling and cold, but broken by the bulwark of Kenshin’s warm red body.

Sano made a strangled noise. The fighter stood stiffly, body vibrating, muscles visibly quivering under his fur and skin, but he stayed locked in the same standing position. He forced his jaw open as if against a heavy weight.

“What… did you do?”

He’s trying to move, Kaoru realized in shock, but he… can’t?!

“Shino Ippo—The spell of Frozen Terror,” Kenshin’s voice, hard, as it rarely was. The Rurouni moved and Kaoru could see Kurogasa again, his constant smile fading slightly. “And now I know your true identity, Jineh Udo, rogue Mibu!”

The smile was gone, teal eyes staring at Kenshin, mind working through the fog of insanity with visible effort.

“It can’t be… crimson soul… branded face…” the fangs returned, sinister in their glee, “All you’re missing are the eyes of a murderer, Hitokiri Battousai!”

Kenshin’s face could have been carved from stone, utterly impassive in the face of Jineh’s manic glee.

“Ha ha ha ha ha!” The strange wolf shook with the force of his laughter, pinning Kenshin with one crazed eye. “Ha ha! I never thought that it was true! So! The greatest warrior of the Revolution is really here!”

Kenshin flinched, just noticeably, eyes narrowing into a fierce glare.

The Revolution? That guy’s not talking about Kenshin’s time with the humans. What’s going on? And… did Kenshin’s eyes just turn blue?

“That confirms it,” Kenshin said quietly, gaze never leaving the blood-flecked face of the killer. “In the North, this one had heard of a wolf who fought on the side of Mibu, a crazed slayer of friend and enemy alike. Banished from Mibu’s ranks for his bloodlust.”

“Banished?” Kurogasa laughed, “No, those fools tried to kill me!” The fanged grin never faltered, “But you know what that was like, Battousai. The alphas of those packs were too weak to do their own fighting. That’s why beasts like you and I are necessary.”

“Jineh Udo,” Kenshin’s voice overrode the mad wolf’s, “Why have you come here?”

Jineh cocked his head to one side, exposed fangs gleaming in the starlight, “Battousai,” he drew out the name, savoring it, savoring the flinch that steeled Kenshin’s features into something sharper, blue eyes pale and hard. “Do you know what happened when you disappeared?” he barked a laugh, answering his own question, “Of course not, you were gone!

“It was a nightmare. The war ground to a standstill. The leaders of Mibu were gone; the phantom fang of the Ishin Shishi was gone… One wolf,” he shot Kenshin a pointed look, “one small wolf vanishes, and the bloodiest war I’d dreamed of fighting in stops.

“Do you know what that means, Battousai?” Jineh didn’t give Kenshin a chance to respond, “It means that you were the soul of that battle, the true heart of that glorious slaughter. And when you vanished, it was over. I’ve always regretted… not being able to fight you then. The era’s avatar of murder!”

Kaoru could see it this time, Jineh’s eyes widening to almost absurd proportions, pupiless teal orbs motionless in a sea of darkness, a flash of strange light, when all the world seemed distorted and wrong, chilling cold that swept past Kaoru and Yahiko with icy fangs but was focused only on…Kenshin!

For a moment the former manslayer froze like Sano, still immobile beside him. Then, with a sharp exhalation, the crimson frame relaxed.

“Shino Ippo projects the fear of being prey into your opponent,” Kenshin said quietly, not taking his eyes off the strange wolf. “If one can see past the terror to the path of escape it will not hold him.”

“Easily said, Battousai,” Jineh’s smile never wavered, “but few are those who can actually do it!”

Wind whipped across the plateau, momentarily alleviating the stench of blood all around them, Kenshin hesitated, frowning.

“Well there’s one more here who can!” Sano snarled, throwing off the paralysis with a fierce twist of his head, wrenching his body out of the immobility and into a sprint at the crazed wolf.

Kenshin’s eyes went wide in horror. “No, Sano! You mustn’t touch him!” The former fighter-for-hire looked back at the red wolf, attack faltering.

Jineh seized upon the moment of inattention, closing the distance between himself and Sano, fanged maw open and slavering.

“Crap!” the hybrid backpedaled, managing to get away from the attack, just barely. “What gives, Kenshin?!”

The manslayer stepped forward, coming between the intruder and Sano, steely blue eyes fixed on Jineh.

“He’s ill.” The foaming sickness. Rabies, the humans called it. “He has the madness.” And he knows it.

Kenshin could hear Sano recoil with a muttered curse. The madness, the disease that infected with a bite, bleeding poison into the veins, corrupting minds to senseless slaughter, lost in a fever of heat and thirst and endless fear, destined to die in agony after turning on those closest to them.

Jineh’s grin grew wider still. “So you noticed, Battousai.” Adding the hostility induced by the disease to a mind already enamored of slaughter… And sessha was called a demon.

“You cloak yourself in the stench of blood to hide your true danger…” steel-blue eyes narrowed “Does your depravity know no bounds?”

“Hide?” Jineh laughed, “I’m not hiding anything. The smell of blood follows me as it always has, as it always will.” Words breathed with the solemn reverence of a prayer, “Hitokiri wa hitokiri, Battousai.”

“Enough!” Kenshin snarled, leaping forward, into the danger posed by fangs and disease. Kaoru choked back a scream of terror at his carelessness, her frame shaking with nervous energy. He must have a reason, he must!

Jineh moved away from the attack in a carelessly quick jump, turning to the offensive. Aiming low, the enemy wolf snapped at Kenshin’s footpaws, Kenshin took to the air in the crescent-moon jump he had used against Sano so effectively. Jineh wasn’t there when the red wolf came down with punishing force.

So fast! Is he faster than Kenshin?

Kurogasa turned in the middle of his retreat, coming back in for a lightning-fast attack in the millisecond where Kenshin was recovering his footing from his landing. Fangs flashed in the cool moonlight, moving down with inexorable swiftness.

“No!” Kaoru couldn’t help the scream this time, it tore free as Kenshin winced, ripping his bloody shoulder free of the jaws that held it.

Jineh was no longer smiling, muzzle stained as red as Kenshin’s fur. “This isn’t any fun Battousai… right now killing you would be as easy as killing that female over there.”

Kenshin instinctively moved to block Kaoru from Jineh’s gaze. The murderous wolf didn’t seem to notice, his lip curled in disgust as he looked at Kenshin, “This isn’t the avatar of murder I’ve longed to fight! Where is the killer that froze the blood of Mibu? Peace has made you soft!” Jineh took a step forward, then shook his head. For the first time Kaoru noticed that sometime during the fight, Kenshin had taken off the tip of his opponent’s left ear.

“It would be a waste to kill you now.” Jineh said, almost to himself, “I’ll give you a chance, Battousai, to find the murderer within you,” a bloody, macabre smile stretched slowly across Kurogasa’s muzzle again, “Find that blood-stained soul… before I find you again!” Jineh dissolved into the darkness of the forest behind him.

Kenshin took a step forward as if to chase down the murderer, stopped short with a sigh. For a moment, the clearing was frozen.

“Kenshin!” Kaoru shook off her paralysis, moving to stand beside the Rurouni, looking at the bloody mess of his shoulder, “What were you thinking? The madness…” Horror closed her throat, but Kenshin turned to her with a gentle smile.

“There are some small benefits to being caged by the humans, Miss Kaoru. They have developed a prevention to the madness. Still,” he caught her eye with his (violet again, thank goodness), “it is possible for you to catch it from this one, so you mustn’t touch me.”

Kaoru eyed Kenshin’s shoulder, the wound just begging to be cleaned out. “For how long?” If you say “forever” Kenshin, so help me, I will feed you your ears.

“It should be safe after two weeks or so.” Kenshin replied with a weak smile, one that faded as he turned to observe the forest Jineh had disappeared into, “Assuming this one is given a few weeks.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Sano’s voice was gruff, moving to stand alongside the rest of the pack, “That guy is crazy, Kenshin!”

The red wolf bowed his head in acknowledgement, “This one cannot say for sure if it was the sickness which caused him to act this way, sessha never met him before.”

“But… you’ve heard of him.” Kaoru offered hesitantly. Kenshin’s eyes slid closed.

“Jineh Udo was a wolf in the service of the Mibu pack, while this one was warring with them on behalf of the Ishin Shishi pack. This one knew enough to count him as an enemy.” Violet eyes opened, regarded the woods for another moment before turning to face the concerned faces surrounding him.

“Sessha would suggest returning to the territory. It is likely that Jineh is finding his way there as we speak.”

“It’s not fair!” Yahiko howled, pacing the length of the den furiously. Kaoru bit back an anxious growl, Does he think I don’t know that?

Fair, it most certainly was not. Kenshin and Sano out combing the territory for any sign of Jineh, and Kenshin had used the voice on Kaoru, that weird mix of persuasion, order and pleading to ask the female to wait in the den with Yahiko.

Puppy duty, that’s all I’m good for it seems. Yahiko certainly didn’t need to be out there where he could conceivably get in that mad killer’s way, but Kaoru was suspicious that Kenshin was using the puppy as an excuse to keep her out of harm’s way as well.

I’m not a housepet, Kenshin! This is my territory too!

But the decision made sense… So she had smiled and ordered the other half of her pack to come home safe. As if just saying it would work some magic to bring the pair back alright.

Dragging herself back from her thoughts with a supreme effort, Kaoru looked up to check on Yahiko. The puppy was still grumbling steadily, pacing back and forth, too wound up to even think of stopping. That wouldn’t do.

“Hey, brat!”

“I am not a brat!”

“Come over here, I’ve got a job for us while we wait.”

Yahiko crossed the den, looking at her suspiciously. “I thought Kenshin asked us not to leave the den.”

The tanuki pushed herself to her paws, “And we aren’t. But I’ve been meaning to do this ever since that thing with Gohei. We’re going to dig out that back door.”

“What?”

Kaoru half-shrugged, making her way over to the tiny hole Yahiko had squeezed out of during that debacle. “It does no good if no one can get out by it,” the she-wolf pointed out, “I really should have done this a long time ago, but now is as good a time as any. We aren’t going anywhere for a while.”

And besides, the tanuki thought as she got to work on the half-collapsed tunnel, it ought to tire you out enough that you forget to worry.

Chapter Text

When we start killing

It all will be falling down

From the Hell that we’re in

All we are is fading away

When we start killing…

-Within Temptation, The Howling

Fear, a strong scent all around her, the overpowering musk of alien fur overlaying the milk-and-warmth that was her mother, the warmth-and-different-sameness of her littermates. It was heavy, cloying, pressing against her delicate nose, hardly leaving room in her tiny lungs for air. And weaving through it like a poisonous vine, the coppery tang of blood.

And she couldn’t hear her siblings crying anymore.

Kaoru pressed herself further back into the backdoor of the den, small legs trembling. Should she run? Would the intruder hear her if she did? And what of mother?

Shuddering, the tanuki puppy peered out into the den, straining blue eyes for a hint of a familiar shape, coal-colored ears pricked for the reassuring murmurs of her mother. The musk was overpowering, a too-large shape shifted in the shadows, and Kaoru yelped in terror as a massive clawed paw shot into her hiding place, raking the narrow tunnel as it reached for her. Dirt shifted ominously as it missed the puppy, gouging at the tunnel walls and floor with claws the length of Kaoru’s muzzle.

An alien yowl vibrated through the air, unfamiliar as the musk, unintelligible to the petrified puppy. The paw withdrew, and for a moment Kaoru saw a strange face staring back at her with pale yellow eyes in a flat tawny face. The sloped muzzle wrinkled as the angry yowl repeated at the sight of her, and the claws returned.

Kaoru only had time to see-to smell- the blood on those large paws before she backpedaled furiously. The sharp claws sank into an exposed root, furiously ripping the subterranean wood from its earthy home. There was an ominous creaking, a shifting of earth—Blackness.

Kaoru woke with a start, straightening out of her half-curl in a jerk of overwrought muscles, looking wildly around the den for a moment.

No cougar.

Kaoru tried to force herself to relax, but couldn’t keep from looking around the den again—particularly at the half-excavated back door. Those were old dreams; old nightmares that had woken her shaking and whimpering into her father’s smoky pelt for weeks and weeks after it happened. Digging through that old earth must have brought it back.

Father gone on a hunt. Mother, the vaguely remembered warmth-and-milk presence watching her brood. Deciding to hide from her littermates, to see how long it would take her sisters and brother to notice she was gone.

Thunderous noise, her mother’s angry bark, sharp cry of pain. Whimpers of fear from her sisters and brother, then that hideous, hideous silence.

The cougar had collapsed the back door, trying to get to the last pup, blackness, buried alive, hurting all over, but safe from those murderous claws. Father’s return, his frantic search, his desperate plea for even one of his family to still be alive. The tiny whine she’d managed, drawing his attention to dig her out.

After that, they’d been alone.

Fallen into disuse, the back tunnel began to break down as Father worked to make the front entrance smaller, less noticeable. Kaoru’d thought he was mad when he dragged the uprooted hazel sapling to the entrance, dug a hole, and reburied it.

“It’ll never grow!”

“It’ll grow. I’ll make it grow.” It had, her father’s crazy hazel tree, masking the home they had refused to leave. Old memories.

Kaoru inhaled slowly through her nose, taking in the woodsy scent of Yahiko at her back, missing the already-fading scents of Sano and Kenshin.

They hadn’t returned yet from searching out that monster, Jineh. Kaoru shuddered, the image of mad black and teal eyes looming large in her mind above a maw of foam-slicked fangs.

I wish… that Jineh had never come, that Sano, that Kenshin were here, safe in the den, the four scents mixing and mingling into a pack-scent, binding them together, a reassurance that she wouldn’t be left alone again. Not alone again…

Yahiko twitched against her back, picking up on her unease. Kaoru made another conscious effort to relax, but it was too late, the puppy was already waking up.

“Kaoru?” he yawned, still tired from all of the earlier digging. “’re Sano ’n Kenshin back yet?” his voice was still a little sleep-muddled, not awake enough for insults.

“Not yet. I’m sure they’ll be back soon though.”

The puppy’s eyes widened, sleepiness falling away. “How long were we asleep?”

“I don’t know,” Kaoru tried to keep her voice calm, a bulwark against Yahiko’s mounting anxiety. “I only just woke up myself. But it can’t have been long.” Actually, she had no idea how long it’d been.

Yahiko shifted restlessly, pulling away from the contact they only shared peaceably when one or both was sleeping. Agitated, he got to his feet and paced the circumference of the den, pausing by the back door. “I can’t believe we did all that work and only unblocked the entrance.”

“It’s harder to dig things out than to bury them,” Kaoru pointed out, resting her head on her sooty forepaws as she watched the puppy continue his patrol.

Passing close to the front he stopped, head cocked to listen. “Hey, I think they’re back.”

Kaoru didn’t really remember getting to her feet and moving to stand beside the akita-mix puppy, but that was where she was when the smell of the wolf outside the den hit both of them, stiffening spines and causing every hair on a silvery-gray and a brown and white pelt to stand straight on end.

Old blood, rotting carrion and the sickly-sweet tang of sickness. Jineh. Sound told the pair that the rabid wolf was moving back and forth in the small clearing by the entrance. Hunting for the way in.

Kaoru caught Yahiko’s eye, backed up very slowly. The puppy followed her until they reached the far end of the small den.

“We’ve gotta get out of here!”

“I know!” Kaoru kept the reprimand low, trying to avoid drawing the attention of the killer outside. He still hadn’t found the way in. The tanuki eyed the half-excavated back door, shook her head sharply in self-rebuke for wasting time. “Yahiko, go out the back. Find Sano or Kenshin and tell them what’s going on.”

The puppy gaped at her, then anger suffused his expression. “I’m not leaving you here alone, we both go!”

“Yahiko, I won’t fit through the back, we haven’t finished clearing it yet.”

“But you can’t-”

Kaoru cut off the puppy before he could forget himself and start shouting. “We can’t stay in here, he’ll trap us. But he hasn’t found the entrance yet and I’ve got surprise on my side. If I go now I should be able to get past him.”

“Then I’ll go with you!”

“No!” Kaoru had to clamp her muzzle shut hard, teeth clicking together to hold in the shout she’d wanted to voice. “Yahiko, no, it’s easier to catch two than one, I’m not putting you in that danger!”

“What about yourself?!”

“This is the only way for me to get out. Sooner or later, he is going to find the entrance. We cannot be in here when he does.”

“Kaoru…” Yahiko had half-wilted, ears flat against his skull and curled tail coming down from its natural position over his back. On impulse, Kaoru nuzzled the top of his head with hers.

“Go, Yahiko. Find Kenshin.”

A stricken look, then the puppy was working himself into the tunnel again.

He’s grown, Kaoru noted distantly, padding over to the exit, another week and he probably wouldn’t fit either. The stench of blood and sickness trickled down into the den, warning her of the threat outside. The tanuki closed her eyes, locking out the dark tunnel, the scent of madness, focusing on the noise of motion.

Right… left… Kurogasa paced the clearing, searching, right… left… closer now, which way would she break when she darted out? right… left…left led to the human town eventually, right to… right… left… now!

Kaoru knew if she’d paused to count before leaping she’d have never moved from her hole. She burst out through the tunnel, the concealing hazel in a desperate scramble, peeling away to the right.

She could feel the air pass over her hind leg, mimicking the jaws that closed with a hard snap just behind her. Jineh.

“Run little prey!” a mad laugh, turning the blood in her veins to the fierce chill of snowmelt. “Run!”

No time to turn and talk, fire back a retort, the murderer was crashing through the underbrush behind her with his larger frame.

Females are faster than males, Kaoru reminded herself, gulping down oxygen, usually. She tried not to think of the rest, that some males (Kenshin, at least) were faster, and that males had more stamina.

If she didn’t get out of reach soon, it wouldn’t matter how fast she could run.

The forest here was familiar, helping her, there was the old oak deadfall with the badger’s den on the other side, meaning you had to leap further than you’d expect. Here was the stand of thorny gooseberry bushes, and her careful path through them, a route impassable for larger creatures. On and on, drawing further and further away from the den, approaching the boundary.

But Jineh was always just behind her, his laugh a ringing in her ears, phantom fangs nipping at her heels, and she didn’t dare look back.

One last trick to play.

Past the birch-split boulder, the river would be close now, not the gentle downstream by the rabbit-warren, but the riotous upstream where still-fierce water spoke of a mountain heritage and cut a path through the land in a steep ravine. Her lungs were burning now, paws hot and painful with overuse and too many incautious landings, but she couldn’t slow down, not now.

The ravine hove into view, a craggy gash in the land, too deep to jump into, too wide to leap across. But that was okay, that wasn’t her plan.

There, the half-fallen elm, dead for seasons, lifeless roots wrapped around anchoring boulders, keeping the weathered trunk from falling into the abyss it stretched over. Kaoru couldn’t climb trees, of course, but this one didn’t need to be climbed, the angle of its trunk steep but not vertical.

With a last burst of speed, Kaoru came to the trunk and leapt up, claws scrabbling for purchase on round, rough bark as the tree groaned, slipping bare inches closer to falling. Kaoru shot forward before she really had her balance, up and up to where the branches creaked ominously over rushing water below, sagging under her slight weight. When the branches ahead wouldn’t hold her weight anymore the tanuki stopped and turned around.

Jineh stood by the exposed base of the tree, plumy tail moving back and forth slowly as he grinned at her. I knew it! The tree can’t hold us both, he won’t follow. And even if he did she could leap into the river below and maybe survive.

Maybe.

If she was very, very lucky.

“Such a clever little prey, hiding up a tree,”

Bastard wasn’t even breathing hard. He… let me get here? The chill that ran down Kaoru’s spine had nothing to do with the temperature.

Why..? Soft paws meeting hard earth, moving blindly into the night. Why?  A sting in his eyes, a watery blur that distorted shadowy edges into a dark tunnel, and he couldn’t even pretend that they weren’t tears. Why am I always the one who has to run away?! The ground came up to meet the puppy and he didn’t even know why he’d fallen.

Harsh breathing from abused lungs filled the still night air, clogging Yahiko’s ears with the sound of his own life.

His own cowardly life.

“No!” The akita-mix pushed himself up to shaky paws, a steady burn of over-used muscles screaming at him to go back down. The darkness mocked him, mocked his weakness, daring the puppy to try and get his bearings. I can’t…

And somewhere behind him in the blackness was a den that was empty by now, its inhabitants scattered across the territory.  Territory… Scattered… the thoughts circled slowly, dancing around a point of clarity that he couldn’t quite reach…

“Howling travels a long way,” Kaoru’s words, explaining why the group had dropped out of the ground-eating lope that had been eating his stamina and into a brisk trot. “They may not be as near as they sounded.”

Howling, calling. Solidarity. Pack-voice-as-one… Pack-together.

Instinct raised Yahiko’s head, filled his aching lungs.

Help. Danger. Kurogasa. Safe place broken. The puppy half-flinched at the sound of his own voice giving cry to the ancient way of speaking, his ears twitching closer to his skull. Distantly it bothered him that his voice was higher than he’d expected. Then he flinched again, stumbling over how to call Kaoru.

Smokefur. He tried, Flower-hunter. Packmate. Sister. That one rang true somehow, as the others had not. Kurogasa hunting Sister.

His lungs emptied, Yahiko had to stop to fill them and repeat his message. And again, and again. Fear was a pressure at the base of his skull, dim and distant, a fear that Kurogasa would turn and hunt down the howling dog; another fear, near and roaring that no one would hear him, that Sano and Kenshin would wander the territory for hours, until the sun rose, when it would be too late for Kaoru.

The night air filled his lungs a fifth time, the message spilling out in an eerie wail.

“Oi, kid! What’s going on?”

Yahiko choked on his own air and coughed, trying to get his voice back. “Sano!” The hybrid stepped into view with only a light rustle of leaves to accompany the movement. “Where’s Kenshin?”

“We split up,” the fighter frowned, “What happened? Why are you out here?”

No Kenshin… the world went a little gray at the edges, angrily the puppy shook himself, spiky fur swaying on his loose ruff. So what? It’ll be okay. Sano and I… Sano and I can save her!

“Kurogasa found the den!” the almost-debilitating terror was leeching away now, chased off by warm anger slowly stirring in his veins, “Kaoru tried to lead him away but I don’t know…”

“Damn,” Sano hissed out a breath between his teeth. “We didn’t think about him finding you guys, not when he made it so clear he was after Kenshin.”

Yahiko shook his head impatiently, “We gotta go find her!” he insisted, “She’s been out there too long already!”

Sano gave the woods around them a cursory look, not really seeing the trees. “Yeah. I guess Kenshin either heard you or he didn’t, we can’t wait for him either way.” The fighter turned to Yahiko.

“We start at the den and trail them from there. Think you can keep up, kid?”

Red-brown eyes glared into experienced hazel. “Don’t ask stupid questions, let’s go!”

Old wood creaked a warning under Kaoru’s feet, forcing the she-wolf to stop her slow retreat. That left a space that still felt too small between her and opaque teal eyes.

“I don’t know what you hope to gain from this,” Kaoru snarled, a little surprised at the strength of her own voice, furious in the silence. Jineh stretched luxuriously, settling back on his haunches on the safety of solid ground.

“Rage… seeing you in danger will make the Battousai angry, and the legendary hitokiri will return because of that anger.”

“You’re insane,” Kaoru breathed, before strengthening her voice again, “Kenshin doesn’t even know I’m here!”

Kurogasa chuckled, “You underestimate him. In seasons past the mere name of Battousai was enough to make the most fearless warriors tremble like newborns.” Blood-blackened eyes looked beyond this night, into a time past.

Kaoru snorted, trying to ignore the sensation of her heart turning to cold stone within her chest, “And what makes you think that I’m the key to all this? I’m not that important to Kenshin.” Not like Sano, who was already a trusted friend and respected fighter, not like Yahiko, who soaked up everything the red wolf had to teach him and seemed to lighten Kenshin’s spirit with his mere presence.

Jineh laughed, and the female bristled instinctively. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Who do you think the Battousai moved to protect earlier?”

The tanuki gaped at Kurogasa. But that’s… he didn’t… Memory played over and over in slow motion. Jineh’s careless words on a blood-soaked plateau, and Kenshin’s swift, almost instinctual move, blocking her from view. Just her, that time. I can’t be… that important…

Kenshin paused by the riverbank, eying the calm, almost sluggish current. Downstream and upstream both became violent, making this small area the only safe crossing for miles. Still, it was unlikely that Jineh had crossed the river. In its final stages, the madness often wrought an unnatural fear of water into its victims.

Jineh doesn’t move as a victim of the disease, that he does not, Kenshin thought grimly, turning to trot parallel to the bank, moving upstream, he acts more as a hunt-partner to it.

Dark musings, probably brought on by his fruitless search. It was now the deepest part of the night, the full moon directly overhead seeming cold and distant, bathing the world in faint light without a hint of benevolence.

The red wolf shook himself with a sigh; another fifteen minutes and he would call Sano. The pair had been trading updates the better part of the night, each as negative as the last. Sessha doesn’t like that Sano’s out here as well, the Rurouni mused for the thirtieth time that night, the risk is too great. But Sano was under strict instructions to howl if he found anything, and the fun-loving fighter certainly had no desire to end his days locked in the foaming forever-heat of the madness.

At least Miss Kaoru and Yahiko were safely in the den, looking at the she-wolf’s expression, Kenshin had been anticipating an explosive argument about his decision, but Kaoru, Miss Kaoru, was always surprising him. Still, he felt better knowing that half of the pack was out of harm’s way. Small favors, on a night like tonight.

The ground beneath his paws began to slowly rise, becoming rockier as the river fell away to his left, the banks slowly becoming steeper, before a particularly dense patch of trees forced the wolf further inland again.

The sudden influx of scent stopped the crimson wolf dead in his tracks. The scent he’d been seeking (hunting… darker instincts insisted,) blood and the tang of illness swamped with mad glee cut a reckless swathe through the territory.

Fainter, hidden under the vile scent, one that he couldn’t ignore, had never thought to find out here. It screamed to him, sending cold dread unfurling in a malevolent spiral through his stomach. Kaoru.

Kaoru terrified.

Jineh, you bastard!

The red wolf was hardly aware of beginning to move again, the world had narrowed to the scent-trail, instincts and memories that had been humming in the back of his mind all night had gained strength to a deafening roar.

The ragged pack that had formed around Kaoru had never thought about it, and Kenshin had never wanted them to. The odd ragtag bunch that denned together thought they knew the worst of him, the great secret that he’d once fought in the pens.

They might wonder where he came from before, but none of them knew.

Knew the thing he worked so hard to keep hidden, knew the bloody history that had come down from the north to threaten him with its existence.

The doom that Jineh had called for. Hitokiri wa hikokiri.

Where others might lose this trail, become lost in the twists and turns Kaoru had taken to shake off her pursuer, wolves like Kenshin, wolves like Jineh never would.

Wolves that knew how to hunt other wolves.

Kaoru was keeping every sense on high alert, searching for the distraction that would let her get away. It was a futile effort, and she knew it, but the she-wolf was having a hard time staying treed like a good little prey.

Jineh still heard it first. The large wolf rose smoothly to his feet with an ecstatic sigh.

“It’s the beginning of a beautiful moment,” he addressed the silent woods. Kaoru frowned, there was no one there. Had Jineh gone crazy…er?

“I sense a pleasing desire to kill from you. Are you angry?”

“Yeah,” a soft voice from the darkness, taut with controlled rage. “Angry at you for bringing Miss Kaoru into this, and angry at myself for not being able to stop you.” Kenshin stepped out of the gloom, separating from shadows that relinquished him reluctantly. Kaoru hadn’t detected his presence at all.

Under cold moonlight, he looked like a different wolf. A tense, assertive posture replacing his stance of loose deference, ears canted forward, toward his foe rather than tilted back in self-deprecation, a muzzle closed and tense, devoid of smiles and eyes that had shifted from sweet-natured violet to that cold steel-blue. But still, it was…

“Kenshin…” Kaoru breathed, moving forward a step before she could really think about it. Blue eyes cut to hers; a red-furred head shook imperceptibly and returned to Jineh. Kaoru eased back, retreating from the step she’d taken. Kenshin hadn’t said anything but his meaning had been clear. Don’t move. Not at all like the usual Kenshin.

Jineh observed his opponent, eyes looking into that time that Kaoru couldn’t see, a time that Kenshin saw all too clearly.

“The revolution’s Battousai,” Jineh grinned.

Kenshin’s eyes narrowed a little further, “Shut up.”

The red wolf raced forward, a blur of red coming on to meet Jineh’s exuberant lunge. A clash of fur and fury that Kaoru could barely comprehend, steel blue eyes in a cross-scarred face, a foam-flecked muzzle split to bite at red fur that twitched just out of reach, just barely out of reach.

Kenshin…

Kenshin kept his gaze on the crazed wolf before him, denying the instinct that insisted that just a glimpse of reassurance wasn’t enough; he had to make sure Kaoru was alright now. He couldn’t afford to split his attention and look, had to rely on ears that were filled with the sounds of snarling laughter, Jineh alternating between murderous rage and homicidal glee as the madness shifted in his psyche like sand.

Fighting Jineh wasn’t like fighting any of the dogs he’d faced in the arena, or since. The best fighters didn’t telegraph their movements, without a clear focus they would appear to appear and disappear at will. Jineh wasn’t quite that good, the madness toying with the finely tuned instincts the mad wolf had perfected in the cold snow of the north. If he paid close attention he could just make out the hitokiri’s next move.

A power lunge, meant to bowl over. Easily dodged, a lithe red frame slipping to one side.

A side snap. Again, easily avoided, half-wild bite at open air to try and catch the Rurouni as Kurogasa brought himself out of his charge.

Now, a quick turn. The best place to throw him off! Jineh’s muscled frame moved to pivot and face the smaller wolf, teeth bared, Kenshin stepped in close, throwing his weight into Jineh’s at an angle, forcing the hitokiri’s forepaws off the ground. Now! To aim the bite that would end the fight, a bite at the creamy throat of Jineh, exposed by his stumble. Except…

Bending at an angle that Kenshin would have sworn to be impossible, Kurogasa moved his head around, gaping maw enclosing the shoulder that had been wounded earlier. Pain, scissoring through tissue, fang to meet fang as blood that had finally dried wept crimson rivulets once more.

Kenshin’s left leg crumpled under the abuse, the red wolf crashing to the ground with a wince. Jineh stared down at the wolf, all traces of amusement gone.

“Not yet, you’re not there yet. I still haven’t met the Battousai yet.” Kurogasa snorted, “As much as you want to kill me, you still refuse to face me as hitokiri.”

An ominous groan interrupted the mad wolf’s deliberation. Gritting his teeth, Kenshin raised his head to see what had caught Jineh’s attention.

Kaoru had moved closer to the combatants again, though the tanuki now stood frozen, wide eyes locked not on the crazed wolf observing her, but on the roots of the tree. Roots that were ever so slowly peeling free of the boulders that anchored them.

“Miss Kaoru!”

“Ah, that’s right,” Jineh breathed, the smile returning as the elm slipped a little further. “Such a good little prey!”

A blast of cold air rocked the world, and Kaoru stood frozen on the trunk, frame wracked with fine tremors as she struggled to move, and failed.

“No!”

“That’s better,” Jineh observed, plumy tail cutting a lazy arc through the night air. “It’s no fun if they try to run, right, Battousai?”

That is it. The thought felt strange, a cold cloud, shards of diamond-hard ice in midnight mist enveloping him. That is absolutely it.

Jineh was laughing again, the more fool he, to welcome the death that moved to claim him this night.

“How long will she last, I wonder,” the mad wolf surveyed the groaning roots with a mockery of concern, “Unable to move as the ground falls from beneath her.”

Kaoru stood frozen in the boughs of the shifting tree, all except her eyes, luminous blue against the dark mask of her face.

“And you know, Battousai,” Kurogasa continued, “the only way that female will move is if the Shi No Ippou is broken.” The crazed wolf surveyed the immobile Kaoru, “Will that girl do it on her own? Hah, I think not. And the only other way to break it… is for the one who cast it to die.” Jineh grinned mockingly. “But I still feel healthy.”

Kenshin shuddered, eyes closed, brow furrowed and muzzle wrinkling into a snarl.

A low rumble, like the first boulders shaking loose for an avalanche, started in the red-furred wolf’s chest, a sound that Kaoru had never heard from the Rurouni.

Fangs bared, Kenshin opened his eyes to glare at Jineh.

Twin pools of wildfire blazed out from where gentle amethyst usually resided, deadly amber looking oddly unnatural in that scarred face. Seeing those eyes, Kaoru quickly realized two things, she had never seen Kenshin truly angry before, and Kenshin was furious.

Every muscle on the red wolf fell under a flawless control, strength of purpose shining out as he moved. Right now, there was only one goal toward which he worked. To kill his opponent.

Kenshin had only stood, but Kaoru could feel the murderous intent radiating off the crimson wolf. Some part of her mind was gibbering in terror like a prey-animal, that here was death, and it was faster than her, and stronger than her. And it was far too late to run.

But Jineh didn’t appear to fear the death standing before him. The black-eyed wolf grinned, the feeble moonlight distorting his teeth, until it looked as though the murderer had a mouth full of fangs.

“And so the true battle finally begins,” Jineh sighed in ecstasy, his gaze locked on the slight red figure that stood braced against possible attack, shoulder bleeding sluggishly and head lowered so that the burning gaze was visible only as a glint of amber.

Kaoru had seen Kenshin move fast before, had seen him fight, but she’d never seen him just vanish from a standstill.

Is that really… The red wolf reappeared, jaws clamped around Jineh’s muzzle, using the momentum of the leap no one had seen him take to drag the deranged wolf’s head back, back, flipping him onto his black-patterned back as Battousai released him.

Kenshin looked down on his enemy, amber eyes merciless as wildfire.

“What’s wrong? Get up.”

Is that really… Kenshin? Kaoru had been denying it from the first, denying that her violet-eyed Rurouni could be such a killer but… scent, sound and her own eyes swore that the red wolf was Kenshin, but his eyes… It’s like he’s someone else entirely. Some deep instinct was racing around her skull.

That was Kenshin, but it wasn’t.

That was Kenshin, but it wasn’t her Rurouni.

That was Kenshin, but that was… this is… Battousai the manslayer.

“Perfect!” Jineh crowed, standing with little difficulty, blood drenching his muzzle from deep puncture wounds. “This is the pitiless murderer I’ve longed to meet!”

The tree moaned piteously under Kaoru’s smoky paws, shaking from her blocked attempt to rebalance herself. One crimson ear turned away from the fight to train on the female, though the scarred head did not turn.

“The time for talk is over, Jineh. If you truly long for death feel free to attack,” amber eyes smoldered with rage, and a usually cheerful voice dropped to an almost subliminal rumble, “Though whether you long for it or not, it will find you this night.”

“If I long for death…?” Kurogasa looked at Kenshin, and appeared for a moment to recognize the hell he had unleashed. But fear swirled together with madness, lost in a bloody foam-flecked grin and soulless teal-on black eyes.

“Here I come, Battousai!” Jineh crowed as he charged, combining the fluidity of the skilled murderer with the raw power of his larger form. Battousai waited, amber eyes mantled by crimson fur, expressionless in the face of approaching death.

Move, Kenshin! An almost ironic thought, because shouldn’t she be worrying about moving herself? The tree groaned pathetically under her slight weight, tiny -snaps!- giving testimony to season-rotted wood giving way to gravity’s insistent pull. I don’t think it’s going to last five minutes…

Kenshin held his ground against Jineh’s charge, held it as the wolf came closer, and closer. The air tingled with something sharp and acrid charging the clearing like the ground before a lightning strike. Still Kenshin didn’t move, amber eyes locked on Jineh’s unnatural ones. Unnatural eyes that flickered in confusion, then honest terror as the larger wolf broke off the attack, swerving at the last minute to skid to a halt on Battousai’s left flank, well back from the crimson fighter.

Slowly, Kenshin’s head turned to regard his mad opponent. “What’s wrong?”

Jineh chuckled weakly, “Truly, a wolf of legends. You’re a different creature when you’re ready to kill.”

“I told you to be prepared.” Molten eyes flicked to Kaoru, searing her with their touch through the chill gripping her frame. The contact only lasted a moment, intense amber swinging back to Jineh. “If you wish to avoid death, release Kaoru.”

The mad wolf shook his head, the heavy ruff on the back of his neck swaying with the motion.

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Deny the murderer one last kill?” Jineh chuckled darkly, “Not likely.” A smirk revealed his fangs, “All that holds her now is her own fear.”

My own… fear… Oh, she was afraid, a wild roaring in her soul that raged back and forth, drowning out other considerations. I’m… afraid.

Afraid of the death that awaited her.

Afraid of Jineh.

Afraid that Jineh would win.

Afraid of this stranger Kenshin had become.

Afraid that Battousai would win.

Afraid, and hung in an endless moment of fear, suspended above some sort of spiritual abyss far deeper than the one she teetered over now.

Jineh was babbling something now, words droning like bees in her ears. Something about power, and madness and bloodlust. And wasn’t that everything Kurogasa had said? Power, madness and bloodlust.

Kaoru couldn’t even shake her head to clear it, and some tiny part of her was convinced that that if she could just do that she would dislodge the roaring, she could get out of this and everything would be okay. The tree jerked under her feet, paws staying planted by some miracle as the trunk shifted to a straight horizontal plane.

The muscles on Battousai’s face twitched, eyes shooting back to the little female under his protection.

Jineh charged, intending to take advantage of his opponent’s momentary lapse to bring the fight to a brutal end. Kenshin!

The red wolf looked back to his opponent, even as his body turned in a half-arc away, as if Battousai invited an attack on his flank. Familiar, so familiar, had she seen it before? A red crescent moon to illuminate the end of the fight in blood-hued light.

Not held in merciless amber this time, Jineh came on, slavering maw open, heavily furred torso and forelegs rising from the ground to attack, not Kenshin’s already-mangled shoulder, but the tempting curve of the spine in his neck.

Kaoru could almost see it this time, a sudden tensing in Battousai’s legs, a gathering of muscles that swung him back around in a deadly arc, fangs aimed for his opponent.

Jineh tried to backpedal, bizarre moves on two back legs as he contorted his body to avoid oncoming death, front paws pushing uselessly against the air. White fangs flashed in fading moonlight, a sickening crunch and the sound of something wet giving way to superior force. Kurogasa crashed to the ground while Kenshin tossed his head, displaying a spray of his opponent’s blood that had stained his normally white chest as crimson as the rest of him.

“You will not recover from that injury in the time the disease has left you with,” Battousai’s voice was clinical, observing his fallen foe as one might a pebble in his path. “Here ends your life as hitokiri, Jineh. And here ends,” his voice dropped to a gravelly rumble, “your life.”

No! Kaoru trembled against her invisible bonds, instincts rising up in protest. This was wrong, was different. Killing the mad wolf in a fight was one thing, was expected and honorable, to kill the opponent when they were already down, defeated, defenseless… Kenshin, no! If you kill him like this, you really will…

Past and future rose before Kaoru’s vision, the one irreconcilable with the other. The past, warm crimson fur and a smiling purple gaze, feet that backed away from fighting and violence, but raced to protect. A broken voice, apologizing to one killed for not learning his name. Kenshin, her Kenshin, the Kenshin who would stay.

The future she could see in clear amber, a murder under a setting moon, bloodstained soul damning itself to hell once more for her sake, a soul that would drive off her Rurouni, would drive off Kenshin to some remote place, to die alone in some snowbound wasteland. No…

“No!” her voice burned and broke as it ripped free of her throat,  her body suddenly sagging with fatigue as it lost the force holding her up.

Kenshin’s head whipped around to face her, eyes still amber, but wide in shock. But for the color, they could have been the eyes of her Rurouni.

“Kenshin, don’t,” Kaoru gasped out, trying to force air into lungs no longer constricted by terror.

The elm trembled below her paws, with a muttered curse Kaoru made a mad dash for solid ground. Whether because the shock of her running across it was too much, or whether the tree had meant to fall at that moment, the result was the same. Kaoru’s paws scrabbled around on the boulder that had been the tree’s anchor, gaining purchase long enough to throw herself forward, collapsing in the dirt as the tree gave one last groan and toppled into the ravine.

“Kaoru!” Kenshin’s voice, and the familiar sound of endless wind, the regular motions of running almost an afterthought as the red wolf raced to her side. Shaking her head, the tanuki raised her head to look up into the face of her rescuer.

“Kenshin,” Kaoru breathed, relieved to see concerned violet looking back at her.

“Miss Kaoru…”

“I’m alright, Kenshin,” the female reassured the shaken Rurouni, still trembling herself from her spot on solid land.

“To think…” a low growl, sending every hair along Kaoru’s spine standing straight up in a chill rush, “to think my Shi No Ippou could be defeated by a little female…” Kaoru’s eyes widened, Jineh was standing despite his ruined leg, the pupiless gaze fixed on her, ignoring the crimson wolf between them. “My last victim…” came the ecstatic whisper as he lunged, not at Kenshin, but at the female behind him.

The tanuki caught the barest glimpse of an amber flash as Kenshin turned, low and lithe, deadly fangs burying themselves deep into the thick ruff of fur around Jineh’s throat, an unmistakable crunch testimony that they’d found their target.

Kurogasa stumbled back, sank to the ground as Kaoru shrank from his fallen form. “Hu… hu… hu…” he laughed around the horrible rattle of a crushed windpipe, “hu… hu… hitokiri…”

Kenshin tensed, staring down at his dying adversary, braced against the final taunt Jineh was sure to deliver. But apparently that was all the wolf had wanted. With a final shudder, Jineh lay still, crazed eyes unfocused and a bloody tongue lolling from his muzzle.

“Hitokiri... wa hitokiri.”

Kenshin may have whispered the phrase, but it seemed as though it had risen from the bloodstained earth, from the timid breeze ghosting across Kaoru’s fur, from the hollow of Jineh’s still-smiling mouth.

“Kenshin…” Kaoru pushed herself to shaky paws, trying to ignore the tremors that urged her to lie down and close her eyes, to pretend that this centuries-long night never happened. The red wolf didn’t turn to her, still standing over his fallen foe, head lowered. The living wolf as motionless as the one lying dead.

The tanuki moved slowly to stand alongside the crimson fighter, trying not to be obvious about trying to see his face. Who was she standing beside? The wanderer, or the killer? The tell-tale eyes were hidden from view.

“Kenshin…?” She tried again. Red-furred shoulders twitched and the cross-scarred face turned to look at her.

Violet. Weary, heartsore and faded, but violet.

Relief and guilt warred in the pit of Koaru’s stomach, relief that she couldn’t see her face reflected in the burning gaze of unquenchable rage, guilt because Kenshin looked wounded to his core, and it was her fault, and how dare she be relieved?

“Miss Kaoru,” Kenshin blinked, leaving the tanuki with a sense of retreating, despite the fact that the wolf hadn’t moved. He’s going to leave!

“Thank you, Kenshin,” she blurted in a rush, words tumbling over themselves in a jumbled mess.

“Oro?” Not the best of responses, but he wasn’t running away, just looking at her wide-eyed.

“For saving me,” Kaoru explained, feeling a knot of worry between her shoulder blades loosen slightly as she allowed her words to slow, to become softer. “Thank you very much, Kenshin.”

The Rurouni shook his head, a hint of… wonder? lurking in his gaze. “If thanks are due Miss Kaoru, surely they go to you.”

“To me?” Sooty ears lowered in confusion and Kaoru felt her head tilt to one side as she regarded her reluctant packmate. “But I didn’t do anything, Kenshin.”

Another shake of a scarred head. “More than you know.” She might have imagined the words; they were so quiet, except that Kenshin was avoiding her gaze. But I didn’t… do anything…

“Well,” the almost-cheerfulness of the Rurouni’s voice fractured the stillness, “this one believes it would be best if you went back to the den, that he does. Sanosuke and Yahiko are probably very worried about you indeed.”

Kaoru’s turquoise eyes narrowed dangerously, bright against the dark mask of her face. “What do you mean I should go back to the den, Kenshin? You’re coming with me.”

Kenshin sighed, “This one… cannot.”

The world whited out in panic, came back in a rush of red fury, “Kenshin, so help me, if your next words have anything to do with leaving or unworthy, when you just saved my life again, I swear I will throw you off the ravine!”

“Oro…” Violet eyes glanced nervously at the ravine over a bleeding shoulder, “No no Miss Kaoru, it’s not that.”

Kaoru’s ringed tail-tip twitched back and forth like an angry cat’s. “Then what is it?”

“This one has been exposed to the foaming sickness.”

Kaoru frowned, “But you said you couldn’t catch it.”

Kenshin shook his head, “It’s harder,” he allowed, “and indeed unlikely, but this one hesitates to trust the workings of man. Regardless, you, or Yahiko, or Sano might catch it from this one.”

“So… what?”

Crimson fur shrugged, the wolf wincing as the motion pulled on his injuries. “This one will remain separate from you for a time, until the danger of either this one having the sickness or of spreading it to you has passed.”

“So… how long?” Kaoru could feel her ears drooping, her tail sinking lower and lower. It’s not fair! He won the fight, but he doesn’t even get to come home!

“Two weeks should be enough time,” Kenshin assured gently, violet eyes soft. It’s also not fair for him to look so… cuddly when I’m not allowed to touch him.

“You’re sure you can’t come back to the den?” Kaoru hoped that she didn’t sound like she was whining, but she might have been.

A rueful smile twitched at the corners of a red and white muzzle, “This one is sure.”

“But, you will come back,” Kaoru’s voice was so timid she scarcely recognized it as hers, “You won’t forget about us and wander off, will you?”

For the fourth time, Kenshin’s eyes widened in surprise. Turning to face her fully, the red wolf gave the first real smile Kaoru had seen all night, sending a bolt of warmth straight through her to tingle in her toes.

“This one will be sure to return, that he will,” Kenshin answered gently, that sunrise of a smile hovering still around his muzzle.

“Okay,” Kaoru tried out a smile of her own, felt it, wavery and tired but honest reflecting back at the Rurouni. “Then, Kenshin…”

“It’s this way!” a brash voice broke through the air and Kaoru stumbled a little, raising her head to scan for the voice’s owner with active ears.

“We’ve already gone that way you nincompoop!” Yahiko’s voice that time, meaning the other was…

“Then explain the tracks!” Sano.

“Those are ours!” The akita’s voice was a frazzled mess of annoyance and exhaustion, serving only to make him more irritable.

“Huh, guess they could be.” Sano’s voice was quieter, more reflective, musing over whatever trail they’d found.

“While we’re wasting time, Jineh could be eating Kaoru!”

“Not a chance,” Sano scoffed, “Kenshin was patrolling over this way.” A pause. “I think.”

“If she’s even over here!”

Kaoru bit back a snort of laughter and exchanged a look with Kenshin. “Should we call them over or just leave it alone, I wonder?”

Kenshin chuckled, “This one does suppose the den would be much quieter without them.”

The tanuki sighed, “Until they stumbled in at dawn, anyway.” With rueful humor, the female raised her voice, “Sano! Yahiko! Over here!”

Chapter Text

You can’t quit until you try
You can’t live until you die
You can’t learn to tell the truth
Until you learn to lie…

-SIXX A.M, Life is Beautiful

Sunlight burst through the fading green foliage, setting the riot of yellows, oranges, and reds that replaced them ablaze with color. Below the treetops, the forest floor was a steadily thickening blanket of the multicolored leaves, a visual reminder of the turning of the seasons.

All of this meant that Sano had to be extra careful as he made his way through the gently whispering trees. The former fighter-for-hire scowled into the pleasant breeze ghosting through the fine fur on his face. He’d been coming this way for two weeks, and damned if he was going to get lost on the last trip!

But it really wasn’t fair when the forest kept changing, leaves conspiring to fall and mask the game trail he usually followed.

The light overhead faltered, stuttering through trees that refused to change with the seasons. The hybrid eyed the thickening evergreens, looked over his shoulder at the sunlit forest behind, then ahead to the twilight-at-midday of his destination.

Trust Kenshin to pick the gloomiest part of the forest to camp out in. But after Jineh, well, he wouldn’t come back to the den, wouldn’t even stay nearby. The fighter was willing to admit that it’d probably been the smart thing to do, but it’d been murder on the Missy and the kid.

Which meant it was murder on Sano too, with two overly-aggressive packmates and a distinct lack of red-furred Rurouni to keep them from each other’s throats. Or Sano’s throat.

Yeesh, and Kenshin gripes about me coming to check on him being dangerous…. Not hardly, especially since it was only right after one of Sano’s checkups that the Missy unwound long enough to sleep. If she’d thought Kenshin’d let her, Kaoru would definitely have been the one dropping by to make sure the red wolf was still breathing and non-foamy. But she didn’t, and Kenshin definitely wouldn’t.

Sano made his way further into the pines, grateful that the lightly-worn track he used was visible now, as the piles of leaves on the forest floor thinned.

“Oi, Kenshin!” The fighter called, large pointed ears swiveling as they cast about for a response from the self-appointed exile.

Silence probably couldn’t technically be considered a response.

“Kenshin, get out here before I drag you out!”

“Over here, Sano.” The red wolf appeared from the shadows of the trees, as if he’d been waiting in some dark dimension rather than moving through the woods like an ordinary wolf.

“Geez,” Sano complained, moving toward the approaching wolf. “You ready to drop the doom’n’gloom outlook Kenshin? Been two weeks and you’re still sane…” Sano grinned, “well, sane-ish.”

Kenshin chuckled quietly at Sano’s dig before violet eyes fell into shadow once more. Sanosuke sighed, he’d hoped that today Kenshin’d be better, have shaken off the depression that had haunted him since that moonwashed night two weeks ago. Seemed like he hadn’t.

But, Sano reflected, he can’t send me off this time, so maybe I can get what the problem is out of him before we get back to the Missy and the kid. “Come on,” he told the other wolf, “Missy and lil’ Yahiko are waiting.”

“Yes…” the crimson wolf moved fluidly to walk beside his friend.

One good thing about those two weeks, Sano eyed Kenshin’s shoulder, I think those injuries are about healed. “So,” Sano plunged ahead, stoutly ignoring the melancholic aura on his right flank. “You gonna tell me what’s been eatin’ ya?”

“Sano, wolves don’t have predators.”

Yikes, that was dry. No ‘oro’ either. Hmm… “You know what I mean,” the former fighter-for-hire sent the ex-hitokiri a sharp look, “Something’s bugging you and I’d rather have it out here than back at the den.”

“It is… nothing. Old thoughts.”

“Yeah?” Sano cocked a brow, “like old, I-used-to-be-hitokiri thoughts? Or old what-are-they-gonna-think-of-me thoughts?”

Violet eyes crept a few shades nearer to blue as the Rurouni cut a glance at Sano. “… Among others.”

Others, heck. Sano could almost see the ghost of Kurogasa sliding along in Kenshin’s wake, grinning maw the portal to a deep void. “Is this about Jineh?”

Kenshin did not freeze, he very deliberately stopped, eyes serious. “It should not have come to that.” His voice was controlled, the emotions roiling within his words on so tight a leash that Sano couldn’t quite make out what they were. Anger? Guilt?

“This one…” Kenshin continued, “this one should never have put Miss Kaoru in that danger.”

“Kenshin… danger kinda happens around here.” Sano pointed out, watching his friend carefully. “You didn’t put her in any, and she’s fine.”

“You don’t understand,” Kenshin whispered, his violet eyes haunted by blood spilled under moonlight. “This one… I was… glad she was there.”

“Okay…” Sano looked at the Rurouni skeptically, “might wanna clue her in on that little detail, ‘cause the Missy’s under the impression she’s been causing you problems.”

Kenshin sighed, avoiding the demand for an explanation, now, that was poking at him from the hybrid’s brown eyes.

“Kenshin….” The slow drawl was harder to avoid. A sigh. “You gonna tell me why you were glad she was there? From what she said, she didn’t do much.”

“More than she knows.” A whisper so quiet Sano couldn’t be sure he hadn’t made it up. “What did she tell you about how Jineh met his end?”

Sano shrugged, “Nothing to tell—at the end you were standing and he wasn’t.”

Kenshin kept walking, moving soundlessly through the woods for so long a moment, Sano thought that was all he was ever going to know about the situation. “Jineh… succeeded in threatening Miss Kaoru. And this one…” a quiet sigh, “this one no longer cared about what was right or wrong… only that Jineh had hurt someone who—someone, and that he should die.”

Sano raised a brow, wondering just what Kenshin had been planning on saying there. “Um, not to sound dumb or anythin’ Kenshin, but wasn’t the plan to kill Jineh from the start?”

It was the wrong thing to say. The crimson wolf seemed to shrink in on himself before Sanosuke’s eyes, retreating from the questions.

“A point came where this one could have ended the fight. Jineh was no longer a threat, barely able to stand, and so lost in the foaming-sickness that he would have been dead within days. He was down and without escape or defense. This one,” Kenshin breathed carefully, violet eyes searching out Sano’s and holding his gaze implacably, “did not care.

“If Miss Kaoru had not stopped Sessha from killing a defenseless Jineh,” Kenshin sighed, eyes closing in a century’s worth of weariness, “The madness of Battousai would have fallen on this one once more.”

And what the hell, Sano wondered, am I supposed to say to that?

“Hey, you’d been fighting the guy for a while already, and he just kept pushing your buttons. Everybody gets mad, Kenshin.” The crimson wolf wasn’t buying it, and his defense sounded thin even to his own ears.

The former fighter-for-hire stifled a sigh of relief as the pair came to the edge of the pine enclave and sunlight streaked through flame colored leaves. Glancing to one side, he could see pretty easily that Kenshin wasn’t allowing the change in scenery to lighten his mood. He tried again.

“Look, Kenshin,” brown eyes sought inspiration in the foliage overhead, “maybe the point isn’t that you were mad enough to kill the guy, but that you were able to stop, huh?” That one sat a little easier with him, a band around his chest loosening as he allowed that it was probably the best he was going to be able to manage.

Kenshin shot a look at the hybrid from the corner of his eye, appearing to contemplate that.

Damn straight, Sano nodded to himself, he’d be willing to bet that Kenshin wasn’t the type of guy who dwelt on what he’d accomplished, or even noticed when he’d succeeded. He was more the type to obsess over the one mistake that nobody else had even noticed.

“Come on,” he urged, “Missy and the kid have been going nuts waiting for you to come back.”

A wry smile broke the pensive expression, the wolf doubtless picturing just what the two younger pack members had been up to in his absence.

All right, Sano coached himself, hiding a smile, keep him focused on the guys waiting for him, a few more quips, some annoyed grumbling at their behavior and we should have one cheered up Rurouni… Aw, hell…

Kenshin had stopped dead, ears pricked toward something that Sano couldn’t hear yet. But whatever it was, the hybrid fighter was willing to bet that it wasn’t going to be simple, it wasn’t going to cheer up the red wolf at his side and that Kaoru was going to be royally pissed if it kept the pair of them from getting back to the den before she really started freaking out. It never goes smooth. Why does it never go smooth?!

“Kenshin?” Sano’s low voice murmured through the suddenly-taut atmosphere. The crimson wolf glanced at Sano, then back to the right. “What—”

But now Sano could hear it too, a labored gasping, a rustle of foliage and a hostile snarls that were pure canine.

What in— but the chase was upon them, a lithe dark shape burst into a view so suddenly that for a moment Sano had trouble seeing what it was. But at the sight of the two pack members the figure froze, trembling on slender legs, narrow white chest heaving for oxygen. Sano stared, his thoughts locking up in some weird fog.

Beautiful… really… damn. He shook himself angrily, ridding himself of the clinging fog and staring hard at the new arrival. The creature was a black vixen about Kenshin’s size, and almost impossibly beautiful. The only thing that kept that beauty from being completely unreal was the disarray of her fur, snagged and snarled from her flight, and the wordless terror in her deep wine-hued eyes.

Trouble. Sano thought grimly, feeling himself instinctively shift to a more stable stance. That is trouble.

The fox’s large triangular ears were pressed back, moving nervously at the sounds of approaching pursuit, wine eyes raked Sano’s form unseeingly, glanced at Kenshin, came back for a second look, hovering on the crimson wolf’s face. No, not his face… his… scar?

Black paws trembled, then leaped forward, depositing the vixen gracefully in a gesture of courtly submission as female eyes gazed up at the smaller of the two wolves.

“Please, help me!” Damn.

Kenshin fought against the urge to step back, feeling one white hindpaw slide away from the prostrate vixen.

“Oro?” He was aware of Sano’s disgruntled grumblings to his left, the sounds of pursuit that were almost upon them, and the vixen who’d thrown herself, without warning, on to his mercy. If Master ever hears about this, he’ll laugh this one off the mountain.

A delicately-shaped vulpine head lifted so that the disconcertingly enchanting creature could meet his eyes. Red-violet stared up into eyes the color of twilight, and Kenshin felt something else tense, suddenly expecting an attack on his back. Oh, the owner of those eyes was scared, wide, wavering fear that masked any deeper motive, but at the edges of that fear, peering out in the gaps between waves—calculation, pure quicksilver, fickle and changing and impossible to hold. Sano already knows, the Rurouni knew, the fighter-for-hire’s bad temper a low-level vibration in the air. Good. This one needs to be watched.

“Please,” the fox continued, trembling with exhaustion, “I know I don’t have any claim, but please…”

“You can’t run forever, Megumi!” a harsh curse broke the air, Kenshin shifted, mindful of the still-prone fox at his paws as the pursuers broke through the underbrush. The first was some brown mutt with a lean body and long snout that spoke of a sight-hound somewhere back in the family tree. The sight-hound drew up short as he saw Kenshin and Sano, quick eyes scanning the fox’s prone position and Sano’s irritated form.

A thin thing like him, Kenshin mused, Fighting’s not his forte. Maybe we can resolve this—

The second dog that broke into the clearing was obviously the muscle of the outfit, a black and tan mixed breed with a tail that had been chopped half off at some point. The newcomer stepped forward to join the uneasy stare-down, eyes hard and scornful.

“This isn’t any of your business, fleabags,” he warned as his thin partner sniggered, long pink tongue darting out to lick his chops. “Leave the broad to us.”

Sano stretched and yawned impressively, showing off his teeth. “Couple ‘a dogs out after a fox? That’s a little weird. Couple ‘a dogs crossing a pack boundary to chase a fox…” the hybrid grinned, “now that’s just rude.”

“You fool!” The sight-dog had an odd nasally voice, coming as it did from his long muzzle. “You don’t even know who she is! If defy us, you defy Kanryuu Takaeda,” the mutt snarled, “You have no idea what it means to cross him!” Sano twitched minutely at the name.

“Kanryuu Takaeda?” Kenshin asked the younger canine in an undertone, keeping steady violet eyes on the two dogs. Sano’s lip curled, as if the name was a stench in his nostrils and exposed a white fang.

“Heard of him in the last town I stopped over at. Supposed to be some super-brain type who’s got a lot of dogs doing what he wants. And what he wants ain’t all that pleasant.” The hybrid looked askance at the black vixen, “How’d you get mixed up with a guy like him?”

The vixen shook her head, frame shivering with fine tremors that were far more genuine than her wide-eyed answer, “I don’t know, I don’t have anything to do with this!”

“Lyin’ vixen!” The brawny dog snarled at the female, switched his brown glare to Sano. “Enough wasting time, give her over!”

“This one sees quite plainly that the lady does not wish to go with you. Sessha would suggest that you respect her wish and leave peaceably, that he does.” Kenshin said quietly.

Sano snorted, throwing his own opinion out, “Kanryuu’s name doesn’t carry any weight over here, kids. You want something done?” a toothy smile, “Stop chasing your tails and get it done.”

Really, Kenshin sighed to himself as the enraged dogs leaped to attack, Sanosuke, was that really necessary?

Although, it wasn’t enough of a fight to get upset over. The sight-hound went after Kenshin, being the lighter of the two, while the black and tan dog thundered toward a madly-grinning Sanosuke. A few simple moves left one dog nursing a torn ear and counting stars bursting in his vision while his companion stared up into a cross-marred face from the flat of his back.

“Now,” the Rurouni spoke gently but firmly, “you are trespassing and have threatened one under our protection,” one crimson ear twitched toward Sano’s protest. “This one gives you this chance. Leave. Forget you ever followed the fox here.” Slowly Kenshin moved back, allowing his opponent to rise, wary of another assault. He needn’t have bothered. The brown dog scrambled to his feet and took off back the way he had come, trailing a slower, probably concussed, companion cursing after him.

“That was a lame excuse for a fight,” Sano groused, his bad-tempered eye falling on the ebony vixen. “So who’re you? How’re you involved with Kanryuu? And don’t lie this time.”

The fox shook her head again. “Megumi Takani, but I really don’t know what this is about! They just started chasing me and—”

“Tsk tsk, didn’t anyone ever teach you not to lie, Megumi Takani?” A nasally voice intoned from somewhere above. The black vixen froze, terror returning in full force. “Just think of the example you’re setting.”

“The hell?!” Sano stared up into the trees, the fur along his spine standing straight up. Kenshin scanned the thinning foliage—there.

The speaker was a phenomenally ugly cat. Unlike Tae, this cat wasn’t a bobcat or any other sort of wild species at all; he was exactly the variety that might turn up in any human settlement. The creature was brown, but in a style completely uncharacteristic to the rest of his kind the cat had obviously long given up on grooming itself. His fur stuck out in spikes, particularly on the top of his head and down his spine— a spine that ended rather abruptly in an absurd tuft of fur where the cat’s tail appeared to have been bitten off.

Recovering herself, Megumi glared up at the observer, deadly but somehow brittle, splintering, like a toxic plant wilting. “You tell him,” she snapped, “he’ll listen to one of his precious Oniwabanshuu—tell Kanryuu that I’ll run away from him forever!”

The alley-cat yawned, displaying curved canines and blinked lantern-yellow eyes at the vixen, his scraggly whiskers twitching into a smile.

“What makes you think you can run, foxy? One of the Oniwaban is always with you. Wherever, whenever, forever. You really think even one little fox can get past us? We both know I’m more than enough to bring you back, Takani.”

The vixen flinched, and Kenshin stepped toward the tree. “Miss Megumi has already stated her preference on this matter.” He said firmly, staring up at the scrawny cat. “She does not wish to return to Kanryuu, and this one will defend that decision.”

Sano swore colorfully under his breath, the Rurouni could make out a pattern between the profanity—something about females, and trouble, and rest, and things never going smooth. But the fighter sighed and shook himself, glaring up halfheartedly at the feline intruder.

“Just buzz off willya? Been bad enough fighting those two klutzes, and my mood has gotten a lot worse.”

The cat stretched, sinking long claws into his branch. “Talk as big as you want, mutt. We both know you can’t reach me. I can follow you idiots wherever I like, or wait her for Kanryuu’s pack to come, and they will come, and you can’t do a thing about it—”

This one thinks not. With a concentrated spring, Kenshin moved into the air, the world seeming to slow as he ascended. The puny cat closing its eyes in smug self-satisfaction as it continued to lecture, a little further and the crimson wolf’s muzzle closed almost gently on the startled cat’s torso and tugged him off his branch and to the ground.

The taste and smell were rather awful, about what you’d expect from an unwashed cat but… there was something else, a subtle scent buried under layers of ammonia and dried blood.

Then white paws touched earth, and Kenshin slung the squalling cat across the clearing, where it skidded, raking the earth with wickedly long claws, unsheathed too late, in an effort to remain on its feet.

“As you have identified yourself with a pack, you are under pack law,” Kenshin intoned softly, eyes locked on the cat whose thin flanks were heaving with panicked breaths. “Therefore, you are trespassing. This is your warning. Leave. Now.”

The cat began backing slowly into the underbrush, lambent eyes fixing on Megumi in pure hate. “This isn’t over, Megumi Takani! Hide all you like, but know that my claws will find your fox’s hide!”

Sano lunged forward with an open mouth, closing it with a snap on the angry yowl the cat left behind as he turned and ran. The hybrid shook his head and blew a sharp breath out his nose.

“Phwah! That thing reeks.”

“Beshimi doesn’t bathe,” Megumi said softly, eyes unfocused and staring toward where the cat had made his departure, “he can’t, it…” the fox blinked, returning to herself with a snap. “Oh, goodness, I look an absolute fright!”

Ignoring Sano’s incredulous stare, the vixen ducked her head and began licking down the white fur on her chest.

Sano goggled. “Hold on a second, you! Explanations, here, now! You knew who that guy was—what do you have to do with Kanryuu?!”

The ebony fox stopped her grooming long enough to look down her nose at Sano. “Only thoughtless males pry into a lady’s past.

“I don’t see any Lady—”

“Easy, Sano,” Kenshin interrupted with a nervous smile, watching his friend’s obvious agitation. “It will be all right, that it will.”

Megumi left off grooming completely—already looking—Kenshin was a little uncomfortable to note, beautifully sleek and refined, not at all as if she had been running in absolute terror earlier.

The fox sidled closer to Kenshin, pressing her dark pelt up against his bright one, white-tipped tail weaving almost catlike behind her. The Rurouni stiffened, eyes going wide.

Oro, oro, oro, oro…

“See?” Megumi peered up at him with wine-colored eyes, a vulpine smile on her muzzle. The fox glanced over at Sano, “Now there’s a male a girl could get behind. Easy on the eyes and on the mind.”

OroOroOro- ORO!

“You’re strong, aren’t you? What do you say; will you help me escape from Kanryuu?”

Sano was glowering, eyes daring his friend to say no, to give the answer the hybrid knew that the Rurouni would never say. He turned to being moving toward the heart of the territory, calling over one evil-marked shoulder.

“Fine. You get to explain to the little Missy.”

… Oro isn’t going to cut it.

Kaoru had woken early, moving to full alertness in the space of a second as Sano moved quietly out of the den. She had lain still, aware of Yahiko’s warm bulk pressed to her side, allowing the hybrid to think he’d slipped out. She knew she’d been hard (nearly impossible) to live with these past two weeks, and this morning… well, it wouldn’t be fair to Sano to make him go through another of her episodes. Especially since if she got up then Yahiko definitely would, and he’d been just as vocal about Kenshin’s absence as she had.

But all of that was behind them now, the tanuki had firmly reminded herself with a thrill of relieved joy that made going back to sleep impossible, because Kenshin was coming back today.

When Yahiko had finally woken Kaoru steamrolled over any grumpy protests about Sano’s quiet departure with a strict plan for the day. The plan was to wear both herself and Yahiko out so that there wouldn’t be time for nervous-energy sparked arguments. To achieve this, the tanuki and the puppy did a running-patrol of the western-most border, the female setting a pace that Yahiko couldn’t keep up with and still talk. She called a halt as the pair slid from the western border along to the southern and ran into the river.

It would be nice, she’d decided, if the pack could all have meal together when Sano and Kenshin got back. Frankly, she didn’t trust Kenshin to feed himself properly; she still remembered his protruding ribs when he’d first appeared.

Strange, that it hadn’t been that long ago, yet already she couldn’t imagine life without Kenshin, without Yahiko or even Sano. It felt like the males had always been with her. Like their weird pack was meant to be together, filling some void she hadn’t been able to put a name to, but had silently felt all her life.

Putting such thoughts aside, Kaoru had instructed Yahiko in a new type of hunting—fishing, trusting that the struggle of applying new technique would keep the akita-mix busy, distracted. Kaoru herself found it harder to ignore, thinking about what time it was and whether Kenshin and Sano were back at the den yet. Finally, the pair had managed four fish that would make decent meals and set off toward the den at breakneck speed, only to find it still deserted.

Moodily Yahiko flopped down by the concealing hazel-tree, releasing the two fish he’d been carrying by the tails. His still semi-damp stomach fur attracted dirt to itself, turning white into clumpy brown, but the puppy didn’t seem to notice.

“They’re not back yet? Geez, I bet Sano got lost again.”

Kaoru deposited her own pair of fish, sitting down as she did so. “Maybe not, I mean, they could have…” Kenshin could have left and Sano just doesn’t want to tell us… the thought came, sudden and nasty as a viper’s bite. Kaoru refused to say it aloud. “… They could have run into Tae on the way back and gotten stuck talking.”

Yahiko rolled his eyes, stretching out oversized paws. “Yeah, right. What’s so special about her that they would drop everything and waste time?”

“Yahiko!” Though the puppy had a point. If Sano had, for some reason, decided to delay (even though he knew Kaoru and Yahiko were going mad with waiting), Tae knew enough of the situation that she’d never let the two males stop to chat—walk and gossip maybe, but definitely not stop. It had been a long shot from the beginning, but Yahiko still didn’t need to talk about her friend that way.

Kaoru was just about to lecture Yahiko on Tae’s behalf when she heard it, a gentle rustle of underbrush and the steady grumble of Sano’s voice. Completely forgetting her irritation of just a few seconds before, the tanuki turned toward the sound, a relieved smile stretching across her muzzle.

“Kensh—” the greeting died halfway spoken. There was her red-furred wanderer, Rurouni’s smile a thin veneer over something very similar to panic. And there was Sano, the fight-seeking hybrid ignoring everyone to examine the surrounding forest with lackluster interest. And standing between them… “Kenshin, who is this?”

It was not, Kaoru was aware, one of her reasonable tones. Actually, it was quite hostile. But between Kenshin and Sano was the loveliest black vixen Kaoru had ever seen, a vixen who seemed to find it the most wonderful kind of amusing to attempt to twine her tail with Kenshin’s. Kaoru didn’t really care much about her tone right now.

Kenshin’s ears were flat to his skull, and his tail, already drooping to avoid the fox’s, sunk a little lower, his smile was forced.

“Ah… Miss Kaoru, this is Miss Megumi,” the red wolf sidled an unsuccessful step away from the fox. “She was chased into the territory by some rather persistent dogs.”

“Moderately persistent,” Sano corrected, seeing fit to actually look at the others, giving Kenshin a toothy grin. “They ran fast enough.”

“But bold Sir Ken so heroically fought them off,” the Megumi-fox sighed, actually batting her eyes at the extremely uncomfortable Rurouni.

Kaoru choked on a breath, working to get past the angry obstruction in her throat. By her side, Yahiko openly stared at the beautiful creature terrifying his hero.

“Guess it’s pretty easy to put the moves on somebody you just saved,” the puppy mused with a confused mix of admiration and sarcasm. The obstruction cleared, resolved itself into words:

“Hey! Get off him!”

Megumi paused, dark eyes looking sidelong at Kaoru, judging the silvery female. “And who are you to say who gets close to Sir Ken? Surely a male as skilled as he can speak for himself…” the vixen gave a delicate sigh, “And what relationship could you possibly have that would dictate who Sir Ken spends time with? A half-grown female who doesn’t even know how to groom herself properly can’t possibly be what Sir Ken would look for in a companion.”

Kaoru was grateful that Sano and Yahiko didn’t glance her way at the statement, ready to weigh her own scruffy fur against the sleek ebony of the vixen. No, the spiky-furred duo (speaking of ungroomed) were staring at Megumi, who was now sitting her with fluffy tail curled neatly around to hide her dainty paws, a victorious smirk hovering around her muzzle. Kenshin wasn’t looking at anyone, and had taken the opportunity provided to put a healthy distance between himself and Megumi.

Kaoru blinked, the anger that she should have been feeling, should have had her launching forward to teach a certain fox a few lessons on etiquette to pack-leaders, instead bouncing around her head in a lonely howl.

She had tried so hard.

She had been patient (for her) for two weeks, without more than a self-proclaimed scoundrel and layabout’s word that Kenshin was still here, still sane, that he hadn’t slipped away into the night for destinations unknown.

She had suffered through days and long nights of uncertainty and self-doubt, because if she hadn’t been there, Jineh would never have been able to drive Kenshin so far, drive him to the amber-eyed stranger she had kept secret from Yahiko, from Sano.

And today, she had just wanted to welcome him home, to show Kenshin that he had an important place in their lives, that he was cared for and missed… She still couldn’t so much as catch his scent, endless wind and autumn’s last leaves masked by the clinging scent of the fox, a mixture of cold sharp mint and other herbs she couldn’t recognize.

The clearing was still quiet, Sano and Yahiko looking to Kaoru now for a response, the tanuki didn’t want to look at Kenshin.

Moving slowly, Kaoru turned and very deliberately walked away into the woods.

“What’s your problem?!” Yahiko exploded at an openly-smirking Megumi, “The hell did you do to Kaoru?”

Kenshin stared after where Kaoru had gone, frowning. That wasn’t like her…

“Take it easy on the Missy, vixen,” Sano said baldly, a lazy eye on the fox who’d bristled at his tone. “She’s still pretty pure minded, not all conniving like some other females I could mention.” Megumi huffed, nose in the air. The fighter swung his gaze toward Kenshin, “You’d better go after her or she’s gonna come back pissed. She’s been looking forward to today and it’s been shot all to hell.”

“We caught lunch,” Yahiko muttered gloomily, pawing at a silvery fish, “and she made me clean the den. It wasn’t even dirty.”

Kenshin winced, possibly imagining Kaoru’s likely mood when he caught up with her.

“Sano, Yahiko, please watch over Miss Megumi. This one does not believe we were followed, yet…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sano agreed, moving to investigate one of the fish, “get going, Kenshin.”

Ducking his head, the red wolf set off after Kaoru.

Megumi shook herself, jet fur rising to fall perfectly back into place. “So much fuss over one small tantrum,” she remarked airily, “perhaps she’s even more of a puppy than she appears.”

“Hey!” Yahiko started, Sano cut him off, lazily gathering up a fish and lying down.

“That little miss you’re set on alienating is pretty important to all of us,” he remarked nonchalantly, “and it wasn’t a good idea to tick her off since she’s  the one who decides if you get to stay.” It was delivered so casually Megumi couldn’t be sure if it was a threat.

“But this is Sir Ken’s territory.” She narrowed her eyes, she did know pack law, for all that she was exempt from it based on species, and territory always went to the strongest couple. Kenshin and that ratty thing that had fled were definitely not a couple.

“Sorta,” Sano shrugged, “thing is, Kenshin considers this territory to be Kaoru’s. Which gives her the final say.”

Yahiko settled to a fish of his own, unsure if he should offer the fox one of the remaining two. The manners he’d been learning at Kaoru’s insistence said he should—but Kaoru wasn’t here to enforce them because this weird female had upset her. The puppy stared and chewed thoughtfully, unsure.

Kaoru had made her way to one of her favorite thinking-spots, an old haunt from puppyhood that her father had once mentioned as being a favorite of her mother’s. It was down by the river, a natural pool where the waters stilled in a small inlet, overlooked by a smooth boulder that held the sun’s warmth. Sitting on the boulder, she could make out her reflection in the water almost perfectly if the current cooperated.

Kaoru sat and stared, wondering at her scruffy appearance. It wasn’t as bad as Sano’s or Yahiko’s, it was better even than Kenshin’s, but having seen Megumi…

Just how much were females supposed to groom themselves? Tae groomed all day, but Kaoru was pretty sure that was just because her friend was a cat. Guess that’s something mom should have taught me… the tanuki made a face at the masked reflection in the water, started licking at the fur of her shoulder experimentally, trying to get unruly fur to lie flat. It fought her ministrations, conspiring to be even worse than before.

Kaoru paused to scowl at her reflection, the river’s whim holding the water still for a moment. A flicker of red—

“I know you’re there, Kenshin.” No she didn’t, not really, but if he was there then this would be a nice trick.

“Miss Kaoru…” So that was him. Kaoru’s dark ears lowered a fraction.

“I’m being silly.” Perhaps realizing the trap, the Rurouni said nothing. Reluctantly Kaoru turned around.

Kenshin hadn’t come up on the boulder with her; instead he stood a little further back under the thinning cover of two oaks whose leaves had turned a deep crimson. Probably what she had seen reflected in the water.

“I’m sorry.” The words were out before she had really realized that she was going to say them. Kenshin looked surprised.

 “For what, Miss Kaoru?”

“Miss Megumi,” Kaoru’s ears were flat to her skull, “I may have over… reacted.”

“She is quite a shock,” the Rurouni noted dryly, shooting an unreadable look over his shoulder towards the den.

She was not going to giggle, even if relief at Kenshin’s response had shot a warm fizz of giddy emotion down to bounce around in her stomach.

“Why is she here?” Kaoru moved off her boulder to sit closer to Kenshin, head cocked to one side expectantly. “I know you must have had a reason for bringing her back.” It was just a bonus that moving closer allowed Kaoru to easily breathe in her friend’s scent, which sent that fizz of relief on a riotous trip through the rest of her body, even the thought of Megumi was having trouble working its way through the warmth to annoy her.

Kenshin sighed, sitting as well and looking comfortable enough to suggest that he was quite content to be away from the den for now. “She was frightened,” violet eyes searched hers, frank. “She was hunted, and she was frightened. She’s still frightened, for all she’s hiding it. And-” the crimson wolf hesitated, “the one chasing her…”

“Bad news?” Kaoru guessed.

Kenshin shrugged, “This one doesn’t know,” he admitted. “Sano has heard of him, but nothing more than vague rumors, and Miss Megumi,” his tone went dry again, “insists that it is quite rude to ask her anything about herself.”

“Fishy.”

“As the proverbial trout,” Kenshin agreed absently. “But even if this Kanryuu isn’t a threat… one of her pursuers mentioned a group I may have heard of before.” He met her gaze again. “Sheltering Miss Megumi may be dangerous.”

Kaoru shrugged, getting to her feet. “But we’re going to do it anyway,” she pointed out. Even if I don’t like her, if Kenshin thinks something bad is after her I wouldn’t be able to sleep nights if I chased her off, the tanuki thought sourly. “Besides,” she gave Kenshin a small smile, “it’s not like we’re not used to danger.”

The Rurouni winced, his eyes catching and holding her when the tanuki would have started moving back toward the den. “It should not be so,” he said quietly, pained. “Miss Kaoru, sessha would like to apologize for what transpired with Jineh.”

Kaoru felt an instinctual shudder start down her spine at the mention of the mad wolf’s name, felt it die stillborn at the look on her Rurouni’s face.

“Sessha allowed you to be placed in great danger, but such a thing will not happen again Miss Kaoru.” His face was as serious as if he were swearing fealty, “This one will be sure to protect you.”

Kaoru was finding it just a little hard to breathe up against that determination, solemn as a sunrise. But she couldn’t let Kenshin take the blame.

“It wasn’t your fault, Kenshin.” She shook her head, breaking eye contact, “If I’d been faster, or had gone anywhere else—”

“You are not at fault Miss Kaoru,” Kenshin insisted, “You made the best choice under the circumstances. If you had kept running Jineh would surely have tired of the chase and caught you.”

Kaoru rolled her eyes, deliberately irreverent, trying to break through Rurouni-seriousness. “So I say you’re not to blame, and you say I’m not to blame. The only one that leaves is Jineh. Think we can agree to blame him?”

Kenshin nodded, but the look on his face said he didn’t agree, wouldn’t let go of his guilt so easily. Kaoru sighed, and, daring, brushed by him, allowing to very tips of her fur to touch his as she passed. It wasn’t anything like the way Miss Megumi had been plastering herself to Kenshin’s side, but it was as close as she could comfortably come, and even this much was making the tips of her ears go uncomfortably warm.

“Come on,” she looked back at Kenshin, “let’s get back to the others before Yahiko eats all of the food.”

“Of course, Miss Kaoru.”

“And Kenshin?” she wasn’t quite looking him in the eye anymore. “I’m glad you’re back.”

A slow smile spread across her Rurouni’s face, “This one is pleased to be so.”

With a flick of her ringed tail Kaoru started off, trying to keep her very-warm ears from going completely flat with delighted embarrassment, and began muttering to herself about the need to pick up some more food on the way back to the den, to feed the extra mouth.

A messy brown feline ran. Terrified flight had long since given way to trained agility, allowing the cat to cover the distance from the oddly-defended territory, past the two clumsy hounds that had collapsed, quivering at the edge of a very different territory to the northeast.

It was more of a camp than a territory, rings of other dogs, (puling, posturing puppies more like) arranged around a comfortable den. Beshimi slipped past the guards, not bothering to check his pace. There was no need. None of Kanryuu’s followers would dare delay one of the Oniwaban in a hurry—even if it had taken some of the cat’s more… esoteric talents to ensure that some of them got the idea. Or rather, their friends. The ones who’d challenged the only cat in the bizarre pack were far beyond help.

Beshimi arrowed through the camp, heading for a circle of close-growing pines where his leader had made their headquarters. The Okashira would never admit to such things, but the evergreens reminded the five Oniwaban of the cold north—and home.

The unkempt cat resisted the urge to hiss at a shepherd dog that didn’t quite get out of his way fast enough. The luckless mongrels who served Kanryuu would doubtless take the news of the thrice-blasted fox straight to Kanryuu in the den at the true center of the camp, but for the Oniwaban, for any true Oniwaban, there was only one Leader.

Beshimi slipped between tall, prickly trunks into the perpetual gloom of the Okashira’s sanctuary. Coming to a precise halt, the cat sat and licked his lips nervously.

“Leader.”

A whisper of sound, as if shadow could touch shadow, and icy teal eyes stared back at him from a face as dark as the shadows it courted.

“Beshimi,” the leader’s voice, appropriately cold, “report.”

The cat extended claws to grip the earth below his paws, released it slowly. The Okashira made him nervous. “I trailed Megumi Takani as instructed,”

“You were instructed,” the voice noted, utterly without emotion, “to bring her back.”

Beshimi winced, half-crouching as if to avoid a blow. “My apologies for my failure, Okashira. There was,” he hesitated, “interference.”

Impassive teal regarded him from a barely-discernible lupine face. “Explain.”

Rage burned up through Beshimi’s being, straightening the spine still bent to his leader’s displeasure. How dare that vixen escape…

“Megumi Takani has entered a territory to the southwest, Okashira. She there encountered two fighters who gave her aid.” A low hiss pulled from his throat before he could fight it back. “Representatives of the local pack. They seemed unaware of Kanryuu’s… reputation, and willing to grant the vixen sanctuary.” Another hiss, remembering how the crimson one had plucked him from his perch as easily as one might pluck the wings from an insect.

“Two, and you were deterred.”

Beshimi winced. “Takani’s escape caught me unprepared, Okashira,” the cat apologized, touching his forehead to the dirt between his front paws, trembling. “I fear my weapons were… limited.”

Silence from his leader, the strange wolf that had earned the cat’s loyalty more seasons back than the feline could recall. In this posture, the Okashira could kill him for his failure before Beshimi could move.

“Hannya.” The leader’s voice, speaking over his head, ignoring his apology for now. “Were you able to trail them?”

He was following me?! Beshimi almost sputtered, but it wouldn’t do any good. Hannya was Aoshi’s trusted right paw, with skills that far outshone Beshimi’s meager contribution to the group. If Hannya didn’t want to be seen, he wouldn’t be. And if he was ordered to follow even one of his own pack, well, for the Okashira, he would. Any of them would.

Hannya’s voice wasn’t as cold as the Leader’s, but it didn’t sound right either, more… gravelly. Which was appropriate considering the master spy had once had his throat torn half out.

“It was difficult.” The specter’s voice came from the gloom, shape even less visible than the Okashira’s night-dark pelt. “One of the two was quite skilled in detecting shadows, but the pack Takani shelters with is a small one.”

“Beshimi,” the cat dared to raise yellow eyes to the wolf he served above all others, “You will take Hannya and Hyottoko to reacquire Megumi Takani.” Icy eyes narrowed. “A second failure will not be tolerated.”

Beshimi gulped, anxiety crushing his ribcage.

“I shall strive for perfection in this matter, Okashira.”

The dark wolf gave a brisk nod, acknowledging his subordinate’s promise and dismissing him. The cat slunk away into the gloom.

“You will not accompany us, Leader?” The question was carefully neutral; both knew how much importance Kanryuu placed on his vixen. The Okashira shook his head only slightly, wasting no movement.

“You and Hyottoko should suffice. Shikijou will remain to guard and I will explain matters to Kanryuu.” The Okashira couldn’t see the bowed head that would signify Hannya’s respect to his leader’s decisions, but the dark wolf could hear it.

“The… other matter is settled then?”

“The situation is in flux.” Ice eyes fixed on the exact spot where Hannya lurked, “the outcome will depend upon the success of your mission.”

Hannya bowed his head again, half-ruined voice grim with determination.

“Then we will not fail, Okashira.”

Chapter Text

I know some things that you don’t
I’ve done things that you won’t
There’s nothing like a trail of blood
to find your way back home

-SIXX A.M, Life is Beautiful

Kaoru wasn’t sure just what had been going on in her absence, but Megumi’s stiff posture and upturned muzzle, as if the very thought of looking at a certain hybrid with a fishbone dangling from grinning jaws was offensive… I knew there was a reason I kept him around.

The wolf-dog looked up at his approaching friends, his lazy tail beating the earth twice in welcome. “So, you found her, and she didn’t rip off your tail. Lucky guy.”

And that’s why I’m going to kick him out, Kaoru thought darkly, glaring at Sano while Kenshin gave out his patient they’re-teasing-me-again smile. Yahiko was a suspicious shadow—not quite staying behind Sano as he watched the fox with the mixture of fascination and distrust.

And now Megumi was looking at the two returned wolves from the corner of one unfathomable wine eye, posture turned just a fraction so if the need to bolt arose she could be off in the space between heartbeats.

Kaoru sighed, carefully laying down the extra fish she had insisted that they catch so everyone would have something to eat. “Miss Megumi,” she tried to keep her voice decisive. That should be easy, right? The decision was already made. “I’ve talked to Kenshin and we’ve decided to let you stay here while this whole business with Kanryuu gets sorted out.”

The fox looked up, disbelief wide and lonely in her eyes while her face fought to stay unaffected and vaguely smug. Kaoru frowned, “Don’t look at me like that, I’m not completely heartless.”

Yahiko coughed under his breath, “Says the hag who nearly chewed off my ears two days ago.”

 “Your ears?” Sano looked askance at the growing puppy, “I thought she was gonna scalp me.”

“Oh, shut up,” Kaoru grumbled, bringing a fish over to Megumi as Kenshin sat, talking quietly with the other two males. The she-wolf dropped the fish; glancing carefully over her shoulder to be sure the males weren’t paying attention.

“Now listen,” she told the fox in an undertone, “I’ve said you can stay for now, but any more of this plastering yourself to Kenshin crap and I will personally chase you out of here so fast it’ll make your pretty little head spin.”

The black vixen’s eyes narrowed as she inhaled, Kaoru cut her off before the undoubtedly waspish comment could come out. “Think about it for a minute,” the tanuki advised. “If you’re busy making Kenshin uncomfortable, how well will he be able to protect you?”

“Sano,” Kenshin quietly called to his friend, keeping one ear trained on the ruckus caused by two females who might never become very good friends. The fighter-for-hire shifted lazily closer to the wolf, matching him tone for quiet tone.

“Yeah?”

Kenshin’s violet eyes were troubled, his brow ever so slightly creased in a frown. “I want you to ask about Miss Megumi and Kanryuu in town,” the crimson wolf instructed, “We don’t know enough about what’s going on, and this one does not believe that Miss Megumi will tell us.”

Sano took in the Rurouni’s worried expression, and let his gaze slide over to the ongoing argument. The fox’s eyes had lit up like she was winning, but one only had to look at Kaoru to know the fight was far from over, especially since Yahiko was making his way over to the scene.

“Sure,” Sano agreed, “I’ll see what I can scare up.”

“Thank you,” Kenshin smiled weakly, probably unhappy with the prospect of staying behind with three squabbling denmates. Sano granted him a toothy grin in return.

Hope he’s not outta practice, or they’re going to shred him to itty bitty Rurouni pieces trying to go for each other’s throats.

 Clouds covered the sun, turning the light to silver-gray and making the autumn day feel colder. Sano was unbothered by the change in temperature, thick coat keeping him warm despite the chill breezes swirling about.

Air moved funny in the city, the hybrid decided, wrinkling his nose at the odors it brought. The wind got cocky, not having to weave through trees, started thinking it could shove a body around. But, if he was going to find information on an up-and-coming pack, the town would be the place to go. Kanryuu was a dog, which made him a dog’s problem.

 Add to that the fact that he didn’t know any of the wolf neighbors, except those poor saps Kurogasa had killed, well… yeah, obviously the town.

Though, weirdly enough he seemed to be having a hard time finding his way around, which just wasn’t fair. But he’d moved on anyway, talking to folks he met half by accident and trying to figure out which side of town he’d come in on anyway.

Honestly, that went about as well as trying to get information on Kanryuu. The pets hadn’t heard of him, or heard much about him. A few of the strays knew about as much as he did, that Kanryuu was a brainy type who’d somehow gotten a bunch of other dogs to follow him. Everybody knew he was into something shady. No one seemed to know what it was.

We’d have more luck trying to get the vixen to talk. Or asking Tae if she’d singed her whiskers on any sizzling rumors. But it would definitely just be rumor; the cat’s information didn’t tend to be as good as she believed it was. There was also the small matter of Sano owing the feline a woodpigeon. Or two. But hey, what were a few meals between friends?

“Nothing to get worked up over,” the hybrid muttered, eying the sky. The sun was still invisible behind its layer of clouds, refusing to give him a hint about the way back. “Aw, hell.” It had to be some direction, right? He just had to trust his instincts and pick one.

The fighter looked back and forth, “Eenie, meenie, miney, moe, choose the way that I will go…” There! East-westish. Determined, Sano moved down a side street at a relaxed lope. With any luck all this running around hadn’t drawn the notice of the city’s dogcatchers.

The road Sano had chosen led to more open spaces, the buildings that had huddled together as if for warmth now holding each other at arm’s length. Vaguely familiar though, like maybe he had come through here once before. ‘Course, that could be his less-than-stellar sense of direction talking again.

The road stretched on, clearly intent on leaving the town, though whether or not it was the right way remained to be seen. “Let’s see, talked to Tobi and Tomi,” Sano ran through a quick checklist, “Katsuki and… who’s that?”

‘That’ was a dark dog, some ways ahead of him who slipped quickly across the road and down into the dying grasses on its side. Another turn and the stranger was out of sight behind the last building.

No harm asking him, right? Sano mused and picked up his pace. The dog wasn’t in sight as he rounded the building, but his scent (at least, what Sano assumed must be his scent) wound along the side of the building and around some scattered debris. A strange scent. Something that tickled in the back of his mind, something… he could almost recognize.

Intent on following the almost-familiar smell, Sano skirted a rusty dumpster.

“Okay, buddy,” came a growl that was anything but friendly, “why’re you following me?” The hostile voice came from above, an unfriendly face showing over the edge of the dumpster’s lid.

“Would you relax?” Sano cocked a brow at the bristling dog, “Just wanted to ask you something.”

The dog was a flat-coated retriever, though obviously one that didn’t share the happy nature his breed was noted for. He was solid brown, the color of dark chocolate, with floppy ears hanging limply by his face and angry gray eyes that looked over Sanosuke with something like puzzlement.

Sano frowned back with almost the same expression. Something about those ears…

“Katsu?” It couldn’t be, no way, but those surly gray eyes were widening, and he could almost see it.

“Sano?”

The hybrid grinned unabashedly, tail beating out a steady rhythm, “It is you.”

The dark dog leapt down from his perch and drew near his old friend, “What happened to you? It’s been forever!”

“Not quite forever,” Sano retorted, “Lost track of you back when the Sekihotai split,” Rough fur moved in a shrug, “Never was sure if you made it out.”

Katsu snorted, a bitter sound. “Yeah, everybody split and it was hell trying to find anyone. You and the Captain were gone; none of the others could keep the Sekihotai together. Nobody even tried.” He paused, gaze sliding beyond Sano, into nothing for a time. “… I heard the Captain was killed.”

The old bitterness ate at Sano’s gut like maggots in rotted meat as remembered rage shuddered down his spine.

A black and white form, falling, swallowed by red.

“He did,” the hybrid’s voice sounded thick, choked by a growl, “I was there.”

Katsu exhaled slowly, eyes even blacker than his already-dark face. “Who?”

The instinctive answer rose in snarl to Sano’s muzzle. Slaves to humans, worthless curs with no honor! If they hadn’t fought— the newer memory of a splitting headache and a face of crimson fur sealed into compassionate agony stopped him.

The snarl eased and he allowed his air to hiss out from between his teeth.

“Humans,” the answer was truthful, even if it was a truth he hadn’t wanted to see. He’d been so angry, wanted to fight back. You couldn’t fight two-leggers, you could only avoid them. And the dog that the Captain had refused to fight hadn’t killed his mentor.

Katsu growled softly, glaring at the town with the same helpless fury that had nearly driven Sano mad.

“So… why are you here?” Sanosuke offered into the stillness, trying to shift the conversation back from death to life. Katsu studied him,

“Ginjo looked after me for a while, but eventually I struck out on my own. Ended up here and I’ve been here ever since. What happened to you, after the Captain…?”

Sano sat and used a hind paw to scratch at his ribs uncomfortably. “Got mad, got tough, got a reputation and then I finally got some sense knocked into me. So I hung up Zanza’s name and I’ve been living with the local pack ever since.”

Katsu raised his brows, impressed, “Zanza? Fighter-for-hire, dealer of nightmares and crusher of bones? You?”

Sano grinned weakly, “I was mad?” The hybrid frowned, “Wait a minute, you heard about me?”

The retriever gave Sano a patient look, “These ears aren’t just for show, you know. I keep them to the ground, keep track of what’s going on.”

“I thought they were for chewing,” Sano replied innocently, “You never stopped me from doing it.”

Katsu started to mutter something about a certain fat puppy sitting on him, but the hybrid cut him off.

“But that’s good news for me, listen. Have you heard anything about a dog called Kanryuu or a fox called Megumi? Those folks I’m staying with, the ones who knocked some sense into me, are in a little trouble with the guy and want to know how hot the water is.”

“Kanryuu Takeda?” Katsu repeated, sitting down hard. “What kind of mess are your friends in? He’s…” the dog inhaled slowly, “He’s bad news, Sano. I don’t like the things I hear about this guy.”

“What do you hear?” Sano matched Katsu tone for grim tone.

“He’s up-and-coming, but came up a little too fast,” Katsu recalled, “Brains, not brawn, but he’s got about thirty followers to make up for it. Don’t have anything substantial on why they follow him in the first place though,” Katsu frowned, “From what I know, Kanryuu’s a weasel, not a charmer. He shouldn’t have been able to talk his bullies into joining him.”

“Anything about some jokers called the Oniwaban pack?”

Katsu shook his head at his friend, “That they’re not jokers. Most of their rumors are older; supposedly they’re from way up north, where there aren’t so many humans. Story goes there was a huge war up there seasons ago, two big packs tearing each other to ribbons. The Oniwaban were a third pack and kept from being overrun by both of the big packs even though they were less than half the size. They’re serious business and deadly—if they’re with Kanryuu than your friends are in some deep trouble.”

And now for the one who put us there…

“What about a fox called Megumi? Megumi Takani?”

Katsu frowned, answering slowly, “I’m not sure. There was a family of foxes called Takani a long time ago that were pretty famous, but they’re all dead now. Got caught in some other war.”

Damn, guess it was too much to hope for, getting three for three.

Aloud he said, “Well, if Kanryuu’s as dangerous as you say, I’d better be getting back there…” he eyed his surroundings doubtfully. “Any chance of pointing me back toward the forest?”

Kenshin was beginning to fear that life intended to block him from his goals again. Despite his resolution to question Miss Megumi more closely about her circumstances, so far the black fox had proved inextricable from a spectacular verbal battle with Kaoru.

He was unsure what Kaoru had said to Miss Megumi when he was making plans with Sano, but the end result was that the fox was behaving, if possible, even cattier than she had been before.

Still, he’d had some hope of the argument dying down—the two females couldn’t possibly insult each other over nothing forever—until Yahiko had cautiously joined in.

In a way, the Rurouni knew, this was good. If the puppy was feeling comfortable enough to act like his usual self then he obviously was getting over his initial nervousness about a strange female verbally shredding his adopted sister to bits. It probably helped that the fight had stayed verbal, although the incandescent fury in Miss Kaoru’s eyes was a clear beacon to the Rurouni that the tanuki longed to pin the snippy vixen.

Kenshin smiled wryly to himself, recognizing the frustrated flick of a silvery-striped tail. Kaoru was at the edge of her patience, and completely willing to find someone else to take out her aggression on. Assuming her resolve not to hurt Miss Megumi held.

The red wolf exhaled quietly, making himself as still and unnoticeable as possible. Normally, he wouldn’t mind allowing himself to be bowled over or scolded, but just now there were other things he had to be doing.

Megumi sniffed at the den entrance, delicate paws stepping back so precisely that it could have been a dance, “What a dank little hole,” she remarked, seemingly to no one. “A dismal place covered in weeds, for a dismal territory covered in fleas.”

Kaoru seethed, teeth visible as her upper lip curled unconsciously. Yahiko, who’d spend the majority of the fight jumping back and forth between supporting Kaoru and Megumi spoke up before the tanuki could unlock her jaw to speak.

“Hey! She may be ugly, but she doesn’t have fleas!” Kenshin fancied that he could hear the -snap- as Kaoru’s frayed hold on her temper gave way at the familiar insult.

“I’ve told you not to call me ugly, you little brat!”

No fool, Yahiko dodged his pack-mate’s lunge with a yelp, scrambling to get long limbs untangled and out of the way of the still-coming Kaoru.

Megumi smiled tightly to herself, turning with a flick of her tail and stepping almost-soundlessly away from the squabbling duo. And where does she think she’s going, I wonder?

“Miss Megumi?” Kenshin put on his cheeriest harmless-Rurouni voice and smile, noting the way the black fox jumped in surprise at being noticed. “The one would like to talk with you.”

Megumi eyed him, her flirtatious expression stretched thin over stubborn nervousness. Kenshin met her eyes with his own relentlessly cheerful ones. “Surely you agree that it would be difficult indeed for this one to protect you without knowing what he is up against.”

The fox sniffed, sitting down primly with her white-tipped tail coming around to hide her paws. “Hmph, if you want to talk about his pack, fine, but I won’t answer any questions about why I was there.” She looked down her sharp nose at Kenshin, one ear turning to where Kaoru had pinned Yahiko and was serving him an impressive lecture on respect.

“Of course not,” Kenshin assured the fox. This one does hope that Sano finds something out… “Do you know how many are in Kanryuu’s pack?”

Megumi ran her tongue over a delicate paw in thought, “Perhaps… thirty-five dogs? But they aren’t anything to be concerned about.” The paw touched earth again. “Aside from those mutts is a group of five that Kanryuu trusts with his special missions.”

“The Oniwabanshuu?”

Megumi nodded, “They’ve never failed a mission to my knowledge,” she smiled slyly, “except for today. You were able to handle Beshimi so easily, I’m not scared of the Oniwabanshuu at all anymore.”

“And it’s the Oniwabanshuu who Kanryuu will send after you?”

Takani jumped again, head whipping around to stare at Yahiko, the akita-mix having finished his brief fight with Kaoru. The growing puppy frowned, head tilting ever so slightly to one side.

“Why? What’s so important about you that Kanryuu’d want you back that bad?”

Megumi raised her muzzle to sniff scornfully, and doubtless launch into another lecture about the importance of a female’s privacy. She stopped. The short sniff turned into a long inhalation, panic creeping back up to choke the calculation out of wine eyes.

“Can’t say, kid.”

Yahiko jumped and swore as Kenshin and Kaoru whirled to face the intruder, the tanuki’s fur standing on end along her spine.

“But I will tell you this for free. Hand over the fox now and nobody has to get dead.”

Yahiko’s brown eyes were wide, staring. “That’s a bear.” He finally choked out.

It was. Lumbering into their clearing, surprisingly quiet, was a massive brown bear. Kenshin frowned, trying the wind for any other information, but the bear’s musk had trickled in in his wake, heavy, clogging his nose.

Grizzly? Doesn’t look big enough. Small favors.

“And you are one of the Oniwaban, I take it?” Yahiko gaped at Kenshin’s expression of calm interest.

“That’s one of the Oniwaban? I thought they were wolves!”

The Rurouni smiled faintly at his surprise, “The one we met this morning was a cat.” He didn’t glance at the dirty look the puppy shot him, keeping his focus on the approaching bear.

Now that he was past the initial reaction of brown and big, he could see that the bear’s mouth was misshapen; the skin under his nose did not form a proper upper lip, but left his front teeth plainly visible.

“What is it you want with Miss Megumi?”

The bear looked annoyed, “I already told you that I ain’t telling ya. But you already know, Takani, if you don’t want to come back we’re gonna take it out of the kid’s hide.”

Yahiko bristled, “I am not a kid!” The rebuttal rolled easily off his tongue.

“Oi, berry-breath, it’s kinda rude to go ignorin’ us and jumping straight to pickin’ on the little guy.”

Relief trickled slowly down Kenshin’s spine, the feeling of at least one worry resolving.

The bear scowled, turning to find the abrasive voice as Sano trotted up with a false show of nonchalance. Yahiko was roundly cursing the hybrid for the quip about his size.

“Sano,” Miss Kaoru sounded relieved, but she stayed where she was, shooting a glance at Kenshin. The Rurouni was grateful for her restraint. We’re still in trouble. Three-on-one isn’t great odds when the one is a bear.

He could vividly remember days from the north when the pack had squared off with a territorial grizzly. Never with less than seven, and they always lost someone to the bear’s deceptive speed and the crushing strength of their heavy limbs.

Sano wagged his tail once in lazy salute. “Missy, Kenshin. See babysitting isn’t going so great.”

Kaoru rolled her eyes, but her retort was cut off by the bear slamming one heavy paw into the ground. “Don’t think you can go ignoring Hyottoko of the Oniwaban!” he bellowed, spittle flying from the gap in his lip. “Give the broad over, now!”

Sano looked up into the bear’s small, dark eyes. “No,” he replied in the same tone, shifting his stance to a more mobile one.

“Miss Kaoru, with me. Yahiko, protect Miss Megumi.” Kenshin instructed quietly.

“But, Kenshin—” the puppy began,

“Yahiko.” The Rurouni dared to look away from the bear that roared and swung at a nimble Sano. “The Oniwaban are tricksters, Hyottoko may be a distraction. You must look after Miss Megumi; she’s in no state to protect herself.”

Yahiko swallowed hard and looked up at the black fox trembling beside him with haunted eyes. He looked back to Kenshin and Kaoru and nodded fiercely. “Okay, Kenshin.”

The red wolf turned and drew near the battle, aware of Kaoru as a silver shadow on his left and of Yahiko coaxing the black fox back farther from the fight. Sano leapt to one side to avoid a heavy paw and shot a mild glare at the approaching pair.

“Hey, I got this under control, guys. No need to go muscling in on my fight.”

Apprehensive vexation laced Kaoru’s voice, “And if you don’t it’ll be a big mess.”

Hyottoko roared impressively, sending the canines’ ears instinctively flat against their skulls. “Fighting one of the Oniwaban? There’ll be nothing left of any of you but smears in the dirt!”

“Which is about all you’ve managed to hit so far,” Kenshin noted, hoping that his own unchanged demeanor would reassure his friends. He did not doubt their courage, but that was a big bear. Chill professionalism noted that he ought to prepare for the likelihood of losing one or both of his comrades. Even the strongest packs would lose fighters to an enraged bear. Kenshin shoved that icy voice back, loss was unacceptable, and they weren’t just any pack.

Kenshin found himself grateful that Sanosuke and Miss Kaoru seemed to understand what strategy to use without having to be told. As they approached the bear the tanuki parted company with the wolf to circle around behind the threat. The three packmates now formed a rough triangle with Hyottoko at its center.

The bear seemed unimpressed by their teamwork, the bulk of his concentration still focused on Sanosuke. Although, to be fair, Sano was really good at drawing hostility, and he was deliberately displaying his most provoking grin.

Hyottoko swung a paw at Sano, long claws reaching as the rest of his body moved with deceptive clumsiness to put more speed behind the attack. It wasn’t fair that something so graceless could be so fast.

Sano moved back again, but not quite far enough, the tips of blunt yellow claws passing through the spiky white fur of his chest. The grin shrank just noticeably.

Kaoru darted in low and fast to nip at the brown bear’s heels—but teeth closed harmlessly on thick shaggy fur, accuracy sacrificed for speed as she pulled out of harm’s reach again with an expression of furious disappointment.

Kenshin couldn’t fault her for her annoyance, especially when the Oniwaban member began to chuckle. “Hoo hoo,” the laughter chuffed out, sounding heavy coming from such a large frame. “Is that it? You’ll come nibbling at me from the sidelines, hoping to get through?” The shaggy head shook slowly, “Not a very original plan.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Sanosuke agreed, pacing just out of reach. Kenshin felt a tiny whisper of dread begin to ghost up his spine. Sano had an idea.

Sanosuke paced a wide arc, approaching Kenshin and Kaoru’s more fixed positions by turns. Every few steps he feinted inwards before pulling back, gauging the bear’s lack of reaction. The attacker had settled on a smug smile that displayed his upper teeth through his split lip prominently.

Kaoru darted in again on her side, this time managing to tear free a tuft of thick brown fur. The bear roused, thick wrinkles forming on his brow as he frowned and turned ponderously toward her. “Do you mean to pluck me like a woodpigeon?”

“Dunno,” Sano grinned, “look more like a sitting duck!” The former fighter-for-hire charged recklessly, latching on to the bear’s right shoulder for a deep bite.

Sano, no! Again the head turned, and the left arm came around with unreal speed, crushing Sano to the bear’s chest as the brown creature lumbered onto his hind legs.

“Thank you,” the split-lipped smile was gleefully insincere, “you deliberately stepped into my range.” Hyottoko opened his mouth to give a punishing bite of his own to his struggling captive, but Kenshin was already moving.

The red wolf streaked in, low and fast, aiming for the massive hind paws that were still shifting to keep the bear’s balance. He slammed into them, turning his body at the last moment to hit them broadside as he sank his fangs into the skin hidden beneath the fur. Hyottoko stumbled, and then Kaoru was there, grabbing the bear’s other paw and tugging at it relentlessly, as if she was playing tug-of-war with Yahiko. The bear roared as he toppled backwards, paws flailing to try and keep his balance.

Sanosuke latched onto the shoulder again and rode the bear down, worrying at the wound he had already inflicted. Kaoru, still attached to that left hindpaw, was kicked into the air and landed awkwardly, seemingly afraid to let go and regain her balance.

Hyottoko thrashed, trying to drive off the wolves tearing at him. Kenshin slipped around to the bear’s head, placing one forepaw on his fallen enemy’s throat as the bear snapped at Sano, cheerfully just out of range.

“Be still.” Kenshin didn’t want to kill the creature any more than he had wanted to harm the cat of that afternoon, but he was uneasy about the prospect of getting the bear to stop fighting and flee.

Hyottoko growled at him, but quieted at the threatening tone, not willing to risk that Kenshin would be faster and find the throat he now touched again, with his fangs.

Sanosuke released his captive and grinned, tongue lolling. “Glad you caught onto the plan, Kenshin.”

The red furred wolf shot him a distinctly unamused look, “That was not a plan.”

Sano shrugged and winced, “Worked anyway, but damn that hurt. I feel like one solid bruise.”

“I think you’re lucky to be solid instead of sliced into ribbons,” Kaoru noted dryly.

Megumi exhaled slowly, the action taking less time than it should have. She had been hyperventilating, caught and unsure which way to turn. She had been expecting… death, blood, this odd little family she dragged into her problems staring up at her with empty eyes from ruined bodies.

She hadn’t expected to see Hyottoko of the Oniwaban topple, and so quickly. But he had, and was staying down, surrounded by the three creatures who had brought him low. The tomboyish tanuki looked quite at home with the males, teasing that idiot Sanosuke, who was standing gingerly, as if his ribs bothered him. The vixen was no expert at fighting, even if she had seen its effects more often than she wanted to remember, but she was sure that charging into the bear’s reach as a distraction had been a boneheaded move. Brave, but boneheaded.

“Who… are you guys?” the question slipped out softly, directed toward three canines too far away to hear her whisper. She had almost forgotten the puppy who reacted so strongly to the ‘little’ comment was standing beside her. At her question he tore his gaze away from the aftermath of the fight to grin up at her. A grin of brash confidence and utter certainty, of belonging.

“They’re my pack,” he told her matter-of-factly.

Pack… the vixen let herself taste the shape of the word. It was foreign, a nightmare of baying hounds and delicately worded ‘requests,’ it was tears and panic and feeling trapped in her own skin… and it was, judging by Yahiko’s grin, none of those things. But she couldn’t be sure. Foxes didn’t live in packs.

“None of us are slouches when it comes to fighting,” the akita-mix was saying now, brown eyes watching his friends bicker and try to decide what to do with their fallen foe. “ ’Course that goes double for me—” the spiky head swung back around to look at her, include her, and a fierce young gaze looked past her for a moment, surprised. “Down!”

The puppy didn’t trust her to obey his hastily-barked command, throwing himself on Megumi to knock the black fox off her feet and into the dirt. Something that reeked of ammonia passed by overhead.

Yahiko extracted himself from the vixen with more speed than she had expected given his gangly limbs, and she could see, not that she needed to. The smell had said it all. Beshimi turned to face them after landing from his pounce, hissing at the puppy who had planted himself firmly between the pungent cat and the fox.

Further away, the rest of the pack noticed the cat’s appearance; Sir Ken said something, obviously reluctant to leave the greater threat of Hyottoko free to wreak havoc. But someone had to get over here now because Yahiko was facing off against the cat.

“Move it, brat,” Beshimi hissed, vicious yellow eyes sliding past the puppy to fix on Megumi, “I’m not here for you!”

Yahiko swelled his chest, growling as he bared his teeth. “I’m a member of this pack too, Kitty, and we’re protecting Megumi!”

Her throat was dry (Must be from the dust, Yahiko pushed me into the dirt, I’m dirty…) and the shakes had started up. Extreme fear, a clinical voice in the back of her mind diagnosed her, and cowardice.

Beshimi didn’t blink; his claws slid visibly free of their sheaths. “So be it,” he muttered, and threw himself forward.

“Yahiko, DON’T!” the voice she’d thought too dry to use ripped from her throat, but it didn’t do any good. The brave puppy ignored her, rushing forward to meet the cat head on, snapping jaws against thorn-sharp claws.

Beshimi dodged the first lunge, twisting in a motion impossible for non-felines to rake his claws down the puppy’s side. Megumi smelled blood, heard Yahiko’s indignant yelp, more annoyed than hurt, and felt dread turn her bones to jelly.

Where was the rest of the pack?!

Yahiko turned his head to follow the cat’s movement, catching the smaller creature by one hind leg. With a savage yank he pulled the Oniwaban away from the damage he was busy inflicting and shook his head briskly.

Something snapped, Beshimi screamed in pain as the puppy flung him away, the abused leg flopping at an unnatural angle.

“Yahiko!” somehow, it was unsurprising that Kaoru had made it back first. The she-wolf made a beeline for the injured pup, ignoring a silent (probably-fainted) Beshimi. “What did you think you were doing? That was reckless!”

Yahiko shrugged her off, the cocky set of his tail screaming his self-satisfaction, “Ah, leave it alone, Kaoru, it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Don’t be a little idiot, you’re hurt. Let me see.”

“I’m fine,” the puppy insisted, “Kenshin told me to protect Megumi so I did.” He swayed a little on his feet, turning his head to face the fox and blinking slowly, as if the motion made him dizzy. “You’re… alright, right…?”

His legs collapsed from under him.

Dread vanished into familiar urgency.

“Yahiko? Yahiko!” Kaoru approached the puppy nervously, “What’s wron—”

“Don’t touch him!” Megumi snapped, surprising herself with the strength of her voice as she surged forward, knocking the tanuki away when she would have bent to lick the youngster’s wounds.

Blue eyes blazed at her, “Miss Megumi—”

“He’s been poisoned,” Megumi snarled, “so shut up!” she bent her head near Yahiko, shutting out Kaoru’s demanding cries and the approach of one of the males. The angry pack at her back couldn’t matter now. All that mattered was the patient. She held her muzzle over Yahiko’s wound, nose sifting through the scent of him, his blood and Beshimi’s foul odor to find the faint green scent of whatever poison Beshimi had chosen this time…

“Wolfsbane,” she announced, turning to look at the pack behind her. Kaoru was still nearby, hovering anxiously, Sano had joined her, looking inscrutable. Further away, Kenshin bent his head to deliver a few short words to his captive. Hyottoko shivered, and when the wolf stepped away, his only action was to collect his fallen comrade in the crook of one shaggy arm and disappear back through the trees.

“But how?” Kaoru demanded, forcing Megumi’s attention back to the other female.

“Beshimi shreds poisonous plants with his claws to give him an extra edge,” the fox told her bluntly.

“But what do we…” Kaoru trailed off, staring down at Yahiko’s form. His pelt twitched sporadically, as if he tried to shrug off a fly. A symptom of the poison, Megumi knew. That he was this bad so fast…. Damn you, Beshimi!

“You let me work,” the healer snapped, “stay with him, see if you can keep him conscious, and roll him on his side so he doesn’t get any dirt into those scratches. Don’t touch them. I’ll be right back.”

Before she could think twice about it, the black vixen whirled and bounded through the woods she had passed through only that morning. Nimble feet soon took her to the plant she’d noted then. She liked plants; she liked knowing where they were and what they did. Plants didn’t change their natures.

This one grew half in shadow, as if smug about its own existence and the secrets behind its leaves and berries.

Tough, Megumi thought, dragging a large fallen leaf to the plant and pawing at it until stubborn black berries rained down, today your secrets are mine.

Two of the berries landed on the leaf, protective skin torn by her blunt claws exposing the juicy interior. It would be enough. One would probably be enough.

Taking a deep breath, Megumi grasped the stem of the leaf in her mouth and lifted it, watching the two round berries roll across its surface as she gingerly carried them back to the den. She made it without incident, and found that in her absence Kaoru had nudged Yahiko to lie on his side and then laid down against his back, feeding him a steady stream of words.           

Sanosuke and Kenshin argued quietly nearby, but the red wolf continually glanced at the prone puppy, his attention clearly not on the discussion. The hybrid looked up and saw her approach, his face hard. He looked like even more of a stranger than he really was, missing that careless friendly confidence.

 “Why the hell didn’t you tell us about that damn cat before!” It was an accusation, for all that it was framed as a question. But she had no time to answer, even if she had been able to open her mouth without dropping her precious cargo.

“Sano, not now,” Kenshin’s voice came in on her behalf, rebuking his friend.

“She should have told us!” the hybrid argued, paused, sniffing.

Megumi didn’t hurry, she couldn’t, but she was grateful that she was near enough now to tip the leaf so that the ruptured berries fell onto Yahiko’s open wound, their juice sliding its way into his bloodstream.

“Damn you, that’s Nightshade! Are you trying to kill him?!”

Free of her burden the vixen whirled to face her accuser, fully expecting to meet a furious attack (and to fall, she was no fighter), but apparently Sanosuke had more self-control than she had supposed. Although he was snarling, he hadn’t moved from his position by Kenshin, whose violet eyes were dangerously patient, waiting for an explanation.

“I’m trying to save him!” she snapped, worn past caring about what she gave away with unguarded words. “Wolfsbane kills by slowing the heart, Nightshade forces it to beat faster. If I’m careful, they’ll cancel each other out and he’ll live, but I need quiet, so I can monitor his heart!” And that was enough, she was shaking and she didn’t like the thoughtful look Sir Ken was giving her. The vixen turned back to her patient, settling down beside him with an ear to his chest, listening to his young, brave heart for a sign that the berries could be swept away. If only all poisons could be so easily removed.

It was okay here. Not perfect, because no place was, and not safe, even though Miss Megumi had promised she would be, but it was okay. It was dark in the circle of pine trees, and the darkness felt safe, because she could make herself so small, and pretend that she had disappeared, that she could hide forever.

And… they weren’t so bad, really, even if the Oniwaban were just as scary up close as they had been far away. But they hadn’t hurt her and (here was the odd part), she didn’t think they were going to. Shinomori mostly… well, he didn’t ignore her, because he couldn’t allow her to run again, but he didn’t watch her either. Not the way Kanryuu’s dogs had, staring until she was shaking in terror, desperate with the urge to flee.

Hannya avoided her, for which she was desperately grateful; his scarred face had haunted her nightmares for weeks after their first introduction. Beshimi and Hyottoko helped to watch her, but they weren’t really scary. The Oniwaban’s largest and smallest members were almost… comical. Beshimi was cranky and abrasive, but she could recognize that defense from Miss Megumi. He didn’t want to get close to their captive, in case they had to hurt her.

Shikijou watched her most of the time; she wasn’t really scared of him anymore. It was hard to be when he was so nice. He told her stories about a young pup who was so much braver and mischievous than she was, and he teased her about how her fur stuck up when she slept on it funny, and he kept her hidden from Kanryuu’s dogs, for now, anyway.

Because that was the problem. This couldn’t go on.

Kanryuu wanted Miss Megumi back, and the Oniwaban couldn’t lie to him forever. Not about this. They’d been very honest about that, from that first terrified moment in the woods when they’d caught her, and the Okashira had looked at her with freezing green eyes, stared like he wasn’t seeing her, cowering in the fallen leaves and shaking with exhaustion, at all. And decided to hide her, to try and get Miss Megumi back without using her the way Kanryuu had.

She snuggled in closer to Shikijou’s scarred form, shivering.

She hoped Miss Megumi got away, she did, but it was getting so hard to be brave.

Hannya had returned with an injured Beshimi and a defeated Hyottoko. Shikijou knew it would be pointless to ask the strange wolf why he hadn’t fought—the reason would be something sneaky, something twisted in that scarred head. So that didn’t matter much. What did matter was that that blasted Takani wasn’t here and they had warned her…

With an effort the large scarred dog bit back a growl. No need to disturb the little kit sleeping curled against his side. Not yet, anyway. Because that damn vixen had forced their hand, and now they had to tell Kanryuu about the little bargaining chip. Megumi had to come back, even if it meant ruining the little life he’d been watching over for the past few days.

The Okashira was questioning Hannya nearby, Hyottoko and Beshimi left to lick their wounds in disgrace.

“You’re sure?” the leader’s voice was a perfect volume, easily heard, but one that didn’t cause the sleeping kit to so much as twitch. Hannya ducked his head in a nod.

“The descriptions match, and judging what he said to Hyottoko…”

“Battousai the Manslayer,” the leader of the Oniwabanshuu said slowly, savoring the famous name. “How did our wayward fox find you?”

Chapter Text

The sacrifice that I made

That brought me to my knees

The choice that cost me everything

And set somebody else free

-Conjure One, Extraordinary Way

A large tan paw nudged the dark fox kit and she awoke slowly. She blinked large brown eyes and couldn’t stop a tiny yawn from splitting her cinnamon-colored muzzle.

“Come on, kid.” The young fox blinked again, looking up at Shikijou. It was a long way up, which hadn’t bothered her for a while but… the Rhodesian Ridgeback’s golden-tan face was grave, and he hadn’t teased her about whatever strange shapes her fur pressed itself into while she slept. The scarred dog always teased her about her bedhead, just like Miss Megumi had… until the day she hadn’t, and everything changed.

The black fox had been brave to run, Tsubame reminded herself, trying to find some of that courage now and force it into trembling limbs.

“It’s over, isn’t it?” she didn’t really need a response, now that she was awake she could see Hyottoko glowering at the ground, flexing large paws as if he wanted to crush something. Beshimi lay nearby, glaring around the pine grove indiscriminately with one leg stretched out behind him at an awkward angle.

Well, he was almost glaring indiscriminately—his yellow eyes caught her brown ones for a second and he tore them away to avoid her gaze.

“Megumi didn’t come back last night,” Shikijou told her, looking as alien as he had the first time the kit had seen him, striped by dark scar-tissue. “We told you what would happen.”

The fox nodded, a patterned brown head sliding through the spots of pale autumn sunlight that made it into the pine grove. “I know.” Her voice was small, but she managed to get black paws underneath her and stand. There was nothing else to do; she would never get away on her own.

“Thank you for everything.” Especially for the stories. Tsubame fervently wished that the brave puppy that ran amok through them was here with her. It might make her less scared.

Her guardian looked at her, almost said something but changed his mind at the last minute. Instead he sighed, heavily muscled frame quivering with the movement under short fur.

“Come on.” Grimly, he began leading the brown patchwork-colored fox through the grove.

“Shikijou,” a cool voice interrupted their barely-begun progress, the lion-dog stopped and turned his head. Aoshi materialized from the perpetual gloom, icy green eyes the first thing to appear. Hannya was a horrific shadow to the leader’s right. Tsubame crouched a little closer to Shikijou, unable to tear her eyes from the ruined face of the emaciated spy. Wolves weren’t supposed to look like that. His skeletal frame was covered in lusterless black fur that hung limply on his bony features. Queer stripes made from vegetable dyes marched up the odd wolf’s legs, patterns of color that broke up the spy’s thin shape and made him harder to pinpoint. And that face… devoid of fur, an expanse of leathery skin that was frozen into a perpetual snarl and eyes that appeared to be two different sizes because of how the face had frozen.

The fox kit shut her eyes hard and made herself look back up to Shikijou, who was looking to Aoshi.

“Leader?” the burly dog sounded ever-so-slightly puzzled. Aoshi glanced down at the fox for half a second before his cool eyes held his underling’s gaze once more.

“Stay here with Hyottoko and Beshimi. Hannya and I will take the fox.”

Tsubame’s dark ears pressed gently against her skull and she fought the urge to gulp. If it’s going to be scary, I guess it’s going to be all scary. She dared a quick glance at Hannya’s pale eyes before fixing her gaze on the earth between her paws.

Shikijou frowned, scars turning his face into a mass of alien lines, but he didn’t argue. With a respectful nod to his leader, the dog turned and walked back to where Hyottoko and Beshimi licked their wounds.

The small kit shivered, feeling the icy weight of the leader’s eyes slide over her briefly.

“Come.”

It was difficult to get her quivering legs to do as they were told, but she was just slightly more afraid of what would happen to her if she did not go, as what would happen to her if she did.

The two wolves took up positions on each side and led her from the comparative safety of the pine grove into a forest penetrated by the sun and patrolled by Kanryuu’s dogs.

Tsubame started shaking—she couldn’t help it. Canine eyes fixed on her and she quailed, expecting at any moment for the hounds to resume what seemed to be their favorite pastime—tormenting someone smaller and weaker than themselves. But the dogs who got a glimpse of her seemed to be forced to look at the dark wolves escorting her, and shrank back. Dogs of various colors and breeds parted before the odd trio, providing a straight path to the natural ridge that was Kanryuu’s preferred haunt.

Today the leader of the pack sat calmly surveying the sparsely-wooded land that fell away to the rear of his camp. Tsubame supposed that Kanryuu liked open spaces (which she really, really didn’t like) because he was a greyhound. The young fox had often heard Miss Megumi bitterly state that the only reason Kanryuu wasn’t dead was that he was fast.

He didn’t look particularly fast, just strange. He had a long nose and neck that flowed into each other seamlessly around a skull that barely curved, a thin whippy tail and equally thin legs. The brown saddle markings and white underbelly and legs could have belonged on any of the mutts working for him, but in everything but color he was like no other dog Tsubame had seen; in some ways he reminded her more of a deer.

But no deer had teeth like that.

Aoshi and Hannya led her up the rise and the young fox was able to catch sight of what held Kanryuu’s interest. Two dogs picked their way across the sparsely-wooded field, one almost as thin as Kanryuu, the other big and slow.

They clearly did not want to be out in that semi-open space, but a line of dogs kept them from running back to the camp. The thin one took another step and a loud crack pierced the air followed by an anguished cry. A steel trap, concealed in the fall leaves on the forest’s floor had closed on the dog’s leg.

The larger dog panicked and abandoned his shrieking comrade, bolting away from the camp. Another snap, another yelp and Tsubame squeezed her eyes shut to block out the sight of the two figures struggling like moths in a spider’s web.

“Ah, Okashira,” Kanryuu’s voice was pleasant, a smile hovering around his thin muzzle as he observed the trapped dogs. Gingerly, the fox kit opened her eyes again, trying to focus on the greyhound rather than the two trapped dogs. “Since your small group has been busy, I’ve had to resort to other methods of punishing failure.” He observed the spectacle, twin brown patches under his eyes almost looking like the eyeglasses humans sometimes wore. “It’s not as neat of course, but the humans just left their toys lying around, and I do believe in using all my resources.”

He had yet to turn and face them, but Tsubame got the feeling that he was paying very close attention to the trio’s every movement.

“You’re welcome to use the field yourself, Okashira. It is so liberating to cut away the deadweight.”

Hannya stirred briefly, but stilled at Aoshi’s lack of reaction.

“Discipline within the Oniwabanshuu will be handled within the Oniwabanshuu, as it always has been.” The words were calm, Tsubame didn’t know how he could be that calm with the injured dogs’ cries rising in the morning air. The sound made her feel ill.

“Suit yourself,” Kanryuu shrugged his thin shoulders as those of his pack who had herded the two unfortunates slowly trickled back into the camp.

“We have recaptured the fox kit.”

The greyhound finally turned to look at them, his gaze skipping over Tsubame entirely to rest on Aoshi. “Really. Three days of chasing these two vixens and you manage to catch the child.” Cruel brown eyes looked down at Tsubame finally, and she wished they hadn’t.

“Without Megumi this one is worthless. Megumi is the one who—”

“We know the location of Megumi Takani,” Aoshi cut him off placidly. Kanryuu’s urbane face twisted into a snarl,

“Then go and drag the little witch back here. Let her spend her time doctoring herself. And get rid of that thing,” Tsubame’s heart rate tripled as terror roared through her, “she’s useless.”

“No, she isn’t.”

Kanryuu stared, furious, and Tsubame couldn’t help but look up at the dark wolf too. He was defending her?

“No? No? Who do you think you are, Aoshi Shinomori? The Oniwabanshuu answer to me now. For all the good you are. Three days to catch a puppy, leaving critical weaknesses exposed…”

Hannya shifted on striped legs, the frozen leathery skin of his face making his expression unreadable, but it was an easy guess for the fox kit that it would not be a friendly one.

Aoshi interrupted Kanryuu again, this time his words seeming clipped and tense. “The fox kit is useful in the same capacity as before, as leverage on Megumi Takani.”

Kanryuu snorted down his long nose, voice dripping with feigned patience. “Except that dear Doctor Megumi isn’t here to be coerced by threat of force.”

“But we know where she is,” Aoshi raised a brow fractionally, “a message to remind her of her position would be easy to arrange for the Oniwabanshuu.”

Kanryuu remained skeptical, “The kid is no relation to Takani, why should our lovely lady care now that she’s escaped?”

“Good doctors create an emotional bond with their patients, and she is a female.” Aoshi replied levelly, “Females are more susceptible to emotional extortion, particularly when a child is involved.”

Kanryuu grinned slyly, “But females are hardly alone in that, right, Okashira?”

Aoshi didn’t answer, green eyes blazing in his dark face as he glared at the thin brown and white dog.

“Very well,” Kanryuu turned his head to observe the trapped dogs again. “Go send your message and bring our wandering fox home.”

“It would be wise to wait a few days,” Aoshi corrected, face and voice back to glacial perfection without a hint of a crack. “The pack she has sheltered with is not unskilled, it would be advantageous to allow them to think that we have given up on Takani before making any moves.”

Kanryuu glared back at his subordinate, “I don’t like all of these delays, Aoshi. Megumi needs to be back here within the week.”

“Of course.”

The greyhound smiled thinly, “I’m glad you understand. I look forward to seeing the skills of the vaunted Oniwabanshuu.”

“Stop being such an overbearing hag. I’m fine!”

“Yahiko, you were poisoned and you’re not moving from that spot!” Kaoru glared at the recuperating dog, but despite the akita-mix’s sullen brown eyes and frustrated scowl, he made no move to get up.

Megumi had ordered the bewildered pack to drag their youngest member into the den and then firmly told the groggy puppy not to move. But as the days passed and Yahiko’s strength had returned, so had his sour attitude, and while Kaoru was glad to see him doing better, she wished that he was a quieter patient.

“So, what, I have to stay down in this cramped little hole for the rest of my life?” the puppy complained.

Sano opened one eye from his midday nap to take in the other two inhabitants of the den. Megumi had left earlier to look for some plants and Kenshin had waited a few moments before quietly following suit. And Kaoru was trying really hard not to think about that.

“Kid’s got a point,” Sano mentioned lazily, “I’m all for keeping things cozy, but if I wake up one more night getting kicked in the ribs… there’s a perfectly good sofa in the junkyard with my name on it.”

 Kaoru glared at Sano, but there wasn’t much she could say to defend her lifelong home. The den had always seemed overly large to her, at least until Kenshin and the others had shown up. But with the addition of one more adult to the enclosed space…. She was fantasizing about summer nights under the stars too.

“Exactly!” Yahiko pounced on Sano’s agreement, stirring slightly, “If I stay here one more day I’ll—”

“If you move one more whisker, I’ll tell Megumi,” Kaoru threatened quickly, “see what she has to say about your behavior.” The tanuki tried not to get annoyed at how quickly Yahiko settled back down. In the three days since the Oniwaban’s attack the puppy had slowly developed a sort of hero-worship for the pretty doctor that had saved his life and he didn’t want to disappoint her. Kaoru was quite sure that was the only thing that had kept his movement to minimum this far.

“Speaking of the fox, did she say what she was going out for?” Sano opened his other eye, brow furrowing in a pensive frown as he glanced toward the entrance.

“She wanted to look for some plant that fights infection… I forget the name.”

“Yarrow,” Yahiko interjected helpfully, eager to show off his knowledge acquired from time spent with Megumi.

Kaoru resisted the urge to roll her eyes—but just barely. “Thank you, Yahiko.” The female glanced at the exit and sighed, voice dropping to a disgruntled mutter, “I know that it’s important to keep an eye on her in case Kanryuu’s goons come back, but did it have to be Kenshin going with her alone?”

Sano raised his brows, tone one of mock disbelief, “Why, Missy, what a suspicious mind you have. I’m sure Kenshin will be,” Sano paused, a malicious brotherly grin revealing his canines, as if he were contemplating the sleek black female alone in the woods with the Rurouni, “pretty good. Probably.”

It took a great deal of effort for Kaoru to remind herself that attacking Sano in the den would almost certainly incite Yahiko to get up.

A. Great. Deal.

Megumi circled the base of an ancient oak tree, gently pushing through thin young plants that grew among the gnarled roots. In a way, she supposed, she was… jealous of the tree.

It was unthinkable that any force could move it from its home. Whereas she had been torn up by the roots and tossed to the wind. The fox let out a shuddering sigh, watched as the dying and drying leaves trembled with her breath. She should go, soon.

That it wasn’t safe in Kamiya’s territory was obvious, and she knew Kanryuu couldn’t threaten what he couldn’t catch, after all. But… they had needed her, needed what she knew so that another young life could cheat death, could go on with the messy business of living.

And… it was nice to be needed for something so simple again. She had always liked working with kits. At least they didn’t have the guile necessary to get away with deception.

So she had stayed, then. But now? Yahiko was completely recovered, as any of the odd pack would have known if they hadn’t let the threat of “poison” jar their minds. There was no reason for her to stay any longer. And a very good reason to go. But still… she breathed in, absently cataloging the plants around her and their uses.

“It was… nice, staying with you.” She whispered wistfully, already beginning to miss snappish banter, placating smiles and lazy watchfulness.

“It is not safe for you to be out alone Miss Megumi, that it is not.”

The black fox jumped, her perfectly-groomed fur standing on end fluffing her tail to twice its normal size. She spun around to stare at Kenshin, pulse hammering in her throat as her heart protested the surge of adrenaline. The red wolf stood calmly, not six paces away, head cocked slightly to one side, a concerned sort of smile hovering around his muzzle. As if he hadn’t just appeared like a ghost when she could have sworn she’d been alone.

How does he do that? Megumi knew she had been paying attention to her surroundings, so how had he gotten so close? When had he gotten so close?

“It’s not safe for you with me here,” she finally managed. “Kanryuu will keep coming after me, but he can’t come after me if I’m not here.”

Kenshin raised his brows in politely surprised disbelief. “If Kanryuu found you once Miss Megumi, he will find you again. One with the gifts of the Takani family is not easily hidden.”

Breath fled from her body, collapsing her lungs, “How did you…?”

This time the look was mildly reproving, “You gave us your name yourself, Miss Megumi. This one did not always live so far south. It only took Sanosuke reminding one of a famous family of foxes… and you yourself did the rest, Miss Megumi.”

“It was so long ago… I didn’t think anyone still remembered.” Megumi let her gaze slide away from Sir Ken’s face, unwilling to see the pity she knew would be coming. Because everyone always pitied her for her loss. For the family of healer-foxes who had trained their noses to track down herbs and taught their kits how to use those herbs to heal.

But that was everyone else’s grief, strangers, mourning the loss of a force of good in a world of danger and the last chance of the dying. Those that pitied her for “her” loss never saw Mother, russet-red against spring greens, teaching her children rhymes about growing things. Never saw father staring down wolves twice his size to demand that no fighting be brought to his den. Those that pitied her had never played firefly-tag with her brothers or gone grasshopper-leaping in the tall grass.

Sometimes she didn’t even feel like she had done those things. Those memories were so clean, and so, so old.

“Many still remember,” Kenshin said gently into the silence, “Your family was a beacon of hope in dark times.”

“They were fools,” pain made her voice bitter, but she couldn’t soften it, not with the memory of broken bodies strewn among ravaged plants. “Trying to save everyone, believing everyone was worth saving…” the vixen shook her head. But they taught me a lesson. I know when someone’s too far gone.”

“Someone like Kanryuu?”

A hopeless laugh pulled from a throat that was too tight, “He doesn’t want me. He wants some mythical Takani healer to come in and cure the impossible with a wave of her paw.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, “It doesn’t matter that I never wanted to, it doesn’t matter that it would break my parent’s hearts.”

“This one doesn’t believe so. You ran away from Kanryuu, Miss Megumi, and you stayed to help Yahiko despite the danger. Those aren’t the actions of one who loving parents would be ashamed of.” Kenshin’s face, when the fox allowed her gaze to be drawn back to it, was wreathed in a sympathetic smile. “You have been of invaluable help to Yahiko, Miss Megumi. Perhaps you should now let us help you.”

The rebuttal was on the tip of her tongue, all of her persistent doubts about safety and shame, and how they would be better off without her.

But… even hunted, she hadn’t felt so safe in weeks. Maybe… it was okay to be just a little selfish. The vixen tossed her head in a show of carelessness, aware that it really was only a show. “Hmph, of course I can’t go anywhere, at least until I tell that silly tanuki that Yahiko is fine, or she’ll never let him outside again.”

Kenshin chuckled gently, and the pair set off for the den.

Cold winds sighed through the trees as the sun dipped toward the horizon. Every day there were fewer leaves for the winds to playfully buffet to the ground. Sanosuke picked his way through the forest without really paying attention to where he was going. He’d been restless since yesterday. More specifically, since Kenshin and the vixen had come back to the den (it really was too crowded in there now) with… limited explanations.

So, Kanryuu took the fox so he could have his own pet healer. Possible, healers were notoriously hard to find, and were getting rarer by the day as the old generation died without passing its knowledge of plants on to the new. Sano frowned, But why would Kanryuu want a healer? None of the rumors that the hybrid had painstakingly collected had hinted at any kind of injury or sickness the dog would need treated. And Sano really doubted that Kanryuu was the kind of leader that would keep a healer on paw to treat his underlings out of the goodness of his heart. So what is she not telling us?

That the fox had held some things back in her little heart-to-heart with Kenshin was obvious to the fighter-for-hire, and probably to Kenshin too. But for reasons that Sanosuke simply could not fathom, Kenshin didn’t seem to think that it was important.

Guy gets so hung up on his own past; you’d think he’d push a little harder to get at hers.

Which… might actually be the reason Kenshin wasn’t prying. The hybrid paused briefly in a halfhearted attempt to get his bearings—he wasn’t lost, he was rambling, though the little Missy probably thought he was on patrol. He might have muttered something to that effect when he left the overcrowded den that morning… he needed space to think.

Space without the Missy alternating between annoyance and sympathy, Yahiko bounding around under everyone’s paws and the vixen smiling shyly from time to time, as if none of what had happened was her fault. As if she had told the truth when Sano knew she hadn’t. Not all of it anyway.

But how’s a guy supposed to get her to talk? The half-wolf scowled, slipping between a pair of yew trees. A scent was waiting for him on the other side, one he’d been all too close to lately, sharp herbs and cool crushed mint. Now, what would the fox be doing out on her lonesome?

Sano scanned the surrounding forest, keeping still and trying to place where the scent was going. Seems like she moved to the… west? Pretty sure that’s west. With a great deal more care than he had previously exercised Sanosuke moved forward. The fox’s scent wandered through the trees, pausing briefly at various indistinguishable plants. As far as Sano could tell, the black vixen was traveling in a rough semicircle with the den at its center. So, probably not ducking out on us then.

The hybrid knew he was good at hunting and tracking (as good as anyone who had lived alone had to be), but he was still surprised when he found Megumi and she didn’t even notice.

Sanosuke checked his pace, trusting his earthy coloring to camouflage him among the tree trunks and dead leaves. The wind blew helpfully across his muzzle, pulling his scent away to the… south, maybe that was south? and rustling the leaves, hiding any noise his approach might have made.

The fox had her slim nose buried in a plant with thin, triangular leaves and didn’t so much as look around. An unhappy tingle ran down Sano’s spine, settling in his gut like a rock. Come on, Kitsune. You’re a hunted animal. Act a little more suspicious of your surroundings or you’re gonna get killed.

But the vixen remained blissfully unaware of her observer as she straightened with a flick of her white-tipped tail and set off again.

Wonder if this is how it feels to be Kenshin, Sano wondered in morbid fascination as he slowly followed, keeping a healthy distance between himself and the troublesome healer. The fox moved onto another plant, then another, all without the slightest hint of unease. That’s it… she needs to wake up, the hybrid stepped forward, intent on making his presence known, but for the second time in as many minutes, froze. But then, Megumi had frozen too, as a strange pair stepped into view from around a thick-trunked tree.

The one that immediately drew the eye was a huge dog, golden tan with muscles that made Sano envious and striped by dark scars all across his body.

His companion, Sano sucked in a breath, distantly glad that the noise of the wind masked the sound. His companion looked wrong. A small emaciated wolf so patterned with vegetable dyes that it was difficult to pick out any one part of the unfortunate creature. Any one part, except that was, for the wolf’s face, a mass of ruined flesh, stripped bare of fur.

“Doctor Takani,” the tan dog’s voice was solemn, “it’s time to come back.” Megumi tensed to flee, and still hidden, Sano tensed as well.

I’m not… not going to save her. With any luck those two will say… something about this whole crazy mess. But I can jump in when things start to go sideways. Sano coached himself, ignoring the fact that he was slowly sliding into a combat crouch.

Ignorant of her rescuer waiting in the wings, Megumi prepared to bolt. The strange wolf moved, not so much seeming as though he stepped to the frightened fox’s side as he simply appeared there.

“Running would be unwise, Doctor Takani. Little Tsubame would surely weep were she unable to see you again.” The fur along Sano’s spine stood straight up as Megumi quailed, posture losing even the small courage that running away would have taken.

“You can’t! She should have gotten away; I made sure she’d get away!” Megumi’s eyes were wild, her composure lost. “You were supposed to follow me!”

So that’s why she went with them. Sano felt his upper lip curl, silently exposing his fangs. They threatened a kid…

The dark wolf appeared unfazed by the fox’s outburst, Sano wondered if the heavy scar tissue allowed him to alter expression at all.

“You know better than that, Doctor Takani. Our orders were to hold you; of course we would recover the means for doing so.”

“You’re a monster…” Megumi whispered with venom, eyes suspiciously bright.

“I am useful to the Oniwabanshuu,” the wolf corrected, “To accomplish that, I would become a nightmare without end.”

“Whatever you say about us,” the dog interjected, “the story stays the same. We have Tsubame, if you don’t do as we say, she gets thrown to Kanryuu’s dogs… and even you won’t be able to put her back together again.”

Damn it… should I go out there? There’s a kid’s life at stake here. Sano closed his eyes briefly, forcing his racing thoughts to slow down. Okay, Sagara, think. Those guys are Oniwabanshuu, so even if I go after one, the other can get back to Kanryuu and carry out the threat. Damn, damn, damn! Do I really have to watch this?

Megumi shuddered, the shy smile of that morning a distant memory. “You already know I don’t have a choice,” she finally breathed, gaze dropping to the forest floor between her paws rather than the messengers before her.

“Then come. Kanryuu has been anxiously awaiting your return.” The dark wolf turned back the way he had come, the lion dog waited until Megumi took a few listless steps forward before taking up position as a rearguard. Sano waited a for the trio to move out of sight, then a few moments longer before slipping from his hiding place to follow the escort and their unwilling captive.

I still don’t know what to do. Seems wrong to run back to the den and leave the kitsune on her own, but if they’re really heading to Kanryuu’s den we need the rest of the pack here. I don’t think I could protect two non-fighters from thirty or so dogs. All I can do for now is follow them… The decision tasted as bitter as bile in his throat.

The Oniwaban clearly knew where they were going and moved through the forest easily. The dog always had eyes on Megumi, while the wolf observed their surroundings.

Everyone who’d heard of them said that the Oniwaban were good, looking at these guys Sano could finally see why. More than once he had to hang back to avoid detection, and he was never able to travel as close as he would have liked.

Through it all Megumi moved listlessly on, not even lifting her muzzle to look ahead. Of course, what is there to look forward to? She’s given up. It seemed wrong. The elegant and cunning vixen that he had shared denspace with seemed to have vanished. Sano would never have thought he would want her back.

The wolf leading the procession crossed over the Kamiya boundary without so much as a second glance of those weird eyes. Across the invisible line the land began to slope away downhill, but Sanosuke could see through the thinning trees that it began to rise again some distance away. Guess this is as far as I can take it. The hybrid stopped, waiting as those he had pursued slowly left him behind. Guess it’s time. In hindsight, the answer had been plain, and if anybody asked, he’d swear it had been his plan all along.

Filling his lungs, the malinos-wolf hybrid threw back his head and howled. It was weird, saying something other than, “Hello? Anybody live here?” but then, he hadn’t had friends to call on before.

His strong tenor rose to fill the air, to carry his message of a stolen friend and of danger. The pack would hear him, he was sure of it.

And one little fox who was probably feeling all alone in the world definitely would.

Megumi jerked, as ungraceful a movement as she had ever made. Dimly she was aware that Hannya and Shikijou had stopped as well, but she was whipping her head around to stare back the way that they had come and couldn’t care about her escort now.

Not with that lonely howl rising through the barren trees to fill the chill air. Sounding the alarm at her capture.

Who…? It’s not Kaoru or Yahiko… that’s not Sir Ken. Sanosuke?

“So, our shadow takes action.” Hannya noted calmly, turning eerie eyes to look at Shikijou. “It could be troublesome if we are unable to get the doctor back quickly.”

Shikijou nodded, floppy ears perked toward the ongoing cry. “I’ll go shut the punk up. You keep going.”

 Hannya turned his pupil-less gaze on Megumi, “Come, Takani.” For a second the fox hesitated, but only for a second. Nothing had changed. Kanryuu still had Tsubame, and Megumi didn’t love herself so much that she would be able to leave the gentle young kit to her fate.

With a last glance at the place that could have been home, Megumi followed, holding her breath that the howl echoing in her bones would continue.

Sano filled his lungs again, ears straining for a hint of an answer. He’d always had faith in his ability to be overwhelmingly loud, but a response would be nice.

 It was because of this attention that the hybrid was able to leave off mid-howl and jump quickly to one side in order to avoid an almost-silent attack. Muscled tan thundered by him, coming to a stop as the attacker realized that his maneuver had failed.

“Nice dodge,” the dog said, his tone friendly as he turned to face Sano, “You’re not as wet-behind-the-ears as you look.”

Sano grinned brazenly, recognizing the expression of another fighting fool. “Just because a guy doesn’t flaunt it like you do doesn’t mean he can’t fight.” The strange dog eyed his scars, then laughed, sending the dark lines rippling.

“I like you, kid. You’ve got spunk. What’s your name?”

 “Sanosuke Sagara.”

“I’m Shikijou of the Oniwaban,” the grin suddenly seemed to have a lot more teeth, “which means whether I like you or not if you get in the way of our leader I’ll break you into kibble.”

Sano snorted loudly, lowering his center of gravity. “I’ve heard of the great Oniwabanshuu. Tell me, what’s so great about kidnapping females and pups?”

 Shikijou snarled and charged.

Kaoru was getting quite tired of being the only one who had to worry about everyone. It wasn’t that she wanted to add to her friends’ burdens, but sometimes a little awareness could go a long way. For her, it just seemed that a lot of awareness was ruining her day.

She ought to be enjoying herself; Kenshin and Yahiko certainly were. The puppy’s convalescence had left him six times more energetic than he had been before, and Kenshin was patiently wearing him out by letting Yahiko chase the crimson wolf around the clearing. It was a faintly nostalgic scene; it had been so long since it was just the three of them. Unfortunately, that only heightened Kaoru’s awareness that Sanosuke and Megumi were off on their own somewhere.

Kenshin stopped, stepping idly to one side to allow Yahiko to go tearing past his intended target with a bark of dismay. “There’s no good in worrying, Miss Kaoru, that there isn’t.”

Kaoru scraped together a weak smile for the Rurouni. “I know, and I know that they both needed some time alone, I just…” It had been pretty obvious that Sano was sitting on a temper that wasn’t used to being suppressed and that it would be easier on everyone if the belligerent pack member could go and work off his stress in private.

And Miss Megumi… Kaoru hadn’t thought it possible, but the sleek fox had actually appeared overwhelmed by the small pack’s support. She too had quietly excused herself with a promise not to go far.

“I can’t help but worry about them being on their own,” Kaoru finished. Kenshin smiled, one ear trained on a mock-grumbling Yahiko, realizing that the game was over.

“This one doubts very much that they are alone, Miss Kaoru. One would be quite surprised if they hadn’t bumped into one another by now.”

Yahiko eyed his hero, cocking his head to one side as he rejoined the pair and plopped down. “How do you know that?”

“Call it a hunch,” Kenshin told the curious puppy, then turned back to Kaoru. “I am quite sure that Sano will look after Miss Megumi, whatever he may say about her.” Kaoru tried to make her smile seem a little more genuine.

“I guess you’re right, Kenshin. It just feels strange with them gone.”

Whatever Kenshin would have said in response was interrupted by a howl from the northwest, a familiar strength filling the air.

“Sano?” Yahiko scrambled to his feet, ears turned to the sound of that voice. Kaoru frowned, listening.

Ally/one-under-protection/annoyance stolen/taken/gone. Outsider/Enemy-in-shadows.

“Someone got to Miss Megumi,” Kenshin’s smile was gone, his violet eyes grave as he looked at his companions in turn. “We must hurry.”

Kaoru nodded, throat tight as they set out—and Sano’s howl stopped mid-message.

To Megumi’s lackluster gaze the camp hadn’t changed. Dogs of various breeds milled about without apparent purpose, breaking into fights amongst themselves at the slightest provocation. Aside from the wind and the snarls there was no noise—local wildlife had long since fled the stench of the predators.

The fox steeled herself as she and Hannya descended into the thick of the canines, adopting an expression of detached calm as a fragile defense against the comments she knew were coming. With the nightmarish Hannya at her side, they would remain only comments—if Shikijou were here the dogs wouldn’t even dare that much. But she shouldn’t think of Shikijou, if she thought of Shikijou she would think of a brash young fighter who had never hidden his dislike for her, and whose voice had gone silent as she walked away.

No, she really should not think of that if she was to keep this mask in place.

The dogs formed a rough aisle for the dark travelers, craning necks to get a whiff of the elusive doctor and crowding as close to the scarred wolf as they dared. But no one stood in their way.

Kanryuu sat at the summit of his small hill, his curved neck arched to watch his kingdom of fools and a self-satisfied smirk on his long muzzle.

I could kill him, Megumi thought with almost clinical detachment, observing her torturer with no expression. I could kill him so easily. I wonder if he knows that. A distinctly unladylike part of her mind wanted to snort. I doubt it. That’s far too original a thought for him.

Yes, she could kill Kanryuu, could slip something into one of the meals he was too “busy” to hunt down himself, could bite through one of those major veins sending blood through his neck and watch him bleed out. She could do it before anyone thought to stop her. But she wouldn’t. Because even if she won against Kanryuu she would still lose.

The dogs would revolt without a leader, and she and Tsubame would be torn to shreds. Megumi wouldn’t mind so much if it was only herself, but Tsubame didn’t deserve that. And if, by some dark chance they evaded the dogs, there was still Aoshi and his Oniwaban. She would never get free of them. They would bring her to him, and… her soul would be well and truly damned.

Megumi and Hannya made it to the hilltop, the fox unable to hold back a start of surprise as, without a whisper of movement, Aoshi Shinomori appeared beside Kanryuu.

“Ah, Doctor Takani,” Kanryuu’s voice was brimming with cheer. Smug fool! “So good of you to rejoin us. I trust your little vacation was educational?”

The fox allowed her gaze to slide from the greyhound to Aoshi and back again. Her throat was dry but she managed to get out the question that had been bothering her since she entered the camp.

“Where’s Tsubame?”

Kanryuu’s face was ugly in its victory, so Megumi looked away from it, daring instead to petition Shinomori with her gaze. The black wolf regarded her coolly and surprised her by answering.

“The kit is with Hyottoko and Beshimi.”

“We were followed,” Hannya reported, his strange eyes making it unclear as to whether he was speaking to Kanryuu or Aoshi. A flash of interest lit the Okashira’s icy eyes for a moment and Megumi stared, unsure if she had ever seen such an expression on the taciturn wolf.

Kanryuu scoffed. “Whatever filthy ragamuffins our dear doctor has been staying with, they wouldn’t dare come into this camp.” The Oniwaban’s silence was not one of agreement. Megumi shuddered, uncaring if it ruffled her fur. They were wrong. There was no way that daft little pack would come this far, right?

“Regardless, we move north at first light,” Kanryuu dismissed the warning, “the alpha has been looking forward to our lady doctor’s soothing touch.”

Small favors that Kanryuu didn’t want to move out now with the day growing old around him. The fox knew that the greyhound would never admit it, but his night vision was horrible.

“But before all that,” Kanryuu was smiling again, “we need to discuss your punishment, Megumi.” The fox caught her breath, painfully aware of the slow approach of two of Kanryuu’s favorite grunts.

Aoshi stirred, “Kanryuu—” he started, but the greyhound cut him off.

“I know, Okashira, I know.” The sinister smile turned to his bruisers. “Don’t break her pretty little legs—we’ve got a long walk tomorrow.”

Sano would have cursed if he could grab a moment to spare. As it was he was having a hard time even winning space to think, much less speak.

Well-defined muscles shifted in warning and Sano barely stepped back in time to avoid fangs in his throat. Fighting Shikijou, the hybrid was discovering, was a bit like fighting a faster Hyottoko. Crushing strength was evident in every move of his opponent—and Sano was only the merest breath faster.

“What’s the matter, kid? Afraid to take a hit?”

Sano’s ears shot up indignantly, but any response the fighter might have made was stolen by a quick duck to get underneath his opponent’s next lunge. The move brought him so temptingly close to the tan throat. Quickly the hybrid craned his own neck, opening his mouth for a punishing bite—a bite that was choked off as powerful jaws closed on the back of his neck. Thick fur cushioned the worst of the blow, keeping the lion-dog from snapping his spine.

Black and gold spots danced in Sanosuke’s vision as Shikijou lifted him with a grumble and shook him—once, twice. Sano’s body was limp, trying frantically to avoid damage that could be incurred with a struggle. With a massive heave the lion-dog slung him away like a used bone.

The former fighter-for-hire tried to orient himself in the air to land on his feet but didn’t quite make it. He slid on his belly on a carpet of dead leaves, still turning with the force of the throw before he could get his paws under him again. The hybrid scarcely had a moment to look up before he saw Shikijou barreling toward him again—there was no time to dodge.

The impact lifted his front paws from the ground and Sano backed up furiously to keep from falling top over tail. Shikijou had followed him up to his hind legs, snarling, the tan dog locked his forepaws around Sano and snapped at his face.

Sano almost didn’t pull back in time, close enough to hear the grind of Shikijou’s teeth as the latter’s jaw snapped closed.

Screw this defensive crap!

Ignoring a little voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like common sense, Sano threw his weight forward, a bite of his own catching one of Shikijou’s floppy ears. The former fighter-for-hire locked his jaw to hold onto his prize and shoved his front paws against Shikijou’s muscular chest, breaking free of the other’s hold and feeling the lion-dog brace himself to try and stay upright.

Jaws opened and closed in his vision, uncomfortably close to his right eye, and pain exploded in his right cheek and Shikijou’s fangs found purchase. Sano choked down a grunt of pain, turning it into a half-bite that carried his own fangs further up Shikijou’s ear toward his scarred skull. Muscles tensed in the Oniwaban’s neck, preparing to wrench to the side, tearing at Sano’s face.

Acting quickly, Sano threw his weight forward again, sacrificing his own balance to paw at Shikijou’s muzzle in effort to dislodge the bite. Shikijou’s impressive bulk shifted, then toppled, the powerful jaw coming unclenched just enough that Sano could pull his abused face free. Shikijou’s ear tore free of Sano’s fangs as the lion dog landed on his back, but for the moment Sano had no purchase on the forest floor.

In a move that felt impossible even as he was doing it, Shikijou used his paws, still hooked around Sano’s neck, to accelerate the hybrid’s fall and cracked their skulls together.

Colored lights burst in Sanosuke’s vision, obscuring all else in a bright-edged haze of shocked pain. Dimly, Sano felt himself get his paws in the proper place and stagger to one side, but his treacherous body was shaking and his vision was slow in clearing.

“You’ve got a hard head kid, I’ll give you that.” Shikijou’s voice was wavery and seemed far away. “You actually made my head hurt on that last move.”

Sano forced himself to keep his eyes open, staring at where he was pretty sure Shikijou was, willing strength back into his limbs.

“The Oniwaban can always use strong guys like you—what do you say? You could join us. You’d have power and as many fights as you want,” Sano’s vision cleared enough to show a standing-Shikijou’s grin. “And don’t tell me you don’t live for fights. I recognize your type.”

Sano’s lungs emptied in a sound that was half-sigh half-chuckle. “You know, if you’d found me a month or so ago, I’d have taken you up on that. But my head’s gone up against a lot harder than yours. And you’re wrong—I don’t just live for fights,” Sano straightened, watching Shikijou’s grin vanish. “Not anymore.”

The lion-dog scowled, “Then—” but Sano was done waiting for the Oniwaban to lead the party. He charged, lowering his head at the last minute to ram his still-aching skull into the throat Shikijou had unwittingly exposed as he raised his head in surprise. The lion-dog choked, airway straining against the outer obstruction, but Sano dug his paws in and pushed grimly on.

Shikijou sputtered, trying to move side to side to dislodge the fangless attack, but so close Sano could see the moves his opponent would make written clearly in defined muscles and follow without much effort.

Finally the Oniwaban let out a rattling wheeze and his body collapsed. Sano felt himself sit heavily, staring at his unconscious foe as his body paid the toll for its heavy exertion and his brain throbbed in waves that made it difficult to concentrate.

Everything ached in the good, clean hurt of a tough fight’s aftermath. He was unsure how long he sat there in apparent stupor, but eventually his ears (heh, even they hurt) twitched, picking up a steadily-oncoming rustle from… his-head-hurt-way-too-much-to-decide-which-way-that-was.

With an effort, the hybrid was able to raise his head in time to see three familiar shapes race through the trees.

“Sano!” the Missy looked relieved and Sano was distantly amused to note that she and Kenshin took in the fallen Shikijou and Megumi’s absence at the same time. With a grimace that he tried to turn into a smile, Sano pushed himself to his feet.

“You guys get my invitation to the party?”

“Are you okay?” Yahiko sounded vaguely concerned—he must look worse than he thought, though now that he remembered it, the side of his face must be bleeding.

“Just a headache,” Sano assured the puppy before turning to Kenshin. “They took Megumi. Seems like they’re holding someone she knows hostage to get her to go along with them.” Kenshin’s eyes blazed, Sano held back a grimace; he hadn’t thought the crimson wolf would be a fan of that part.

“Then it would seem we must move even more quickly, for the sake of two lives.” Violet eyes hesitated, sliding over to Yahiko. “Yahiko, perhaps it would be best if you waited at the den.”

The akita-mix squared his stance in defiance of his hero, expression at its most mulish. “No way. Megumi saved my life, and you guys are going up against a lot of dogs—you’ll need everybody you can get.”

Kaoru winced, looking as if she wanted to say something, probably to urge the puppy to reconsider, but instead looked to the fallen Shikijou. “What about him?”

Sano shrugged, “We can’t worry about him right now, and I don’t want to kill the guy. Not like this anyways. We leave him and keep on going.” The hybrid smiled grimly, “We’ve got an annoying fox to save.”

Chapter Text

Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failure’s all you’ve known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go. Let it go

-Linkin Park, Iridescent

“Alright, what’s the plan?” Yahiko bounced lightly on his toes as if in preparation for a sprint, “Charge in and tear the place apart?”

“I think we can do a little better than that,” Kenshin responded, taking in the camp still some distance away. “We have the element of surprise, and can choose when and how to attack.”

Kaoru frowned, following the red wolf’s gaze, “But, Megumi…”

Kenshin shook his head, smiling reassuringly at the silvery wolf, “The enemy has made it very plain that they want her alive. It is improbable that a delay now would risk her life.”

“And the kid?” Sano questioned, eyeing the dogs that could be seen through the trees. “Not Yahiko, the kid that they’ve got down there,” he clarified, eying Yahiko’s habitual glare.

The red wolf sighed, “It would be prudent for Kanryuu to keep her alive as well, for continued leverage on Miss Megumi. But I’m afraid we won’t know until we go down there.

“Our first task is to thin their ranks. Miss Kaoru, I’d like you to skirt the eastern perimeter; Kanryuu must have sentries on the outskirts of the camp, find them and silence them as quickly and quietly as you can. Sano, take the west side; I’ll head in from here. Yahiko, you wait here—”

“Wait here?” the puppy exploded, furious, “was the point of me coming at all if—”

“Yahiko!” Kenshin’s tone was sharp, cutting the puppy off, “allow me to finish. If you are to participate in this fight you will do what we say, when we say—if we say to hang back, let go, or duck, you do exactly that without argument. If you feel incapable of following instruction you may return to the den now. Miss Megumi will not be aided by random or conceited action.”

The puppy gulped, his eyes wide at his hero’s ire. His tail had come down from its customary position over his back and his ears were flattened.

“No, I… I can do it. I want to help.”

Kenshin softened just noticeably, “Good. As I was saying, wait here. Our actions will eventually raise the alarm, when that happens we will return to this spot and attack in force. We will be moving quickly, you must keep pace.”

Yahiko swallowed, straightening his posture, “I can do it, Kenshin.”

The crimson wolf allowed a small encouraging smile, “I know that you can.” He turned to the two adults, “Miss Kaoru, Sanosuke, remember, as quietly as you can. Our goal is to eliminate as many defenders as possible before our attack.”

“Got it, Kenshin,” Sano nodded, turning to move purposefully to the west. Kaoru hesitated a moment, looking from Kenshin to Yahiko to Sano.

“Be careful, everyone.” She finally managed with a significant look at Yahiko. Then she turned and made her way east.

Out of sight of the others the tanuki felt her nervousness rise steeply. So much depended on stealth, and while she was gratified that Kenshin seemed to think enough of her skills to afford her the chance, there was a clawing sensation in her stomach that dreaded being the that reason the plan fell to pieces.

She clung to an almost-imperceptible border, a boundary where the trees began to thin in the camp center. No sentries yet, but Kanryuu would have to be a fool not to post them. Somehow she had a hard time believing that anyone who could scare Miss Megumi so badly was a true idiot.

At the very least the weather seemed to be on her side, the steady creaking groan of swaying branches as a slow breeze wound its way through the trees meant that if she was very quiet her passing should go largely unnoticed. As a double blessing the wind was blowing from the camp, not towards it. Although, with so many dogs there, Kaoru had to wonder if they would even notice her subtle scent. Kenshin ought to go completely unnoticed—not that he needed another advantage.

The she-wolf slipped from shadow to shadow, wishing that it was a little earlier in the year so that the shrubby plants that grew around the trees roots could provide a bit more cover for her silvery pelt. Still, the shadows ought to be enough. Kaoru froze, dropping to a stealthy crouch.

There was noise up ahead, something that didn’t meld with the muttering wind, a scrape of earth under restless claws, the grumbly cracking sound of fangs against something that refused to yield easily.

Okay, quiet and slow, Kaoru coached herself, just like you’re stalking a deer. You’ve done that before, lots of times. Of course, with a deer, it didn’t matter if things got really noisy after you had already pounced.

With her heart pounding out a nervous rhythm in her throat, the silvery wolf skulked closer to the source of the sound. She was further from it than she had initially judged, but eventually she could see her unsuspecting quarry.

A female who looked as though she might have some retriever in her kept a lazy watch, more interested in chewing a hefty stick to slobbery bits than in any intruders that might approach. But even a lazy guard could raise an alarm.

It took Kaoru a moment longer to steel her nerves than she would have cared to admit, so she did what she always did—charged ahead, nerves or no. The sentry certainly never saw it coming. One moment the dog had successfully broken off another chunk of wood, the next she had been rolled teeth over toes and was staring up into the angry blue eyes of a female whose teeth certainly weren’t hampered by the stick she’d been chewing.

“Make a noise and I’ll make you choke on it,” Kaoru advised in a harsh whisper. “I’m not here for you, so you’ve got a choice. Keep quiet and get lost or I shut you up.” Please just leave, Kaoru silently prayed. While it would be all too easy to rip out the retriever’s throat, Kaoru knew that she’d have trouble sleeping for months afterward if she did.

The pinned female worked her jaw for a moment, allowing the stick to fall free. Kaoru tensed.

“I’ll go,” the whisper was almost a squeak, “I’ll go, I’ll go, I’ll go!”

Bemused, Kaoru stepped back and allowed her captive to scramble to her paws and dash off. I wish they were all that easy.

They weren’t.

Moving slowly and carefully Kaoru was able to displace three more guards. None sounded the alarm, but they had required some… persuasion, to leave their posts. The tanuki actually found herself surprised at how little fight the sentries had to offer.

I guess that’s the worst of hanging out with Kenshin and Sano, your perspective on what normal strength is gets shredded to smithereens. Still, things were going well.

Discipline in Kanryuu’s pack seemed to be pretty poor—Kaoru couldn’t decide if that made sense to her or not. On one paw, it suggested that the large size of the pack wasn’t generated by anything like loyalty to Kanryuu. But on the other paw were the Oniwaban, who seemed to be the only real threat, and the only ones serious in their service to Kanryuu. The two realities didn’t sit well with each other. If Kanryuu had won the loyalty of a group as skilled as the Oniwaban, it should have made his other followers more loyal, not less. And if he couldn’t count on the loyalty of rank-and-file dogs, there was no way a group like the Oniwaban should be anywhere near him.

Worry about that later. Kaoru shook her head, still moving silently through the shadows. The quiet won’t last long. If nothing else that massive dog, (Shikijou?) that Sano had faced would wake soon and make his way back to the camp. Well, it wasn’t like we could kill him. The tanuki only hoped that if the lion-dog did return his path wouldn’t lead him past Yahiko. She doubted the young dog would have the sense to stand back. And that thought itched at her mind the farther she got from where they had left the youngest member of their little pack. It itched at her like an extremely persistent flea. Because he was the youngest, and someone had to look out for him, even if he had doubled in size since Kenshin had brought him home by the scruff of his neck. But he wouldn’t appreciate that, and she knew how important it was to get even one more dog out of the way before they were fighting a small army of them.

Kaoru exhaled her frustration in a quiet sigh, a particularly snarly part of her brain looking forward to the next contestant so she could have something to take this emotion out on. An angry bark broke the twilight stillness and Kaoru froze. For a heart-stopping moment she thought that she was the cause of the alarm, but the continuing cries were too far away. Probably Sano, the tanuki decided. The idea of Kenshin getting caught was almost funny.

All attempts at stealth abandoned, Kaoru whirled and ran back the way she had come. No longer trying to sneak, the landscape rushed past in a darkened blur, making the she-wolf feel as though she hadn’t gotten very far at all.  Too soon she could see Yahiko anxiously shifting from paw to paw, ears straining toward the approaching barks of the dogs. As Kaoru approached, Kenshin ghosted into view, confirming her suspicions that it had been the ex-fighter-for-hire that had the misfortune of being caught.

“Kaoru!” Yahiko blurted, then jumped in surprise as Kenshin stepped alongside him. “Kenshin!”

Kaoru shot the kid what she hoped was a reassuring smile for before turning to peer through the trees into the camp. It was hard to tell through the gloom but she thought she could make out the forms of dogs moving quickly through the camp, like ants in a disturbed hill. She didn’t trust herself to try and count them. Nerves humming with tension would wreak unholy havoc on her ability to accurately perceive a threat.

“Where’s Sano?” Yahiko asked, looking around for the hybrid.

“This one is sure he’s on his way,” Kenshin reassured the dog absently, “he knows the plan.” Most of the crimson wolf’s attention was clearly elsewhere, monitoring the immediate area for threats. It wouldn’t take long for the dogs to sniff out where they were, and then the tiny advantage they held would be lost. Seconds ticked by like seasons.

Come on, Sano, where are you? Even in her nervous state, Kaoru found it hard to be overly worried about Sanosuke; the fighter was more than a match for any three dogs. Yahiko’s brow furrowed in thought,

“Maybe we should go without him.”

“Oi,” The voice appeared before an indignant Sano trotted into view, “Going to the party without me? That’s just rude.” Yahiko snorted, but some of the worry lines were smoothed away.

“Feh, What were you doing? Did you decide to take a stab at being fashionably late?”

Sano rolled his eyes but stopped short of an actual retort. Kenshin shifted slightly, drawing focus to him as he looked towards the heart of the camp.

“Sorry, Kenshin. One of my fights got a little loud.”

The red wolf smiled ruefully at his friend, “It was bound to happen to one of us, Sano. Now, are we all ready?”

Kaoru nodded, feeling as if the butterflies in her stomach had somehow found their way into her blood—it hummed and fluttered through her veins with sweet tension and nervous energy until she felt she would come apart if she didn’t move. Kenshin waited for the rest of the pack’s assent before turning back to the camp.

“With me.”

The four pelted toward the baying in the trees.

This was what he had needed. Sano nearly sighed with pleasure as the pack reached the first defenders. No staring cross-eyed at some coy vixen trying to puzzle out a straight answer from a dozen stray comments, no tiptoeing on the edge of violence, trying to keep quiet. An open, honest brawl.

‘Fools rush in,’ the old saying said, and he’d been a fighting fool for years.

Kenshin held point in their little band, restraining his true speed to stick with the others. Yahiko was just behind Kenshin, probably too scared and excited to notice that his self-appointed sister was running just behind him and to the side, sandwiching the gangly puppy between herself and Kenshin.

And Sano? He had his best friend at his side, the wind in his teeth, and oh-so-many idiots stretched out in front of him. It’s not even my birthday.

The front wave hit Kenshin first, or Kenshin hit them was probably more accurate. Dogs swarmed and scattered, but Sano was only a heartbeat behind so it was hard to tell what his friend was up to. A black-muzzled hound went for his throat, Sano turned to take the blow and set himself up for one of his signature grab ’n’ slings. The cur landed in the midst of his comrades, sowing consternation in their ranks.

Sano was able to keep track of maybe two more moves before the euphoria of the battle swept him off and the scene dissolved into adrenaline-lit fragments. A red wolf, high in the air, descending on his foes. A mask of dark fur and a ringed tail as Kaoru whirled to deliver a punishing bite to the blue heeler who thought he’d been sneaking up on her. Yahiko gamely going after larger dogs, putting the skills he had gained dodging Kaoru to good use. And there were so many eager volunteers to vent the frustration of the past few weeks on that Sano couldn’t keep track of them all as he reared up on hind legs or spun quickly to pick off a dog circling around behind him, or rammed his impressive frame into somebody going after one of his little pack. It was hard to tell amidst the melee, but Sano was pretty sure that they were still moving. He’d lost track of which direction, but the hybrid was willing to bet it was toward the heart of the camp. They were following Kenshin, after all, and he didn’t seem too fazed by the fight.

Just a little longer. We’re coming to get you, you damn fox.

Aoshi Shinomori was not amused. This was hardly unusual, or noticeable if he did happen to be. Emotion, the dark wolf had learned, was the enemy of professionalism and the precursor to disaster.

Take the Takani doctor—if she had not responded to Kanryuu’s threat on her then-patient Tsubame, she would not have found herself so painfully entangled in the ambitious greyhound’s web. If she had abandoned the sick kit from the start she might have avoided capture altogether. Emotion.

So, no, the Okashira was not amused. He did, however, feel some measure of dark satisfaction. The Battousai, bringer of calamity and the legend that still caused northern wolves to shiver and look about unforgiving shadows uneasily. The Battousai. After seasons of silence and supposition, he had been found.

Shinomori could almost believe some of the more implausible stories—ones whispered at moonset when sleepy pups could no longer hear. Tales that Battousai was the North’s guardian spirit, summoned forth by carnage to wipe clean the snows once more.

Still, that tale couldn’t be true or else he would have never been found so far south.

“Leader,” Hannya said in an undertone. Deliberately, Aoshi turned away from Takani’s punishment to face his subordinate. Enslaving a terrorized fox for the purpose of a power-hungry hound’s play to curry favor was not included in his orders. Of course, it wasn’t against them either. Accompany Kanryuu south, follow the greyhound’s orders and oversee the recruitment of dogs and wolves to the cause. Follow the greyhound’s orders. Even if doing so damned his soul.

“Report,” he matched his master spy tone for tone, keeping an eye on Kanryuu lounging nearby at the top of the hill. The greyhound was fixated on the fox and gave the shadowy pair no notice.

“Shikijou never returned,” Hannya’s voice was emotionless, and it was impossible for his expression to change, but Aoshi could sense his subordinate’s eagerness regardless.

“It was to be expected if our opponent was the Battousai.” Though with Shikijou’s skill it was unlikely that the dog had perished in the fight. “Doubtless he approaches even now to extract the fox.”

Hannya ducked his head in acknowledgement; “Should Kanryuu be informed?” the spy’s gravelly voice was dry. Aoshi spared a cool glance at dog.

“I believe he will find out soon enough.”

Obey Kanryuu’s orders. But Kanryuu hadn’t ordered him to report the doings of his enemies. Kanryuu believed that he had none. Fool.

The Okashira’s gaze scanned the quivering vixen lying feebly on the ground as Kanryuu’s goons assailed her. “If you continue the doctor will be unfit for travel.” It was an interesting trick to make yourself heard at a distance without raising your voice, and Aoshi had learned it long ago.

Kanryuu’s left ear twitched in acknowledgement, as if dislodging a persistent fly and he sighed dramatically. “I suppose the vaunted Okashira is right. You may stop now, Rai, Jun.” Reluctantly the two dogs stopped and withdrew a step, leaving the stricken doctor to gather up the shreds of her dignity.

Aoshi would not allow himself the luxury of a sigh, but his next breath did come marginally slower.

Kanryuu’s thin tail moved side to side lazily, “I do hope this has been a worthwhile instruction to you, Megumi. It’s important to know—” An alarm bark broke through Kanryuu’s condescending statement as below them the camp erupted into chaos.

Aoshi’s ears angled toward the noise as he cast a calm glance into the mayhem below. “He’s earlier than expected.”

“What?” Kanryuu scrabbled to his feet as a small formation of fighters broke from cover to attack his dogs. The whole pack, Aoshi noted, icy eyes assessing the small group. Interesting. The Battousai was not known for fighting alongside other wolves, it wouldn’t do to underestimate those that he did partner with. Dogs were scattering like leaves in a maelstrom, pulled into the fight and then blowing to the corners of the world as they fled.

“Who?!” Kanryuu demanded, the arch of his spine reminding the Okashira of a displeased cat.

“The pack Doctor Takani sheltered with,” Aoshi kept his tone cool, but anticipation was starting to shiver its way down his spine. “We believe their number to include the Battousai.”

Kanryuu stared, muzzle slightly agape, “But that’s only a legend!”

Hannya snorted, “No legend to those who lived through it.”

“But why…?” the broken whisper came from the almost-forgotten Megumi. She stared with wide and wounded eyes into the chaos below and trembled.

“Because he is a wolf of honor and named you as one under his protection.” Reason enough for any true pack. For a wolf like Battousai, used to impossible missions, stealth raids, and the blurry loyalties of wartime, it was likely as natural as breathing.

“You knew he was coming?” Kanryuu’s eyes narrowed in blatant threat as he recovered, “How dare you keep this from me, Aoshi!”

Hannya shifted beside him, a heartbeat away from vanishing into the gloom to attack unseen but the Okashira didn’t move. Reason, he needed to use reason. Very deliberately the cold wolf shut a small silver-tan form with laughing turquoise eyes out of his mind. Reason.

“I could not be sure the reports were accurate, nor could I anticipate his arrival so soon. By tomorrow we would have been beyond his reach, and I trusted that Shikijou would hold him back should the Battousai attempt pursuit. Obviously he was unable to do so.”

Kanryuu glared, “You still should have told me, Aoshi, and next time you will.”

“Of course. For now, might I suggest that the Oniwaban be mobilized to deal with our intruders?” Aoshi couldn’t keep a certain dryness from his tone as he made the suggestion.

“Well what else are you here for?” the greyhound snapped irritably, “Send your followers out. You I want here, to keep watch.”

Protect your worthless neck, you mean! Aoshi swallowed a growl. Reason. “I would be more useful in the fight,” he noted. “If our opponent truly is the Battousai then the power of my Oniwaban alone may not be enough.”

Kanryuu scowled for a moment, and then gave a displeased sort of smile. “Yes, of course you’re right, Okashira. Go on to your fight.” With Hannya at his side, Aoshi left the ridge for the pine grove to collect Hyottoko. Kanryuu waited until the dark wolves were out of sight, then let the breath he had been holding hiss out from between his teeth.

“Well, Megumi, it seems you’ve been rather a bad girl, wouldn’t you say? Rescue attempts? Will you never learn to stop causing trouble?” He turned to the two dogs still standing loose guard over the prone fox. “Rai, go and kill the fox kit.”

“No!” Megumi lunged to a half-upright position, brought up short by the pain of her injuries.

Kanryuu looked at her horrified face with mock-pity, “I told you what would happen if you caused me more trouble, Doctor. It’s time to take your medicine.” Rai grinned at his master, white teeth in a white face, before the husky set off at a slow trot, giving the Oniwaban plenty of time to get clear of the trees before he made his entrance.

The Oniwaban… Kanryuu frowned. Aoshi’s behavior was disturbing; perhaps Megumi’s temporary escape had given the dark wolf ideas about his own servitude… maybe it was time to remind the Okashira just who was in charge.

“Jun, take some of the others and get rid of the bear.” He looked out over the continuing fight. “It’s time to cut off the deadweight.”

This whole business of putting unruly dogs to bed had started off fun but Sano was slowly becoming bored. What’s the world coming to, he wondered in disgust, when I can’t even enjoy a good brawl?

He blamed Kenshin. The Battousai was over there making it look easy (and, okay, maybe it wasn’t that hard), so it was a little hard to enjoy the challenge… when it didn’t feel like a challenge. Oh, Yahiko was feeling it, but the kid was so focused he hadn’t even noticed the few times an adult would step in to engage a threat he hadn’t seen.

Discontent gnawed at Sano even more than his opponents did. In fact, he was just raising his head to call out a derisive challenge when an unstoppable force slammed into him like a runaway boulder.

The hybrid lost contact with the ground, only to become intimately reacquainted with it a moment later. Adrenaline and experience had him rolling to his feet before his body had even begun to finish complaining. His ribs especially felt bruised.

Sano looked up in time to see an arc of teeth scything in for a bite and barely managed to pull back before they closed down on where his neck had been.

“Shikijou?!”

It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about the lion-dog, but he certainly hadn’t been thinking about him right at the moment.

“Sano?” Kaoru called, taking a moment to look toward him, ready to offer help. Kenshin and Yahiko’s ears turned toward their friend but they stayed focused on their respective fights.

“I’ve got him!” Sano called back, turning to face his opponent. “One on one is more my style anyway.”

Shikijou bared his teeth. “You shouldn’t have come here, kid. A lot of good folks are gonna get hurt.”

Sano cocked and ear at the mayhem around them, “Sounds to me like the only ones getting torn up around here are the bad guys.”

Shikijou growled low in his throat, “And that lack of awareness is why you must lose!”

Sano had to bite back his reply in a hurry as the lion-dog charged in for another attack. I beat him once, I know I did. Trouble was Sano was pretty sure that had been blind luck, and Shikijou didn’t seem eager to give him another chance to go on the offensive.

Blood spattered the trampled ground as the Oniwaban landed a bite to the back of Sano’s neck where it met the shoulder. Any higher, and he’d have been making his excuses to Captain Sagara. Sano squirmed free of the hold and snapped desperately at Shikijou’s front legs—but the dog pulled back and the bite met nothing but air.

Swearing, Sano backpedaled in an attempt to avoid Shikijou’s next attack. Okay, Sagara, a strategy would be great about now! He winced as a glancing blow pulled brown fur from his shoulder. Ah, who am I kidding? I don’t do plans! Not for fights, fights were supposed to be fun.

So maybe that’s what I’ve gotta do, the hybrid mused, have a little fun with it. Peripherally he noticed that Kenshin and the others had shifted their direction to form a protective shield, keeping the dogs from disturbing his fight. There were fewer of those now, as individuals decided that discretion was the better part of valor and pelted off toward the woods.

Okay, Sano, he coached himself, we’re going to have fun with this, so what’s step one? Hmm, Shikijou was a big guy and fast, but he wasn’t as fast as Sano, and all that muscle made him pretty heavy. What was more fun than making a fool out of your opponent? But this was going to hurt; he wasn’t that much faster than Shikijou.

Ears flat to his skull Sano surged forward; straight for Shikijou’s snarling face. The lion-dog was a veteran of a thousand fights, the price of survival carved into his golden body with dark angry lines. Instinct took over and he reacted without conscious thought, hunching his shoulders and compressing the target of his extended throat into a barrier of solid muscle. Which was fine with Sano, he’d taken Shikijou out with a neck shot in their earlier fight, so Shikijou’s defense now wasn’t really a surprise.

The hybrid dropped like a stone, folding his legs to hit the dirt as Shikijou braced for an attack that wasn’t coming. The Oniwaban’s reflexes were good; Sano had to give him that. At the sudden loss of his target the tan dog managed to change his trajectory in a second. Rather than running into the fighter now crouched in his path, the hound leaped over him—but it was a poor jump, performed at the last second with all of the muscled dog’s momentum going forward and bare bones to spare for altitude.

Certainly not enough to get his paws out of reach. Sano snared a golden-tan hind leg as it passed overhead with a sloppy charge of his own, jarring Shikijou from his course and messing up his landing. Not that Sano really meant to give him a place to land. Shikijou had been surprised, now he had to keep him disoriented—if Sano could keep the dog from getting his paws underneath him, so much the better.

The Oniwaban fighter was thrashing, half-rising from his position on his side to snap at Sanosuke’s head. The hybrid felt his triangular ears pull even closer to his skull as they tried to avoid hostile teeth. You know, this was a lot funnier in my head.  Sano was sure he’d already thrown caution to the winds, but he gave it another growl to make sure it stayed out of his way as he released Shikijou’s leg and launched a series of quick shallow attacks on the lion-dog’s flank. Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t take the time to line up some serious damage; he had to keep Shikijou off-balance, reacting to Sano’s attacks instead of finding his feet.

The lion-dog was peppered with small bites, most of them bleeding—his short slick fur not providing much protection from Sano’s activities.

“Hold still you little weasel!” Shikijou roared, head coming around to snap at the fighter tugging on his ragged ear.

“Are you kidding?” Sano wasn’t sure if he’d said it or just thought it really loud. With a growl that Sanosuke could feel shaking his bones, Shikijou ignored the half-wolf’s latest attack and regained his feet. Damn.

Sano couldn’t really call it a surprise when the Oniwaban managed to grab him by the scruff and sling him away to buy some breathing room.

“Aw, hell.” So much for knocking the veteran fighter off-balance. Shikijou was already preparing a decisive attack.

“Do you want help?” Kenshin had managed to keep his query calm and neutral in tone—which was good because if Sano had heard any number of probable tones (like worry or condescension or just about anything else) he would have been distracted by critical annoyance. As it was he grimaced and called out stubbornly,

“It’s still my fight!” And it was, even if his bruises wanted to claim no part of the golden adversary now barreling toward him.

It’s my fight. Screw all of this other crap!

No more fancy tricks. Sano faced the oncoming threat, lowered his head and ran out to meet it. The impact of skull-on-skull rattled his teeth and sent a starburst of pure agony exploding in his cranium. Dazed, Sano staggered a few steps to the side, unable to sort out which of the four Shikijous shaking their heads was the real one. But he couldn’t wait for the images to resolve, baring unsteady fangs he leapt for his best guess.

One paw connected as he bit down on air and Sagara adjusted, using his encounter as a guide to finally bite down hard on Shikijou’s muscled shoulder.

The lion-dog roared in pain and Sano took advantage of his distraction to bowl the hound over, seconds later his teeth were gently brushing the major veins in the Oniwaban’s neck. Sano didn’t move for a long moment except to pant tiredly, absorbing the report from his battered body and the stillness of his beaten foe.

“Shikijou,” Kenshin’s voice was nearby, but lifting his eyes to pinpoint where seemed like a lot of effort. “You have lost, that you have. Surrender would be advisable.”

Shikijou was silent. Sano groaned with exhausted exasperation.

“Come on. Don’t make me kill you.” He felt the Oniwaban’s throat shift as he sighed into the stillness.

“You win. Let me up.”

It took an effort for Sano to slowly back away, and the look he gave Shikijou as the lion-dog rolled to his feet was definitely wary. Please don’t attack again, Sano thought hazily through his pounding headache, Just… don’t.

Shikijou winced, rolling his shoulders and shaking his head slowly. “Damn, kid. I think your head’s gotten harder than last time.”

“Heh,” Sano managed a rowdy grin in response, “I was just thinking the same thing about yours.”

“Pardon this one,” Kenshin stepped forward, one ear trained on the dogs attempting to regroup closer to their boss’ hill. “Shikijou, this one has heard stories of the Oniwaban as a pack of honor. Why then do you aid a one such as Kanryuu?”

Shikijou’s scarred face was impassive as he looked at Kenshin, “We’ve heard of you too, Battousai. Nice of you to tell Hyottoko who you were, saved us the time of sniffing it out ourselves. But you should know the answer, if any of the stories they tell about you are true. When does a pack get desperate?” Dark eyes scanned the small group that had formed around Kenshin. “When they’ve got something to protect. And some things you would stain your soul in rivers of scarlet to see kept safe.

“I know you guys are here to get Megumi, and I can’t do anything to help with that. But there is someone here who doesn’t need to be. If you really want to do something for the doctor, get Tsubame out of here.”

“The kid?”

“Yes. Do you see that stand of pines?” Shikijou nodded to a small copse of trees to one side of Kanryuu’s lookout hill. “That’s where she’s being held. The other Oniwaban should be guarding her, but if you take her they won’t stop you.”

“Why tell us this?” Sano questioned, eying the other fighter suspiciously.

The lion-dog scowled, “None of us want to be remembered for kidnapping pups.”

Kenshin sighed, turning his head to observe the few dogs cowering between the invading pack and the thin silhouette of their leader. “And Miss Megumi is not with Miss Tsubame…”

“But we can’t just leave her,” Yahiko blurted nervously, “I mean, we’re here to rescue her too, right?”

Kenshin smiled at the young dog, “Indeed we are. Yahiko, I would like you to take charge of the retrieval of Miss Tsubame.”

Kaoru looked startled, “But Kenshin—” the red wolf shot her an understanding glance, but continued to address Yahiko.

“This is an important mission, Yahiko. You will be responsible for Miss Tsubame’s life, which means that should you fall in battle, her life will be forfeit as well. Be cautious and choose your fights accordingly.”

The kid shifted uneasily on his large paws, his ears angled slightly back in apprehension, “I… I’ll do my best, Kenshin.” Yahiko said hesitantly with little of his natural confidence.

“And I am sure you will succeed,” Kenshin assured him with a smile. “I would not entrust you with a task I did not believe you could accomplish.”

Yahiko’s ears came up a little bit and he stood up straighter.

“I’ll see you guys soon, then!” Barely pausing to check his direction, the young akita-mix moved off into the gloom.

“Nice move,” Shikijou noted, gingerly sitting down, “getting the kid out of the way of the heavy fighting.”

Kenshin acknowledged the comment with a brief nod before fixing amethyst eyes on the rallying dogs once more.

“Listen, Shikijou,” Sano told the other fighter, “we don’t have any more time to sit around talking, so I guess we’ll leave you here.” The hybrid hesitated, uncertain of how pack-rules covered this situation. “I trust you won’t be coming after our backs.” Best to leave it that way; the golden dog could take it as a threat if he wanted to. Sano’s little pack was on the move again.

Tsubame rested her head on her dark paws, allowing her eyes to droop half-shut. They had let her see Miss Megumi earlier, from a distance. Hyottoko had loomed over her as she trembled at the edge of the grove, straining to see the black fox standing at the crest of the hill with Kanryuu, Aoshi and Hannya. But now the pine grove was mostly empty. The Oniwaban were called away by the alert, the Okashira moving in the stillness to direct his fighters to various positions in the camp. Beshimi still lay on his side, one eye shut and his broken leg stretched out straight. If he’d still had a tail it would have been twitching.

Tsubame imagined that if things had stayed quiet Miss Megumi would have been here by now, fixing the cat’s leg. Though she probably wouldn’t have been happy about it. Miss Megumi didn’t much like Beshimi.

“Why haven’t you run?” the unexpected question brought the fox kit’s head up in a flash. Beshimi still looked impassive, one eye shut as if he didn’t really care about her answer.

“W-what?”

“Why haven’t you run?” the cat repeated deliberately, opening both eyes to look at the captive fox. “In all the confusion now the dogs would never notice you slipping away, and I can’t really chase you with a broken leg.”

Tsubame swallowed, tense. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to leave, but… surely it wouldn’t be that easy. She could never leave Miss Megumi behind, and even if she could, the older fox had laid the plans for their escape weeks before they had found their chance. They hadn’t even been guarded by the Oniwaban back then, just some of Kanryuu’s dogs. And the Oniwaban… there was no way they would have left her with just Beshimi, right? Hannya had to be hiding somewhere in the trees.

Except… Beshimi didn’t look like he was lying… and she had heard the Okashira order his followers to their posts. But still…

“Why are you telling me this?” Tsubame kept her voice soft, head tilting to one side in confusion. Beshimi regarded her for a long moment, eyelids sliding until they were half-closed.

“There is someone… very dear to us, who is in almost the same situation that you are now. And if we could dare, we would wish that someone would give her such a chance.”

The puppy from Shikijou’s stories? It must be. “But Miss Megumi—”

“The healer stays.” Beshimi’s voice was firm. “But there’s no reason for you to remain.”

Tsubame put her ears back, annoyed for once. “No reason except Miss Megumi. I don’t want to leave her alone.”

Beshimi snorted, crooked whiskers shaking, “It would be better for the doctor if you weren’t here. You’re leverage.”

I know that, but… “Leaving her just feels… wrong.”

Yahiko panted as he ran through the thinning ranks of dogs. Before this whole crazy assault, he might have thought this job was simple busy-work. Something to keep him out of the way while the adults sorted things out.

But not all of the dogs infesting the camp were running, and while no one seemed to be noticing him at the moment, it didn’t mean none of them would.

The young akita-mix sped his way through the camp, heading for the copse of pine trees Shikijou had pointed out. Hard to believe one of the Oniwaban is helping us, Yahiko winced, thinking of Sano’s mangled shoulder and bleeding face. Well, kinda.

Shadows and the clean sharp scent of evergreen surrounded him as Yahiko picked his way into the trees, keeping his ears pricked for any noise. After all, it could be a trap. Shikijou had no way of knowing that the pack would send their weakest fighter to check on his story… wait, weakest? Had he really just thought that?! Must still be feeling loopy from the poison. And speaking of poison… Beshimi’s voice was trickling in through the gloom.

“…there’s no reason for you to remain.” Was the cat telling his hostage to leave? Whoa. That’s… different. Yahiko crept closer, keeping low and trying to make his movements as silent as possible. The hostage was speaking now, scared but stubbornly loyal to Megumi. Seems about my age? Tricky to tell from the voice. She could be younger. Beshimi made another point, and the puppy prepared to show himself.

Maybe if she saw that there was someone out there fighting for the foxes the girl would be willing to move. The puppy was pretty sure this was not what Shikijou had meant to happen but there was no way he was going to run away from a fight like this. Besides, the camp was almost empty of dogs now and a pair of kids (or one kid and her protector) were a lot less likely to bump into trouble in the camp as opposed to stumbling through the woods, where everyone was running for their lives.

Tsubame hesitated again, but she sounded almost convinced—

“Well, well, won’t Kanryuu be interested to know that his pet Oniwaban are letting his prisoners go?”

“Rai!” Beshimi’s voice was full of dread.

Crap!

“Stop right there!” Yahiko yelled impressively, breaking cover.

Beshimi was lying on the ground with his broken hind leg stretched out to keep it straight, staring with surprised dread at a grinning white husky. Yahiko actually had to glance around the clearing a second time to see the fox he assumed must be Tsubame. She cowered at the base of a tree, her gray and bracken patterned fur making her difficult to distinguish in the gloom. But her eyes were a warm brown that was really… pretty, and would have threatened to do funny things to his insides if they weren’t wide with terror now.

Yahiko’s sudden entrance didn’t have quite the effect he’d hoped for. The husky’s overall expression of confident glee didn’t change, Beshimi seemed more worried about the husky who must be Rai, and Tsubame just kept darting glances between him and the white dog as if she wasn’t sure which was the bigger threat.

The akita-mix could feel an annoyed twitch building in the muscle just under his eye. “I’m here for Tsubame!”

The fox kit’s darting eyes fixed on him in shock, and Yahiko continued, annoyance ebbing as he puffed out is narrow chest, glad to be noticed. “My name is Yahiko Myogin, son of Samurai. Megumi came to our pack for help.”

The husky let out a bark of laughter, stalking forward, “What, you’re gonna stop me? Run home to your mama and drink milk, pipsqueak, there’s grownup things going on here.”

Yahiko tensed, “I am not a kid!” he snapped, “and I’m not running away!”

Rai snorted, “Fine—then you die with the rest of them, kid!”

The young dog had to bite back a yelp as Rai charged, mouth open to inflict damage. Crap! Yahiko backpedaled and dove to one side, nearing the other dog turn with him, right on his tail. Day after day spent fighting with Kaoru kept him moving, trusting his ears, when before he might have turned to confirm Rai’s position with his eyes. It galled him to think that Kaoru had helped him with anything, especially a fight, but Rai was fast, and a moment’s hesitation could end the fight before it began.

That being said, running away wouldn’t work forever. Time for a move he liked to call the slingshot rabbit… not that he’d ever say the names of his moves aloud. Yahiko had a sneaking suspicion that a certain footloose fighting hybrid would laugh at him for days if he ever let it slip.

Putting on an extra burst of speed Yahiko ran alongside a narrow pine, pivoting close to the trunk to suddenly change his trajectory, the dog sped around the tree in a circle and was rewarded with the sight of Rai’s fluffy white hindquarters just beginning to follow him around the trunk.

Time for the ankle-biter! With a lunge that almost cost him his footing, Yahiko threw himself forward to snap at the husky’s heels. The damage was superficial, but Yahiko’s confidence began to return as he went on the attack.

The moment didn’t last long, with a pivot of his own Rai spun to face his small attacker, black lips against white fur and fangs visible for an instant before Yahiko felt those teeth clamp down on the loose skin of his scruff and the world tilted as the husky tried to flip him onto his back.

Instinctively Yahiko crouched, trying to lower his center of gravity and make himself harder to move. It was a good thing he wasn’t fighting Sano. The hybrid would have no trouble flipping him, given his penchant for tossing dogs around like sticks. Then again, if he was fighting Sano, his life wouldn’t be on the line.

“Let him go!” Tsubame’s voice wavered with fear even as she gathered the courage to shout. If Yahiko twisted his head to one side he could see the kit standing stiffly, her bushy tail puffed out to twice its normal size and her pretty brown eyes filled with terror.

They shouldn’t look like that, Yahiko thought almost absently. Her eyes were so big and so emotional and so nice, it seemed only right that they get to show nice feelings, but so far he hadn’t seen any. She’s scared, and I’m supposed to be protecting her!

“Stay back!” Yahiko called, the command coming out harsh as he fought to keep his own panic out of his voice. “Don’t worry about me!”

Rai made a grumbling sound that was probably a mix between a growl and a laugh, but didn’t open his jaws to venture comment. Hostile teeth closed down harder, breaking the skin and Yahiko winced at the pain, feeling a flinch shudder through his body as it instinctively, and uselessly, tried to get away. He wouldn’t have thought such a small movement would make any difference, but it seemed Rai had been waiting for just such a distraction. The husky jerked his head violently to one side in the instant that Yahiko wasn’t completely braced against the attack.

The young dog’s paws left the ground in a sideways slide, claws belatedly spread to scrabble vainly at the ground for a grip. Willpower managed to keep a cry of dismay to a subdued grunt as he crashed to his side like a landed fish, the breath knocked out of his lungs.

Rai’s face loomed as the husky dove for an attack on the young akita’s throat while he recovered. Panic had Yahiko striking out at the oncoming snout with his paws, luck let him connect and kick the threat back for the second it took to scramble back to his feet.

The white husky ran his tongue across his muzzle. “Give it up, pipsqueak,” the husky advised with a chuckle, “you’re just upsetting everyone before they die for no reason.”

“What?” there was a buzzing in his brain that made his voice sound so distant. Sure Rai meant to kill him, and his pack was on the shortlist of folks Kanryuu didn’t want breathing anymore but the only ones here for him to upset… But—she’s a hostage, and Beshimi’s one of them—Tsubame whimpered quietly, eyes searching wildly for a way out, though she didn’t move. She doesn’t think she’ll make it, not with Kanryuu’s goons out there and this guy all set up to chase her.

Rai continued, shifting his gaze to the young fox’s trembling form, “Word direct from Kanryuu, kid. We don’t need you anymore—not with the state your doctor friend is in.”

Yahiko seized on this information about the female who had saved his life, “What did you do to Megumi, you bastard?!”

Rai sighed, shifting to slowly circle the younger dog, “Not everything I wanted to. Couldn’t have all of my fun since we need the vixen alive and moving… but you really shouldn’t be worrying about her. After all—” the muscles in the husky’s powerful hindquarters tensed and Rai leaped forward, “—you’re never going to see her again!”

Yahiko saw red, ignoring a voice of caution at the base of his skull he moved to meet the white dog in midair. Rai plowed through him, slowed but not stopped, jaws snapping to try and catch a vital target. Yahiko felt himself spiraling out of any sort of controlled form and thudded hard against the ground for the second time in so many minutes.

He wished he was bigger! It wasn’t that he was small, but he couldn’t match the husky weight for weight, so he’d never be able to win body to body. But… Kenshin doesn’t fight body to body either. He’s fast… and slippery—and he used his opponent’s weight against them. I don’t know if I can, not like Kenshin, but I’ve got to try.

Yahiko swallowed, gathering his limbs into a crouch but not standing just yet. He couldn’t help the glance over to Tsubame and Beshimi. After all, my life isn’t the only one riding on this.

Rai was coming in low, angling his muzzle for a devastating bite to his downed opponent. Wait… wait… now!

As the white dog closed in Yahiko sprang towards him, biting down had on the muzzle just above his opponent’s nose and throwing himself sideways so that his smaller body didn’t crash into Rai’s. His weight didn’t stop Rai, but that wasn’t what he’d wanted, Rai’s head was turning, following the pull of Yahiko’s body even against his own forward momentum and the husky fell, bent into a crazy arc. Half-dragged along for the ride Yahiko released his prize in favor of clamping his jaws around Rai’s fluffy exposed throat.

“You lose!” the younger dog managed to get out around the cottony fur invading his mouth, “Give it up!”

Fine tremors were wracking Yahiko’s body and he hoped that if Rai felt them at all he thought it was adrenaline and not fear. But it might be fear, because Yahiko had no idea what happened next. Rai was obviously beaten, and if he surrendered then he shouldn’t attack again—right? He didn’t want to kill the other dog, wasn’t sure if he could even now, standing over the body like this. The akita-mix caught himself wishing for Kenshin or Kaoru, heck, even Sano, and squashed the impulse ruthlessly.

He was here, not them, so he’d just have to do things his way… even if he wasn’t sure what his way was. Waiting for a verbal response seemed like a good place to start, maybe Kenshin or Sanosuke could pick up on subtle, unspoken signals from their opponents, but Yahiko had no clue what those might be.

He tightened his grip on Rai’s throat fractionally, tension turning him into a rigid statue of a dog. He could hear Beshimi and Tsubame moving nearby. The fox was probably doing most of the moving, but Yahiko didn’t quite dare lift his eyes to make sure.

Rai’s windpipe swelled as he inhaled, pressing firmly against Yahiko’s jaws, then subsiding as he exhaled.

“I give up.” Sullenness laced the white dog’s voice like bad blood, but at least he’d spoken.

Gingerly Yahiko released the other dog, unsure until that moment whether he’d be able to open his mouth enough to let go. Stepping back he turned to face the wide-eyed Tsubame, she was looking at him as if she wasn’t sure he was real. He wasn’t sure he liked that.

“Are you okay?” Yahiko managed, shuffling his paws awkwardly, “I mean, I got to you as soon as I could but—you’re not hurt or anything, are you?”

Tsubame quivered violently, “I should be asking you that, you’re bleeding, and that fight was awful.”

Rolling his shoulders to loosen abused muscles Yahiko hid a wince as the motion tugged on his torn scruff, “What, that fight? It wasn’t so bad.”

He was glad the others weren’t here to point out to the fox kit that it had been his first real fight, on his own, without help. The gratitude and awe that Tsubame was regarding him with was shooting little bursts of fizzy warmth to tingle from his chest to his toes, and the last thing he needed was Sano here to muck it up for him.

Beshimi’s front paws raked the dirt restlessly. “You’re here to take Tsubame to safety?”

Yahiko scowled at the cat, who was eyeing him with thinly veiled dislike. Part of him wanted to lay into the feline for poisoning him—but he didn’t have time now, for all he knew the others had already reached Megumi.

“Yeah,” Yahiko’s ears twitched absently at a rustling noise from behind him. “Shikijou said you guys didn’t have a problem—”

Tsubame yelped a warning and Beshimi’s eyes widened. Too late Yahiko’s brain caught up to the information his ears had been sending. Behind me! The curse he let loose was pure Sano as the akita-mix spun to face the threat. It wasn’t going to be fast enough, he could see that in the leaping form of Rai, just barely entering his peripheral vision as the world slowed around him.

But… I beat him! Confusion swirled in Yahiko’s head, fighting with his frantic need to do something about the attack. Rai’s fury at his loss and embarrassment was like a tangible thing, stuffing itself down the throats of the watchers to suffocate any cries they might make.

Yahiko wasn’t going to make it, still turning uselessly, no time to brace himself or dodge.

A golden-tan blur leapt from nowhere into existence, a muscled form slamming into Rai’s attack with a force that couldn’t be ignored. Yahiko’s first disjointed thought was that Sano had followed him after all, but the brown had too much gold in it, and dark scars marred the muscular frame in irregular stripes.

“Shikijou!” A cry of relief and recognition from Tsubame, a satisfied grunt from Beshimi, but Yahiko was speechless as the lion-dog bore the husky to the ground.

White writhed in fury, fangs flashing upward as Shikijou’s dark maw came down. Twin bursts of red blossomed in the night, and Rai was still.

Yahiko was frozen, muscles shrieking in protest of that last desperately useless turn, staring at the Oniwaban who’d finished his fight. Shikijou straightened slowly, blood decorating his muzzle and chest.

“But… I beat him.” Yahiko’s voice was small, plaintive, uncertain. He’d beaten Rai. The loser wasn’t supposed to get back up.

The red on Shikijou’s chest was getting bigger.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

His voice sounded tired, “If he’d had honor he’d have stayed down.” Shikijou’s legs were shaking.

Drip. Splash. Splash.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. Just keep an eye open next time.”

“Shikijou,” Beshimi sounded stricken, made a noise of pain as he tried to move toward his comrade. The scarred fighter chuckled, the sound unhealthy and wet.

Yahiko was trembling almost as badly as the lion-dog was, because he could see now that the red stain spreading across Shikijou’s chest started at his neck—

“Bastard tore open a vein,” Shikijou noted almost calmly as he sank toward the ground. “Ease up, Beshimi, we all knew this is how it would end.” His legs folded, and he rested his head on the ground. “Tell Lord Aoshi that I’m going on ahead.”

“Shikijou…” Tsubame had moved forward, ears flat to her skull and tail curled to a picture of abject misery.

“Don’t cry now, little one,” Shikijou breathed with a funny sort of smile, “You’ve got things to do tonight. You’re gonna be safe.” The light began to fade from the fighter’s eyes, “I protected you. Thanks for letting me be myself one… last…”

Yahiko held his breath waiting for the final word, lungs crying out in protest until he realized that the fighter would never finish his sentence.

And suddenly he wanted nothing more than to be back with his pack, even if they did treat him like a puppy in front of Tsubame, because he wasn’t grown-up enough for this.

“Go.” Beshimi’s voice was hollow. “Both of you. Go.”

Tsubame looked at the vacant-eyed cat, staring fixedly at a still form. “But… what about you?”

“I’ll stay with him.”

Yahiko nodded, throat too tight to speak, and turned to lead Tsubame away from the sill scene. As the young pair raced away through the pines, Yahiko could hear the sound of the crippled cat dragging himself to the body of his fallen friend.

Standing on the crest of the central hill, Aoshi admitted to himself that Kanryuu had chosen a good position in terms of defense. To the south they oversaw the basin of the camp, trees sparse enough to easily pick out activity. Sweeping around to the north the hill crumbled into a rocky embankment and the lowlands on that side were salted with the human’s traps as an additional deterrent.

Part of the Okashira wondered if the greyhound had taken these things into account when choosing his position, or if he had only wanted to raise his physical position by making use of natural elevation the way he tried to raise himself within his master’s pack. Both motivations were possible, but it was an apparently fruitless avenue of thought. What mattered was that, even though Aoshi had conceded the need to protect Kanryuu and his prize, the Oniwaban leader could still see the battle unfolding.

Kanryuu paced a circuit along the summit of the hill, glaring down as his forces splintered and broke before the small pack. Megumi lay huddled in on herself, refusing to look down into the fighting as she gingerly tended to her wounds. The fox flinched at every cry of pain, every angry bark that reached them, as if bracing for Kanryuu’s gloating crow that her rescue had failed, that the Battousai and his allies had fallen.

Unlikely, if rumors are to be believed, Aoshi reflected dispassionately. At least, it was unlikely for the slaughterer of wolves to fall to Kanryuu’s horde, but an Oniwaban ought to prove more effective.

The leader was entirely unsurprised when Shikijou managed to catch up to Battousai’s group and offer challenge, but Aoshi was disquieted to note that Hyottoko never swept in from the east as he had been instructed. The bear may have been one of the less innovative of the Oniwaban, but he had never failed to follow his Okashira’s orders.

The group fought on, approaching Hannya’s line of defense. Kanryuu growled, not bothering to mask his displeasure.

“Weaklings! That’s all those filthy mutts are!” He leveled a glare at Aoshi, “I hope your pack prove to be a better match, Shinomori!”

Aoshi thought of mountain-high glaciers and drew on chill and stillness before replying. “Hannya and I are prepared for battle.” He didn’t bother saying that at this point even beating the Battousai wouldn’t undo the damage. The army it had taken so long to build had fled into the night. Kanryuu’s lord would not be pleased.

“An entire unit this damn wolf has cost us,” a speculative gleam entered Kanryuu’s eyes. “If I could persuade him to join us…”

Megumi tensed, head turning to observe the emptying field for the first time. Aoshi felt a snarl press against his ribcage, consigned it mercilessly to the ice shoring up his soul.

“The Battousai can’t be bought with promises of power or territory and your usual methods,” he noted clinically, teal eyes scanning Megumi’s watchful form, “would be ineffective without support from your followers.”

Assuming that the dogs could even get to someone the crimson wolf cared about and extract them from his protection. The Oniwaban might be able to, the chill in Aoshi’s soul grew at the very thought. Yes, they might be able to. However, accidents always happened in the field and who could truly say when a captive had escaped… or been freed?

Megumi stirred and slowly pushed herself to her feet. “You want to do this to Sir Ken?” Wine-colored eyes darted to the copse of pine trees, “You would do that to Yahiko?” The puppy, Aoshi remembered, thinking to Beshimi’s report. The one the cat had poisoned, and who Megumi had apparently cured. “No more,” the fox breathed, the final sigh of wind over an abyss, “let me be the last.”

Warning cries went off in the back of the Okashira’s mind. Takani’s movement, her tone—desolation, despair… The sound of a creature with nothing left to lose.

Kanryuu was half-turning to his captive, a retort already formed, confidence restored as he turned to something he was still in control of. Confidence that shattered at the sight of a black vixen with no skill, only raw determination streaking toward him with murder in her eyes. And Aoshi couldn’t let her.

The greyhound let off a choked yelp as his tongue tangled, trying to go from arrogance to alarm in the space of a heartbeat. Megumi reared up on hind legs, dainty—but deadly—fangs approaching Kanryuu’s arched neck. The Okashira moved fluidly, wasting none of his actions he appeared beside Doctor Takani and almost gently plucked her from her leap. Her acquaintance with the ground was less careful, but the doctor only looked on in anguish at her unscathed target.

“Let’s stop this here,” the command was probably unnecessary, the Okashira didn’t truly believe that the doctor had another assault in her, but he had to make his own position plain. Behind him, Kanryuu completely lost it.

“How dare you!?” The shriek screeched through the upper reaches of any sane creature’s vocal range. “I’ve been kind to you and offered you a position of importance in the new world, and you…” Kanryuu faltered, spittle spraying from his muzzle. “You shortsighted female!” Furious, the greyhound seized Megumi’s left paw in his jaws and bit down hard.

Megumi screamed, and Aoshi wondered how many more cracks his glacier could withstand before he was left with a frozen wasteland.

I am absolutely not thinking of Yahiko, Kaoru told herself firmly as she pried a spotted mutt free of Sano’s back. Not that the fighter had seemed to notice his hanger-on, but still, she couldn’t help but see he was moving a little slower than before, his injuries from Shikijou taking their toll.

So not thinking of Yahiko really wasn’t helping, because all the three males she cared for most in the world were up to the tips of their ears in danger. Of course, she was too—sort of. It had taken a while, but Kaoru was starting to have a deep-seated suspicion that Kenshin was deflecting the worst of the fighting away from her. And her conflicted feelings were making it very easy to lash out at the dogs around her.

On one paw, it was a sweet gesture and she was amazed that he had the concentration, not to mention the ability to pull something like that in this melee. On the other paw… Kaoru snarled at a toothy boxer-mix before attacking it. Damn it, she had told Kenshin from the beginning that she could look after herself, and it annoyed her to no end that she seemed to keep finding herself in situations that made her claims seem untrue. Kenshin did not need to be protecting her in a fight like this, and the tanuki was beginning to itch with the desire to prove it.

Steady, she reminded herself again as a crimson form placed itself in front of some shepherd-wolf hybrid that had been moving towards her. Steady. The important thing is to get to Miss Megumi. Then you can worry about skinning a certain Rurouni for how he chose to do it.

Fortunately, it looked as though they would see the vixen again soon. The dogs that had pressed so strongly against their little pack grew ever-scarcer, and they had made it to the foot of the hill.

Kenshin sent his attacker on his way with a few well-timed bites, and Kaoru suddenly became aware of how still the night had become. Their path was open. After so much effort it didn’t even seem real.

Sano craned his head around, searching for any stragglers, “Aw… is that it?” He sounded genuinely disappointed and Kaoru shook her head in disbelief. The fighter was obviously sore all over from the pounding he’d received facing Shikijou, not to mention the sluggish bleeding of wounds that just hadn’t had a chance to close properly.

His head might want another fight, but his body has to be ready to collapse.

Kenshin smiled wryly at Sanosuke and took a moment to give his companions a quick once-over for injuries. “We should hurry, that we should, Kanryuu will be growing desperate.”

“Not quite as desperate as you will be,” the voice was gravel and dark confidence and seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Kaoru tried to disguise her startled surprise and scanned the seemingly-empty trees.

“How many fights have you gone through, Battousai?” the voice continued, ignoring Kenshin’s instinctive twitch at the old name, “How well will your companions hold up to another attack? Because even if you win past me,” a chuckle like boulders grinding together before a rockslide grated on their ears, “the Okashira awaits at your destination.”

Kaoru held back a shudder, Sano was in no shape to fight another of the Oniwaban and Kenshin was right, Kanryuu had to be getting nervous by now. Maybe even nervous enough to cut his losses, kill the vixen and run. She couldn’t let that happen, regardless of whether or not she even liked the other female.

 Kenshin was shifting, ears angled toward a particular spot—Kaoru followed that invisible line with her eyes and stared until she could pick out the gaunt form of a wolf, almost invisible in the play of night and shadows. The Rurouni stepped toward the stranger and Kaoru hurried to cut him off.

The look on his face was priceless.

“Go, Kenshin. You and Sano have to get to Megumi.” The red wolf’s brow furrowed in unease.

“Miss Kaoru, it is too dangerous—”

“It’s too dangerous for Megumi,” Kaoru interjected, stopping his protective speech before he could really get started. “I’ll be fine, Kenshin.”

The camouflaged Oniwaban growled low, “Do you flee me, Battousai? Will you leave a little female to fight Hannya in your place?”

“You watch your mouth,” Kaoru snarled back, pinning the ruined face of the dark wolf with a glare. “I’ve had enough of you Oniwaban threatening my family!”

“Miss Kaoru,” Kenshin began again, no trace of the yielding Rurouni in his manner, “this one will—” He was cut off by a cry of agonized despair from the top of the hill. Megumi…

“Go!” Kaoru ordered, keeping her eyes on the grotesque wolf, Kenshin hesitated a fraction of a second more before  giving the tanuki a quick nod and moving away up the hill.

Sano swore feelingly, glancing between her and his departing friend. Kaoru swallowed, mouth suddenly dry now that she was getting what she had wanted.

“Keep an eye on him for me, Sano,” she wasn’t sure if she was asking or ordering, “He may need someone to watch his back.”

Sano grimaced, but Kaoru guessed it was probably supposed to be a grin, “Be careful, missy.” Losing no more time the hybrid took off after the crimson wolf.

Kaoru kept her senses trained on Hannya as the Oniwaban sighed.

“That Battousai would flee a battle… perhaps the legends about him were only rumor after all.”

The tanuki bristled, “Don’t you dare insult Kenshin! There’s more to him than just some famous killer, he’s a goodhearted guy trying to do the right thing—which is more than I could say for you!”

Hannya exhaled in a quiet hiss of air, “You know nothing. I will defeat you quickly and go to aid my leader.”

Kaoru sucked in a quick breath to retort, held it instead as Hannya melted into the background right before her eyes. Damn. Instinct had her tense, half-believing that the Oniwaban had ignored her completely to follow after Kenshin and Sano.

As seconds slid by, she became ever-more convinced of her theory. Rage boiled up in her like a scalding geyser. That old cheat! So all his talk was just talk after all. With a curse she turned to pelt after her packmates.

A line of fire opened on her shoulder, she caught a brief flash of leathery skin and a whiff of something dry, almost snakelike, before the tanuki instinctively jumped away from the source of pain.

Hannya melted back into the shadows. Kaoru bit back a frustrated curse, eyes darting quickly to scour her surroundings. The Oniwaban appeared to be nowhere. He had hardly any scent and made seemingly no noise.

The tanuki wished that she had Kenshin’s ears—the Rurouni had better hearing than she ever believed possible. It had gotten to the point that Kaoru decided to never discuss anything that she didn’t want Kenshin to know if she even suspected he was in the area. Not that Tae seemed to be picking up on her subtle hints.

Wind creaked through the trees and Kaoru flinched, half-expecting another attack. The sounds that had helped her before mocked her now, and Hannya stayed invisible.

Okay, Kaoru tried to calm the hunted feeling mercilessly squeezing her heart in her chest, I can’t smell him, I can’t hear him, and I can’t see him. That’s not very reassuring. If she couldn’t find her opponent she’d be limited to counterattacks once he’d already revealed himself. And given the spymaster’s stealth, Kaoru had little confidence she would have enough time to pull together a concentrated attack. Think girl, think!

How much time had passed since his first attack? Seconds, minutes? How much time did she have to collect herself and find a plan?

A favorable wind bringing the dry smell to her nose was the tanuki’s only warning and she twisted to meet the silent maw that would have snapped her spine at the neck. Hannya knew his strengths, she had to give him that, she only managed a shallow bite at the comparatively thick fur of his ruff before the dark wolf was fading into shadow again, leaving her bleeding from another injury.

He might be lighter than me, Kaoru calculated, if I could catch him in a body-to-body engagement, I could probably win. Which, she assumed, was why Hannya had perfected the art of stealth attacks. Come on, Kamiya, there’s got to be a way…

Movement teased the corner of her eye and the silvery wolf turned to look. There was nothing there. Movement, again just in her peripheral vision. Not at all the way a wolf would move, but then, Hannya hardly seemed like a wolf to her anymore. Another shudder of movement, a ripple of shadow sliding through darker shadow for a brief instant, and suddenly it clicked into place. Fishing, that was what the movements reminded her of. Not so much watching for individual bodies of silver and brown as watching for flickers, for patterns of alien movement that might show her when a fish was coming her way.

She had never needed Kenshin’s help to fish, which surprised her, a little. If it hadn’t been Kenshin, she might even say she was better at seeing through the distortions to where the fish actually was. But it was Kenshin, which meant if she looked better, it was because he was letting her look better.

The shadow hovered, wavering, and Kaoru tried hard to avoid looking directly at it—him. She had no doubt that if she turned and charged Hannya, the camouflaged wolf would be gone by the time she reached her destination. But if she kept him in her periphery and let him come to her… well, that was enough of a warning to make a difference.

For a long moment Kaoru thought he wasn’t going to go for it, she had been too obvious in her perusal and now the game would change. It took all of her willpower to turn her head completely away from the concealed wolf to scan the empty forest, as if she didn’t know where he was.

Wait. One breath. Wait. Two. Just like fishing. Wait. Her lungs were frozen as surely as if she was facing Jineh once more. Unable to bear it a moment longer, the tanuki whirled to face her silent attacker.

Hannya must have known in an instant that his strategy had failed, but Kaoru had no intention of letting him escape this time.

A barely-coordinated leap flung her to meet him and her lithe frame crashed into his skeletal one. This close she could smell that the snakelike odor came from Hannya’s leathery face and it was plain that despite being frozen into a permanent snarl the spymaster’s fangs were still deadly. Yellowed teeth snapped for Kaoru’s face, which she forced herself to ignore in favor of her own attack. The emaciated wolf’s flesh broke before her assault like cobwebs in the wind, a sickening sensation. Dark fur flew free of its owner in lackluster mats as Kaoru savaged the Oniwaban’s shoulder.

Moving quickly the she-wolf released Hannya’s shoulder to wrap her front paws around her opponent’s neck. Scrabbling with her hindpaws, Kaoru bought enough traction to hurl herself to one side, carrying Hannya with her. The fighter landed poorly, his slight mass entirely subject to Kaoru’s ploy. The tanuki righted herself fluidly, placing one paw on Hannya’s throat to forestall his attempts to move.

“Yield,” she advised harshly as she panted for breath. Hannya’s pale yellow eye seemed to glare at nothing.

“If I don’t, what then? Will you kill me?” He sounded only vaguely interested in her response.

Kaoru swallowed hard, “It would be my right by pack law,” she reminded the other wolf. She didn’t want to. She hated killing her opponents.

“The Leader’s orders were to halt the advance of the Battousai and his compatriots,” the gravelly voice took on an almost ritualistic cadence, “The commands of the Okashira are absolute.”

The tanuki tried not to gape, “No alpha would ask for the death of his followers!”

A dark chuckle answered her, “How little you know of the world. But the Okashira does not ask for our deaths, that is why we are willing to give them in his service.”

Kaoru shook her head, trying to clear it of the camouflaged wolf’s twisty logic, “But if he doesn’t want you to die… wouldn’t he be upset if you died now?”

“Really upset,” a young voice broke into her discussion and Kaoru jerked up her head to see Yahiko wide-eyed and breathing heavily from a long sprint standing next to a young fox with pretty eyes.

“Yahiko!” For a moment Kaoru wanted to leave her prisoner to check the akita-mix over for injuries, but a second look revealed the dog to be alright, at least no worse for wear than she herself was. And his stance was ever so slightly off—his eyes might be as wide and wild as they’d ever been when he had needed reassurance, but his posture was firm, angled slightly in front of the fox—Tsubame, Kaoru remembered—protective.

Yahiko’s brown eyes searched Kaoru’s, then moved down to her captive.

“Shikijou’s dead,” he told the emaciated wolf, “one of Kanryuu’s dogs killed him.”

Sano pushed himself, trying to keep pace with Kenshin although the fighter couldn’t be sure if he was running in a straight line anymore. His head ached with every jarring footfall and it was a good thing Kenshin’s fur was so red because that ache made it really hard to focus on details.

Gotta be almost to the top of the hill. It didn’t look that tall, damn fox, couldn’t she have gotten kidnapped by someone who didn’t like heights? Of course, thinking about the fox brought to mind the scream of pain that had directly preceded their ascent.

She better be all right. Sano’s battered body warned that there wasn’t much he could do if the fox weren’t all right, but he ignored it. She had just better be all right. I don’t do rescues and it would be a shame to let this one go to waste.

Further mental ramblings were cut off as the pair finally reached the summit. A black wolf regarded them with expressionless teal eyes, his relaxed posture suggesting that he had heard them coming. That’s gotta be Shikijou’s leader. The idea that the warrior-dog would take orders from the startled greyhound a little further away was almost laughable. The thin brown and white dog looked like a bundle of nerves, long face lined in arrogant hate and four limbs trembling with fear.

Megumi was at the hound’s feet, feebly trying to pull herself away from him using only three legs. Her left front leg was bleeding and curled protectively into her side. The vain vixen didn’t look at all like herself, bloody, with black fur matted and disheveled over her injuries.

A growl rumbled through Sagara’s chest, and he didn’t try to stop it.

“What have you done to Miss Megumi?” Kenshin’s voice was tight with anger; Sano was glad that he’d decided to do the talking, because the fighter didn’t think he could stop growling long enough to get the words out. The crimson wolf took a step forward, and Kanryuu quailed.

“Aoshi!”

The black wolf moved fluidly to stand between his employer and the two angry fighters. “Battousai,” his tone was cold, but not angry, it didn’t seem to be anything.

“You are the leader of the Oniwaban?” Kenshin narrowed in on the still threat, the wolf called Aoshi tipped his head in assent. “What this one offered to your followers this one now offers to you. There need be no quarrel between us. Let us pass.”

Aoshi raised one brow fractionally, a dramatic change in expression for the wolf. “And when offered such a choice did my Oniwaban withdraw? They did not.”

“Then on your own head be this folly,” Kenshin snarled and charged.

Until the fight began, Sano had been harboring the idea that he would join in to give Kenshin some backup. Within seconds of its genesis the battle erased such thoughts. Kenshin leapt straight for the immobile Okashira, launching the lightning-quick attacks that were his hallmark. The black wolf sidestepped them, drifting seemingly aimlessly from side to side, always just ahead of scything fangs.

But he looks like he’s moving so slow. And that didn’t make sense. Sano had been on the receiving end of those moves before and he knew Kenshin was fast, impossibly fast. He had to be using his speed to its full advantage now… which was apparently no advantage at all.

Aoshi kept drifting just ahead of the attacks, making it look easy, making Kenshin, Kenshin! look clumsy. And all the while that cool expression never altered.

“Is this really the Battousai?” Shinomori’s voice came without inflection. Sano tensed, then watched in disbelief as the larger wolf bit down on red fur. Kenshin wrenched himself away in a crimson arc, putting distance between himself and his opponent. Aoshi had not moved to press his advantage; he tilted his head fractionally to the side, as if inviting Kenshin to try his luck again. The red wolf eyed his opponent with an unreadable expression of his own,

“So this is the strength of the Oniwaban? To hold your territory in the middle of a war, this one had often wondered about your abilities.”

The Okashira raised one brow, “As we often heard of the fang of the Isshin Shishi. My followers and I dreamed of the time we would meet you in combat.” The brow lowered, teal eyes cool, “And now we find that the truth makes the legend a lie.”

Kenshin shook his head, “This one could say the same. There was honor in keeping your home in the face of devastation. Where is the honor in what you do now?”

Aoshi’s eyes darkened slightly, “There is honor in life, Battousai.”

The Okashira moved like a dark river, relentless and fluid, encroaching on Kenshin’s space in what seemed like a few short steps. The red wolf pulled back, the distance he put between himself and Shinomori’s attacks noticeably larger than the whisker’s breadth he usually contented himself with while dodging.

Can’t dodge ‘em too close when your opponent is that fast I guess.

Red danced around black like fire flickers in smoke, looking for a place to catch and burn. At every turn though there was the face of the Okashira, focused, blocking any attempted attack. Frustration was an itch under Sano’s skin. The fighter wasn’t at all sure how Kenshin seemed to be avoiding the same feeling but he had to be; none of his attacks carried the tell-tale energy of aggravation. But his expression, when Sano could glimpse it around the fight, was grim. A sentiment Sano could identify with. The fight had been going on for several minutes now and Kenshin hadn’t landed a single hit. Of course, he reminded himself, besides that first bite neither had the Okashira.

From what the hybrid could see, Aoshi’s battle-strategy was a perfect defense, allowing the opposing force to attack to exhaustion, at which point they would become easy pickings. He seemed to have speed comparable to Kenshin’s, but rather than using it to dodge attacks he used it to prevent their ever being launched.

Kenshin circled one way, then the other, gauging Aoshi’s reactions. I know he’s good, but he’s gonna have to pull one hell of a move—before the fighter’s very eyes the crimson wolf vanished mid-step. To his credit, Aoshi did not panic. He scanned his surroundings slowly; his dark ears swiveled on his head, searching for a sign of his opponent. Memory bit at Sano’s heels and the fighter looked up in time to see a red blur dropping like a stone from the apex of a leap that no one had seen him make.

Shinomori recovered well, looking up a fraction of a second before the Battousai hit him with gravity’s aid, barely long enough to brace his legs for the impact so he was not knocked from his paws. A swathe of red opened on the Okashira’s shoulder, the thick scent of blood testifying to the wound’s depth. Damn, so that’s what that move does. Though something told Sano that particular move could do far worse if Kenshin wished it. Aoshi’s injury was awfully close to the back of his neck, after all.

Kenshin landed lightly, stepping out of his opponents range with a few movements that bore echoes of the Okashira’s fluidity. Blood coursed down the black wolf’s leg, dripping into the dirt.

“So. The Battousai dwells in you yet.” Shinomori drew in a breath, becoming utterly still. “In gratitude for sharing your legend, I will send you to your grave with the strength that forged ours.”

“Come on, Kenshin! Get him before he can—”

Aoshi moved before Sano could finish his warning. It was just drifting, the same as before, aimless, fluid, unpredictable, but it was faster now, visibly faster, Aoshi’s shadowy form appearing and disappearing around Kenshin in flickers of ghostlike movement. The Rurouni stood fast, but Sano could see his senses working overtime to try and find the threat that had to be coming. Muscles flexed in thin white legs as the crimson wolf drew himself up on his toes, poised to flee in any direction.

That was when the attack struck, a confused jumble of forms on Kenshin’s far side, more blood twisting into the night air and then down into the dirt. Kenshin fell heavily, his back to Sano as he lay on his side. But the hybrid could see the start of the damage, a vicious wound that started on Kenshin’s flank and must curve around to his belly. The red wolf didn’t move, and the scent of blood clogged the air.

Aoshi straightened, sliding free of the shadows, cold eyes almost regretful.

“And so ends the legend.”

The air seemed to die in Sano’s lungs, clogging them with the corpse of a breath he couldn’t release. Dimly he could see Kanryuu beginning to relax, Megumi’s despairing eyes, Aoshi raising his head to regard the paralyzed fighter. But there wasn’t any meaning to it, to any of it. Just rage, hot and red as the body of his friend gently touched by moonlight.

“You bastard,” he growled, the new breath he took tasting of blood and fury. “You bastard.”

“Insulting the faithfulness of my parents will have no effect on the current situation,” Aoshi advised him, not even having the decency to look smug in his victory. “The Battousai is dead and you are in no shape to continue this ill-conceived rescue.”

“Rescue, hell!” Sano spat, hackles rising, “That’s my friend you just killed! I swear I’ll send you after him if it takes every last breath in my body!”

Shinomori moved toward him slowly, giving him plenty of time to decide that his words were folly and to abandon the hilltop.

Except I can’t do that. ‘Cause there’s a Missy and a little kid who think the sun rises and sets with that guy you just killed, and if I don’t put an end to you, one of them will. He’d seen what happened when a mentor was killed, and one screwup with a misspent youth was all this pack needed.

The red body bleeding out into the night shuddered.

“While this one appreciates your words, Sano, such action will not be necessary, that it will not.”

I’ll be damned… The small wolf quivered again, drawing himself up on slightly wobbly white legs. Aoshi stared at his resurrected opponent.

“How…?”

The Rurouni smiled almost sheepishly, “Ah, this one’s Shishou was quite determined his pupil should survive, and was perhaps… over-enthusiastic in training this one to withstand attack. It became habit to roll with the impact of a hit.”

“Lessening the force of the blow,” Shinomori muttered quietly. “It’s impressive that you survived, Battousai, but now you are a weakened, tired, your strength seeping out along with your blood.” The black wolf moved slowly around Kenshin, “A second time will not see the same result.”

Kenshin gave his quiet Rurouni smile, “You speak the truth, that you do.”

The Okashira’s eyes narrowed and he flickered in and out of sight. Not again! The bleeding from Kenshin’s side was slowing but he couldn’t possibly have it in him to take another hit like that. The Okashira appeared like shafts of moonlight through trees.

“You have shown me your legend, Battousai, now let us make an end.”

Kenshin’s smile had slipped away and his posture was different from the first attack. He stood loosely, head hanging low, seeming almost to curl protectively around his injury. Dread was a metallic taste in Sano’s mouth, as foul as the scent of blood still in the air.

“It’s over, Battousai,” the harsh whisper could have come from anywhere. Kenshin shifted his head slightly and abruptly the posture clicked. Black and red collided and blood flew. Aoshi hit the dirt with a gasp, crimson seeping from a throat wound. Kenshin stepped gracefully to one side, observing the fallen wolf.

“Your attack is formidable Aoshi, that it is, however,” the Rurouni cocked his head slightly to one side, “this one notes that it would be better utilized in the cover of a dense forest, where you might truly disappear. Likely that is where the technique originated.” Shinomori’s paws scraped against the ground as he tried to right himself. “You should take it easy, Aoshi, that you should. Your injuries aren’t fatal, but they are severe.”

Ignoring the words the black wolf forced himself to his feet and haltingly moved to stand between his employer and the ragged attackers once more. “For the Oniwaban, while one can stand, one can fight.”

Time was moving too fast, blowing past Kaoru like a howling storm. Time since the pack has split up, since she’d started fighting Hannya, since Kenshin and Sano had gone on ahead. Time was moving too fast, passing to quickly and it felt like she was moving so slow even as she ran up the hill.

How long had Kenshin been fighting? How long since Megumi screamed? It felt like hours, and anything might happen in that span of time. Her nerves weren’t helped by the fact that Hannya was running to her right, sliding in and out of focus as he instinctually half-camouflaged himself.

The tanuki didn’t think he would attack again, he seemed utterly focused on reaching his alpha, but with Yahiko and the gasping Tsubame gamely trying to keep pace, the she-wolf wasn’t inclined to feel very trusting.

Time was moving too fast, trees zipping by in a blur while she crawled at a snail’s pace across the ground. Maybe that was why Kaoru didn’t realize at first when she had made it to the top of the hill.

They had stumbled into the middle of a confrontation, two wolves facing off while their allies waited in the wings. Her eyes found Kenshin on the left first, his familiar form a bit more red than she remembered, but upright and standing firm. Amethyst eyes found their group and sought her out; giving her the same check over she had given him. Sano stood a bit further back, no worse off than he had been when she last saw him.

To the right a dark wolf that had to be the Okashira stood with the sort of braced determination that indicated he was only upright through sheer willpower. Further right a furious greyhound paced nervously, eyes darting between the new arrivals and Kenshin, trying to calculate which was the immediate threat. At his feet was Megumi. The fox was battered and seemed so emotionally and physically exhausted that even amid all of the distractions she couldn’t bring herself to move.

It was a relief to see the vixen alive, but her condition churned bitterly in Kaoru’s gut and the tanuki couldn’t help but feel guilty for her earlier jealousy.

“Miss Kaoru,” Kenshin’s voice drew her attention back to him. The Rurouni looked at her, then allowed his gaze to slide to the shadowy Hannya in question. Kaoru glanced back at the grotesque wolf, he was staring at the condition of his leader in what might have been disbelief, but it was hard to tell on that immobile face. Signaling Yahiko and Tsubame to follow her Kaoru slipped over to her pack’s side of the hilltop.

“We’re all right, Kenshin.” Kaoru assured him; the crimson wolf spared a moment’s smile for the trio, but soon redirected his attention to their foes.

“Leader,” the gravel of Hannya’s voice was distressed, and Kaoru was sure that if pride would have allowed it he would have rushed to support his leader. At the sound of one of his pack Aoshi straightened a little further, his desperation became less visible.

“Hannya, report.”

“We are betrayed,” the grotesque spy’s voice was brutal in its grief, in its fury. Kanryuu stopped pacing.

“What are you on about?” he snapped, “There are more important things going on right now! Protect me, you moron!”

Hannya’s snarl was a nightmare of sound, “Liar! Your dog killed Shikijou!”

Shinomori was very, very still.

Kanryuu blinked rapidly and blustered, “How could I know about that? I didn’t even know he’d returned or where he was!”

“But Shikijou’s not the only one. The little ones found Hyottoko, and I confirmed their words with my own eyes. He was surrounded by the bodies of the dogs that you sent to kill him!”

It was then that Kanryuu made what might have been the biggest mistake of his life.

In retrospect, Kaoru could see the thin dog’s desperate plan. Aoshi obviously cared for his followers, and would never forgive their deaths. Of all those gathered on the hilltop none wanted Takeda dead more than Shinomori. But belief hadn’t quite set in yet, and blood loss was obviously slowing his judgment. It was the only chance Kanryuu was going to get.

Before Hannya had finished his accusation, Kanryuu dashed forward to attack, not the raggedy pack that had decimated his forces, but his own Okashira.

Speed was the greyhound’s ally, audacity his refuge. Still shocked by what he had heard, Shinomori was unprepared for an attack from his employer.

Kaoru never saw Hannya move—he simply wasn’t, and then he was between his beloved leader and his treacherous boss. There was no time for a counterattack, no time even for Kanryuu to register the change in targets. A narrow muzzle snapped closed, and a lusterless wolf fell at his leader’s feet.

Takeda trembled, ears flat to his skull, eyes going wide with panic. Shinomori was very, very still, but his voice was as clear as the shattering of a glacier.

“By the strength of the darkness I will send your soul to hell, Kanryuu Takeda.”

Kanryuu’s jaw slackened and fear enhanced the arch in his naturally curved spine. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. Not now. Not to him. He’d been assured that the Oniwaban had been tamed, that for all of their posturing and snarls, their fangs had been well and truly pulled.

They can’t possibly… but the crimson Battousai stood in challenge despite blood and grief, and those bonds that had held his Okashira at bay had been gnawed through and Kanryuu was left to face the demon.

The Okashira wasn’t looking at the greyhound; his burning eyes were fixed on Hannya’s still form. The wind died away with a hiss, and Kanryuu could see, with painstaking slowness, the fur lining the black wolf’s spine slowly standing on end. The growl permeated the air and settled in the greyhound’s bones.

Kanryuu fled.

The camp he had taken such pride in was in shambles, deserted by all but his foes. Someone had miscalculated, badly.

Fear lent the hound extra speed as he crashed through the remains of his kingdom, poor vision turning every dim shape into another shadowy attacker. He stumbled over the corpse of the bear, nightmarish in the gloom, surrounded by the dogs he had sent to kill the creature. He had to get away from here, had to get back to his lord and tell him of Shinomori’s treachery—if only to watch the vengeance be meted out. After that the Okashira ought to be a broken wolf, and it would be easy enough to rid the night of one more terror clinging to its darker shadows.

He couldn’t hear the chase, but he knew it was coming. The Okashira would never stand by and watch this. Kanryuu was so preoccupied with what lay behind him that he missed the warning signs until one of the dark shapes his eyes couldn’t make out actually reared up and attacked him. It was small, and fast and so clumsy—he didn’t have time to deal with such a foul-smelling little nuisance. It was the work of a moment to snap the crippled animal’s spine with a quick bite, but the greyhound feared even that moment had been too long.

An odd howl was rising in his ears, the keening cry of a dark soul wounded past endurance. The lean dog stumbled over the changing landscape and growing fatigue, all sense of direction lost. He wasn’t used to running this long. Short sprints to leave pursuers in the dust and then lazy days of luxury, that was what he lived for. The deposed ruler stumbled again, barely noticing that the forest had suddenly sprung up around him, dark and denser than he liked, he couldn’t see—

SNAP!

Pain was instantaneous, screaming up a foreleg that had broken neatly in two in the face of that awful ripping pressure. Momentum carried him forward when he would have stopped, sending his thin body to the ground, ripping at the hold metal teeth held on delicate skin. He screamed.

Somehow in his panic Kanryuu had run out into the area of forest seeded with the human’s traps. Pain made it impossible to think, impossible to move. Every twitch brought a fresh grate of sharpened steel on flesh. The ruined greyhound made so much noise in his agony that he never heard the quiet steps that heralded the black wolf’s approach. So Aoshi waited, silent as a specter, watching the dog who had hoped to tame him with unfathomable icy eyes.

Kanryuu couldn’t remain ignorant forever. Eventually the fallen dog looked up in horror. Aoshi waited for that look, for the pleading to begin, for the cries of a black soul to smear itself further as he promised anything, anything, for his own safety.

The Okashira bared his fangs. He was sorely tempted to leave Kanryuu to die, slow, painful, agonized—but this was a human trap, and the humans would return to check it. If the greyhound was still alive when they did he could survive. And lesser creatures had found the strength to gnaw off limbs to escape such traps before. No. This call for revenge, this cold fire in his soul—there was only one way to answer it.

White teeth flashed in the shadows, and there was silence.

Silence, and the call of the north.

Sano half wanted to chase after the two who had gone tearing out of view, something sour and surly in him wanting to pitch in and give the greyhound a few things to think about. A subtle shake of Kenshin’s head discourage such action. Shinomori would do for Kanryuu, even if he had to drag the scheming hound’s body to the gates of hell himself.

On the other side of the hilltop Megumi stirred, slowly picking her way upright on limbs that had once seemed dainty and now only seemed weak and frail.

“Miss Megumi, are you all right?” Kaoru was moving forward to reclaim their wayward fox and something uncomfortable in the fighter-for-hire’s chest loosened a tad, because of course the Missy would look out for her now, and they could all go home—

But Megumi shied away from the tanuki’s concern.

“Miss Megumi?” Kaoru repeated, confused worry leaking into her tone. The vixen looked up at the crew that had faced incredible opposition to rescue her with eyes that wavered between panic and sorrow.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I got you caught up in all of this.”

“It’s all right, Miss Megumi,” Kaoru had switched to the soothing tone that generally only came out when a certain brat had a nightmare that was just too real to laugh off. “It’s all right now. Let’s all get back to the den and get some rest.”

“It’s not all right!” the black fox cried out hysterically, “All of you almost died, and for what, for me?” Takani backed away toward the northernmost edge of the hill, where the ground sheared away in a natural overlook.

“But Miss Megumi, it’s all right now, we’re all okay.” The timid voice belonged to a bracken-colored fox kit who had apparently glued herself to Yahiko’s side. Takani’s expression softened,

“Tsubame… I’m glad you’re safe. But as long as I’m around, you won’t be.”

Sano broke in, scowling as his approach incited the doctor to retreat even further. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course she’ll be safer with you around. We’ll all be, with a doc to patch us up.”

Anger sparked in wine-hued depths, visible even under the agony that laced Megumi’s features. “You don’t understand, none of you do.” The fox had reached the edge, and the wistful smile she was wearing tied Sano’s guts into knots. Aw, hell.

“Thank you so much, and I’m sorry.”

Sano was moving before she finished her goodbye, drawing on the last reserve of strength he had to get there before the fox did something stupid.

Turning, Megumi closed her eyes and leapt into the open space beyond the edge of the cliff. Straining his body to its limit, Sano managed to snag her scruff in his teeth and throw on the brakes to prevent being hauled off to his death after her. The fox came to an abrupt, yanking halt, forward momentum lost she dangled from Sano’s grip for a second before he could haul her all of the way back.

The black vixen promptly gave up, collapsing to the ground as she was released. Sano glared down at her, anger keeping his legs locked in a standing position when he would have fallen over.

“What kind of crap are you trying to pull, Megumi!” he was yelling, couldn’t seem to stop himself, didn’t really want to either. “Kenshin and Kaoru and Yahiko risked their lives to save you! And what about the kid—Tsubame, you think she’d be happy watching you die?!”

“You don’t understand, if I’m alive they’ll always come after me!”

Sano lost all vestiges of patience “Who, damn it?! In case you hadn’t noticed, everyone’s gone!” Megumi just shook her head, weeping.

“This one believes he understands,” Kenshin’s voice came, quiet and soothing. “You believe that the purpose for which Kanryuu acquired you survives his death.” No one questioned Kenshin’s certainty of the greyhound’s demise. Megumi looked up at Kenshin, ears back against her skull.

“Kanryuu had a boss… somebody he was taking orders from.” The vixen took a gulping breath to try and get beyond her tears. “He was—he was supposed to gather fighters and return north with them. But he grabbed me too, because I’m a doctor.”

“And so you would remove yourself from his reach forever.” Kenshin nodded, conceding her point. “But, Miss Megumi, this one doesn’t believe that fear should dictate when your life is ended. This boss of Kanryuu’s, it is true he might come seeking you, but this one doubts it very much. One would certainly urge you not to kill yourself over an event that may never come to pass. You are safe, and we are safe, and as long as you will allow it we will protect you. And in the meantime, there are still lives that can be saved by your knowledge.” Megumi shuddered, and then was still, quiet, thinking over what the red wolf had said. Kenshin stepped back and nodded to Kaoru, who moved forward with soothing noises to help the vixen to her feet. Then of course Yahiko had to come over and put in his two cents, trailing a tearful Tsubame who cuddled up to Megumi’s side as if she would take root there.

Sano let a breath hiss out, all too aware that it could have easily been another shout.

“It’s a long walk back; we should get started,” he pointed out helpfully. The sooner this night was over with the better in his mind, he needed a few days of sleep before he tried to puzzle out what had just happened here.

“We’ll never make it if you try to lead us back,” Kaoru observed with a grin, gently inviting Megumi to share in her mirth. “Come on, let’s go.” Moving slowly, the triumphant group began limping its way home.

“Crazy vixen,” Sanosuke muttered, ears flattening slightly as he scowled at the black-furred fox flanked by Kaoru and Yahiko in her departure. He looked back over his shoulder at that heart-stopping drop, and shook his head.

“She wanted to be saved,” Kenshin’s soft voice at his side held a smile, and Sano shot the Rurouni an incredulous look.

“Jumping doesn’t seem like a good way to go about it then.”

The red furred wolf laughed at his friend’s undisguised skepticism, violet eyes merry, “Megumi-dono knows the lore of plants Sano. If she had truly wished to die, she might have chosen from a hundred green-growing deaths we would have had no knowledge to cure. That she chose to jump says that she was hoping someone would save her.”

Sano cursed, ducking his head as the sound of his voice incited the four traveling ahead them to look back. “Manipulative little vixen…”

Kenshin didn’t offer response, pacing sedately ahead with a smile for Kaoru, who was watching the stragglers in slight confusion. Sano shook himself, feeling the ripple of thick fur on his ruff following the motion. She’d wanted to be saved, huh? Wonder what Megumi’d have to say about that. If she had, it hadn’t been part of a plan—those scheming maroon eyes had been devoid of all chicanery, filled only with the gut-wrenching sorrow of one who doesn’t believe that they deserve to go on.

Trotting to catch up, the half-wolf eased himself into the space on Megumi’s left side, turning his head to tease Yahiko about his newfound female shadow. It was a curious feeling, saving someone for a change.

“So you’re saying that if I put that stuff on my cuts they’ll heal quicker?”

Megumi rolled her eyes, obviously regaining her self-confidence, “Before you wanted my opinion as a doctor and now you don’t trust my word.”

Sano glanced at the fox skeptically, “Hey, how do I know you’re telling the truth, you could be trying to get me to disfigure myself somehow.”

 “One male with a scarred face is quite enough, thank you.” Megumi informed the hybrid archly, she turned to Kenshin with a smug smile, “Of course I’d be happy to see to your injuries as well, Sir Ken.”

Kenshin smiled uneasily, “That’s very kind of you, Miss Megumi.”

“Oh come now, you needn’t sound so doubtful, it’s no secret that I am the very soul of charity.”

Kaoru gave a loud snort at this statement, surreptitiously easing closer to Kenshin so that their pelts brushed with every other step.

“Is it much farther?” Tsubame piped up, glancing up to the adults in curiosity. Kaoru opened her mouth to answer, but Yahiko quickly overrode her response with one of his own.

“It’s not too much father now. Are you tired?”

Tsubame turned back to her self-appointed protector, just as the puppy had hoped, “No, I’m all right. I guess I’m just excited.” Kaoru couldn’t help but smile at the fox kit, she could easily see how the Oniwaban had developed a soft spot for her.

“Well, I hope that you like it, because here we are.”

Yahiko covered for his lapse in answer by urging Tsubame to join him as he raced forward to show the young fox the high points of the den and the surrounding area. Sano and Megumi followed at a more sedate pace, bickering still as Megumi mused aloud on the multitude of plants she would likely need to patch up the pack.

Smiling, Kaoru turned to see Kenshin, standing apart from the pack, looking back the way they had come. Quietly the tanuki moved to stand beside him, her smile fading as she caught sight of his somber expression.

“Kenshin? Is everything okay?”

With an effort the Rurouni turned from his vigil to offer the female a small smile.

“It is nothing, Miss Kaoru, that it is.”

“Kenshin, why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong?” the tanuki huffed in exasperation. The crimson wolf winced, then looked away again.

“One was only thinking that something must be going on up north.”

Kaoru frowned, “North?”

Kenshin’s head dipped in a brief nod. “Yes. First Jineh came down, now Kanryuu and the Oniwaban. And the one behind Kanryuu… one can’t help but wonder what turmoil is brewing.”

A stray bit of gossip clicked in Kaoru’s mind, “You’re… from the north, aren’t you?”

Kenshin’s voice remained grave, “It is this one’s homeland, yes. A long time ago, this one fought in a pack-war there—but that fight is long over. Still, this one can’t help but feel… uneasy.” The red wolf sighed and shook his head, meeting Kaoru’s concerned gaze with a smile. “This one is only borrowing trouble, Miss Kaoru, that I am. Shall we rejoin the others?”

Kaoru returned his smile, but hung back a moment as the Rurouni made his way over to the boisterous pack. Almost against her will she turned her face into the cold wind blowing down from the north.

“Leave him alone,” she whispered fiercely into the oncoming winter. “Kenshin’s ours now, leave him alone.”

The wind did not answer, and, fighting an inexplicable sense of dread, Kaoru turned back to the warm knot of family and friends outside her den.

Chapter Text

Say goodbye

As we dance with the devil tonight

Don’t you dare look at him in the eye

As we dance with the devil tonight

-Breaking Benjamin, Dance with the Devil

Yahiko woke to stifling heat and bit back a curse. He had somehow gotten sandwiched between Kaoru and Kenshin’s sleeping forms—not, unfortunately, that this was unusual. Ever since the rescue the pack had been sharing tighter quarters than normal as the addition of two more bodies strained a space that had been cozy for four.

Painstakingly extracting himself the puppy tried hard to remember that it was just for a little while longer. It had taken Kaoru only one night to admit that the den she so steadfastly defended against criticism was too small for all of them. That had been over a week ago. In the intervening time the ugly girl had discussed the situation with Tae; the bobcat had immediately taken a shine to Tsubame and was sympathetic toward Megumi. She had offered to stay with the foxes if a suitable place could be found. It was finding that place, Yahiko groused, that was so tricky.

The foxes, naturally, would prefer to sleep underground in a burrow with at least two exits. Tae wanted a sturdy tree with limbs that could hold a napping cat. Yahiko wouldn’t have thought this combination such a hard thing to find—but then there was proximity to Kaoru’s den to be considered. Megumi was still a bit jumpy, and as long as nobody knew what had happened to Aoshi they were unwilling to let the doctor stray far.

Yahiko’s paw came down on Sano’s tail (the hybrid was sprawled out, taking up twice as much space as anybody else) by accident and the adult snarled at him sleepily. Other than that nobody moved. It must be pretty early still, and Yahiko noticed that the adults slept more deeply while their wounds were healing. Thanks to Megumi’s wonder herbs, that work was almost completed.

The akita-mix took a moment to scan the den. Sano, as he already noticed, was on his side, half-blocking the front entrance. Megumi was a tight black ball of fur pressed against the wall. It had come as something of a surprise that as touchy-feely as the doctor was when awake, she intensely disliked anyone touching her when she slept. Just another reason to find the vixens a new home. Kenshin and Kaoru rested by the back wall, and now that Yahiko was no longer between them they seemed to have inched closer together. The only one missing was Tsubame.

Curious, Yahiko turned his head toward the entrance, but Sano’s wheezing breaths drowned out any sound that might have filtered in from outside. With a last look back at his family, the young dog made his way outside. He didn’t have to look far for the pretty young fox—she was sitting just outside the den, tail curled shyly around her paws, staring expectantly at the sky.

“Good morning,” Yahiko blurted, darting a glance of his own heavenward to double-check his greeting. The sky was still dark, but it was probably getting close to sunrise. Tsubame started and looked at him with wide eyes.

“Oh! Good morning, Yahiko. I didn’t expect anyone else to be up yet.”

The urge to impress the pretty young fox was overwhelming, and Yahiko kinda hated it because he was convinced it was making him feel clumsy and stupid, and he wasn’t, he knew he wasn’t. His tongue still felt thick and useless though.

“Uh, yeah. It’s early. But it was getting crowded in there.”

Tsubame cocked her head to one side, “Really? I thought you looked very comfortable.” All snuggled up to Kenshin and Kaoru like some sort of baby. The tips of Yahiko’s ears burned and he sat down quickly to keep his tail from giving him away by going down.

“Feh, what are you doing up so early anyway?” His tone was defensive, but for once the sensitive fox seemed not to notice.

“It’s going to start snowing soon.”

Yahiko blinked. “How can you know that?”

The bracken-colored kit looked shyly at her paws, “I’ve always been able to tell, there’s a feeling in the air when the weather’s about to shift. It’s hard to describe.”

Yahiko eyed the girl doubtfully, then raised his head and strained his senses. It didn’t really seem any different, the smells, the late-night-early-morning sounds, nothing looked different. He glanced at Tsubame from the corner of his eye and found her looking skyward again.

“With snow,” she explained, “it’s a stillness, as if all the world holds its breath.” Yahiko frowned, searching for the feeling she described.

“There it is!” Tsubame moved to her feet, smiling up through the trees. Tiny flakes of white drifted down through the uppermost branches, falling so slowly Yahiko was almost afraid to breathe. Was that the stillness she meant?

The icy crystals reached them and slowly began to cover the ground. Tsubame laughed in delight, spinning in a quick circle before leaping into the air to catch a flake on her nose. Yahiko felt a grin stretched across his own features and joined her playing in the snow.

It felt like he was bringing the snow with him. Flakes scurried along in his wake like restless ghosts, behind him the northern territories were blanketed in a white that dogged his heels. Cold grew in patches, thickening reluctantly over the ground, as if the North was expanding its territory. A reflexive snarl momentarily tightened the wolf’s features: that was the curse of the North.

In seasons past he had watched the relentless quest for more ravage his homeland, had fought fang and claw for his ideals alongside his pack. That pack was gone now, but the ideals, the responsibility, remained. He was blood and bone of the North, set to keep watch over her boundaries and to drive back her demons. It was this that spurred him south in the start of winter.

Two creatures had ducked his authority, seeking to endanger other lands with their poison, but justice was hard on their heels.

Bringing the snow.

Bringing the cold.

Bringing the North.

Bringing death.

Sano stretched with a groan that petered into a sigh, feeling his back legs just brush Megumi’s form and the fox’s unconscious and instinctive retreat from the thing encroaching on her space. Blearily opening his eyes he raised his head to look around. Faint sounds of young beings at play filtered in from the den exit, answering the silent question of where a certain young dog and fox had got to.

…And since a certain runt wasn’t in the den anymore… Sano looked over at Kenshin and Kaoru. Just as he’d expected. In lieu of anything keeping them apart the pair had... well, cuddled would probably be the best word.

Kaoru had moved so that her head was resting on Kenshin’s forepaws, while the curve of the crimson wolf’s body wrapped around the tanuki’s and his own head rested on her neck.

Sano snorted ruefully, it was a common enough sight with the den so overcrowded—everyone tended to wake up in awkward positions, but the hybrid was willing to bet a good elk bone that one or both of the wolves was actually awake. He was betting on the Rurouni being the one pretending—as he’d told Megumi, the Missy just didn’t pull off deceit well, and her face was too relaxed, serene even, for her to be awake and clinging to a few more moments of unconscious affection.

If it had been any other pair Sano was observing he would have huffed and rolled his eyes, but, well, he liked Kenshin and Kaoru a bit too much for that. It bothered him for the first time that he didn’t know any of the wolf customs for showing interest in a potential partner, because he kept getting the feeling that the tanuki and the Rurouni weren’t going about it in the usual way.

With a sigh the hybrid pushed himself to his feet and indulged in a quick shake. They were another day closer to an emptier den, maybe the change in circumstances would inspire his friends to talk about the feelings they so obviously shared. In the meantime, there were kids to go annoy.

The day started late, probably due at least in part to the dark clouds scattering gentle snow and the accompanying chill in the air. The sort of persuasive cold that convinced one to curl up a little tighter, snuggle a little warmer, and let the rest of the day be lost to dreaming.

Eventually however, roused by the good-hearted but definitely not soft-voiced romping going on outside, the three remaining adults moved out into the elements.

Sano grinned roguishly, pausing in his lazy pursuit of a gleeful Yahiko to eye the newcomers.

“Well hello there. Finally decide to give up on beauty sleep?” His gaze shifted to pin down Megumi in particular, “Because I can tell you now, I don’t think it’s really working for you.”

Kaoru couldn’t help but be grateful that Sano had chosen to focus on the fox this morning, she had an uncomfortable feeling that the hybrid could easily have gone after her.

Wine-colored eyes narrowed in annoyed distaste, “I doubt that you would look any better even if you slept a hundred seasons.”

Sano shrugged, his shaggy ruff moving gently with the motion. “So sorry to be offending your delicate sensibilities with my ugly mug your worshipfulness—but don’t you fret, soon enough we’ll find you a decent place to sleep so you don’t have to see it anymore.”

Kaoru sighed gently, raising her head to watch the snow softly alighting on her muzzle. After so long of winter threatening to fall, it almost felt surprising to see it here, as if the shift of the season had brought a shift in her life, a blind turn now in view, the destination unknown.

Still, it was beautiful.

Kenshin stood out sharply against the whiteness beginning to blanket the ground and the tanuki couldn’t help but wonder if Kenshin had managed to be at all sneaky up North, where she knew the snow lingered for months longer than it did here. But if Kenshin was thinking of his former home such reflections were hidden behind placid violet eyes.

The sharp-edged banter that passed between Megumi and Sano continued and Yahiko, distracted from whatever game he was playing with Tsubame, threw in his own jabs. After a moment Kaoru realized that she was subconsciously waiting for Kenshin to step forward with a few words to quell the argument, but the crimson wolf was silent, unfocused. Maybe the snow is affecting him more than I thought.

She knew the Rurouni was worried about the North—he had admitted as much a week ago, and if the change in the weather had her thinking of that distant land, it was likely that he was as well.

“Sounds like I got here just in time!” Tae’s voice rang out through the cold and the escalating arguments. Kaoru twisted her head to look up at the bobcat, high above them on the bough of a tree, smiling as if she had caught a canary.

“Tae!”

“Hello, Kaoru, everyone. Good news, I’ve found a place that might work for us.”

Relief was an instant reaction; muscles Kaoru hadn’t even realized were tense in her back relaxing in the space of a moment.

Tsubame’s brown eyes were wide and pleased. “Really?”

Tae worked her way down the tree, landing in a patch of snow and shaking her paws in disdain of the cold wet before giving it up as pointless. “Yes, really. It’s not far from here, but private enough. A hollow at the base of a dead oak tree—there’s only one way in or out, but I figure you lot can sort that out easily enough.”

Kaoru chuckled, not missing that Tae held herself exempt from the digging. “Well don’t keep us in suspense, Tae. Show us!”

With a Cheshire grin and an abortive flick of her bobbed tail Tae turned to do just that.

The hollow wasn’t quite perfect, despite Tae’s claims, but it was easily the best thing they had found for the foxes thus far. The space under the tree had to be enlarged a bit so as to fit its new occupants comfortably (Kaoru only had to look at Yahiko to remember that Tsubame wasn’t done growing, even if she knew the fox was never going to be as big as the dog.)

Megumi was consulted for the location of a back door, though after the fox had decided on a spot she remained suspiciously aloof from the digging effort. Instead she chose to take Tsubame off on a quest to find what bits of bracken and leaves had not been buried by snow and line the den with them. It was a trick Kaoru had never tried herself, though she knew it was supposed to help make a space warmer. With the addition of Yahiko, Sano and Kenshin however, she doubted if her den would ever feel cold again. And that was a warm thought indeed.

After noon had passed the group took a break to hunt a quick meal, the slowing snow charming several unfortunate animals from their burrows. But the other side of the meal saw them working again, digging in shifts, working from within the den and without.

Sano groaned and sat back on his haunches. If he had to do much more of this work then he would go mad. Was it really so long ago that he’d been a vagabond? Sleeping on any surface that stayed still long enough for him to plop down on it; content with the knowledge that a new day would find him with new earth under his paws and a new sky over his head. Who would have ever thought that not only would he have a spot of his own, but would be spending a whole day making a home for somebody else? Especially someone as annoying as the vixen.

Still digging, Yahiko shot the sitting adult a dirty glance. “Come on, Sano. We’re almost through.”

The hybrid gave another theatrical groan, “We were almost through hours ago… I need a break from looking at all this dirt or my eyes will think I don’t love them anymore.”

The young dog’s response was a scathing look, “Your eyes think? Must be pulling double duty to make up for all the work your brain’s obviously not doing.”

“Oh, ha ha, you’re a regular riot. I should leave you to finish by yourself for that.”

“Yeah?” Yahiko was unimpressed, turning back to his digging smugly, “you go ahead and try that. See how far you get before the girls are on your back.”

Sano couldn’t stop an involuntary wince. There is something wrong with the world when a vixen, a cat, and a tanuki make me more nervous than a fight. Not that he got nervous before fights, but the point remained.

Of course, now that Yahiko had all but dared him…

“Watch and learn kid.”

The dog rolled his eyes but otherwise didn’t look away from his digging.

These girls are bad for my rep… Rising back to his paws the former fighter-for-hire worked his way out of the tunnel they were digging and out into the gray light of the snow-covered day.

“And where are you going?”

Sano waited a moment before looking up the tree at Tae, determined to play this cool, “Just stretching the old paws,” he grinned roguishly, “I was thinking of running out for a bit.”

“While everyone else is working.”

Sano bit back the observation that the cat wasn’t doing anything at the moment. “I’ll be back before you miss me,” he told her instead. “Thought I’d go and see about some of those pheasants I owe you.”

One brow on the cat’s spotted face arched in polite disbelief, “Of course you were.”

Sano feigned surprise, “Well, if you don’t want me to pay you back then naturally I wouldn’t dream of it. It would be a relief to me anyway. How many did I owe you again? Four?”

“Six.” Tae corrected instantly, hesitating before continuing, “Oh all right Sanosuke, go on.”

Sano let another grin stretch across his muzzle as he padded away into the snow. Okay, so it wasn’t quite the glorious in-your-face exit he might have implied to Yahiko, but a win was a win.

The hybrid slipped easily into the snowy world, confident in his ability to find his way back to the others once he finished his ramble. He was starting to get to know the territory, if he did say so himself. The trail of pawprints he was leaving in the snow in his wake didn’t hurt his chances either.

About an hour later, when he was satisfied that most of the work had been done without him, Sanosuke turned to begin moving back toward the fox den in a lazy arc. The faintest stirrings of guilt pricked at him, and he resolved to keep an ear out for possible meals lurking in the trees. Not that he would go out of his way; the tab he was running up with Tae wasn’t that bad… yet.

By now he figured the exit was done and the rest of his pack would be saying goodbye and returning to their own den to let the foxes settle into their new home in privacy. If that was true and he was likely to run into Kenshin and the others en route, completely bypassing the need for any awkward almost-goodbyes to the vixen… well, that was just a fortunate coincidence.

Goodbyes were tricky things for fellows with itchy paws, he had long ago decided he didn’t like the taste of them and so they went unsaid as he faded away into the night wind. And it wasn’t as if he was never going to see the females again. They were neighbors living in the same territory for pity’s sake. Best to leave all that emotional blubbering to the Missy and the kid.

Snow crunched under his paws, compacting reluctantly against the ground as the hybrid made his way through the early winter. It wasn’t something that happened all at once, it was little things, slowly. The ears that should be lazily listening for a meal started straining at his skull, swiveling to pick up the faintest of movements. The line of fur that ran down his spine rose slowly with a prickling sensation. By the time that Sano caught himself peering suspiciously into the frost-rimmed undergrowth the fighter’s instinct that had kept him alive through seasons spent on his own making other dogs very unhappy with him was snarling a warning from the base of his skull to his already-quickening heart.

The hybrid stopped in his tracks as the sky overhead darkened with the promise of more snow.

“Alright,” he pitched his voice into an aggressive tone that carried well through the frozen stillness, “I know you’re out there. Come on out.” He thought about then quickly discarded the idea of tacking on a more pleasant message in case it was one of his group messing with him, if it was then there would be plenty of time for friendly apologizes once they stopped skulking around the cold shadows.

It hurt the fighter’s pride a little bit that he wasn’t looking in quite the right spot when the interloper appeared, but he quickly quashed the feeling to observe the silent visitor. The newcomer was a wolf, tall, surprisingly tall to Sano, who realized that his perception of normal might be slightly skewed from dealing with the shorter Kenshin and Kaoru. The wolf was similar to Sano in build, though slightly more muscled and less lean, his pelt was the mottled combination of gray and white that was so common and his narrow eyes were the color of old gold. Killers eyes… Sano pushed back the intuitive whisper, though he didn’t discount the warning entirely. Settling his weight a little more firmly into his stance Sano shot the stranger a humorless grin that had far more teeth in it than was strictly polite.

“Well hello there. Awful rude of you, barging through folk’s territories without so much as a by-your-leave.”

The stranger arched a brow, his voice calm, “The nature of my mission is urgent, I have no time to cater to… diplomacy.” He spoke the word with the distaste one usually reserved for life-long enemies. Part of Sanosuke wanted to sympathize, he’d wandered over a few boundaries in his time, and banged his admittedly hard head against pack-law diplomacy a few more, but that fighter’s instinct was still buzzing in his brain, reminding him of the two kids he’d played with only that morning and how easy it would be for one of them to be out here instead, counting on the safety of being in their own territory.

“Must be something pretty important,” he agreed tightly, “Which is why I figure that you get to tell me about it now. Seeing as I live in this territory you’re barging through.”

This was no time to confuse the issue with who owned the territory, especially since he knew Kenshin and Kaoru hadn’t really worked that out for themselves, they just kept putting off talking about it. And according to that ever-intrusive pack law, Sano was well within his rights to drive the intruder to the nearest border with malice aforethought.

Dark amber eyes narrowed in displeasure, lent severity by the juxtaposition of white and dark gray spreading across the wolf’s face. “I come from the northern territories, I am in pursuit—”

Sano cut him off with a snarl, not needing to hear any more. Moving instinctively he lowered his center of gravity, his tail held out rigidly behind him. “So you thought you’d just come down and kidnap them, is that it? You damn bastards, when will you get it through your heads that they aren’t any of your business.”

The stranger’s lip curled, though he held himself curiously still, avoiding the shift to a fighting stance that Sano had anticipated. “Careful, boy. You don’t know what you’re getting in the middle of.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing; this sick quest of yours stops here.”

The wolf stilled further, almost seeming not to breathe, sending alarm calls howling through Sanosuke’s head—because that was way too close to how Kenshin looked before he cut loose for the former fighter-for-hire’s sanity.

“How highly you must think of yourself,” the stranger intoned softly, “how big you must think yourself to stand between me and my honor-sworn duty.”

What honor is there in going after a scared female and a kid? “Big enough to stop you!” Sano roared and thundered toward his motionless opponent.

“Not hardly,” the wolf corrected, and moved.

It wasn’t like watching Kenshin, because Kenshin was so graceful even in the midst of violence that the eye sometimes forgot it was even supposed to be watching him, his movements were so fluid and natural. But that was the only thing that even came close in Sano’s experience. The stranger moved in hard-edged lines, sharp, almost jerky, but so quickly that they had their own sort of grace.

Sano’s pre-emptive attack never landed one hit. The stranger stepped to the side and laid open Sano’s flank to the bone, allowing the half-wolf’s own momentum to do the brunt of the work. Sanosuke groaned at the pain, but didn’t allow himself the luxury of dwelling on it, turning quickly to snap at his foe in retaliation. The stranger had moved back and Sano’s teeth closed clumsily on empty air.

The intruder’s next move was odd-seeming, almost slow and deliberate. He settled the majority of his weigh on his back legs then used them to leap forward, launching his body from motionlessness to unstoppable speed in the space of seconds. But the damaging fangs didn’t retrace their path on Sano’s body—his opponent slammed into him, his full weight crashing into Sano’s injured side, causing the injury he inflicted to scream in pain and Sano to stagger for a step, trying to keep his four paws under him.

What the hell? How could anyone hit so hard? His lungs felt bruised and he was dizzy after only two hits. Who the hell is this guy?

The guy eyed him without sympathy, without remorse, then savage fangs were tearing at his already injured side and the snow was coming up to meet him as he stained it crimson in sprays.

Dark earth crumbled before industrious paws, filling the air with the scent of the promise of new life. Kenshin clung to that thought as he dug, trying to duck the creeping dread that was wrapping icy tendrils around his heart. Beside him Kaoru worked with the same shining and stubborn determination that she always did.

And silence, which he wasn’t sure if he was grateful for or not.

If she wanted to speak, the Rurouni knew he’d be a poor conversationalist, distracted and brooding, but at the same time he didn’t want to worry the silvery female. And he had noticed that Kaoru ended toward a sort of bruised, introspective quietness when well and truly worried.

The earth before them gave way steadily as the pair dug on, scraping away pawfuls of dirt from the tunnel end. If Kenshin focused he could hear the quieter off-rhythm digging of Yahiko and Sano coming from the other end of the tunnel. It couldn’t be long now. The back door would be finished and the den would—at last—be ready for the foxes to move in.

The pair worked on in silence until a short time later when the earth crumbled away to reveal dirty white paws darting in and out of sight from the other side. From there the remaining ground fell away quickly and the tunnel was finally complete.

“Yahiko,” Kaoru’s voice was raised slightly in surprise, “Where’s Sanosuke?”

The dirty puppy bristled, already-spiky fur jutting out even farther. “He decided he wanted a break and left,” Yahiko groused sourly. “I can’t believe Tae let him leave!”

“I can’t believe he didn’t skip out earlier,” Miss Kaoru returned with a smile. “This sort of work isn’t really his style.”

Kenshin found himself chucking in agreement as the three remaining workers filed through the tunnel and back into the den, where Megumi and Tsubame were spreading around the fresh-dug dirt to keep the ground level.

Megumi glanced up first, taking in the begrimed diggers. Kenshin was not at all surprised to note that the healer had contrived to remain spotless.

“Finished then?” she inquired politely, though Yahiko’s presence made the completion of their task obvious. The young dog threw out his narrow chest importantly, surreptitiously looking at Tsubame from the corner of his eye.

“Of course! It was no trouble at all!”

Kenshin smiled and kindly observed, “Yahiko did very well indeed, especially since he finished the work alone.”

While Tsubame stuttered thanks and praises Megumi rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation.

“So, the idiot ran off. I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“I don’t think anyone is,” Kaoru agreed dryly. The black vixen smirked and sidled closer to Kenshin.

“It’s so refreshing to have a male you can depend on around.”

Kenshin fought to keep the discomfort off his face as Kaoru went from annoyed to infuriated in a heartbeat. Gently he sidestepped so that the doctor’s dark pelt was no longer brushing his own. Perhaps he was being rude, but the Rurouni felt… tired and numb from his dark thoughts. Really, he just wanted to go back to the den, so he could breathe in the scents of his friends and try to hold their presence up as a guard against the nightmares.

“Yes, well,” he managed a smile in the face of the impending storm, “if that’s all, we will leave you to settle into your new home, that we will.”

Megumi blinked at him, and Kenshin wondered if perhaps his smile wasn’t quite up to its usual standards. But the fox smiled back at him after a moment and the group said their goodbyes.

The snow had begun to pile up in their absence, though it wasn’t yet so deep as to make travelling difficult for even Yahiko. Although he wasn’t familiar with how this particular territory acted in the winter, Kenshin had a hunch that this first snow wouldn’t stick around for long—the earth beneath it would make a few more scattered reappearances before being locked in white until spring.

Free of the dark underground, Yahiko moved ahead of the adults, observing his snow-covered world with the quick interest of the young.

“I have to say,” Kaoru interjected into the companionable silence, “I’m glad that Megumi and Tsubame have their own space now.”

“It will be good for them to have some privacy again,” Kenshin agreed.

“And it will give us some space again,” Kaoru continued, “I mean, at the very least it will give Sanosuke a chance to relax, he always seems so tense around Megumi.”

“That’s true,” the Rurouni mused thoughtfully, “though this one would imagine much of that simply has to do with their respective personalities.”

“They do seem to get along like a pair of squabbling crows,” Kaoru laughed with a smile. But the laugh was short, petering away into stillness as the tanuki glanced at Kenshin from the corner of her eye.

She had been shooting him similar looks all day. They were easy enough to read, as Sano took great delight in saying, Miss Kaoru didn’t have any sort of deceptive nature. She was, Kenshin thought fondly, exceptionally easy to read. The looks now were… concern. Quiet worry warring with a nagging frustration that was likely born from her apparent resolve not to bring the matter up. Kenshin caught her look and smiled back at her, hiding the hint of warm amusement that sparked when she realized she had been caught and her ears flattened in embarrassment.

“Kenshin…” the female said hesitantly, looking at him a bit more openly. “Is everything… okay? It’s just,” she hurried on, gaze sliding away to land fixedly on the snow beneath her paws, “You’ve been pretty quiet lately, and I know we’ve all been stressed, but I can’t help but think that there’s more to it than that.”

“This one hasn’t meant to worry you, Miss Kaoru,” Kenshin tried to reassure her. Kaoru ducked her head, an embarrassed smile flickering across her muzzle.

“I know, but I can’t really help it, Kenshin. You’ve been so quiet lately and I’m not sure what’s going on.”

The red wolf hesitated for a moment, “This one… has been having dreams.” Even saying it sounded equal parts ominous and superstitious, but there was no taking back the words.

“Nightmares?” Kaoru pressed quietly, waiting for his brief nod before continuing, “What of?”

“The North, mostly,” Kenshin admitted, glancing reflexively in that direction, “the past.”

“Not of the pens?” Kaoru seemed a bit surprised so Kenshin just shook his head. It wasn’t strange that the tanuki should suppose that his bad memories centered on his time as a captive, especially since he had made such an effort to conceal just how dark the days in the north had been. Though it wasn’t quite true that the dogfighting didn’t come into his dreams.

His slumbering mind frantically mixed memories, turning the alpha of the Isshin Shishi into his jailor, Katsura into the one who rattled his cage. He would be released and tumble away from iron bars and straw and dirt into icy whiteness and black shadows. In a black and white world he brought a wrenching rape of color, splashing crimson on the snow as he hunted down and killed the alpha’s targets.

This wasn’t a fight, not like the pens, which had at least been honest. He skulked in black shadows, he gave no warning, he attacked in silent fury and gave no chance for surrender. Again. And again. And again.

He corrupted the purity of the snow, staining it a scarlet that climbed up the trees until he was running through an endless forest of blood. Until… a black shape rose before him, heartbreakingly delicate, and he knew it would be swallowed by crimson—and he would awaken in the den, senses spiraling out to reassure himself that the ghost had not followed him.

“I’m guessing it was pretty bad up there,” Kaoru offered into the quiet, looking ahead to Yahiko to avoid seeing Kenshin’s reaction. Waiting to be shut out again. That seemed… he didn’t want to…

“It was war,” he answered slowly, “a war that had gone on so long that neither side was behaving honorably any more. Well,” he corrected, “the leaders weren’t anyway. There were those among the Bakufu who fought with integrity, one could almost count it as an honor, meeting them on the field of battle.”

“Honorable opponents,” Kaoru mused with a small smile, “after Kanryuu, that doesn’t sound so bad.”

Kenshin couldn’t help the quiet snort. (Sano was perhaps rubbing off on him.) “Indeed. They would never have stood for such underhanded measures. This one believes that even the Bakufu leaders were wary of crossing them.” The crimson wolf caught Kaoru’s serious and considering expression, “What is it?”

The female blinked, falling back on a slightly unsure expression, “It’s nothing really; it’s just that you’ve never really opened up about your past before. Not that I’m complaining,” she hastened to add, “I’m glad you’re talking to me about this, it’s just…” a shrug rippled the fur on her shoulders, “different.”

Kenshin couldn’t quite find his regular smile, so the one he gave her in return was a little lopsided, but Kaoru didn’t seem to mind.

Of course that was when the wind shifted and the scent of blood chilled the air around them.

Kenshin barely noticed Kaoru’s sudden tensing as she recognized Sano as the blood’s owner, already turning to call Yahiko back to them. The young dog had noticed and instinctively made his way toward the adults. Kenshin managed to let him reach them before pulling ahead of the pair in a lope, following the scent of blood in his nose and the dread weighing down his bones.

Chapter Text

I don’t know what stressed me first

Or how the pressure was fed

But I know just what it feels like

To have a voice in the back of my head

Like a face that I hold inside…

-Linkin Park, Papercut

A voice, chill as the air it moved through drifted to Kaoru even before they made it onto the scene.

“Your resolve is impressive,” a stranger’s voice said, “but your perseverance is foolhardy. Further attempts to move will cause you irreparable harm.”

There was a moment’s sharp anxiety and then the three canines burst onto the scene.

“Sanosuke!” the name spilled unbidden from Kaoru’s mouth, the same way that the hybrid’s blood spilled from his wound. He was still alive, wonderfully, obviously, alive. The fallen fighter struggled to regain his feet, though he was having no luck and his brown eyes were unfocused, not even glancing toward the arrival of his friends.

Satisfied that her pack-brother was still breathing, Kaoru allowed her eyes to search out the other figure. The tanuki barely had time to register impressions of tall, storm gray, snow white and amber eyes before some sixth sense compelled her to look back at Kenshin.

The red wolf had gone still, frighteningly still—even the white puffs of breath from his muzzle were gone. His head was up, every sense alert, locked on the stranger. For a moment Kaoru thought she saw a tint of amber in his eyes, but it must have been some visual trick left over from deep gold of the stranger’s eyes.

“Who are you?” Yahiko’s angry question broke the spell that Kaoru was under and she tore her gaze away from the crimson Rurouni to desperately search for Yahiko, making sure the brave fool hadn’t approached the stranger. He hadn’t, paws planted firmly in the snow and bristling like a porcupine in a reaction that was probably born half from anger and half from fear.

The stranger ignored Kaoru and Yahiko, and even the groaning Sano in favor of staring down the wide-eyed wanderer.

“Battousai…” It wasn’t surprise that tinted the stranger’s tone. Kaoru was willing to bet that this wolf didn’t get surprised. Though he didn’t sound like he had been expecting to see Kenshin here.

“Hajime Saito,” Kenshin returned, soft as snowfall, “the only one of the Shinsengumi to be considered immortal.”

Saito grinned wryly, one fang poking out from under his lip. “An interesting title from Katsura’s ghost.”

“Why did you attack Sanosuke? If you seek to air old grievances, you should have come to me directly.”

The tall wolf arched a brow, amusement sliding away in the face of Kenshin’s still-faced inquiry. “How self-important you’ve become for a shadow, Battousai. My coming here has nothing to do with you. And this child,” he curled a lip at Sano, “chose to step between me and my duty.”

Kenshin blinked, and Kaoru had to privately agree that an enemy from Kenshin’s past that wasn’t here to challenger him seemed very strange considering their lives thus far.

“And why are you here?” Kaoru stepped forward, forcing her voice to stay strong, to try and act like the alpha of the territory that Kenshin kept insisting she was. It was hard, especially when those dark amber eyes swung to her, and she suddenly felt about as tall and dangerous as Tsubame. But she didn’t flinch. Kenshin did from his spot beside her, breaking out of his thoughts to shift into a more protective stance, seemingly by instinct.

A sarcastic smile twisted the Shinsengumi’s muzzle, as if he could see just how much effort it cost her to stay still. “A brave one,” his eyes flicked to Kenshin’s again, “she suits you much better than your last.”

The sound that tore from Kenshin’s throat was so guttural, deep and primal that it took Kaoru several startled heartbeats to work out that there had been words in that impossible, fear-inducing sound. “Don’t speak of her.”

If Kenshin’s voice was unrecognizable, his face was horrifyingly familiar. Sharp features displaying tortured wrath, muzzle pulled into a furious snarl, displaying fangs that promised certain death. And the eyes that blazed out of the blood-red face were the wild wolf amber that had haunted Kaoru’s nightmares since the encounter with Jineh.

The Shinsengumi had called Battousai, and Battousai had come…

No…

Cold wind moved the fur on her cheek and Kenshin was gone from her side, crossing the distance to Saito before the breeze of his passing had died down. Saito didn’t seem at all caught off guard by the lightning attack; with a snarl of his own he surged forward to meet the encroaching threat.

Kaoru couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, her mind filled with an icy fog of horror that this day had turned so drastically. Crimson and storm gray met in bone-shuddering fury, the contenders rising up on their hind legs, their front paws wrapped around one another’s necks to prevent escape as savage fangs flashed.

“What the…” the shuddering words hadn’t come from Kaoru, and the female remembered that she wasn’t the only bystander. She tore her eyes away from the carnage, from the red wolf writhing like a tongue of flame around the stone gray of his opponent. Looking away screamed against her nerves like the grate of a broken bone, but no matter how much she wanted to collapse in a horror-filled fugue—no matter how much she might want to cry or make sure that Kenshin was all right, she wasn’t the only one here. And Sanosuke was still bleeding out on the snow.

Yahiko hadn’t moved from her side, tense with shock and watching the fight with mouth agape and ears pinned flat to his skull. Forcing her frozen body to move was hard, but no harder than turning away from the furious snarls tearing at her delicate ears.

“Yahiko,” she nudged the puppy, her patience frayed when he didn’t respond and she pushed him again, harder, “Yahiko!”

With a small yelp her ward came back to himself and sought out her gaze with wide eyes. But Kaoru had no reassurances to give.

“We have to check Sano.” It took longer than she liked for the words to penetrate the dog’s brain, and she turned toward their fallen friend without waiting for him to catch up.

Instinct had the she-wolf crouching down, sneaking along, terrified of drawing attention to herself or her vulnerable friends, but dread whispered to her that the enemies would never turn from their duel. She was unable to prevent a quick glance at the fight as she approached Sanosuke.

Saito was gathering his weight onto his hind legs—he catapulted forward in a charge that the tanuki knew she would never have stood a chance of dodging—and it seemed one such attack had already hit Kenshin, as he bled freely from a deep wound on one shoulder. But once bitten was twice shy of hitting Kenshin with the same attack again. He was already twisting, dropping away to the left and out of danger to snap at Saito’s heels as he passed.

Kaoru forced herself back to her self-appointed task, reaching Sano quickly. The hybrid’s breathing was labored—from pain or the severity of his injury Kaoru didn’t know. His eyes were closed and he had long since stopped trying to get to his feet.

“Sanosuke!” Kaoru’s cry was soft, as if trying to hide from the violence nearby. The fallen fighter groaned in response, one eye cracking open.

“Miss…y?” he blinked slowly, this time opening both eyes, a pathetic-looking smile that was meant to be reassuring tugged at his muzzle before he gave up the effort.

“I’m here, Sano, we all are.” The tanuki reassured him, turning to look at his injury. The tear was deep, bleeding sluggishly against the cold, the gleam of a rib bone mocking the gleam of the snow he was staining.

“It doesn’t look that bad,” Kaoru informed him tightly. Sano tried to roll his eyes, but quit when the motion made him dizzy.

“Well it hurts like hell, but as long as it doesn’t look bad I guess I’m fine.”

“I’m going to roll you further on your other side,” Kaoru informed her friend as Yahiko stumbled up. “Try to move on your own a little if you can to help out.” Placing her head firmly against Sano’s side the tanuki waited until she felt him suck in a deep, bracing breath and pushed. He rolled easily enough, the wound was now facing up into the sky as Sano clenched his jaw against the pain of moving.

Standing by his head Yahiko looked sick, his spiky fur drooped, his ears were pinned and his ever-high tail had dropped between his legs. Nervously he glanced sideways at the fight every few seconds.

“I’m going to pack the bite with snow,” Kaoru informed Sano shakily, “it’ll slow the bleeding and it should numb it for you.”

“Numb would be good,” the fighter agreed as the female moved to do as she said. Mouthfuls of snow were dropped onto his injury, white vanishing in a wave of crimson as it touched his blood and was packed down with a careful muzzle. Sanosuke’s eyes roved wildly for a distraction, lit on the shaking Yahiko.

“So, kid, you get that tunnel finished?”

The dog flinched violently and swallowed, tearing his gaze away from the fight to look at his surrogate brother. “Y-yeah. It’s done. The girls are settling in.” Brown eyes darted back to his hero. “What happened?”

Sano sighed, breath sending snow crystals skittering away half-melted from his muzzle. “Had a feeling I was being watched, I was. That guy out there said he was from the North and was looking for someone. Figured it had to be the doc and tried to make him leave. Didn’t work out for me.” Sano told them matter-of-factly, then grimaced in annoyance, “That is one tough bastard.”

“It’ll be okay,” Yahiko could have easily been reassuring himself rather than the adult, Kaoru thought, as his voice shook. “He’s fighting Kenshin now, and Kenshin doesn’t lose.”

Kaoru dropped her last mouthful of snow, a tremor of her own running through her. “No, he’s not.” She couldn’t stop the words from falling just like the snow, chilling and soft. “That’s not Kenshin right now,” she tried to clarify, looking into her brothers’ confused faces. “That’s Battousai.”

“I don’t get it,” Yahiko shook his head; “Kenshin is Battousai, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Kaoru tried to explain, all too aware that she didn’t fully understand it herself. “But this is complicated. It’s the same as the time he fought Jineh. The one that’s fighting right now…” She shook her head, desperate to explain but knowing that she couldn’t. Because it was more than amber eyes and different speech patterns, it was some bone-deep change that she couldn’t even put into words. “That’s not Kenshin!”

Sano closed his eyes for a moment speculatively, “If I heard right while I was bleeding over here, you guys said that this Saito guy was one of the Shinsengumi.” He waited for Kaoru’s stilted nod before continuing. “And if I remember, Jineh was one too.”

“Who are the Shinsengumi?” Yahiko asked urgently, looking back and forth between the adults, desperate to understand even a small part of what was going on.

“Shinsengumi were an elite group of wolves that were part of the Bakufu pack in the North during the war.” Sano said through gritted teeth, “The way I heard it, even their own alpha was wary of them. For an Isshin Shishi like Kenshin, they would be deadly enemies.” Sano looked up at Kaoru, a puff of air that was half sigh and half painful exhalation escaping him, “I hate to say it Missy, but if Kenshin’s gone Battousai in response to a threat from his past, he might not be able to hear us anymore.”

Fighter’s trauma, Kaoru knew, the mind latching on to a familiar circumstance even years later, locked in an old pattern despite the changed world around them.

But that didn’t fit. Kenshin had been able to talk to his opponent about current events, so on some level he couldn’t be trapped in the bloody past. And if the Shinsengumi were the honorable opponents he had mentioned earlier, then why would Saito be after Megumi?

A particularly loud snarl yanked her attention back to the fight. Both opponents were peppered with bites, though neither seemed to have been able to deal a critical blow thus far. Saito moved forward, but Kaoru recognized Kenshin’s footwork an instant before the red wolf launched himself into the air in a familiar crescent, ready to come down on his foe in punishment.

But Saito, it seemed, had faced this move before. He gathered himself once again, but instead of charging forward the gray wolf charged straight up. He plowed into Kenshin’s smaller form like a hawk into a sparrow.

Kenshin twisted slowly in the air in effort to defend himself—but scything teeth tore into the white fur of his underbelly. Kaoru was dimly aware of screaming the red wolf’s name as he fell. The snow exploded in a small cloud as the bodies of the fighters impacted forcefully with it, glittering crystals of cold casting a fog over the details of the struggle. When it cleared, Kenshin was standing again, harsh breaths shaking his narrow chest as his fiery eyes blazed at his foe.

Saito shifted his weight, tongue coming out to lick the blood off his muzzle in a languid movement. He grinned mid-motion, causing Kaoru’s already chilled blood to freeze in her veins. Kenshin’s glare intensified slightly as he scowled at the gesture.

“I didn’t come here to fight the Battousai,” Saito mused, the first words since the fight began. “But it doesn’t matter.” A feral smirk stretched his muzzle and displayed sharp canines. “I’ll kill you now.”

“I think you’ve got it wrong; those are my words,” Battousai answered, his own expression still grave in its fury.

Kill…? But we don’t even know why he’s here! And oh, how she wished he had never come, this stranger who had taken away her Kenshin—Kaoru had the sickening feeling that if the crimson wolf were to triumph over this opponent (could he?) then the Rurouni would be forever lost to her. This fight has to stop! But how? Observations and half-formed ideas raced through her head in unattainable flashes, like lightning illuminating falling raindrops then vanishing.

Saito crouched in the by-now familiar stance, burst forward without further delay. But if Saito’s stance was familiar, Kenshin’s was as close to her as her own heartbeat, keeping time to the fight within her chest.

A half-curl away from the opponent, exposing a flank to the oncoming threat. A whirling turn, defenselessness replaced by snarling offense as Kenshin moved around Saito’s attack to latch on to the larger wolf and use his centrifugal force to fling his opponent away into the trees.

Branches snapped, gleaming with the frost that gilded them. With a roar of fury the Shinsengumi came out of the shadows, bleeding heavily from the new wound on his shoulder. Kenshin slid away from the attack like quicksilver, and the two wolves began to circle each other with deadly intent. No energy was wasted on snaps or snarls now, the contest had been going on too long, the combatants too focused.

At some signal invisible to the observers the combatants surged forward again, flashes of red and gray, blood and snow making events hard to follow as swift attacks rained down on both sides. But even in the confusion Kaoru could see that it wasn’t an even match. Despite his speed and skill, Kenshin was at a disadvantage in close quarters. He simply wasn’t as big as the other wolf, the muscle mass that held his challenger immobile against attack wasn’t on his side.

Come on, Kenshin! Break free, get some distance! Kaoru had no doubt that the crimson wolf would, he knew far more about fighting than she did, and he had to know that staying in close where he couldn’t use his speed to its full advantage was a recipe for disaster. But it seemed that Saito was well aware of his advantage, and he was making it nearly impossible for Kenshin to split his attention long enough to withdraw. Come on, Kenshin!

Fangs flashed perilously close to Saito’s eye and the tall wolf stumbled back involuntarily to protect his vision. Battousai was moving in an instant, sliding to one side of his opponent, taking advantage of his forward momentum rather than taking the time to backtrack. He was already halfway into the light-footed stance that accented his already considerable speed when Saito turned.

There was no warning of the charge this time, no shifting of weight or tensing of muscles, the Shinsengumi appeared to leap from one place to another like a demon. He plowed hard into Kenshin, spinning the smaller wolf off his trajectory in a spray of blood. The Battousai stumbled, and Saito rose on his hind legs, towering over the crimson wolf before coming down hard, his open maw closing on the back of Kenshin’s neck.

“Kenshin!”

Kaoru couldn’t stop the anguished scream, couldn’t stop herself from taking a few steps forward. Amber eyes sought her out and held her gaze with a burning focus that seared through her brain, stopping her in her tracks. Battousai held her gaze for a heartbeat, two, before he braced his legs against the weight of his attacker. With a savage twist of his head he single-mindedly tore the loose skin and fur on the back of his neck free of Saito’s crushing jaws.

The Shinsengumi stumbled coming down, and Kenshin scored a long blow on one flank before stopping a little distance away, breathing heavily and dripping blood onto the churned up snow. He wasn’t looking at her now, but he had.

She would never be able to imagine something like that. Battousai had heard and responded to her voice, to her movement, and maybe this was even more like the time with Jineh than she had realized. Which meant that there was something she could do after all.

Time moved like the blood from his veins, dripping out onto the snow in crystal-clear moments. On some level Kenshin knew that he should be concerned with how much blood he was losing. He was already dancing on the edge now, each stolen drop nudging him closer to weakness, to dizziness, to impaired judgment. But the problems were held back, walled off behind a barrier of protective, possessive rage that had called the Battousai to the front once again.

The enemy was here, the threat to his pack was here. And the Battousai would allow no more harm to come to that which was his.

Saito stood a short distance away, blood drenching his muzzle as he panted—but it dripped from his pelt to the snow in equal measure to Kenshin’s own, as if to keep the playing field even.

Dark amber watched him in a stark face, and for a moment the familiar landscape of the North was behind his foe, before it blurred away into the here and now.

And he couldn’t forget the now, because he couldn’t move. In the past he would have fled, Battousai operated alone, he struck quickly and vanished, completing his missions quickly and surviving to the next one. Saito was not an enemy one defeated quickly. Some part of the crimson wolf wondered if it were even possible, the Shinsengumi seeming to share the same blighted luck that had kept Battousai alive all these seasons. Pack brothers and sisters might fall in battle on either side, but Saito never crumbled. An immovable object. And Battousai never wavered, an unstoppable force.

But now there was no way to avoid collision, because the crimson wolf wasn’t alone. Protecting the lives depending on him superseded anything else.

“I think it’s time we end this,” Saito breathed.

“I agree.” Whatever end that might be. Battousai was unsure of victory, though he was sure he wouldn’t be defeated. Perhaps they would kill each other.

Paws shifted in the snow and Saito was moving towards him. Somehow in the familiar dizziness of blood loss the crimson wolf had missed the moment between moments where the heartbeat of the fight demanded action. Now he could only rally himself and move forward in a delayed reflection of Saito’s motion.

The gray wolf approached head-on, and Kenshin sheared to the side to rake his foe’s flank with his fangs. True to a reflection, Saito did the same to him. Pain was a distant sensation, unimportant except in its indication of injury. Scarlet blood arced out in sparse spatter, mirroring his turn as Kenshin whirled to face his opponent once more. Saito had stopped some distance away and was similarly turning to face him.

A rustle sounded, too close for Saito and suddenly a small figure planted itself between the two wolves with its back to Kenshin.

Ice gripped the Battousai’s heart, his lungs, his blood as his eyes widened in horror. The nightmare had followed him to the waking world. Blood loss darkened his vision and for a moment the pelt of the female in front of him was black, not smoky silver and stripes. And it was happening all over again, the scent of blood so rich in his nose that it drowned out anything else.

He didn’t trust himself to move, to open his mouth or even to blink as the colors righted themselves slowly in his vision. But he couldn’t see Saito anymore, and not having his enemy in sight with her in the line of fire was equally unacceptable.

And she was saying something, he knew she was, but panic was an all-consuming buzz in his ears and he couldn’t make sense of it. Then she turned her head to look at him, those blue eyes that were so expressive now so scared but so strong, searching his gaze as though searching for him.

But now no one was watching Saito.

The ice sheathing Battousai’s bones shattered instantly and he moved.

Moved around Kaoru, who was still looking at where he had been, clipping her shoulder with his own to spin her around. Another strategic blow and her legs collapsed under her and the Battousai crouched protectively over her, head lowered to stare at the immobile Saito, black lips peeled back to reveal white fangs as a warning growl fumbled through his bones and into the snow-covered earth.

Saito eyed the new development impassively for a long moment. Then his face twitched in… amusement?

The panic that had roared into life at the sight of Kaoru standing between Kenshin and his foe was fading now that he could feel the warmth of her fur where it came into contact with his foreleg. Enough that he could hear again.

“Kenshin? Kenshin! You need to stop fighting. Do you hear me? It’s okay, we’re all okay. Sano’s going to be fine. Don’t you think we should know why he’s here before we make a decision?”

And… it made sense. He was sure he had meant to get more information before attacking. Before the rage.

Saito eyed Kaoru with a dark chuckle, and Battousai wasn’t able to stop his growl from increasing in volume, didn’t want to stop the warning from getting louder.

“Who would have believed it. A little female holding the Battousai’s leash. At least she shows sense.”

“I’m not holding Kenshin’s anything,” Kaoru snapped, fear and anger sharpening her tongue. “And you still haven’t told us why you’re here.” The tanuki shifted as if to rise and Kenshin shifted in response, silently letting the female know that it wasn’t going to happen. Not yet. “Sano said you were looking for someone, who is it?”

And speaking of Sano…

Although Kenshin couldn’t take his eyes off Saito—the larger wolf was skilled enough that he didn’t always make noise—he let his ears twist to pick up the sounds of Sano’s breathing, interspersed with cursing as Yahiko relayed information to him. And relaxed slightly. A cursing Sano was a Sano that would be fine.

“I search,” Saito answered archly, “for two criminals fleeing justice; the rogue wolf Jineh Udo and,” he sneered, “Kanryuu Takeda.”

“Kanryuu,” Kaoru repeated in surprise as the Battousai let out a shuddering breath. “Why are you looking for him?”

Saito’s already dark eyes darkened even further as his brow furrowed, “It is a matter of honor and no business of yours.”

“Your vendetta ceased to be private the moment you followed Takeda across pack boundaries,” Kenshin growled out, then exhaled slowly, stepping to one side so that Kaoru could regain her feet. “You aren’t the only one involved in this anymore, that you are not.”

It was hard not to meet the relieved glance that Kaoru shot at him as she stood, but even if the threat of immediate violence had passed, Saito was not a wolf Kenshin would ever feel comfortable looking away from.

“I have no time for such an interview—the hunt is urgent.”

“And unnecessary,” Kaoru broke in, “as both Kanryuu and Jineh are dead.”

Saito’s brow arched at this revelation and he looked coolly at Kenshin once more. “Really, Battousai.”

Anger clawed along the crimson wolf’s ribs at Saito’s tone, his obvious assumption that Kenshin was little more than an assassin, but he pushed it down with icy resolve. After all, he hadn’t been the one to kill Kanryuu.

“Jineh contracted the foaming sickness,” the red wolf informed his enemy tonelessly, “he died shortly after crossing the pack boundary.”

Saito snorted, “That arrogant wolf’s bloodlust was always going to be his undoing. The madness would have done little but ensure he could only act alone. But Kanryuu is another matter.”

Dread’s icy tendrils shivered against Kenshin’s bones, travelling paths made familiar over the past few weeks. Because Kanryuu had not been working alone, and he had come down from the North.

Now that Kaoru was reassured that the two wolves were through trying to settle their apparently fatal differences, she turned her head to check on Sanosuke. The fighter lay where she had left him and Yahiko, some distance away. He didn’t’ seem to be any worse from here—at least she could make out a steady stream of cursing in his voice anyway.

Yahiko stood beside him as default caregiver in Kaoru’s absence and he looked quickly and continuously from the hybrid to the three wolves, as if afraid to miss something in either place. Kenshin was now quietly explaining an edited account of their encounter with Kanryuu, somehow contriving to keep Megumi’s name or her importance to the incident from cropping up.

Leaving him to it Kaoru slipped silently over to Sanosuke and Yahiko. The young dog’s red-brown eyes were huge in his stressed face.

“So what’s going on? Why would this Saito guy follow those other guys here if he wasn’t working with them?”

Kaoru sighed, once again the gap in Yahiko’s pack-knowledge rearing its head at an inopportune time. “I’ll explain later, Yahiko. For now, just accept that he didn’t come here for Megumi.”

The tanuki frowned down at Sano, eyeing his shivers against the snow. “How are you doing, Sanosuke?”

“Been better,” the fighter sighed pragmatically. “Might be numb enough to move, but I don’t think I could go far.”

“I was afraid you would say that,” Kaoru muttered, glancing over at the two wolves still in conference. She didn’t know what else she could do for Sano, he needed Megumi’s expertise. But if Kenshin thought it wasn’t safe…

As if he could hear her thinking his name Kenshin turned his head slightly to take her in with one violet eye. He seemed to read the indecision in her face, then nodded slightly and turned back to fully face Saito. It did not escape Kaoru’s notice that despite their apparently-civil conversation, Kenshin had kept one eye on Saito even as he turned.

O-kay… I think that was the go ahead.

“Yahiko, I need you to run and get Megumi, okay? Tae should still be there, ask her to look after Tsubame and then you come right back here with Megumi.” The dog scowled, clearly about to protest being sent away from this strange meeting. “Now, Yahiko. Sano’s going to need her help.”

The akita-mix hesitated, but the fact that Sanosuke did not speak to refute this statement seemed to clinch it for him. “Alright… just… keep an eye on things for me, okay?” With a last glance toward the fearsome fighters Yahiko sped off into the skeletal trees.

Slowly Kaoru edged her way back over to the conversation.

“It is our understanding that he was working for someone else,” Kenshin was saying, “someone in the North.”

Saito noticed Kaoru’s return but did not comment on it, eyes flicking over to her dismissively before returning to Kenshin. “Someone. You could say that. An upstart who’s been pulling in massive numbers of followers to take the Northern lands. When I got wind that one of his lieutenants had been sent out to recruit, I followed to contain the problem.” The Shinsengumi shifted his weight on his paws, seemingly ignoring Kenshin’s instant tension at the movement. “Humans are already starting to get suspicious. Apparently he finds it good sport to have his followers kill any that they find.”

“But that’s crazy,” Kaoru gasped, “If the humans think that wolves are hunting them then…”

“They’ll wipe out any wolves in the area,” Kenshin finished for her, controlled horror creeping into his voice. “Why would any alpha order such a thing?”

“He believes that animals have grown complacent, allowing mankind to take over our territories, suffering affronts from them that we would never tolerate from our natural rivals.” Saito’s voice was dry, cynical as he recited the mad wolf’s creed. “His conclusion is that we must purge out lands of two-leggers and take a rightful place of superiority.”

“He’s crazy!”

“But charismatic. More power-seeking wolves and dogs flock to him every day. A message of revenge is… enticing to any who have suffered at the human’s hands.” Saito deliberately eyed Kenshin. The crimson wolf deliberately ignored the bait.

“Who is this wolf?” Kenshin asked.

“Now that is an interesting question coming from you, Battousai.” Saito’s muzzle split into a fanged grin, “considering that most call him your ghost.”

Only the slightest backwards flick of crimson ears betrayed Kenshin’s surprise. Kaoru was a bit easier to read.

“What?”

“Well, Battousai’s successor I should say. The war didn’t stop when you vanished, it limped on for a little while longer.” Kaoru couldn’t help glancing at Kenshin’s reaction to this mention of the war, but the crimson wolf remained inscrutable. “Your allies had seen the advantage having a shadow assassin could give them, so they gave the job to another wolf, Makoto Shishio.” Saito shook his head, disgust curling his lip, “They chose poorly. While Shishio was deadly, he was also ambitious, a trait you lacked which kept your own leaders safe, I think. Having an ambitious killer knowing where they slept seemed to make them nervous, and as the war drew to a close they moved to resolve their feelings.”

“Assassination,” Kenshin acknowledged, violet eyes distant. “This one always knew it was a threat.”

“But from your own pack?” Kaoru questioned, dismayed. That shouldn’t be… never, not to Kenshin! For pity’s sake, he didn’t want to be an alpha! At least, he refused to be alpha of “her” territory, and she doubted that he had changed all that much since the last time he was in a pack.

“For Shishio, it was a bit more than just a threat.” Saito said dryly, ignoring Kaoru’s query. “Since the humans had proved so… effective at removing you from the playing field, the Ishin Shishi decided to use them to expedite the process.

“Shishio was sent on a suicide mission into man’s hunting ground. We know two things, he was shot and somehow the whole area went up in flames. And your leaders thought they were safe… Until two seasons ago when they started dying. Shishio has since come forward and begun gathering allies. A core group supports his every decision while the average follower seems loyal only to the notion of power. Still, there are many of them.”

“So you came to stop the inflow of troops,” Kaoru nodded, remembering the large group of dogs that Kanryuu had been preparing to lead North. Saito waited with sarcastic patience as she reiterated what he had already told them, but Kaoru pushed on regardless. “It seems to me,” she continued carefully, “that you might also be looking for allies of your own.” The sentence scratched her throat raw as she forced it out, like splinters of bone. Because she would be lying if she said that her first instinct wasn’t to try and help fight against a force that had already proven itself a foe. But it would be equally deceitful to ignore the dread that coiled in her stomach like a nest of adders. All along she had feared the day Kenshin might leave. All along she had felt uneasy when he talked about where he was from. And now an old enemy had come with word of a new enemy, someone who was connected to Kenshin, at least in part. Someone he might feel… responsible over.

Saito arched a brow in amusement, “Looking for allies is generally a task better suited to one who actually likes the company of others. Still… encountering the Battousai while harrying his successor does seem… fortuitous.” Dark gold eyes looked at Kenshin. “The female is right that in this instance I would not refuse aid. Though you might want to sharpen your fangs before you venture back. You’re a fool if you think this war won’t come to you—it already has.”

Having apparently said his piece, the gray wolf turned and set off northward without further farewell. The sound of Kaoru’s breathing was like knives in the silence following his departure. Even Sano’s cursing had petered away and dimly Kaoru wondered if the fighter had fallen into unconsciousness.

Kenshin’s eyes followed the path Saito had taken through the snow, black shadows of paw prints marching unerringly North. And Kaoru knew what she wanted to ask, but she didn’t know if she could.

“Kenshin?” she didn’t’ try to hold back the confused jumble of emotions in her voice, hoping to some degree that Kenshin would hear the question she couldn’t bring herself to say.

The crimson wolf sighed, breath escaping in a plume of white  against the darkening forest. “Saito would never admit to needing allies unless the situation was even more desperate than he has said.”

“Desperate enough that he would ask you minutes after trying to kill you?”

A grimace tightened the expression on Kenshin’s face and Kaoru wished she could snatch back the impulsive and incredulous words. Because, yes, if Saito was asking for help from an enemy, things had to be very desperate.

“I mean, obviously what Shishio is doing is bad, but…” But what? It was none of their business?

Except there was a pair of foxes under their protection who would be terrified to be reminded that the reason for their capture was still out there. Except there was a certain freeloading ruffian now living with them who they hadn’t needed to give a home to. Except there was a young dog they looked out for whose supposed debt had been none of their business. Except that Kaoru’s own problems with Gohei had been none of an exhausted wanderer’s business.

So it wasn’t really a surprise when Kenshin turned to her with distraught apology in his eyes.

Heartbreaking, but not a surprise.

“Miss Kaoru,” she had never hated the distance he put between them when saying her name more. “This one must return to the North, to see what can be done about Shishio.”

Shivers wracked the tanuki’s frame, but it couldn’t be from the cold, she felt so numb, maybe they weren’t shivers but tremors, her body quaking in time with the frantic beating of her heart. “That’s…” the words shook themselves free of her mouth before they were fully formed, shattering like fallen ice. “I’ll go with you!”

“Miss Kaoru, you cannot,” Kenshin’s eyes were distressed, but he controlled his voice, the tone was warm even as the words themselves bit at her. “It is not your fight.”

“What does that matter?! I care about you Kenshin, I’m not going to let you go alone!”

The crimson wolf shook his head, “And what of Sanosuke and Yahiko and Miss Megumi?” Kaoru shifted on soot-colored paws, all too aware of Sanosuke’s silence.

“They could come—”

“Sanosuke is injured,” Kenshin pointed out, “he will need time to recover from his wounds. It has become apparent that this territory is not safe, the others must be protected.” The Rurouni pressed on ruthlessly, “And while Sanosuke is healing, you will be the only one who is able to look after them.”

“That’s not fair,” Kaoru whispered achingly. Because she couldn’t leave her family vulnerable. She couldn’t.

“I have seen that life is many things,” Kenshin said softly, “but never fair. Miss Kaoru… this one has found happiness here. And you-your kindness will always be remembered.”

The crimson wolf moved towards her, his head arcing to rest on the back of her neck, her own pressed up against his shoulder. This close, she could feel his shuddering inhalation. “My wish will always be for your happiness, Miss Kaoru. Thank you… for everything.”

He breathed in again and instinctively Kaoru duplicated the motion, drawing in his scent, his warmth—and then he was gone, vanishing into the trees to the North.

And she couldn’t move except to tremble as the night fell all around her.

The cold wind, laced with snow blew back in her face like a hollow laugh. What good are your threats and promises now, it moaned, when I have called him home?

Chapter Text

Couldn't sleep so I went out walking
Thinking about you and hearing us talking
And all the things I should have said
Echo now, inside my head
-Conjure One, Tears from the Moon

Misao was good at sneaking.

Well, most of the time.

She really couldn’t help it that sometimes she was just so awesome that she had to let somebody know. Even if it was the target she was following. If you had a gift like that, why keep it to yourself?

Omasu had tried to be delicate, saying that the young coyote would soon grow out of it, that it was just an awkward phase that everyone went through… And Gramps had just thrown back his head and laughed, loud enough to scare birds out of their trees.

“That’s my darling Misao,” he had all but crowed with pride, “Just like me, my granddaughter has too much life in her to just disappear!”

Then she’d had to jump on his head and chew his ears for mocking her when she was trying so hard to be a proper kunoichi—mostly. And—he wasn’t her grandfather, though she refused to say that. The grizzled wolf had raised her, after all, loyal to the last of the Makimachis; to the parents she couldn’t remember. She didn’t like to think of that much; that her place with her adopted family was because she was heir to some faceless mysteries that were vague as mist. She couldn’t remember her parents.

She could remember Aoshi-sama. Quiet and dark and always there. Even in her earliest of early memories, before even Gramps.

Except, he wasn’t here now. And so she was sneaking.

Because it had never been more important that she find her alpha, and while it would take more than a few muscle-bound goons to keep her caught, with every delay the bereft wailing in her soul shifted closer in pitch toward utter despair. But it would be okay. Because she was good at sneaking, and she would find Aoshi-sama. And they would find a way to fix everything.

Being a coyote (and a young female at that) Misao had resigned herself to the knowledge that the sight of her silver and pale tan form would never intimidate her foes, but the kunoichi was nothing if not… creative. Aoshi-sama would have to accept her help this time—he wouldn’t try to make her wait somewhere while he took care of things—!

With an effort Misao shook herself free of her circling thoughts, she had to find her leader before any of this would matter.

Come on Makimachi, focus! Not paying attention is how you got into trouble in the first place! Though to be fair there simply wasn’t much to pay attention to out here. Certainly no one to be suitably impressed by her stealthy form gliding through snow-covered shadows.

It had taken days for her to work her way southward through the mountains and into the foothills, a normally quick journey lengthened by the little ninja’s need to double back on her own trail—obliterating tracks, laying false paths, and generally trying to ensure that anyone hunting her never got close enough to so much as hear her chuckle vanishing into the moonlight.

And while the foothills had become a haven of sorts, now that she was ready to move on survival habits reared their heads again. The foothills offered their own challenges here, as it was no longer just pursuers that she was avoiding—men also lived at the base of the mountain in scattered dwellings whose denizens lived closely with the land as ranchers or mountaineers. As a coyote, she would naturally be seen as a pest and killed; at the very least they would try.

Misao set her ears back in a pout, brow furrowing. It just wasn’t fair. Humans didn’t like her, most wolves didn’t like her… not for the first time she marveled at the insane amount of either strength or charisma her parents must have had to work their way into—and run—the Oniwaban. All she seemed to have inherited was the “insane” part of that equation. Still, there was no point in griping over not being a wolf—not when those she loved didn’t care about it.

The moon made an unreliable lantern, its soft glow whisked away by the clouds that swept across its surface with alarming frequency. The poor visibility meant that no one was likely to spot Misao as she moved in short bursts through the thickening trees to the south—but it figured that the sky would threaten her with a winter storm when she was finally ready to get going. The moon was blacked out again for even longer and an icy wind plucked at the black tips of her silver ruff viciously.

Maybe I should turn back… the kunoichi told herself even as she took another few steps forward into better concealment. If this storm is a bad one, I’ll need to ride it out in a shelter. Of course, the fact that she had felt warm and not-alone, not rattling around inside her own skull with the sound of her voice driving her ears mad with boredom had nothing to do with it.

The light finally returned and Misao realized with a start that she was not the only one taking advantage of the natural cover of darkness. A crimson shape had appeared like a phantasm from the gloom, ahead of her and a little to the right. If she bore a bit more to the left and was very quiet, they might pass each other by within a few moments. Yes. That would be the proper thing to do. The Oniwaban-ninja thing to do, and she would go right ahead and—

Misao froze in the snow, paralyzed by an instinctive panic as the smell of blood finally reached her nose. It was coming from the crimson ghost, it had to be. Memories rattled at their chains like dying gasps—stealing her breath away for a moment before the coyote could lock them up once more beneath the cheerful demeanor that so easily fooled strangers into believing she had no depth.

So. The strange red thing smelled of blood. Might the red even be blood? The thought churned her stomach even as she discounted it as foolish. Of course not. No being could lose that much blood and still live, and the being was obviously alive—and still moving.

Curiosity loosened her limbs and the coyote snuck a few paces closer to the creature’s course. It was a wolf—she could see that now—or rather, he was a wolf. And it was hard to tell at this distance, but she thought that the red was the color of his fur. Unusual, but then, she had grown up with Hannya’s odd penchant for dying his fur with vegetable stains, so “unusual” wasn’t too outlandish by comparison.

The crimson wolf stopped, raising his head, and Misao frowned in confusion before realizing with some consternation that the wind, still busily scuttling clouds across the moon, had swung around behind her and was now carrying her scent to the stranger.

So much for being good at sneaking.

The red wolf looked at her, staring silently as if in hesitation before slowly raising a paw to continue on his journey. What, am I not important enough to come and check out? Misao bristled, but it was a halfhearted reflex—because she wasn’t looking for trouble, and a stranger was just as likely as not to be trouble. The cold wind blasted her again and the sky rumbled threateningly. Although, trouble could also be weather, and she had better get under cover… the coppery scent of blood from the slow-moving stranger burned at her nose again and the coyote winced.

It was none of her business and she had troubles of her own but something in her squirmed and balked at—a wolf, collapsed onto the snow, blood a spreading stain—the effort of shoving the image back into the dark recess it had oozed out of made the young coyote suck in a painful gasp of icy air. There would be nightmares tonight, unless she could find a distraction—and there was one conveniently pacing north through the snow.

“Hey, Red!” the crimson wolf faltered in its progress, and the head was coming around to stare at her again. Misao shoved down the little voice squealing that this was a bad idea and stomped on it. Drawing on the sheer nerve that came with being part of the Oniwaban, she moved confidently toward the stranger. “Where are you heading in weather this bad?” Because it was getting bad, the temperature dropping further as sharp breezes began to be frosted with fat snowflakes.

The wolf (a male with a silvery cross-shaped scar across the left side of his face) arched a brow over violet eyes. “This one could ask you the same question, Miss.”

Yeah, but you didn’t. “Just thought I would try and get a little ways before the storm broke, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. What about you, Red?”

The wolf seemed amused at the nickname, and Misao felt the knot of anxiety in her gut loosen ever so slightly. Despite the scar, that face seemed more inclined to smile than to frown, and in her experience bad guys rarely had a sense of humor.

“This one has many miles yet to go.”

Misao frowned, “Well you won’t get much farther bleeding like you are.” She hesitated, trying to see if there was any dark intent hidden behind that pleasant smile, “Listen, I was just about to head back to shelter. I could take you with me, if you want. It’s a place some pets live, one of them is kinda a healer, so he could probably fix you up.”

Red’s expression was surprised, in a way that suggested he had been ambushed by some thought or memory. Slowly, as if testing the words out the wolf responded, “How can you be so trusting of someone you just met? You don’t even know my name.”

Misao rolled her eyes in exaggerated annoyance, “I know that you didn’t attack me on sight, and that you won’t get much farther to wherever you’re going if you don’t stop bleeding all over the snow. So are you coming, Red?”

The crimson wolf hesitated a moment further, looking over his shoulder back the way he had come. Some thought or memory seemed to come to him beyond the rapidly disappearing line of pawprints that marked his passage and his expression softened before he turned to face her once again.

“My name is Kenshin Himura,” he offered with a polite smile, “and I would be happy to accept your shelter that I would.”

Misao shrugged expressively knowing that her attempt at nonchalance was undermined by her habitual grin. “Misao Makimachi. This way, Red.”

The weather was definitely not travel-friendly by the time Misao had managed to retrace her steps back to their origin. Himura had kept up with her surprisingly well despite his injuries, and the kunoichi was mentally revising her opinion of how tough he would be to fight. If she had to.

Ahead an old wooden construct stood grumpily against the wind and snow, refusing to budge in the face of winter’s chill. The barn had probably been a cheery red in the days of its youth, but age had peeled back paint to expose silvery-gray boards to the elements.

The main door was shut, but Misao wasn’t worried about that—there was a side window that stayed propped open to let the barn cats in and out, and it wasn’t too high to jump. Approaching the building, she looked back at her silent follower.

"In here!” she shouted against the groaning of the wind. Snow flew into her eyes and made Himura’s expression tough to read, but his body language was suspicious, ready to bolt despite injuries.

“This isn’t a good idea,” he returned in the same volume, “if the humans come to check on their creatures—”

“They won’t,” Misao shook her head, scowling as snow blew into her ears, rendering her momentarily deaf, “They’re sheep-herders; apparently they’re moving the flock around to lower pastures.” The wolf still hesitated, Misao rolled her eyes. “Come on, Red. The storm’s too bad to go anywhere else!”

Trusting him to see her logic, the coyote leapt through the open window to land on the dusty hay-strewn floor.

“Hello?” Someone called out of the gloom of the interior, “who’s there?”

Misao nearly choked on some unpleasant emotion trying to slip past her smile at the sound of the old voice. “It’s me, Doctor Gensai! I’ve brought you a patient.”

An old collie-dog moved out of the darkness, his long fur pattered in brown and white but liberally peppered with the gray and silver of old age. “Well, if it isn’t young Misao! I did wonder if the storm would force you to turn back.”

“For now,” Misao groused sourly. Gensai made a show of looking around, raising shaggy gray brows.

“You said you had a patient for me?”

The coyote winced, glancing up at the open window, through which a few errant snowflakes were blowing. “Um, yeah. Unless he decided not to come in…” Raising her voice she hollered, “Red! Are you still out there?”

In answer the wolf’s crimson form became visible as it arced up delicately through the window frame, not so much as a paw brushing the wood, and landing beside her with hardly a breeze to disturb the dust.

“About time. Doctor Gensai, this is Kenshin Himura. Red, this is Doctor Gensai.”

Red turned to face Gensai’s studiously neutral expression as she introduced the males.

“Sessha apologizes for disturbing your home, that I do. Miss Misao mentioned that you are a healer?”

“Of a sort,” the old collie acknowledged. “And you are welcome here, Himura, providing that you keep to the same rules that young Misao here does. Offer no violence to any beast in the barn and hunt none of our sheep.”

Kenshin ducked his head in a bow of acknowledgement, “Of course.”

Gensai shook his rough coat in a businesslike way, “Come on then, let’s get away from that dratted window letting all the cold in.”

Misao followed the elderly collie without hesitation, trusting that Himura would in turn follow her. Truth be told, it was nice to get out of the wind, even though, as an Oniwaban, she was more than equipped to deal with freezing temperatures on her own. Aoshi-sama had prepared for everything in teaching his followers how to survive—even the eventuality that they might have to do so alone.

She could have dug herself a snug berth in the snow to wait out the weather—but the promise of companionship was a powerful lure.

The trio moved deeper into the structure, leaving the sharp cold of the wind behind for an easily-ignored chill. Doctor Gensai led them to a series of stalls and turned in the open door of the nearest. Inside hay was piled thick into an insulating cushion, with a few rough-woven gunny sacks lying around to keep stiff stalks from prickling into dense fur too harshly. Sitting on one of these gunny-sacks were two fuzzy puppies watching their entry attentively.

“Misao!” cried one, breaking her focused (and probably Gensai-ordered) sit to bound toward the coyote, swiftly followed by her sister who chimed in her own joyful,

“Mii!”

“Girls!” Misao laughed, lowering her upper body to meet their exuberant charge head on.  The puppies shrieked in delight as they bounded around her face, tiny tongues giving kisses of pure affection as Misao drank in their milky puppy-scent and the warm fuzziness of their fur.

“You’re back!”

“Mii back!”

With a mock-rough twist of her head Misao bowled the two little scamps over with her muzzle, though she didn’t’ straighten up just yet. “Of course I’m back! Have you felt it out there? Brr! A few more steps and I would have been a coyote-cicle!”

The girls laughed before seeming to notice the silent stranger that trailed Misao. The giggles ceased, and the pair instinctively moved so that the ninja was fully blocking the wolf, peering around her foreleg with wide brown eyes. Misao straightened, smiling at how the puppies scrambled to adjust their hiding place to her new position.

“Girls, this is Kenshin Himura. Himura, this is Ayame,” she nodded toward the slightly bigger of the two pups, “and Suzume,” the smaller. Misao turned to catch Himura’s expression. He had frozen in the entryway at the sight of the pups, face cycling quickly through surprise and consternation before moving to the smile that seemed to be his default setting.

“Hello, Miss Ayame and Miss Suzume,” he said with careful cheeriness, “This one is very delighted to meet you indeed.” His violet eyes lifted to seek out Gensai, who had been observing the introductions with wary attention. “Are they yours?”

Gensai blinked, a surprised chuckle escaping him as he turned to paw at a stray gunny-sack. “No no, not mine, not directly. I’m their grandfather and babysitter while their mother is away with the sheep. My bones are a bit too old to go charging up and down the mountain anymore, and theirs are a bit too young!” The old collie managed to pull the sack open, revealing a selection of plants—the uses of which Misao couldn’t begin to guess. “Now, my young wolf, if you’ll lie down over here, we’ll see about getting you patched up.”

Kenshin hesitated, still on the threshold, before crossing over to Gensai and slowly lowering himself to his belly. Misao noted with amusement that the two normally-talkative pups had fallen silent and were staring at Himura as if he had fallen from the sky. Lowering her head the spy whispered to them conspiratorially,

“It’s okay, I don’t think he bites.”

Ayame, the only one who could form complete sentences yet, looked up at Misao with a face full of wonder. “He’s all red! Is he okay?”

“Pretty,” was Suzume’s comment, not moving her dark brown head from its position of rapt attention. Misao chuckled,

“He’s fine, or he will be. He just has a few owies for your Grandpa to fix. He’s good with owies.”

Ayame’s eyes were serious as she corrected sagely, “Grandpa is the best with owies.”

After that it was a little… annoying to the Oniwaban how quickly the girls took to Red. She had thought that she was good with pups, heck; she had known she was good with pups, but Himura was in a whole other league. It had taken almost two days for Ayame and Suzume to really warm up to the coyote in their midst, but mere moments after declaring him “pretty” Misao had been hard-pressed to keep the pair of them from interrupting their grandfather’s work to get close to their new “friend.” (Some of the bites were quite deep, as Misao had seen when Gensai’s silvery brows rose in surprise that Himura had still been walking relatively unhindered. None were life-threatening, but the fact that there were so many of them formed a picture in Misao’s mind that she didn’t much like.)

Himura had quietly borne with the treatment, only venturing to comment that he had been in a “disagreement,” when pressed and turning to instead ask Ayame and Suzume about their parents and humans. The girls had been delighted to be the center of attention and verbally crashed into one another as they simultaneously tried to explain their lives to the red wolf. Misao stuck a word in edgewise when she thought Himura might be getting confused and kept an eye on his unwavering smile as Gensai moved steadily from injury to injury. There were a lot of them, and the girls were sleepily winding down by the time doctor Gensai was able to straighten with a groan, pawing unused supplies back into the concealing sack.

“Well, that should do it for now, Mr. Himura.” Faded brown eyes regarded his granddaughters, curled together in a mini-pile, flanks already moving rhythmically with the pattern of slumber. “You must have experience with pups; they don’t usually take to newcomers so quickly.”

“Not with ones so young,” Red shook his head before seeming to catch himself, “They wanted to be heard. This one has found that most beings want to be heard, so one has made it a habit to listen.”

Gensai eyed the wolf thoughtfully. “Well, there will be plenty of time for that while you heal. I’d say you need at least a week while your body repairs itself, and if my old bones aren’t wrong, this storm may keep you here at least that long.”

Misao sat bolt upright, her own sleepy thoughts startled away. “A week?! Are you sure?”

Gensai glanced meaningfully at his sleeping granddaughters before turning to the young coyote. “Sure enough. Creaky they may be, but these bones are seldom wrong about such things.” Softer he continued, “I’m sorry Misao; I know you had wanted to hurry south.”

“It’s not your fault,” the coyote sighed, moodily settling back down into the hay, “it just feels like I haven’t made any progress, I guess.”

Himura’s gaze on her was interested, but reserved, and he didn’t ask for clarification. Not that it matters, Misao thought moodily as she lay back down and closed her eyes, we’re going to be stuck here a week without much to do but tell our stories. At least the presence of Ayame and Suzume, including her in their puppy-pile, ought to keep the nightmares at bay.

As it turned out Gensai and Misao did most of the talking over the days that followed. True to what he had said before, Red made a habit of listening—and keeping his story to himself.

After whining entreaties for stories from their new playmate had failed Ayame and Suzume turned back to Misao for stories. The coyote only considered herself fortunate that she had not run through her stock of stories during her previous stay. Sometimes getting into so much trouble paid off.

Every now and again Gensai would share a story of his own, mostly to give the coyote a chance to breathe. Even more infrequently Red would venture to comment, starting conversations rather than stories. The healing wolf seemed well-traveled and knowledgeable about a variety of topics, but it rankled Misao that she didn’t know any more about him than his name. Where he was going, where he had come from and how he was injured remained taboo. But despite Himura’s silence, the stories continued.

“So anyway,” Misao finished with a smirk, “Gramps never got in the way of my practice again. It took weeks to get all those porcupine quills out of his nose.”

Gensai tried to look disapproving, but now that his granddaughters were asleep and he didn’t have to appear as responsible the amused twinkle in his eye was much easier to see. Red’s signature smile never wavered, but the coyote thought that it had slid a little closer to genuine as she told her story.

“Honestly, Misao,” Gensai sighed, “You should treat your grandfather more kindly.”

The kunoichi let a bark of laughter loose. “If I was nice to Gramps he would probably think I was plotting something.”

Himura’s soft chuckle warmed the cozy stall. “This one has certainly seen that sometimes the relationships that seem the most…quarrelsome to observers are in fact the closest.”

Misao raised one brow at the crimson wolf, “Oh? Know someone who can’t admit their feelings?”

Red’s ears flicked (in embarrassment?) before he coughed lightly and redirected the conversation. “This one has to admit to some curiosity, Miss Misao. From your stories you seem very close with your pack—what was your purpose in leaving them?”

Yeah, yeah, keep me talking about myself so we don’t poke at you. But… try as she might the coyote couldn’t feel too annoyed. After all, the question had reminded her of Aoshi-sama.

“I’m traveling because close as I am to my pack, there’s someone who means more. I guess I can tell the story now that the pups are asleep. It’s not as… nice as my others.” Misao waited for acknowledging nods from the males before continuing.

“It was when I was still just a pup,” Misao glanced fondly at the sleeping collie puppies, “About their age or a little older I’d guess. I don’t remember anything before that night—Gramps said I might have pushed the memories away without meaning to. Sometimes I feel guilty about that, since it means I can’t remember my parents, but Gramps always said I shouldn’t worry about it, since they would rather I be alive than remember them.

“That night… it was dark and cold. I was alone with the smell of blood everywhere around me, and I was scared. Apparently a rival pack had found my family when we were away from the rest of our pack… When the fighting was over my parents were dead and the attackers were dead… and I was alone.

“That’s when he came. He was really young, though I didn’t realize it at the time. Only a year old and already a lone wolf, looking for a new pack. He found me and,” Misao shook her head, “he took me with him. There was no reason for him to—I was just a kid, I couldn’t help him hunt, I wasn’t even a wolf. But he… he didn’t let me be alone.”

The coyote let her gaze turn inward, ignoring the cozy interior of the barn in favor of her memories. “We were together for a few days, he kept me safe, even though watching me meant he didn’t get many opportunities to hunt, and a few stragglers from that hostile pack were still wandering around the territory looking for us. It was a pretty bad situation, especially since he was so young himself. With just the two of us, there was no way we were going to survive, especially if he kept trying to take care of me instead of himself. But he didn’t leave.

“Eventually Gramps found us,” the coyote reminisced, “he was ready to rescue me from this strange wolf that had been holding me prisoner—and my rescuer was ready to save me from another attacker. It was really just luck that Gramps noticed I wasn’t afraid and managed to talk to us first. He was impressed that we had survived so long, so he offered a place in the pack, even though it was leaderless now.

“Within a year Aoshi-sama was the leader of the Oniwaban,” Misao couldn’t stop her proud smile, thinking of how the dark wolf that had saved her life had grown into the respected and loved alpha. “Aoshi-sama… my relationship with him has been the most important one in my life. He had to go away, but now I’m going to find him again. I’ll never stop,” The coyote vowed with a solemn smile at her forepaws. She glanced up into the stillness following her story and felt her heart give an uneasy twist in her chest.

Red’s face was stricken as he looked at her, as if seeing some invisible injury. “Aoshi Shinomori,” he breathed into the quiet, and the unease twisted into panicked euphoria that carried her to her feet in a very un-ninja-like motion.

“You know Aoshi-sama?! Where is he?”

“You are a member of the Oniwaban?” Himura asked, as if he hadn’t even heard her question.

“Yes, of course,” Misao acknowledged impatiently, “How about the others, have you seen them? Hannya, Shikijou, Beshimi and Hyottoko—if you had met them you wouldn’t forget them in a hurry. They’re the elite vanguard of the Oniwaban.” Silence ate at her excitement, turning it to bitter anxiety. “Come on Red, it’s not that hard, have you seen them or not?” Misao demanded.

Kenshin exhaled quietly, gaze sliding over to check on Ayame and Suzume. Misao started to tremble because it was never a good sign when you had to check that the kids were asleep before continuing.

“Miss Misao… this will not be easy for you to hear, that it will not. This one has met with Aoshi and his Oniwaban while they worked for Kanryuu.” The crimson wolf hesitated before continuing gently, “The four following Aoshi, those you named, fell in battle. This one is sorry.”

“No,” Misao could barely hear her own voice for the ringing in her ears. “No, I know those guys, they’re strong, they’re—they can’t be dead!”

“They were betrayed by Kanryuu and they fell with honor, fighting to protect both Aoshi and,” Himura hesitated, “noncombatants on the battlefield.”

Misao tried to quiet the wailing voice of grief stirred to life inside her soul, it wouldn’t do to begin howling in despair here. She had to focus, focus on what she could do. Red hadn’t said that Aoshi was dead. If he knew where Aoshi was then she could still accomplish her goal of reuniting with him.

“Do you,” she swallowed down the grieving howl that was trying to slip into her voice, “do you know where Aoshi-sama is?”

Himura hesitated. “The path that Aoshi walks is a dangerous one. This one doubts very much that he would wish for you to join him on it.”

“I don’t care about that—please just tell me where he is!” Misao saw him hesitate and snarled, ears lying flat against her skull. “Don’t lie to me! Don’t you dare. You don’t get to decide what’s too dangerous for me—I do! And finding Aoshi-sama is more important than any danger!”

Red’s expression faltered for a second, ears flinching backwards in a barely perceptible motion before his visibly hardened his resolve.

“You may say that, but it is plain that you are not thinking clearly, Miss Misao. From what this one knows of Aoshi, he would want you to remain safe. You ought to return to your pack, it is there he is likely to seek you.”

“I don’t have a pack!” Misao howled, barely noticing Gensai quietly soothing the puppies awakened by her distress. “Everyone’s—everyone’s gone—and if you say Hannya and the others are gone too—”she swallowed, trying to control her emotions, but the action only seemed to fill her eyes with tears, “then Aoshi-sama is the only one in the world that I have left. Again. Please, if you know anything about where he is you have to tell me.” A fine trembling shook her limbs and a desolate whine pulled at her throat, straining to be voiced. “Please. I can’t be alone.” She tapered off into a whisper, staring at Himura, willing him to just, just tell her where her dark leader had gone, the last of the Oniwaban.

Himura’s gaze had sharpened, “The rest of your pack is gone... I remember now, one of you was taken by Shishio, isn’t that right? It was why Aoshi and the others were with Kanryuu.”

Misao nodded, her throat so tight she could barely speak. “I was. I was stupid and careless and everyone suffered because of it—but how do you know—”

“—And the rest of your pack,” Himura looked sick to his stomach with guilt now, “they were killed when Shishio learned of Aoshi’s defection?”

“No,” Misao shook her head, “We hadn’t heard anything from Aoshi-sama, not for a long time, and one of Shishio’s lieutenants got,” she swallowed, “bored.”

The red wolf released a slow breath through his nose, eyes focused on some place she couldn’t see as thoughts coalesced behind them. “But how do you know about that?” the coyote pushed, “how do you know about Shishio?”

Kenshin sighed, “This one first heard that there was something wrong to the North when one met Aoshi. A week ago this was… explained by an old enemy. Shishio is a danger to all and must be removed from power. This one left the pack with which one had stayed to come North and deal with him.”

“You left your pack? To take on a problem that isn’t even yours?” Misao couldn’t keep her incredulous tone from seeping into her question. Leave your pack on purpose? She couldn’t imagine it. Red didn’t meet her gaze, as if trying to convince himself rather than her.

“The pack was not mine, and this one… lived in the North, once. Shishio has already shown that he is no respecter of territories, and I will not allow the friends I left behind to be put into danger because of him, that I will not.”

“Himura,” Misao hesitated, “Shishio’s pack is big, but that’s only part of the problem. If it was just numbers then the Oniwaban,” she had to clear her throat before continuing, “the Oniwaban would have been okay, but his lieutenants—his Juppongatana…” she did not shudder, she didn’t, even though she could remember paralyzing fear as her family had fallen one after the other. “They’re strong. I don’t think anyone weaker than Aoshi-sama could beat them, and there are nine of them.”

Red inclined his head. “It will be difficult,” he acknowledged, but didn’t seem overly concerned and Misao was struck by the sudden realization that Himura and Aoshi had probably fought—and that Aoshi hadn’t won.

“Red, please, what do you know about Aoshi-sama?”

Kenshin hesitated another moment before seeming to sigh. “The last this one saw of him he was seeking his vengeance on Kanyruu. Having achieved that his trail led north—presumably to try and get to you and your pack before word of his defection reached Shishio.”

“Not that Shishio really cared,” Misao snarled. “He thought it great fun to hold the Oniwaban captive—a great symbol, having the untamable pack brought to heel like a toothless dog—but once he had sent Aoshi-sama and the others south he forgot about us.” A growl was lodged in her chest, it wormed into the ragged gash that had been left when she saw her family killed. “I’ll go North with you, Himura, since that’s where Aoshi-sama is going. It’s past time that the Oniwaban bites back.”

“I’m sick of this.” Kaoru whispered the words into the darkness of her empty den.

Empty because Sano was still recuperating at Megumi’s, where the healer could keep an eye on him.

Empty, despite the warmth of Yahiko pressed against her side like always.

Empty as the place in her heart where a red wolf had once burned himself into her life.

She couldn’t say it aloud during the day—there was too much to do, and she couldn’t be selfish. Sanosuke had to be cared for and fed, and the territory had to be protected. She hadn’t been able to follow Kenshin because of these things, so at least she ought to do them well.

But the territory had been largely ignored by threats (real or imagined) and Sano was out of the metaphorical woods. All he needed now was time. Empty time sliding through her veins like shattered ice to ravage the cinders left of her heart.

Yahiko sighed, the feeling of his ribcage expanding and contracting somehow comforting to the she-wolf. “Me too.”

The tanuki winced. “I didn’t realize you were awake.”

“Yeah, well, I am,” the young dog grumbled, shifting slightly to rest his head on his forepaws. “And this still sucks.”

“I know,” Kaoru kept her voice quiet, even though there was no one in the den to wake up, now. “I said I would look after and protect everyone here, but,” she shook her head, “protect them from what?”

 Yahiko snorted, “I doubt that Shishio guy knows or cares that we’re here.”
           

“And if he does,” Kaoru breathed out, “I’m not the same female who would hide in my den while enemies overrun my territory. I’m different now. I met Kenshin and you, Sanosuke, Megumi and Tsubame. I have ones precious to me that I want to protect, and I’ve never been the most patient wolf.”

“Don’t I know it,” a gleam was starting to come into Yahiko’s eyes, “So are you saying you’re going to leave the territory to go after Kenshin?”

Kaoru’s blue eyes were icy with resolve. “The pack is more important than the territory. Yes. I’m going after him. He might not want my help, but he’s going to get it—and after,” she swallowed, “I’m going to bring him home if I have to drag him back by the ears.”

“I hope you know that I’m coming too,” the akita-mix informed her. “There’s no way I’m staying behind.”

Persuasive words to convince him to stay rose in the smoky wolf’s throat, but were quickly choked down by the memory of firm violet eyes locking her in place. No more. I’m coming.

“Fine,” she said instead, calculating, “Sano probably needs another few days before he’s up for serious travel. We’ll leave him with Megumi and he can come when she says so.”

Yahiko glanced up at his sister, displaying one upper fang in a satisfied smirk. “He’s going to be furious,” he said smugly, “us leaving without him and all.”

            “He can get over it,” Kaoru knew her own expression was grim, but she couldn’t quite summon up a smile. “We leave tomorrow. I’m not wasting any more time.”

Chapter Text

If you want to get out alive

Oh, run for your life

If you want to get out alive

Oh, run for your life…
-Three Days Grace, Get Out Alive

Okon and Omasu had tried to keep her spirits up, the big-sisters recognizing the crippling anguish riddling the young coyote. They had tried, but when this was all her fault, there wasn’t much that they could do. She was supposed to be an Oniwaban, a creature of mists, lady of shadows—and she had been caught. Now half her family had been sent out on a mission without honor, and the other half were captives. Relentlessly determined captives (because even being divided couldn’t kill that Oniwaban spirit) but still captives.

What made it worse was that Gramps hadn’t blamed Misao for being caught. In some ways the coyote wished that he would—because at least then she could apologize, could work to make it better—but Okina wouldn’t accept her apologies, shrugging them off with a kindly smile and troubled mutters about the nature of Shishio’s pack. Every discarded apology felt like an untreated wound.

“I wonder how Aoshi-sama and the others are doing?” Omasu kept her voice low, trying to avoid the attention of those of Shishio’s followers keeping watch on the Oniwaban.

Okina matched her tone, glancing at Misao when she noticeably came to attention at the mention of her beloved leader. “I don’t know, but I’m sure that they’re fine. Hoji, if not Shishio himself, seems to be the sort of wolf who wants to know what all of his underlings are doing. I’m sure if anything happened, a report would have been sent back by now.”

Kuro growled in annoyance, “Hoji and that Kanryuu they sent our leader off with are branches of the same tree. Power-hungry manipulators who don’t bloody their own fangs.”

“Perhaps…” Gramps hesitated, his brow furrowing.

What is it? Misao wondered, before the wolf looked over to their captors—captors, she could now see, that were muttering amongst themselves in a ripple that was spreading toward the small knot of ninjas.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Okon answered, her pale face serious, “Misao, get behind us.” The coyote opened her mouth to protest, but the rest of the Oniwaban had already rearranged their positions to block her from the coming disturbance.

“What’s he doing here?” the whisper took Misao by surprise before she realized that it was coming from one of the guard dogs. And another, and another, until the question hung uneasily in the air, like heavy icicles waiting to fall. The last of the dogs parted, and Misao peered around Shiro’s warm bulk to try and get a look.

It was one of Shishio’s lieutenants, his Juppongatana. The coyote held back a shiver—she hated this one, a blind wolfhound that positively reeked of blood, as if he had somehow purposefully worked it into each dark gray curl of his coat. Usui, he was called.

He grinned as if he could see them, braced against his arrival. Of course he couldn’t, not with eyes like that, clogged to permanent blindness by thick gray scar tissue. Misao didn’t find it reassuring that his grin seemed to be full of fangs.

“Oh? Here they are, all that’s left of the vaunted Oniwaban,” he cocked his head, presenting them with one floppy ear, “but such fear in your hearts. They race so quickly. It’s almost as if,” the smile was back, “they know that they’re prey.”

Misao frowned, she couldn’t possibly have heard that right—but panic was spreading among their guards, one particularly foolish Labrador daring to raise his voice.

“Lord Usui, Lord Shishio has said he wants to keep the Oniwaban captive.”

“Oh?” the wolfhound’s dark head swung around to pinpoint the speaker with eerie accuracy, “are you saying that you will keep me entertained?”

The hapless lab took an uneasy step back—and the scene dissolved into chaos. Usui was on the outspoken dog in an instant, crimson spray turning those ill-considered words into the last ones that would ever be spoken. The other guards yelped, scrambling back from their crazed leader as he turned on those nearest his victim, fangs finding vital veins without fail.

“He’s insane,” Shiro breathed, horrified. Usui paused in his destruction to face them again,

“Not insane,” he corrected, “enlightened. I see all, even into your hearts. Such despair,” his muzzle split in a bloody grin, “such fear.” He began pacing forward slowly, “Oh, but you are angry too, aren’t you? Especially you, old soldier. I think you don’t like that I killed these guards.”

“You say that you are not mad,” there was no laughter in Gramps voice, “yet the slaughter of your own allies reeks of insanity.”

“What’s a few pawns, more or less?” Usui countered, “when clearly they are worth so little.” He raised his head as if surveying Shishio’s trembling soldiers, caught between their fear of death and fear of the punishment for their desertion. “Look at them, what does it matter if they die? Ten, twenty, even fifty, if I kill them then I am the better fighter and my skills take their place.” The wolfhound shrugged. “It’s more work for me, but as I’ve said, I’m bored.”

There was no trace of the affable grandfather in Okina now, Misao knew, taking in the wolf’s rigid frame and raised hackles. This was the old Beta of the Oniwaban, the only one who had stood on equal footing with his alpha.

“Then you are a fool as well as mad. A true leader knows the value of all his followers. Such is the true strength of the Oniwaban.”

“Your strength amounts to nothing, old geezer!” Usui returned and charged the small protective knot.

“Now!” Okina barked the command, moving forward with surprising speed for his age. Outstripping him, Okon and Omasu sheared off to the left, Kuro and Shiro to the right. This was their strength, their partnership, neither pair needed to say anything to the other, experience and the bond between them was their guide.

Misao faltered for a step, stumbling after Okina, out of sync with the others, lacking a partner, lacking their experience. But there has to be a way I can help without getting in the way!

Okon and Omasu leapt in from the left, what would only be a harrying attack, the females lighter frames and greater speed making them excellent for distraction as the muscle of Shiro and Kuro moved in from the right. That was how it was supposed to work, how it had worked a million times before.

Usui turned his head and seemed to pluck Okon out of the air with a hideous crunch. Her scream was short lived.

Misao’s stumbling run came to a halt as she trembled, staring. That… that couldn’t be possible. That was Okon, and Okon was alive, she wasn’t dead, how could someone who was alive one minute be dead the next and—!

Omasu howled with grief and fury at the loss of her sister, sinking her fangs into Usui’s hind leg with a savagery usually absent from the gentle ninja. The blind dog ignored her, turning now to Kuro, to Shiro, still approaching from the right.

Get over there.

A flash of fangs.

Get over there.

A splash of blood.

Get the hell over there Makimachi! That’s your family!

The males were down by the time Misao had managed to push back her fear enough to move. Almost casually Usui turned to deal with the she-wolf still clamped to his leg, displaying no more effort than if he bit at a flea. He looked up into Okina’s quiet horror, his shaking fury.

“Your turn, old soldier. This shock hasn’t done your heart any good, has it? I’ll send you after those subordinates you knew so well.”

Okina’s answering growl was swift, the movement that followed equally so. Usui stepped back as Okina flashed around him in quick steps and surprisingly agile leaps—Misao recognized the strategy her grandfather adapted when facing Aoshi-sama as she prepared to join him in his assault. Okina rained down blows, bite marks beginning to pepper Usui’s flanks and shoulders—but the dog’s eerie grin never wavered, his sightless eye sockets turned to follow the elderly Oniwaban’s every move.

Misao scrambled to keep up, weaving herself into her grandfather’s pattern with an effort. It was difficult, while she had fought with Gramps almost daily, she rarely fought alongside him. Usui sighed, sounding almost bored as he faced the two of them. He crouched, moving for the first time since the fight had begun into a position that Misao could recognize as being engaged in a fight.

Okina leapt in for another bite—Usui twisted his head around to allow his jaws to close on the soft skin under the old wolf’s jaw. He opened his mouth and the wolf toppled, breath a rattling gasp as crimson stained the snow.

Misao froze, paralyzed.

“Gramps? Gramps?!” Everyone, everyone was gone, their blood on the snow all around her.

“Oh?” Usui’s voice came, cutting through the fog in her brain, inescapable, tormenting her. “Still one left, the most scared of the lot. The clumsy one. The others at least had experience, grace, what do you have?”

Sightless eyes peered into her soul, unimpressed with what they found. “You were the one who got captured first, right? Ah, yes, you were, thank you for telling me. Are you really an Oniwaban, I wonder?”

Misao couldn’t move, staring up at the dark figure towering over her. The most afraid. How could he know that—was that why he had left her for last, killing her family first?

“Hmmm,” the wolfhound mused aloud, “I suppose the rest of your pack will have to be killed once they discover what’s happened. Thankfully, you’re all so very disposable.”

No! Not Aoshi-sama!

A flash of anger thawed her muscles—

“Usui, stop your madness.”

The new voice seized them up again. The wolfhound frowned and turned his head to face a giant white dog with heavy black rings around his eyes.

“Don’t interfere, Anji,” Usui warned, sounding annoyed. “Remember that as a Juppongatana I have the right to kill as I please.”

Anji moved forward, implacable as a glacier, “As you ought to remember that my conditions for joining were the rights of life and death. I say that she lives.” Anji stopped inches away, not flinching in the face of his insane comrade. “Do you contest my ruling?”

Silence crept into the bloody snow, the guards having fled as their terror finally won out. Misao couldn’t even tremble anymore, every muscle was wound so tight.

After long minutes Usui turned and walked away without another word. The darkness around Anji’s eyes turned to Misao.

"I have decreed that you will live,” the Great Pyrenees told her, “Go and seek your fate in a kinder place.” Then he too left.

Scarcely daring to believe it Misao wasted valuable time staring at her dead family on the snow before she was able to turn and run.

Run through the cold and the trees and she had to be sneaky, had to be swift, had to marry the two in her bones like never before. Following the tug in her soul that whispered Aoshi is this way, because she had to get through, had to tell her leader of treachery and pain, pain that she couldn’t dwell on because it would threaten her mission, and the mission was the only thing that would keep her alive.

I need to find Aoshi-sama!

Chapter Text

I raise my flags, don my clothes
It’s a revolution, I suppose

We’ll paint it red to fit right in
-Imagine Dragons, Radioactive

“So, you ought to know about the Juppongatana,” Misao called to the red wolf picking his way through the snow before her, “lucky for you I’ve met them!” Silence, save for the crunching of snow, but Misao was used to silence from Aoshi-sama so she took it as permission to continue. “First off there’s Shishio’s alpha female, I think her name’s Yumi. She’s a dog and I don’t think she really knows how to fight—she didn’t seem very interested in it, anyway. Also uninterested in fighting is Hoji, a wolf. He’s mostly in charge of recruitment and spends most of his time kissing up to Shishio.”

“They don’t sound that bad so far, that they do not.” He speaks! And jokes. Not the same as talking to Aoshi-sama, then.

“Yeah, well, those two are the easy ones. Shishio’s beta is named Soujiro, he’s a little like me—half coyote, anyway—so he’s pretty small, but he’s fast and ruthless.” Misao shuddered, “And he smiles. Like, even more than you.”

A hitch of breath that might have been a laugh was her answer; Misao struggled not to pout at the response. “Other than him, there’s Kamatari—he’s a freaking mountain lion, I have no clue how Shishio recruited him.”

“Hyottoko was a bear,” Red pointed out, clearly amused. Misao ignored him.

“Henya’s some kind of hawk, spends most of his time spying. The next one is actually two—they have this giant wolf they call Fuji. He never talks, and doesn’t listen to anyone except Saizuchi, this creepy rat he lets ride around on his head. They’re really strong. Cho is another wolf—I think, he looks almost as weird as you, Red—he’s probably crazy. Likes fighting a little too much, you know?” Misao took a breath to steady herself, “The last two are dogs. Usui… Usui is the one who murdered my pack,” she was shaking again, her tremors blurring Himura’s prints as she stepped in them. “He’s blind. I don’t—I don’t know how he fights. He says he can read minds but I don’t—the only reason I got away is because of the last Juppongatana. His name is Anji. He found us when Usui was attacking and stopped him. It gave me time to get away… I’ve never seen him fight, but the fact that Usui avoided fighting with him tells me that he’s pretty strong.”

Himura slowed, then came to a stop, looking across the field of snow. Misao listened intently, trying to hear the reason for the pause, but there was nothing.

“What is it?” she finally asked, annoyed but sure that there was no ambush waiting in the wings for her to be a distraction. And Red didn’t immediately shush her, so it wasn’t that.

“This was the old boundary of the Bakufu,” he said quietly.

Misao felt her eyes widen as her brows rose. “Wow, when you said you were here a long time ago you weren’t kidding. I don’t think the Bakufu pack has been around since the Ishin Shishi beat them a few years ago.”

“And yet we have crossed no Ishin Shishi boundaries,” Himura noted, a hint of a question in his statement. Misao shrugged.

“I say that they won, and they did, kind of. The Bakufu broke up and cleared out, but by then… well, the Ishin Shishi were a lot smaller. Gramps said that a lot of wolves on both sides found out that they didn’t have the stomach for war and just left. Those that didn’t… well. Shishio didn’t really hold back.” Nervously Misao let her ears swivel on her head to try and pick up any sounds. “Speaking of Shisho, we had better be careful. He’s got a few outposts along the borders to stop folks going out or coming in.”

Red’s smile returned, now a touch grim. Misao shifted uneasily. “What?”

He glanced at her before sweeping his gaze over the snowy landscape before them once more, smile fading.

“For a war long over, nothing seems to have changed.”

Red’s observation killed conversation for a while, but soon Misao couldn’t resist pestering her companion for details on Aoshi-sama.

“Did he seem depressed at all? I mean, obviously it can be hard to tell, he keeps most things quiet, but when he’s upset there’s a certain way he holds his ears,” Misao tried to demonstrate with her own ears, but couldn’t seem to fine tune their position very effectively. “Normally they’re just up, but when he’s upset they turn outward… just… a… smidge… Are you even paying attention?” The Rurouni clearly was not, sliding purposefully through the shadows of snow-covered trees, ears pricked forward for any hint of danger.

“You were the one who pointed out the existence of Shishio’s sentries, Miss Misao,” the crimson wolf reminded her, “it seems wise to be vigilant for them.”

“I didn’t mean for you to ignore me,” Misao muttered resentfully, “and I just wanted to know how Aoshi-sama was.”

“This one would imagine that you would be a far better judge of that, Miss Misao,” Kenshin responded, still facing forward, “all this one can tell you is that Aoshi left injured but in good health otherwise.”

“How injured?” Misao pressed, but Kenshin stopped abruptly, focused on something… In the silence she heard it too, the low steady mutter of multiple conversations.

Himura glanced at her and the coyote nodded silently. He set off quietly through the woods, angling for the noise. Misao followed his lead, mentally comparing their position to the map of the territory she held in her head. They had passed the mountains dividing the North from the South, and approached the main basin that the packs of the past had warred over. Here the foothills of the mountains would slope away into the plains. In fact, the edge of the hill should be… here.

Ahead the ground fell gently away into the basin proper, and plainly visible out in the open instead of under the cover of trees was a pack of assorted canines. Wolves and dogs milled around in loose formation, orbiting a fairly solid center. Misao dropped to a low crouch to avoid being seen. How many of them? Thirty?

“That’s one of Shishio’s outposts,” Misao hissed, the snow brushing her belly and chilling the butterflies rioting wildly within. “We should get out of here.”

Himura studied the rough assortment of dogs and wolves below them, not visibly sharing Misao’s unease. He seemed to catch something, some scent or feeling in the air and grimaced. “While the element of surprise would be advantageous in the fight against Shishio, allies will be of more use in the long run.” He sighed, visibly annoyed. “And my ally is about to attack that outpost, that he is.”

Misao was opening her mouth to ask what ally he was talking about, since she wasn’t about to throw herself down that hill and she didn’t see anyone else when the animals below erupted into furious barks and panic-stricken howls and Red was gone.

Cursing whatever idiot had come up with this plan the coyote shoved herself to her feet and followed suit. Kenshin was visible before her, a red form cutting a swathe of destruction as he met the confused cronies. For a second Misao could see a similar arc of destruction being cut through the other side of camp before it was her turn to do some damage.

Irritation was a bitter tang in the back of Kenshin’s mind, but the Rurouni didn’t bother to banish it. The crimson wolf felt he had every right to be irritated.

Flushed from a place, from a pack that had begun to feel like home by an old enemy would do that to the most understanding of souls—even if it had ultimately been his choice. Then there was his new traveling-companion, Miss Misao, an unwitting reminder of his failure to save the Oniwaban from Kanryuu’s machinations. It wasn’t her fault, of course, though the uneasiness churning in his gut about allowing her to follow him into danger undoubtedly was.

And finally, there was this.

Coming out of hiding, giving up the element of surprise that had given Battousai the satisfaction of knowing that several of his targets had never known what had ended their lives. All to run to the aid of a wolf that might be an ally, but would never be a friend.

What is Saito doing attacking an outpost like this, anyway? While it was true that the Shinsengumi would probably be fine, probably wasn’t definitely, and any assistance Saito might give would be invaluable.

So yes, Kenshin was feeling a bit irritated. Fortunately there was an entire contingent of canines before him that he could subtly work it out on.

The assorted dogs and wolves of the outpost were so focused on the disturbance Saito was causing on the far side that Kenshin’s first attacks took them completely off guard. Well at least this one still has the element of surprise with them, the crimson wolf thought dryly. He dealt punishing blows with precision, working to incapacitate or frighten rather than kill or maim—though he doubted that Saito was showing the same restraint.

He could hear the muffled thuds of footfalls through snow behind him, followed by soft swearing as Miss Misao recklessly followed his charge. Ahead of him, a wolf snarled in equal parts rage and fear—with a quick leap, the Rurouni avoided panicked fangs and landed on the black-on-gray back with a punishing bite. An even louder curse exploded from Miss Misao—whatever else she had learned from her alpha, his quiet reserve hadn’t been on the list—and the coyote threw herself into the fight.

Part of Kenshin not focused on thinning the crowd noted that it had taken some time for the coyote to join him—more than he would have expected of an Oniwaban. Still, having seen all of her pack slaughtered by a mad dog, it was a wonder she had dared to enter the fight at all.

Dogs and wolves parted reluctantly before the pair, and more than once Kenshin winced as a particularly complex move pulled at his still newly-healed injuries. Miss Misao was a silver-tan shadow fighting in his wake, stubbornly keeping the dogs and wolves he pushed past from closing ranks behind him. The red wolf kept half an eye on her as he blurred around his opponents, pleased when they dealt accidental damage to their own allies when they attacked where he had been as opposed to where he was. We aren’t outnumbered, memories of war whispered their own brand of humor, we’re just in a target-rich environment.

Miss Misao wasn’t unskilled, he noted, she was quick on her feet and seemed to understand that her lightness of frame wouldn’t lend itself to crushing blows, avoiding body-to-body encounters with dexterity. But still there was a… hesitance around her, an involuntary, unthinking flinch in the face of attack, a few seconds of delay that turned what should have been graceful retreats into frantic backwards scrambles. He had seen it before—and the familiarity of watching it twisted through his heart with all the pain of poison. But he wouldn’t let himself ignore the young fighter just in case she needed help.

Miss Misao fought the way that Miss Kaoru had when they first met, uncertain, unsure of her own skill, unaware of what she was truly capable of, and in some ways afraid to try.

The red wolf had already been painfully reminded of the tanuki in meeting Miss Misao, now it seemed that she intended to hound his memory even to Shishio’s very camp. How very like her. His smile was bittersweet and caused the sheep dog he was facing to back up uncertainly. Painful as it was, a memory of her… it wasn’t unwelcome. Apparently unnerved by the crimson wolf’s smile in the midst of chaos the sheep dog turned and ran without more than a snap at his heels from Misao to speed him on his way.

The coyote worked her way closer to Kenshin, her angry expression reminding him now of Yahiko. “This better be some ally, Red!” she warned, obviously ready to assign Kenshin the blame for dragging her into this attack despite the circumstance being her own choice. Kenshin fought down an answering frown and channeled the negative emotion into a harrying bite that made a black hybrid aiming for Misao’s unguarded shoulder reconsider his attempt. The Oniwaban startled away from his unexpected movement, a flash of remembered terror sharpening her reaction. Kenshin deliberately ignored the emotion, continuing his assault, watching the young coyote without seeming to.

If such a reaction had come up earlier, the crimson wolf could have moved to console, to soothe and reassure the coyote of her safety. But the terror was not of here and now, and he had seen her fight. The little coyote followed the path of the Oniwaban and to openly favor her during battle would crush her warrior’s pride as surely as it would Yahiko’s. She recovered while Kenshin continued parting the crowd, moving hesitantly back into the role she had chosen.

They approached the center now, where a bellowing roar became understandable, if rough, orders, “Kill them! Kill them you weaklings, or on behalf of our lord Shishio I, Senkaku, will punish your failures myself!”

Wonderful, Kenshin sighed to himself as the last of the defenses crumbled before him, another idiotic bully. What was it about such creatures that inspired others to follow? Kenshin would never understand.

The defenders facing him joined the mass exodus encouraged on its way by Misao’s agile fangs and the Rurouni got his first look at the loud-voiced Senkaku. He was a peculiar looking dog, a bull terrier, his skull resembled nothing so much as a truncated cone with slantways eyes and an impractical looking jaw. His coat was short and brown with a few white markings—he had to be freezing in this snow—over a set of muscles that reminded Kenshin of the former Oniwaban Shikijou. At his side one of the few lackeys that hadn’t fled, an auburn setter, pinned a young German shepherd on his back. The nervous setter’s eyes darting from his leader to the oncoming storm of violence to his captive and back again.

None of the three had noticed Kenshin’s arrival as of yet, Senkaku’s attention focused in the direction of the original attack. A juvenile thrill of smug triumph flashed in the crimson wolf before he could quash it as he realized that despite starting later he had beaten Saito to the middle. Within moments the victory was rendered moot as Saito emerged on the scene.

As Kenshin had expected, bodies littered the ground in the Shinsengumi’s wake—their stillness was the stillness of death. Dark amber eyes swept over the scene, taking in Senkaku and his sniveling lieutenant, lingering for a heartbeat on the pinned dog before rising to find Kenshin, with Misao just trotting up to stand at the crimson wolf’s shoulder.

“Battousai,” he acknowledged, not seeming at all surprised that his old foe had abandoned his peaceful existence for the war of the North.

Of course, Kenshin eyed the older wolf in return; sometimes enemies know each other better than friends.

One fang poked from beneath Saito’s upper lip in a smirk, “Replacing your little Raccoon-girl already?”

Kenshin’s answering growl and Misao’s indignant squawk were overridden as Senkaku finally realized the threat at his back. “What the—!”

Kenshin ignored the reaction, choosing to address Saito, “This one does not appreciate being made to give up the element of surprise, Saito,” he informed the gray wolf flatly. As he continued the tone slid down into a clear warning, “And you will not speak of Miss Kaoru again, that you will not.”

Saito snorted in response, answering the first comment and ignoring the second. “You might still have your surprise if you had bothered to kill your opponents;” the wolf answered impatiently, “What kind of hitokiri does not stain the snow red?”

Misao growled even more audibly, but Kenshin’s response was firm. “My decisions are my own.”

“Who the hell are you guys?” Senkaku broke in furiously, cone-shaped head swinging to take in one wolf, then the other. “How dare you interfere with lord Shishio’s pack!”

“A fool like you must not rank very highly in Shishio’s little organization to not know the leader of the only free pack still in the area,” Saito sneered in disgust.

And he must not be from around here if he doesn’t recognize this one’s name, Kenshin knew, though honestly the thin coat would have told him as much. This dog was suited for warmer climes.

“A fool am I?” Senkaku bellowed, “only a true fool would stand against the great lord Shishio!”

“As if!” an angry young voice answered, dripping scorn. Kenshin caught himself looking for Yahiko before realizing that the young German shepherd had been the one to speak. His black and tan fur was dusted with snow, but the furious light in his brown eyes was familiar.

“You’d better keep quiet until I’ve got time to deal with you, kid,” Senkaku growled, though the dog holding the youngster down appeared to be counting up the number of enemies versus his boss and coming up with a number that he didn’t like.

“Quiet, Eiji,” Saito said without looking at the dog, and the adolescent sank further into the snow without a word. “Battousai, if you would watch him while I deal this.” Amber eyes locked with violet eyes as Saito silently ordered the Battousai to stay out of the fight. Kenshin allowed one brow to rise in answer to Saito giving him orders, but inclined his head in a signal for the Shinsengumi to do as he wished.

There was no need to undo all of Healer Gensai’s hard work by running around after an annoyance like Senkaku.

“Pointy-eyed jerk telling us what to do,” Miss Misao grumbled, probably, Kenshin decided, annoyed at having not been addressed at all. “If this is your idea of an ally, I’d hate to see an enemy.”

Humor warred with depression at her statement, “True enough,” Kenshin answered, matching her low volume if not her annoyance, “but it seems we ought to attend to the young prisoner.”

Saito was pacing forward, tall and strong, wintry sunlight glinting off his pelt. “It is my duty,” he said, “to safeguard this land and bring her criminals to justice.” He smiled. It was not a reassuring sight. “And to stand against upstarts such as Shishio is my pleasure.”

“I’ll make you eat those words!” Senkaku howled, launching himself at the wolf. Kenshin took the opportunity to make his way to the setter, Misao trailing closely behind him. The dog, which had apparently been chosen for its loyalty and brawn rather than brains, shifted uncertainly. Clearly he was hoping for further instructions—perhaps the order to kill his captive—but Senkaku was too busy to notice his underling’s dilemma.

Misao seemed to take in the guard’s uncertain stance and then fairly bounced up to him as though they were old friends. “Hey there,” she greeted, voice a friendly chirrup. “You’ve got some guts, huh? Sticking by your boss through all of this, I mean. Nobody else did!” The setter’s eyes darted around, apparently noticing again the lack of backup. Misao continued, hardly giving the guard a chance to speak. “And it’s pretty brave sticking around when you’re outnumbered like you are.” Casually she glanced to Saito and Senkaku’s fight, inviting the setter’s gaze to follow hers. The wince was at least half-real as she watched Saito ram into his opponent like a charging bear, knocking the stocky dog off his paws and into the air for a few seconds. “Oh, ouch,” the coyote said with feeling, “I guess that Saito guy takes his duty pretty seriously. I would so not want to be you in a few minutes. I mean, look at what he’s doing to your boss just for working for Shishio. It seemed to me like he knows this guy,” she nodded at the pinned Eiji, “So I’m guessing that what he’ll do to you is gonna be worse since its personal and all.”

The setter’s tail was firmly tucked and the whites of his eyes were showing. Kenshin took pity on the guard, interrupting before Misao could begin detailing what exactly would be done to the hapless hound.

“You should probably go, that you should,” the red wolf advised kindly. The setter glanced at him in open appreciation before bolting. No longer restrained, Eiji pushed him way to his paws.

“That was stupid,” he said seriously, a frown causing creases on his brow, “he’ll probably go straight for reinforcements to track you down. You should have killed him.”

Kenshin felt his brows rise—even Yahiko wasn’t this blunt. Misao spluttered in rage,

“Hey kid, if you didn’t notice we just fought off a freaking army to get you. You’re welcome.”

The dog wrinkled his muzzle in annoyance, “No one asked you to come—and leaving those goons alive causes more problems down the road. If you want to see how to deal with enemies, look over there.” Eiji nodded toward Saito and Senkaku, the wrinkles in his brow smoothing as he relaxed. Kenshin followed his gaze, unsurprised to see that Saito was approaching the end of the fight—Senkaku hadn’t struck him as strong enough to present much of a challenge.

The bull terrier retreated frantically, desperate to stay ahead of the Shinsengumi captain’s scything fangs. The brown dog swung right, then left with surprising speed, trying to get past Saito’s deadly combination of offense and defense.

“Why won’t you just die?!” His howl was hysterical, eyes as wide as they could go in his oddly shaped face. “This is lord Shishio’s land, there’s nothing left for you here!”

“There is,” Saito said calmly, moving into the low crouch of his favorite move. Kenshin winced in anticipation. “The same thing I have always had,” Saito continued, deceptively still. Senkaku, half-blind with frustration and fear proved himself a fool by charging to attack rather than running for the hills. “Slay. Evil. Instantly.” The words were chill across the snow, Saito’s iron code of the North. Gray and white fur moved and crimson splashed across the snow. Misao made a choking noise at his side, and Kenshin turned his head to check on the coyote.

Her jade green eyes were wide and horrified, “That was awful,” her voice was a bare whisper, “Senkaku wasn’t even in the same league—Saito was toying with him the whole time.” Kenshin winced, dismayed at her reaction but not entirely surprised given what she had been through.

“Despite what you may think, Saito did give him a chance to withdraw,” he said gently. “This one may not like him, but Saito is not without honor.” You will be safe, hung in the air, unsaid, but Kenshin hoped that somehow the coyote would hear it anyway.

Eiji eyed her, apparently having no sympathy for her lingering trauma. “What are you getting upset for? Senkaku was one of Shishio’s guys, and they don’t have any honor.” His dark ears flattened as he stared moodily at the ground, “He was going to kill me while I was pinned and couldn’t do anything.”

Misao shuddered, but the motion wasn’t one of terror, rather she seemed to be shaking off the memories that plagued her and she straightened to eye Eiji curiously.

“What were you doing to get caught by those guys anyway?”

“I—” Eiji started, but cut himself off as Saito approached their little group.

Misao eased back slightly as the gray wolf approached. Himura had implied that this guy was an ally, but there was no mistaking the tension between the two of them, and certainly no harm in being ready for a quick getaway.

Though jeez, imagine being on rough terms with the Battousai himself and still breathing. Unreal. Which of course begged the question of who Saito was. Let’s see, he’s North-native, and has been around long enough to know the Battousai on sight. Never left the area, name is apparently Saito and probably wasn’t allies with Kenshin in the past. So think, Makimachi, who is he? An echo of Gramps’s smile pulled at her muzzle. Okina had loved deductive games, and the idea of playing this one with him lifted her spirits. Even if this puzzle wasn’t hard, especially after getting Red’s identity. Hajime Saito of the Shinsengumi, elite guard of the Bakufu, Misao labeled the approaching wolf, it’s got to be.

“So, Battousai,” the wolf ignored her again and Misao glowered, “you decided to come out of your southern retreat.”

A muscle in Himura’s jaw twitched, but he managed to keep his overall expression calm. “It was never this one’s intent to leave the North in chaos, that it was not. You are not the only one who wishes this land peaceful for the sake of those who perished here.”

Something about Saito’s look—it wasn’t anything as overt as surprise, more realization—told Misao that wasn’t the gray wolf’s reason for fighting Shishio. Of course, Misao recalled his conversation with Senkaku, for him honor is probably enough.

“At least you trimmed the dead weight,” Saito’s amber eyes flicked to Misao and he snorted, “most of it anyway. Was this one hiding behind a tree during our last encounter?”

“Excuse me?!”

“Miss Misao is a new acquaintance, that she is,” Kenshin overrode Misao’s indignant response; thought the coyote noted that his ears had angled back in annoyance when Saito referred to his previous pack as deadweight. Speaking of which…

“I am not deadweight!” Misao declared hotly, glaring at the dangerous wolf. Saito’s shrug sent his black-tipped pelt rippling along his shoulders.

“Actions speak louder than words, girl. If you want to represent yourself as independent, stop hiding behind others.” Clearly he hadn’t missed her slight retreat.

But that’s stupid! It’s stupid to mindlessly attack every opponent with brute strength, especially when you don’t have brute strength. If I fought with him on his terms, I’d lose, but smart fighters don’t fight on their opponent’s terms. I know my strengths and I’ll use my strengths, I’m fast, I’m often underestimated and I have allies. It would be stupid not to use them!

Of course, none of this made its way to Misao’s mouth; what came out was, “I’m not hiding!” And she didn’t want to be independent, that was just another way of saying she was alone. Being an Oniwaban was all about being part of a pack, working together, partnership, not independence, because what could be achieved together was greater than what could be achieved alone. The gray wolf shot her another skeptical glance.

“Right.”

Saito turned away from Red and Misao, the coyote quietly fuming at his casual dismissal. Dark amber eyes sought out the scuffed up puppy. The youngster sat up straight despite the weight of the Shinsengumi’s gaze, only his head lowered to avoid meeting his eyes.

“That was extremely foolish, Eiji,” Saito said, the dog flinching in response, dark muzzle wrinkling for a second. “If I had not been passing by, you would have been killed.” The head sunk a little lower. “Does Tokio know that you are out here?”

The puppy visibly winced and finally raised his head to answer, “No sir. I didn’t want to worry her, and thought I would be able to manage on my own.”

Saito snorted, “Then I trust your capture has disproved that notion.”

“Sir,” Eiji dared, a tiny spark flaring in his brown eyes, “We had run out of food. I was worried for my brothers.”

Saito’s frown… wasn’t quite so harsh. “Your concern is understandable, but your carelessness is inexcusable. By leaving without telling Tokio, you have placed her in the position of either abandoning your brothers to look for you or remaining at the den with even more worry than that which you professed to avoid giving her. If you had perished, do you understand the distress that she would suffer?”

Eiji lowered his head again, his body giving a shiver against the cold and against Saito’s words. “I… understand, sir. I’m sorry.”

“You owe your apologies to Tokio and to your brothers,” Saito corrected. “Tokio is an adult, if hunger became a concern, it would have been far safer to allow her to go and hunt while you watched over your brothers.”

Eiji blinked, as if this plan had not occurred to him before. Saito’s upper lip twisted slightly in what seemed to be a pained grimace. “You are not alone anymore, Eiji. You must make an effort to remember that.”

The German shepherd nodded, the sheen in his eyes suggesting that he was too choked up to talk. Apparently satisfied with the result of his talk, Saito swung back around to face the two who had helped him rescue the puppy.

“I will take Eiji back to Tokio. Battousai, word of this incident will get back to Shishio, you had best find a place to defend.”

Clearly we aren’t invited back to your den. Sheesh, with allies like this, who needs enemies? Wait… den… Tokio… No way! This guy has a mate?! I bet she was the one who wanted to take in Eiji, it’s kinda hard to things out of the goodness of your heart when you don’t have one.

“This one is aware,” Red answered coolly, probably not wanting to spend any more time with Saito than Saito wanted to spend with him. Old rivals and all that. Sheesh… Battousai, huh… “Before this incident,” which he still hasn’t thanked us for, “this one intended to journey to Hiko’s mountain. This one doubts very much that Shishio’s arrogance will take him there.” The smile that Saito quirked in response was dry, but he didn’t argue.

“Then I’ll know where to find you, Battouasi, when the time comes to talk of war.” Turning, he barked a command to Eiji and the two set off into the snow. Misao frowned uncertainly at the backs of the retreating pair.

“I hope that Eiji kid will be all right with that guy,” she growled a little, annoyance still fresh. “Is he always so pleasant?”

“In this one’s experience, yes,” Red answered dryly, then he shook himself. “Actually, that was a rather civilized interaction with Saito. Usually there’s a lot more fighting.”

“I could see that,” Misao murmured, though, really, she couldn’t. The Battousai up against the Immortal Captain of the Shinsengumi? Yeah, no. Talk about fights she did not want to be anywhere near. “Did I hear that guy right—that he has a mate?” The question spilled out incredulously.

Kenshin met her eyes with a faintly horrified expression. “She must be the kindest soul in existence to put up with such a partner.”

“You think?” Misao asked sarcastically, sitting heavily in the snow. “Gah, I can’t even picture it!” She shuddered dramatically. “Actually, I don’t think I want to either.”

The pair had moved away from the deserted outpost, farther North. Their goal was a solitary mountain that rose craggily from the surrounding countryside. Hiko’s mountain, Himura had said, and Misao found herself wracking her brains for any scrap of information about the place. The only thing that kept coming to mind was that the mountain was a no-wolf’s-land.

No one ever tried to conquer it, no the Bakufu, not the Ishin Shishi, not Shishio’s group. Okina had told her that the mountain had its own law and to leave the place alone. And he had said it with one of his rare serious faces that had in turn extracted one of her rare serious promises.

So.

To Hiko’s mountain.

Still, the mountain was a ways away, so Red had called a halt for the night in the shelter of an old cave hidden by pines, more a crack in the earth than a substantial shelter.

“How did you know this was here?” Misao wondered aloud as she followed the crimson wolf into the gloom and chose a bed of pine needles. Kenshin’s response was a little distant as he paced the circumference of the cave, checking for surprises before choosing a place of his own.

“Shelters like this were common during the war, when one might get separated from their pack and need a safe place to rest and recuperate before attempting to rejoin them. Though of course, their locations were closely guarded secrets.”

“So it seems like there are ghosts of the war everywhere,” Misao mused. “Old shelters, old enemies, and smelly old Shishio.”

Kenshin chuckled, “Saito truly did not make a favorable impression on you, did he?”

Misao fumed, “If he wanted to make a good impression on me, he shouldn’t have spent his time either pretending I didn’t exist or saying that I was a coward.”

“You are not a coward Miss Misao, that you are not.”

“Well I know that, but it’s still not a nice thing for the guy to say,” Misao huffed and let the conversation peter away into nothing. Kenshin hesitated, seeming to struggle to bring something up—she had been around Aoshi-sama enough to have an idea of how to use silence to encourage someone else to speak. Even if it was difficult for her, it was worth it when Kenshin broke the silence first.

“And about what Saito said…” Kenshin trailed off. Misao noticed his unease and yawned impressively in the face of it.

“About you being the Battousai? Please. I grew up in the North. Red wolf with a scarred face, history up here and freaky fighting skills? The Oniwaban works on information. Of course I knew who you were.” Perhaps she hadn’t put it together until they actually crossed into the North and she had seen how familiar he was with the territory, but there was no need to tell him that.

Kenshin’s breath left in a sigh, “This one would suppose that he should have been prepared to be known up here. Perhaps this one has simply become used to the anonymity of the south.”

Ah yes, the south. And that not-pack you left behind. Say what you like about Saito (and I will, frequently, loudly and angrily) but he did give me a good opening to bring them up.

“So the female in the pack you left behind was a raccoon,” Misao remarked offhandedly, mock seriousness weighting her green gaze. “I’m not judging you.”

“She’s not a raccoon, that she is not,” Himura protested, the topic seeming to make him smile despite himself. “Miss Kaoru simply has very unique markings.”

“You’re one to talk,” Misao retorted with a smile of her own, eyeing her companion’s red pelt.

“Perhaps,” the wolf allowed himself a chuckle before falling silent again. Misao could easily recognize the lonely smile that touched his muzzle—she wore its twin often enough, when she remembered all over again that Aoshi-sama was gone, and she didn’t know how long it would be until she could see him again. And yet, she couldn’t help but smile, because the thought of Aoshi always made her smile. An important female then, this “Miss Kaoru.”

“Will you tell me about them?” she found herself asking into the stillness. “You don’t have to, of course,” she rushed on, watching the smile for signs of slipping.

“This one doesn’t mind,” Kenshin hesitated, gaze straying southward as if hoping to see a familiar figure coming toward him out of the night. But there was no one. “Miss Kaoru owned the territory that this one wandered on to, though at the time she was having trouble holding it…”

Kenshin’s quiet voice opened the story of a young female left alone in the world by the death of her father, trying to hold the remains of his territory in his honor through sheer willpower. Of a young puppy with a foul temper and noble heart who sometimes found it difficult to admit that he had made a family to replace the one he had been born into. An easy-going fighter with a habit of getting lost who had found his way into their lives and never left. A pair of frightened foxes, one flirtatious and catty and skilled, the other young and sweet-tempered.

It did not escape Misao’s notice that although Kenshin told day-to-day stories of everyone, Yahiko, Sanosuke, Megumi, Tsubame, and even a social bobcat named Tae—Kaoru’s name came up most frequently, and many of the stories centered on her.

I wonder if she knows, Misao lowered her head to rest on her paws, I wonder if she knows how thoroughly she has invaded Himura’s heart. His “Miss Kaoru.”

Chapter Text

Great clouds roll over the hills

Bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like

Nothing changed at all?

-Bastille, Pompeii

Yumi Komagata was not accustomed to “living rough,” as some of her colleagues referred to it. This was hardly the husky’s fault, as pampered show dogs were not generally given much opportunity to experience anything close to a natural environment. Still, the female dog would have rather died of exposure than even hint to her savior and alpha that she was having trouble in the out-of-doors.

Fortunately she hadn’t needed to; her dear Shishio’s needs had necessitated a shelter where he could recover his strength between campaigns. And only the best would do for the blood-eyed lord of the Northern lands. The cave used as headquarters and base by Shishio’s inner circle was no dwelling scratched out of raw earth. It was old and solid, a cave of stone. The granite walls were pale pink mottled with black and flecked with tiny shards of quartz that glittered like the distant stars. When the sun set, as it was doing now the dying light staggered into the shelter, turning the walls a pulsing red. The effect was as if lord Shishio’s pack had carved out a place for themselves in the beating heart of the mountains of the North.

Yumi sighed into the sunset, jade green eyes sliding shut as something like contentment warmed her from within. The North was all but won, only small pockets of resistance flaring and dying like sparks trying to escape the burning purpose of Shishio’s goals. And after the land was secure they could begin in earnest their design to keep men from encroaching on their space, and word would spread, leading to more followers, more land to fuel her mate’s fires. Yes. It would be glorious.

The red husky opened her eyes once more, turning them instinctively to the wolf that had saved her and claimed her heart.

Of course it was hard not to look at him. Shishio had been a warrior of this land long ago—but his scars were not from wars with other wolves. He had been shot as part of a set-up from his superiors and thrown on a pile of similarly-disposed-of packmates. But the scar from the bullet was lost amid the horrid crisscross of melted flesh and charred fur that had resulted when the humans set the pile ablaze.

It was a miracle that he had survived; it was beyond comprehension that he had grown in strength, as if the hungry flames that had licked at his body had sparked an insatiable desire within his mind.

Currently, her lord was resting, replete from a successful hunt some hours before—but even in rest there was an alertness about him, as even among allies he looked for an ambush.

Sitting at his side was Hoji—Yumi let her eyes skim over him dismissively. The earthy brown and white patched wolf was hunched, glowering out from the stark black patches surrounding his eyes. The target of his look was the Irish Wolfhound Usui, lying some distance away, smiling at the instinctive empty space left to him.

Hoji had argued long and heatedly with his alpha to punish the blind dog for killing their captive Oniwaban several weeks ago.

“It was not expedient,” he had said frostily. “If he must have killed them, he ought to have waited until they were all returned and not have allowed any to escape.”

Shishio had barked a laugh, “Do you suppose our tame Okashira will be able to bite back then? Or that tiny female?”

Hoji shook his head, “You should not underestimate what revenge can render one capable of, my lord Shishio.”

“And you should not underestimate my authority,” Shishio had countered in a pointedly flat tone. “I gave Usui the right to kill who he pleased for joining my cause. That was my word, and that is my final word.”

Hoji had backed off, but his continuing glowers bespoke a deep displeasure with the blind dog. He had little patience for anything that might hinder the rise of his alpha.

Privately, Yumi would have preferred it if her mate had reprimanded Usui somehow, for killing their own followers if nothing else. The blind dog made her uneasy as no other Juppongatana did. Only a few of those lieutenants were in the cave now, and Yumi let her eyes slide away from Hoji to silently count them. Anji the Great Pyrenees lay with his dark eyes closed in meditation, a peaceful, protective bulk against Usui’s madness. Fuji and that funny little rat were taking up a large space toward the back and chatting about something. Or rather, Saizuchi was talking to the dire wolf, to the best of Yumi’s knowledge the large beast never spoke, and never acknowledged anyone but the rat who dictated his every move.

The others were out; Henya would be roosting in a nearby tree for the night, his hawk’s eyes of little use once the sun went down. The gregarious and long-limbed Cho would be making the rounds of the eastern outposts, doubtless hoping for trouble, as long periods without fights tended to sour his temper.

Kamatari, Yumi’s lip curled, would be on patrol, the night being much friendlier to feline eyes. The ingratiating, toadying little—she hated that Shishio had recruited the mountain lion, simply hated it. It wasn’t right. When he was here she had to compete, fiercely, for the attention of her own mate! Surely she deserved better than that.

The final member, Soujiro, was out on a personal scouting mission from Shishio, who used the young coyote-wolf hybrid’s speed to his advantage as his kingdom grew.

No sooner had she thought of the dear boy then he trotted into the cave, the red light dimming as the sunset began to fade. He was a handsome creature, even caught between two species as he was. He was small for a wolf, yet larger than a coyote, his lean form built for a speed that he used to disastrous effect. His fur was mostly white with markings the golden-tan color her humans had called champagne along his back and dusted lightly across his face. Along the back of his neck, where a collar would have lain was a band of fur that was silvery-gray instead. Of course, currently that fur was all in disarray thanks to his swift journey. Yumi rolled her eyes in exasperation.

The young beta moved into the cave with a jaunty stride and a friendly smile that didn’t fully reach his slate blue eyes. He was never without the smile, and his tail tended to wag slightly whenever he stopped moving. He came to where Shishio and Yumi lay, and his scarred master looked up to hear his report.

“Hello, master Shishio,” he greeted cheerfully, “Miss Yumi.”

“Soujiro,” Shishio acknowledged with a smile of his own. Yumi sighed, eying the younger creature critically.

“You look like you were dragged backwards up a pine tree. Come here.” The coyote-wolf hybrid suffered himself to be fussed over with customary good grace, addressing his alpha as Yumi began the meticulous task of setting his fur to rights again.

“Things are going well to the west,” he reported. “The commander there has recruited three more stray dogs and they’ve moved the camp farther out to expand the territory. We’re still having some trouble to the North, though. Mister Jarl has sent some of his better fighters ahead to try and get a handle on the situation.”

“The coward doesn’t want to go himself,” Shishio’s lip curled. “He ought to have taken the whole group if anyone was going to go at all.”

“Considering the area I’m not sure that’s wise, lord Shishio,” Hoji interjected. “The Northern Mountain is famous for returning trespassers with slashed throats. The land may not be worth the cost to the army.”

Shishio growled lightly, “I rule the North now, Hoji. Not some old legend.”

The patchy wolf ducked his head in submission.

“Ah, yes,” Soujiro continued, smile never faltering. “There is also news to the south. Apparently Mister Saito has returned.”

“I knew it wouldn’t take him long to track down that mad wolf,” Shishio mused. “I suppose we’ll have to redouble our efforts to find him.” A gleam of anticipation sparked in his eyes, and Soujiro’s head bobbed easily in agreement.

“He attacked Mister Senkaku’s posting,” he reported, “and Mister Senkaku is dead. But he wasn’t alone.”

Yumi paused in her ministrations, looking up, “But that old nuisance always works alone.”

Soujiro shrugged easily, as if discussing something of no more importance than the weather. “The survivors claimed to have been attacked by a red wolf with a cross-shaped scar on the left side of his face. Mister Saito called him Battousai.”

Shishio straightened, the dull red of his eyes seeming brighter and bloodier at the words. “Battousai? Saito found the hitokiri?”

“Apparently so. You seem happy, master Shishio,” Soujiro beamed, as if pleased that his leader was pleased.

Shishio’s answering grin had fangs in it. “I never dreamed that my revolution would call back the Isshin Shishi’s bloodiest specter. Doubtless he’s here for the land again, I’m quite eager to meet him.”

“Imagine,” Hoji’s voice was calculating, “imagine how many would flock to your cause, lord Shishio, when they learned that you killed the hitokiri Battousai.”

Yumi wanted to smile along with them, but sudden foreboding gripped her bones. The bloodiest killer of the revolution… he was here, and he had already set himself against her mate.

Sano had an itch in his feet—one that had nothing to do with fleas and everything to do with an angry desire to just leave. It had been over a week since that crazy bastard Saito had torn him up and left their little almost-pack in splinters. Kenshin had left without a word to anyone but the Missy—which Sano was trying really hard not to understand, because he wanted to be mad at the crimson wolf, to blame him for just blowing out of their lives without so much as a goodbye.

The problem was he had been denning with a very practical vixen who liked to point out that Sano had only been semi-conscious by the time she started treating his injuries, and he probably wouldn’t have remembered a goodbye had Kenshin stopped to give one. And if he had to be honest, he would rather say his goodbyes to a pretty female than a buddy too.

Of course, the Missy and the Kid had been gone for four days now—with any luck they were closing in on Kenshin—and Sano was more than ready to follow their example. Now if only he could convince his doctor of that…

“You still aren’t fully recovered,” Takani snapped in annoyance. Sano had been surprised when he had finally broken through the vixen’s veneer of perfection, though perhaps with everyone else gone, she simply wasn’t bothering to keep up her untouchable façade.

“I can walk at least,” he tried to sound persuasive, but it still came out annoyed. “I’ll just finish healing on the way.”

The fox bristled, her normally-elegant tail thickened to twice its normal size. “You suffered major trauma,” she snarled, “how long will it take to get that through your thick skull?”

“Our friends may be in trouble,” he countered, “get that through that lump of ice you call a heart!”

The vixen’s ears pinned themselves flat to her skull and suddenly Sano wasn’t so sure that it was a good thing there were no witnesses around for this little fight.

“How dare you suggest I don’t care what happens to Sir Ken and the others. I only stayed behind to save your miserable life—”

“Then come with me,” the hybrid cut her off before she could work herself up into a rage.

“What?” She had heard him, but obviously didn’t believe her ears.

“Come with me,” he said again, impatiently. “You can make sure I don’t kill myself getting there and we’ll have a doc nearby if any of the others need one.”

The vixen frowned, but didn’t look ready to peel the skin off his bones anymore. “What about Tsubame?”

Sano shrugged, the half-healed gash in his side giving a subtle ache as he did so. “I don’t really think she should come, she’s not really interested in fighting and it will probably be dangerous.”

Megumi arched a brow and gave him a dry look, “I’m not interested in fighting or danger either.”

“But you already said that you wanted to go, and I can look after at least one noncombatant. I’m sure Tae will keep an eye on her if we ask.”

Takani shook her head wryly, “Tae would adopt her given half the opportunity. We would probably come back to find she had taught Tsubame to climb trees.” The amusement faded as she moved to the next point. “What about the territory? Who will guard it when we’re gone?”

Sano exhaled slowly through his nose, “I’ll ask Katsu to look after the place. Town is more his speed these days, but he used to be a pack dog same as me. He’ll know what to look out for.”

Silence filled the small den, and while Sano could see the black fox working through the information, he couldn’t see her conclusion. “So what do you say? I’m going to go north regardless, if you want to go at all, it’ll be safer to go with me than alone.”

Megumi snorted, a surprisingly unladylike sound, “From what I’ve heard, if you didn’t have someone along to keep you on the right path you would never get there.” Sano scowled but held his tongue, it was probably true anyway. “I’ll come to keep you from killing yourself, and to help Sir Ken however I can. But let’s get this straight right now, Sanosuke Sagara. On this trip, I own you. If I tell you to stop and rest—no matter how important you think moving on is—you stop. You eat the herbs I prescribe without complaining and you tell me at once if your wounds reopen or start feeling hot and achy.”

Sano ground his teeth a little, his insubordinate nature already on edge and they hadn’t even started their journey yet. “Same thing,” he finally managed mulishly. “I can only protect you as much as you’ll let me, so if I tell you to be quiet so I can listen, you better shut up. If I tell you to hide, you better get lost and not come back until I call you. Understand?”

The hybrid and the vixen eyed each other in mutual annoyance, neither willing to be the first to acknowledge the other’s terms.

“Well,” Sano finally said to break the moment, “I need to go tell Katsu the news.”

“I’ll tell Tae and Tsubame.”

“Good, I’ll meet you back here and we can go after those idiots who think they can do this without us.”

Kenshin had worried about traveling with Miss Misao. Not through any real concern for her welfare, she had shown yesterday that she was capable of holding her own in a fight, and not because she was poor company, since her stories and observations were a nice break from solitude. No, his worry had been that some of that conversation might draw some of Shishio’s pack to them as they crept northward through the heart of the territory.

Shishio had to know he was here by now thanks to Senkaku’s followers, but Kenshin would rather not leave a trail of encounters leading straight to the foothills of his master’s mountain. Convincing the older wolf to let them stay would be hard enough without that complication.

As it turned out he had only had to gently mention his concerns to Misao before being told indignantly that she was an Oniwaban and could sneak perfectly well. Perhaps she made more noise than a stalking hitokiri ought to, but at least her pelt tended to blend into the pattern of snow and shadows, while his remained a lurid bloodstain on the landscape, so they were fairly balanced when it came to stealth.

Despite his worry it had been relatively easy to work their way through the territory—Kenshin surmised from the lack of encounters that Shishio believed the heart of the North wholly conquered and was focusing his troops on the borders as he expanded the territory. It was perhaps an arrogant position to have taken, as it ignored the possibility of someone sneaking past (or breaking through) the sentry patrols and moving unmolested in the territory proper, as they were doing now. Though the red wolf tried not to question his luck too closely, it tended to be a shy creature and he didn’t want to lose its company.

The mountain loomed nearer and nearer as the pair traveled, devouring the horizon with a greedy appetite and leaving little for the distant range of mountains further North.

“So who is this Hiko character?” Misao finally broke her silence and Kenshin heaved a quiet sigh. He couldn’t really blame her curiosity; it wasn’t as if he had taken the time to explain where they were going earlier.

“Seijiro Hiko. He’s a lone wolf and a deadly fighter, perhaps more perilous than anyone living,” he told her quietly, keeping his ears pricked for any sign of sentries. “He was also this one’s master.”

“Master?” Misao echoed curiously. The red wolf inclined his head to one side as he elaborated.

“He found this one as a pup and trained me to survive. He was my teacher until this one left the mountain.”

“Oh, okay. Kinda like Gramps and the other Oniwaban were to me,” Misao nodded slowly, letting the information settle in her mind. “I guess I’m just surprised because I never called any of them ‘master.’”

Kenshin winced, a tell-tale flinch of his ears from their alert position. “Master Hiko is… traditional,” he tried diplomatically, then sighed and added honestly, “and a bit arrogant.”

As they drew nearer to the mountain their stealth began to be tested more seriously. Hiko’s mountain represented the Northern border of the territory Shishio had been able to claim, so there would be patrols.

Still, Kenshin was surprised at the ease with which they crossed the invisible line of the territory and began to make their way up the snowy foothills of the mountain that had been his childhood home. Misao seemed a bit nervous about her surroundings and disinclined to talk. Kenshin himself found himself almost wishing that Saito had offered to let the pair of them stay at his den, if only to put off what would almost certainly be an awkward reunion. He hadn’t spoken to his master since the day he had defied him and run off to help the Isshin Shishi. Hiko might be a recluse, but Kenshin found it very hard to imagine that he hadn’t found out what his errant student had been up to in the intervening years.

They moved farther up the mountain, coming out of a snow-dusted pine forest and into a brief clearing where the sky was visibly darkening as the sun gave up trying to bring warmth to the snowbound world. Kenshin’s steps slowed unconsciously. There was a figure in the snow ahead of them. Even if the wind rolling down the mountain hadn’t been bringing his scent Kenshin could never have mistaken the wolf.

Master… he’s still so big… For a moment the former hitokiri was a frozen pup again, trembling and miserable in blood-stained snow, staring up at the stranger who had come too late to save Miss Kasumi, Miss Akane and Miss Sakura. A giant of a wolf, implacable as the mountain on which they stood, his gaze like granite even when facing the carnage.

A fine tremor wracked Kenshin’s body, drawing him back into the present. The lone wolf Seijiro Hiko had not moved nearer, though he had to have seen the two pilgrims making their way towards him. A small part of Kenshin, a bruised bit that had never gotten over quarrelling with the being nearest to a father in his life, wondered with dread if his master intended to act as if he had no idea or memory of who his errant pupil was. The part of him he sometimes considered Battousai, who attacked enemies like Saito regardless of the danger, moved him to strike first.

“Hello, Master,” he called with respect, attempting to force the other wolf to choose quickly whether or not he would acknowledge the bond. Miss Misao looked from him to Hiko in rapid movements, curiosity plain on her open face, her ears straining to hear the next word and obviously frustrated by the knowledge that she shouldn’t interrupt.

Hiko didn’t verbally answer the call; instead he strode toward the pair with deliberate slowness. Hiko was a large wolf, well-muscled and tall with an intimidating aura that hung around him making him seem more massive still. His fur was thick and hung a little longer than was usual, adding to the impression of size. He had dull brown markings on his face and down his back, over a white underbelly and legs. Just ahead of his shoulders, on either side of his throat were twin patches of rusty-red fur; the only real claim to color the northern wolf could make excepting his deep blue eyes. Cold and fathomless as the darkest part of a mountain lake, where an unwary creature might fall in and drown.

As Hiko approached Kenshin ducked his head respectfully out of habit, this wolf had been his first teacher, his first alpha, though he had hardly realized it at the time.

“It’s you.” Hiko’s voice was dry, one brow arched, “So what brings my idiot apprentice back here?”

The red wolf fought against the relief that tried to rise at Hiko’s choice of words, the arrogant wolf could still force them to leave. “There is trouble in the North, Master. Trouble this one could not ignore.” Too late he heard the ghost of the old argument in his words and winced.  Hiko ignored the motion,

“There’s always trouble in the North, idiot,” he said, “there’s no point in running yourself ragged to fight the spirit of the land.”

“Hey!” Miss Misao’s voice spilled free, indignant, “Who gave you the right to talk like that? Sitting up here all comfortable while the rest of us are fighting like mad just to survive—”

“Leave,” Hiko said pointedly, continuing before Kenshin could truly worry that he meant them to go. “No one’s making you stay in this icy place. If it’s too dangerous for your blood, leave.”

“That is part of the problem, Master,” Kenshin moved slightly in front of Misao, symbolically and physically blocking her retort. “The violence is no longer confined to the Northern reaches, it spreads like a disease.”

“And you’re the wolf to contain it, I suppose?” Hiko drawled, clearly unimpressed.

“This one… I must do what I can,” Kenshin answered firmly, “to ignore those in need of my help would be contrary to all that I believe in.”

Hiko sighed. “Idiot.” The word was barely a puff of air, borne away quickly by the wind. He continued, louder, “That still doesn’t tell me why you’re here. Or for that matter, who the shrimp is.” He jerked his head to roughly indicate Miss Misao, who bristled at both the insult and the Master’s apparent dismissal of her.

“I’m Misao Makimachi of the Oniwaban,” she cried hotly, the pride in her voice as she identified her pack unmistakable.

“Seijiro Hiko,” he identified himself dryly, “of no one.” Misao’s ears went back a little, betraying her uncertainty at his limited response.

“Miss Misao is an ally, that she is,” Kenshin interjected smoothly. “We seek a place to rest and plan how to stop Shishio.”

“The burned one. I know of him. He’s been building a huge pack for himself.”

“A pack he has encouraged to attack humans,” Kenshin pointed out. “If they begin to suspect they are being targeted, they will retaliate against us all.”
            “It’s possible,” Hiko acknowledged. Kenshin kept his expression firmly in check. If he relaxed or looked pleased that his master was acknowledging his way of thinking then the older wolf would change his mind just to be contrary. If he lost his temper and pushed his argument, the other would just laugh. The red wolf had almost forgotten how delicate it was trying to talk his Master into anything.

“So you decided to come here,” Hiko returned to the part of the conversation that concerned him. “Why is that? Why not any of your allies in the valley?” There was a bite to the words and Kenshin clenched his teeth before responding in a clipped tone.

“There are none left, Master.”

“Oh?” Hiko’s voice was a study in scorn. “When you left it was to establish a ruling pack, wasn’t it? Was your determination not enough to achieve the goal?”

“That’s not fair!” Misao exploded from behind him. Kenshin was surprised to find that he had almost forgotten the presence of the coyote he was so focused on his Master. “Red didn’t have any control over what happened, going away or the Isshin Shishi breaking up, so don’t you try to blame him for it!”

“He never should have gotten involved,” Hiko said firmly. “What happened would have happened with or without him. And what have you done for yourself by it?” He swung his head back around to pierce Kenshin with his demanding gaze. “What did you accomplish by serving those wolves in the valley?”

“I…” he had learned to kill his own kind, had lost years of his life to even more senseless violence at the whims of men and had now returned to the bloody North, sacrificing the brief happiness he had known in order to fight in a war that wasn’t his… again.

I just wanted to help… Grief and doubt numbed his mind to the point he could almost see pity in Hiko’s eyes, and surely that was an illusion. His Master was waiting for an answer he didn’t have, or couldn’t give.

“I…”

Sky blue eyes formed in his mind’s eye, framed by a mask of dark gray fur on a face that seemed annoyed and cheerful at the same time. Kenshin, you idiot. The memory of her voice cleared his mind.

“I wanted to protect the happiness of those I met. I want it still,” the words came out, no longer hampered by the lump blocking his throat. “Shishio has not contented himself with the Northern lands, he seeks to swallow up all territories under his name. If nothing else,” he concluded quietly, “my time as a hitokiri has equipped me to deal with his threat.”

Hiko studied his former student for a long moment, silent. Misao shifted her weight from paw to paw behind the red wolf, but didn’t speak again. “You can stay here and plan,” he said at length. “You can even tell me some of what’s happened to you since you left. Though,” he added dismissively, “I can’t imagine it’s very interesting. Your little friend can stay too,” he nodded at Misao, “provided she doesn’t make herself too annoying.”

Kenshin breathed out a sigh of relief, counting on Misao’s indignant splutter to mask the sound. “Thank you, Master,” he replied, ducking his head graciously.

“Hmph,” Hiko snorted, “you don’t need to sound so surprised, there isn’t a more kind-hearted master around than I am.”

The red wolf winced involuntarily, mind flashing back to some of his extreme “survival training” as a pup. “Of course, Master.”

Hiko shrugged, “I suppose you’ll be wanting to rest out of the wind.” He turned, setting off through the snow without further explanation. “If you can’t keep up I’m not coming back to get you.”

Misao made her way along the lower slopes of the Northern Mountain. She had felt it best to leave the two males to talk privately once they reached Hiko’s cave, though neither had asked for such consideration. Like they need to, the coyote rolled her eyes, I mean, we’ve got a certified lone wolf who took in a kid—as a student, not a son—who grew up to be the most lethal fighter the North has ever seen. Yeah, I’m seeing a few things they might need to talk about without my being around.

A frown creased her brow, At least, Red probably would prefer a private conversation. I get the feeling that Hiko character doesn’t care who hears him. Misao grumbled a little to herself as she thought of the older wolf’s manners—or lack of the same. Then again, if he cared about being social he probably wouldn’t be a lone wolf. Regardless, she didn’t need to hear him chewing out her new friend. (And who knew, maybe Himura would actually fight back if she wasn’t there.) Regardless, it never hurt to be aware of your surroundings.

Though the young coyote had lived in the North all her life, she had never ventured past the foothills of the Northern Mountain, in keeping with her promise to Okina. She was glad to see that her puppy-hood suppositions of piles of dogs’ bones, deer taller than trees, or rivers of blood were false—the mountain was almost superlatively ordinary. The snow glowed dimly in the moonlight, providing little resistance to her paws. Though the mountain had been proclaimed safe numerous times, it still made the young female uneasy that she was leaving a clear trail of pawprints behind her.

Turning, she doubled back on her own footprints and changed direction, letting her mind fall into an abstract pattern as she tried to confuse her trail. It was a skill that had been taught to her as a game by Hannya, and often had the effect of calming her mind. Three paces right, two back, leap forward, pace a circle, cross your trail, her mind whispered instructions as the coyote wrote an incomprehensible message on the snow with her paws.

“What a funny little dance,” a rough voice interrupted Misao’s motions and she spun in a flurry of snow to face the intruder. She had been so worried about someone coming upon her trail that she had given no care to someone coming upon her.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! It was four dogs, big, with thick jowls and shaggy coats. Saint Bernard, she thought the breed was called, and these four were alike enough to be brothers.

“Maybe we should bring her back to dance for lord Shishio,” one suggested, and that answered the unspoken question as to whether they were Shishio’s goons or not.

“We ought to break one of her little legs, Nito,” another said, only distinguishable from Nito by the presence of one black ear as opposed to two brown. “See how well she dances then.” The thought of the female scrabbling through the snow with a broken limb proved hilarious to the four.

Misao retreated a step, the ridge of fur along her spine rising in response to her hostility. She as reasonably certain that if she ran she could make it back to Red and Hiko without being caught—these four seemed to be built for power rather than speed—but the idea rankled. Himura wouldn’t say anything of it, but if Hiko had to stir so much as a whisker on her behalf then she would never hear the end of it. And… she hadn’t come all this way to watch others take back her homeland.

“You’re trespassing,” she warned the laughing dogs, the sound of her own angry voice giving her confidence in its strength. “You better leave this mountain while you still can.”

The dog that had wanted her to “dance” for Shishio scowled. “All of this land belongs to the great lord Shishio,” he growled, “and as his lieutenants we go where we please in his name.”

Misao felt her lip curl in skeptical derision, “You four aren’t his lieutenants. I’m sure I’ve never even heard of you.”

“How dare you!” Nito’s near-twin responded, “We are the greatest of his servants! The mighty brothers Abu, Kuma, Nito and Ryu!”

The thought of running from these self-important fools was by now thoroughly abhorrent to Misao. “You’re just as foolish as your master,” the Oniwaban bit out scornfully, “taking fame that isn’t yours as he takes land that isn’t his!”

“No one insults lord Shishio!” Four muzzles wrinkled in heavy snarls and eight pinkish eyes narrowed in hate. “Meeting him is too good for you—you die here!”

Oh, great plan Makimachi!

The four heavy dogs charged towards her, their large paws kicking up plumes of snow that glittered in the starlight. Misao moved to meet them, shearing off at the last moment to try and hit the rightmost of her attackers. It half worked.

Her fangs were able to seize the dog’s ear as she went, tearing at the delicate appendage savagely, but the four were not unused to fighting together and used their numbers to their advantage. The remaining three were already moving to surround her so that by the time she had released her prize and was prepared to retreat, there was nowhere to go.

Gotta fight, and keep fighting, the coyote ordered herself over the yawing pit of terror that was splitting her heart, I’ll die for sure if I surrender, but if I fight the others may hear me and come to help. The trained portion of her brain noted that this was unlikely, in her quest to give the males privacy and to confuse her trail she had wandered farther than she had intended.

But if she had ignored her training by refusing to run she could ignore it a little longer.

The Saint Bernards’ snarls now appeared to be ghoulish smiles at her position. Misao jumped and spun, trying to avoid their attacks as they snapped at her wherever she didn’t face them—and she could only face one at a time. There was no chance to retaliate, and though she had avoided major injury thus far, she would eventually tire and then… The coyote turned her involuntary shudder into an instinctive side-step to avoid crushing fangs. The side-step served her well in avoiding Nito’s fangs, but doomed her by driving her straight into Kuma’s waiting bite.

Teeth clamped down as promised on her left hind leg and Misao lost all reason. She became a wild thing, twisting in Kuma’s grip, causing herself injury, but insensible to it as she rained furious bites down on whatever body pressed too close. Her heart pounded in fear of the moment that Kuma would tighten his hold, snap her bone and render her lame. But the dog seemed to be savoring his victory regardless of the injury she dealt to his brothers, drawing out his moment of power, as if he felt her helpless panic and relished it.

A frustrated cry tore loose from the young Oniwaban’s throat as a Shishio’s follower twisted his head to yank her off balance, she staggered, trying to avoid going down into the snow, trying to keep any more of her legs from being captured by the three remaining antagonists.

“No!”

For a moment she thought the cry was hers—but words, ever her companions, had deserted her and her cry had been wordless. The brothers had no reason to complain despite their myriad of small injuries, their victory was all but assured, so who—

A dark shape glided across the snow so silently that it didn’t seem real—but its impact with Kuma was very real. The shock of it vibrated up Misao’s leg as the dark shape fell upon the dog savagely, knocking his own balance off. Crimson bloomed on white and brown fur as the unfortunate dog released the coyote to turn toward his attacker. He fell a second later, another crimson bloom on his throat.

And now she could see, oh, she could see—“Aoshi-sama!”

It was him, the dark shape, deadly and graceful and already moving to the surprised survivors. Aoshi-sama! And now she wasn’t alone, now she was with her leader.

So the best of the Oniwaban and the last of the Oniwaban went to war.

It surprised her, how easily she fell into step with her alpha, but she hardly had the space of thought to wonder about it. Aoshi-sama attacked from the left, she came in low from the right and the target they had selected fell. She darted around another, harrying him with little attacks while he was half-mad with pain and fury—then at some invisible signal leapt back as Aoshi-sama pressed the attack and the brute that had been braced against a lighter weight fell.

Another down. Last one, turning to run—? No, a ruse, they had killed his brothers after all and he was furious, was it Nito or his twin—? Charging toward the dog directly in Aoshi-sama’s wake, knowing that his own approach rendered her invisible, the smaller threat, the silver shadow. Her alpha leapt over the dog’s head at the last moment and he jerked up his head to follow the dark wolf, to keep him in sight—and his white underjaw was exposed to Misao, following her leader. Another bite ended it.

And then she was just there, trembling from adrenaline and emotion, staring at the one she had sought for so long. Even her leg left off hurting for the moment.

Aoshi-sama straightened from his landing, turning slowly, regally to regard her. Others might have missed it, but she knew him too well, saw at once the relief in his eyes before he swept it back behind the emotionless leader’s façade. He inclined his head, perhaps was about to speak, but the coyote didn’t care.

The distance between the pair evaporated and she shoved her head onto his chest under his chin, determined to hear the reassuring pulse of his heartbeat telling her he was really here, she wasn’t alone. This close she heard him swallow his words in surprise, she was probably being too forward but he was all she had left and she didn’t care—

Slowly, as if unsure he would be welcome, her leader lowered his head until it rested more securely on the top of hers, tucking her in closer to him than she had managed on her own.

“Misao…” his voice was quiet, but she could hear it so clearly, clear as his heartbeat beneath her ear. “I am glad that you are alright.”

Misao buried her face deeper in the soft dark fur, letting Aoshi-sama’s scent calm her, “I looked for you,” her own voice was muffled but she refused to move. “I wanted to find you so badly…” She swallowed hard against a whine that tried to fill her throat, “The others are dead, they’re all dead…” And she was crying cold tears into his warm chest, hating herself for every drop but unable to halt them.

“I know,” her leader’s voice soothed her with its own sadness, “I came to save them and came too late… but I heard that you might have survived and I knew I had to find you.”

“I’m sorry you had to save me,” the female whispered, “I should have followed the training and run when I saw I was outnumbered. I was stupid, again.”

The pressure holding her to Aoshi-sama increased for a moment, “I am almost glad you did not, for it meant I was able to find you sooner.” The pressure eased, “Regardless, outnumbered does not always mean outmatched, little kunoichi.”

Misao’s smile at the sideways compliment was watery but genuine and she slowly pulled back to look at her leader. The black wolf was leaner than she remembered, having obviously run himself hard to try and get back North in time. Guiltily she wondered if she had somehow passed the Okashira on her way south, leaving him to search the territory for a follower that had already left.

There was also a hardness, a sense of ill-use in his gaze which she could easily identify. Vengeance.

“We’re going after Shishio’s pack,” it wasn’t a guess; it was a statement seeking confirmation from her leader. Now that she had him back, she would follow him anywhere.

“The fight will be a dangerous one,” the Okashira inclined his head, allowing her the choice, though she could read in his haunted eyes what it cost him to allow her to be in danger.

“Yes,” she agreed, “but we are the Oniwaban, and we can do it. And,” she rushed on, realizing that Shinomori might not know the extent of her activities, “we aren’t alone. I’ve been traveling with Kenshin Himura; he has a grudge against Shishio too.”

Aoshi’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly, an expression of true shock for him, and Misao continued. “He’s a little farther up the mountain and is making plans for the fight.”

“So the Battousai has come home.” Shinomori eyed the female, “did he bring the southern pack with him?”

Misao shook her head. “He thought it was too dangerous for them, but he’s formed an alliance with Saito from the Shinsengumi and if he has his way the old wolf who owns this territory will join us too.”

“Considering the wolf’s reputation,” Aoshi said dryly, “that would be a feat indeed.” Teal eyes swept the carcasses littering the snow. “Although the knowledge the Shishio will not respect his boundaries may sway him.”

“Do you want to go and see them?” Misao asked hesitantly, realizing that she had just sort of assumed that Aoshi-sama would join forces with Himura—though since they had fought before this was hardly certain. The Okashira nodded gravely,

“I must pay my respects, and we ought to share information if any sort of tenable plan is to be made.”

Relief chased the last of the adrenaline from Misao’s system, and it was with a light heart but a limping step that she turned to guide her alpha back to their allies.

BONUS SCENE—Traveling with a Doctor and a Fighter:

Megumi darted beneath the overhang, dark paws scrabbling at packed earth to flesh out the meager shelter a little more. Something bumped into her, jarring her shoulder against the wall, bristling she turned to glare at the spiky-furred brown half-breed now sharing space with her.

Sano grinned, sharp teeth glinting rakishly to match the twinkle in his eyes, “Cozy in here, kitsune,” turning, he ignored the vixen’s indignant splutter in favor of examining the sleet which was rapidly becoming heavier. Megumi snorted, having to press herself against the wall to avoid contact with her companion. Oblivious to her position, Sanosuke sat, massive frame taking up much of the entrance. “Well, I don’t want to walk in that,” he rumbled out in a lazy drawl, peering out from beneath the overhang at the sky. Megumi rolled her eyes, “How very brave of you,” she remarked dryly, finding herself observing the back of the half-wolf. That black marking- the only black on his frame… Sir Ken had said it meant “evil” in one of the human languages. The vixen wrinkled her nose; certainly the wet dog smell he was emitting at the moment fell under the category of evil.

Curling up, the fox faced the wall and yawned, “If we aren’t moving, I’m taking a nap.” Ignoring Sanosuke’s jibe about being lazy, the vixen closed her eyes and drifted off as she felt a warm weight settle at her back.

She awoke decidedly uncomfortable. During her sleep, the black fox had been slowly pushed against the dirt wall of the overhang, and was now jammed uncomfortably between the earth and the warm furry bulk of Sano at her back. Squirming, Megumi was able to catch a glimpse of the hybrid; he lay back to back with her, face out toward the open woods and his even breathing telling the story of his slumber.

Males, she grumbled, trying to push so that she was no longer crushed, Give them a field mouse and they’ll take a waterfowl. Neither of which would keep this bottomless pit fed. Irritably, Megumi won a few inches of space and used them to roll over. Now that she wasn’t craning her neck at an impossible angle she could see the sleet had stopped.

“Sano,” she nudged him with a paw, the fighter grunted and seemed to press a little closer to the ground, “Sanosuke!” the vixen shouted, kicking out at his black-marked back with her hind legs.

The hybrid came to with a yelp, half on his feet before rounding on the black fox with a furrowed brow and a snappish, “What?!”

“It’s stopped sleeting,” Megumi informed him archly, keeping her expression cool as she gazed back up into that annoyed face. That annoyed… wet face. Suspicion bloomed and Megumi glanced at the entrance, then her companion again, rapidly doing the math and feeling her ears heat as she began to realize. The shelter had been too small, especially with the rain blowing in. Sanosuke was still dotted with water, the parts of them facing the elements soaked, and she was perfectly dry. Idiot…

Chapter Text

Settle down, it’ll all be clear

Don’t pay no mind to the demons

They fill you with fear

Trouble, it might drag you down

You get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone

I’m going to make this place your home

-Phillip Phillips, Home

“So.”

Kenshin squashed an instinctive flinch as Hiko finally broke the silence. Being around his old mentor was making him feel very young and nervous again. He was sure the other wolf was doing it on purpose. The earth-toned wolf wasn’t even facing him, eyes turned disinterestedly to scan the slopes of his mountain visible through the entrance of his cave. “What have you been up to, idiot apprentice?”

Kenshin found himself wishing that Miss Misao had not wandered off to scout the territory; having his master’s undivided attention was not doing anything for his peace of mind.

“This one would imagine that you heard of most of his doings, Master,” he hedged carefully. Hiko had said that Kenshin could tell his story, but the crimson wolf had no desire to reopen old injuries. Or to give the stubborn old wolf a perfect opening to say I told you so again.

Hiko snorted, eyes narrowing for a heartbeat, “Of course I did, you numbskull. For a shadow killer you were far too flashy.” Kenshin’s reflexive smile was half-wince; he couldn’t deny that he did seem to attract more than his fair share of attention.

“I know,” Hiko said with deliberate slowness, making sure even his idiotic apprentice couldn’t miss the gravity of his next words, “I know how it came to an end. What happened… and that you were taken.”

Cold leeched into Kenshin’s bones and heart, numbness, but no pain. This wound had been bleeding so silently, so long, that there was no hurt left to feel. Just a crippling sensation of loss and the guilt-stricken grief that stole his breath away.

“How…” his voice was too quiet even in the stillness, with an effort he strengthened it. “How does anyone know what happened there?”

Hiko sighed, but the set of his face was curiously free from condemnation as he turned to face his errant pupil. “You weren’t thinking clearly,” he said gruffly. “There were survivors who saw what happened and spread the word. It was important news, after all. The Bakufu beta disappearing along with the Isshin Shishi assassin.”

Kenshin huffed out a breath in a humorless laugh. “So everyone knows then.”

Hiko shrugged, the impressive ruff of fur along his shoulders rippling with the movement. “Times change. I’d say anyone who might know has left the North by now. Is it really so bad to talk about it?”

The red wolf shook his head slowly, “This one… has never tried.” His master’s look was far too knowing, as if the black, white and red of Kenshin’s nightmares was emblazoned in the cross-shaped scar across his face.

“It might help,” he suggested, then continued archly. “Just don’t come to me with that touchy-feely talk-about-your-feelings crap.”

A wry smile twisted the corners of Kenshin’s mouth in an involuntary response. Hiko would listen, if he had to, if Kenshin chose to speak. He might not be able to help at all, but he would listen. The old wolf simply didn’t think he was the best candidate for such a conversation. Well, I’ve avoided it for this long; the red wolf thought with dark humor, it won’t kill me to leave it alone until Shishio is dealt with. Assuming, of course, that he could deal with Shishio. For now, however, he would just be thankful for a chance to sleep and push back the memories of bloody snow. The North was not being kind to him.

All the more reason to sort out Shishio so this one can move on. Though again, that left the problem of actually dealing with the burned wolf. Kenshin sighed roughly, ignoring his master ignoring the sound. They needed more information, less supposition. Where was Shishio denned? Did he keep all of his Juppongatana by his side or only a few? How many outposts guarded the borders, and how many wolves and dogs were in them? Were there any satellite packs like Kanryuu’s that could be recalled to bolster Shishio’s ranks? Perhaps Saito will have some of the answers, Kenshin supposed. The older wolf knew to rendezvous with him here—there wasn’t much else to do at the moment but wait.

A gentle crunch of snow alerted him, closer to the cave than he would expect someone to get without being noticed. He pushed himself to his paws, ears pricked to follow the sound of muted footsteps in the snow. It was possible that Miss Misao was putting her Oniwaban training to use and practicing her stealth—

“Hey,” Hiko grunted, annoyed, “I agreed that you and the pipsqueak could stay here for a while, I never said I was letting in a whole pack!”

A whole…? Only now could Kenshin hear it too, (only after Hiko had pointed it out… would he never stop being the student?) the pattern of steps had a half-blurred echo to it, another creature walking in almost perfect harmony with the first, disguising the number of beings approaching. Who…?

“Here it is!” Miss Misao’s voice broke through the taut stillness within the cave, instantly reassuring the red wolf who had begun to worry about the safety of his travelling companion. She sounded happy, exuberant as ever, her voice an overloud miss-match to her quiet footsteps. But who had she brought with her?

“Himura! Hey, Red!” she called, stealth abandoned in favor of the sound of her slight form bounding across the snow toward the cave.

“Miss Misao?” he called back curiously, moving toward the cave entrance to meet her. Snow exploded in tiny bursts as her paws impacted on the loosely-packed powder, her silver and tan form was lithe in the moonlight, her blue-green eyes lit from within by an infectious smile that seemed both natural and brilliant on her face.

“Look who I found,” she beamed, then corrected herself, looking over her shoulder, “or, who found me.”

Who indeed. A familiar form moved across the snow in Misao’s wake, the shadow to her silver, icy green eyes still as inscrutable as the last time Kenshin had seen the dark wolf.

“Aoshi Shinomori,” Kenshin greeted, inclining his head while keeping an eye on the Okashira. It was hard to forget that they had not parted as friends, exactly. Though they hadn’t much seemed like enemies either.

The black wolf came to a halt a respectful distance away and similarly inclined his head, “Battousai.” He blinked slowly, deliberately, “I hear we have a common enemy.”

If the smile that tugged at Kenshin’s muzzle in response was a little grim, he was sure the Okashira was the only one who noticed it.

“That we do.”

Hiko had let Aoshi into his den after a hurried introduction, thought he was still inclined to complain about being “crowded.” To divert him, Misao had told the lone wolf of her encounter with the four St. Bernards on his mountain. Thereafter the grumbles were mostly against Shishio and a good deal deadlier in tone.

Kenshin was suffered to explain to Aoshi how he had come to the North, and then Misao badgered her beloved leader into relating some of what had happened to him while they had been separated. The black wolf spoke sparingly of his time alone, except for any tactical information he had uncovered as he scoured the North for the remnant of his pack.

Eventually the conversation died down and Kenshin thought hard about the information Aoshi had given him. It seemed the borders were well-guarded, with evenly-spaced packs of between seven and fifteen members each stationed along them. There had been another satellite pack to the west—but after the debacle with Kanryuu it had been recalled and re-assimilated into the fold.

“Misao has told me you left your pack behind.” Aoshi observed into the quiet. Kenshin blinked, refocusing his mind on the present moment.

Hiko lay some distance away, curled to face the wall in a visual display of his poor temper. Whether he was asleep or awake was anyone’s guess. Aoshi lay somewhat nearer as they had been speaking, his head upright with his paws straight before him. Curled into the dark wolf’s side, having succumbed to her tiredness and the emotional exhaustion of finding Aoshi again Misao slumbered peacefully. She had buried her face into Aoshi’s fur as if to press herself into one being with him, so he could never leave her behind again. The Okashira didn’t seem to mind her intrusion—his tail had curled around her as far as it was able.

With an effort, Kenshin recalled Shinomori’s statement. “This one did indeed leave them behind.” Aoshi tilted his head fractionally to the side, considering.

“A pity. Allies would have been advantageous in the fight.”

Yes, I know. There’s a lot of them, even if we probably are the better fighters. “It was too dangerous.”

Aoshi’s gaze remained cool, “And coming after Takani was not?”

“That’s… not the same,” Kenshin sighed. “This isn’t their fight.”

“But you have made it yours, Battousai,” Aoshi observed. “Do you not believe your allies would aid your for such a reason?”

“They shouldn’t have to—” Kenshin began to protest, but Aoshi cut him off with that same inscrutable calm.

“No. Nor should Misao have found it necessary to stay and seek me once she was free of her captors, when it would only put her in more danger. Such is the nature of a pack.”

Kenshin allowed a fond smile to steal across his face as he regarded the sleeping coyote. “Miss Misao is quite brave indeed.”

The ice in Aoshi’s gaze thawed a little as it turned to the female, early, icy spring rather than the shattered heart of a glacier. “Far braver than she knows and more loyal than I deserve.” The gaze traveled back to meet Kenshin’s once more. “Do you count those who fought with you in the south as any less brave? Any less loyal?”

“No, they would have come if this one allowed it, or if this one asked it of them. But one did not, and what’s done is done.”

“Perhaps,” Aoshi allowed, lowering his head to the ground as he obviously prepared to sleep. “Perhaps not.”

Morning crept in slowly, as if hesitant to disturb the creatures sleeping in Hiko’s den. It offered a slight warmth with its approach, the better to coax the sleepers into wakefulness. Kenshin observed the gradual brightening of his surroundings with eyes that felt as though they had scarcely closed the night before. Troubled sleep was nothing new to him, though since learning of Shishio’s threat the nights had been restless even by his standards. He knew there was nothing to be done about the nightmares, but that didn’t stop the wolf from looking wistfully at the slumbering forms of Aoshi and Misao, curled together for protection and comfort against all the night brought. Since finding her Okashira, Misao displayed no intention of letting him out of her sight again.

For a moment he couldn’t help but wonder what Miss Kaoru’s reaction would be if he returned to her territory after this. Would she react at all like the young coyote? He knew his smile at the thought was pained, but that was all right, no one was awake to see it yet. Probably not. Even if she didn’t just tell him to leave—walk away and take the strife and death that shadowed his steps with him—she was more likely to attack him in a fit of temper. It was a rare time indeed that he had seen her respond emotionally in a way that didn’t involve belligerent yelling and violence.

If she hadn’t told him that she had been raised by her father as an only-child, Kenshin would have supposed the Tanuki grew up with a den full of brothers. But perhaps the strays her family had always taken in had filled that role.

The red wolf sighed. It had surprised him how much Miss Kaoru drifted into his thoughts since he left—a gleam of silver moonlight taking the place of black midnight in his mind. In some ways he blamed Miss Misao for that—he would catch the gleam of a silvery pelt out of the corner of his eye and turn his head, expecting to smell summer grass-flowers and see scolding, laughing blue eyes. But the quizzical gaze that met his was green, the silver pelt warmed by tan instead of shadowed by coal, and summer flowers were absent in winter’s chill. But he knew the coyote was not wholly to blame, for just as often he had turned to see nothing at all, the memory of Miss Kaoru’s presence teasing his mind in an empty landscape.

For the millionth time he told himself to forget about it—Miss Kaoru was safe now, and that mattered so much more than the ease he felt in her presence. Saito had reminded him of that, coming down from the North and shattering his illusion of being a protector. He ought to know by now; he was no guardian, no immovable wall like his master, a mountain, a shelter that would weather storms, breaking them before they could touch those under its protection.

He wasn’t strong enough for that, not stable enough. He was a striker, a… a hitokiri, seeking out threats and trying to dispose of them before they ever grew close enough to be an imminent danger. It only took one failure, just one, and the death that followed at his heels would swallow up his loved ones.

Dismal thoughts for an early morning.

Light increased steadily and Hiko finally stirred, either truly waking or giving up on the pretense of sleep. One baleful eye fixed on his prodigal student.

“Oh, you’re still here.” The words were dry, but not overly harsh and Kenshin decided not to play his master’s game by rising to the bait. The awakening Misao apparently had no such compunctions.

“Where did you think we were going to be?” Her voice was grumpy with sleep and she only stirred enough to raise her head and glare at the wolf. “It’s early. The sun’s only just come up.”

“And so you use your own laziness as an excuse to abuse a poor old hermit’s hospitality, is that it?”

Kenshin sighed as Misao spluttered, trying to wake up enough to respond properly. Aoshi had also roused, looking as unfazed as ever.

“Master,” Kenshin broke in with limited patience, “we already told you we intend to meet with Saito here and you agreed that we could.”

Hiko huffed, rising slowly and shaking his impressive ruff. “Hmph. Well, it had better be soon,” he warned. “Just be grateful I’m such a kind, forgiving master.” Kenshin knew better than to argue with the statement—the older wolf had raised him from a pup and there were far too many embarrassing stories he could choose to relive. Now, or worse, when Saito got here.

That tooth-grinding thought was more than enough to keep him quiet, and Hiko’s triumphant smile as he strode majestically out of the den made it clear that he knew of this power and was reveling in it. “I’m off to find breakfast. I suggest you three do the same.”

“Arrogant, condescending old grump,” Misao muttered resentfully under her breath. Kenshin didn’t disagree with her on any particular point.

The most annoying part is that Master has every right to be that proud—is it still arrogance if you can back it up? The red wolf almost longed for the overconfident thugs that could be defeated to show them the error in their thinking. Such tactics would only inflate his Master’s ego even more.

“It is generous of him to allow us to hunt here,” Aoshi’s unruffled observation brought an end to Misao’s rant, which, unchecked, had begun to grow in severity and volume. “Most lone wolves are fiercely protective of any territory they manage to claim.”

“It will also give us a chance to keep our eyes out for Saito, that it will,” Kenshin put in as he rose, shaking off some cave dust. “Even if he chose to tarry with his mate, he ought to be here soon.” Or he had better be, the thought had a bit of darker irritation to it, the thought of a hitokiri impatient for a target. If he makes me track him down and waste more time we might have a… problem.

The pickings were pretty good despite the snow, and everyone was able to catch something to eat. Once that business was completed and there was still no sign of Saito, Kenshin suggested traveling down the Mountain towards the border, in hopes of running into the Shinsengumi.

And if we don’t run into him by the time we reach it, this one is going scouting regardless, Kenshin thought privately with a good deal less of his usual good humor. The longer the day wore on the more anxious he felt, and he knew that if he could just find a path to his target the feeling would ease. His calm was not at all helped by the fact that Hiko had found them after his own meal and was amusing himself by alternating between goading Misao into a spluttering rage and belittling his errant student. Aoshi seemed mercifully exempt from Hiko’s fun; probably, the Rurouni knew, because even Hiko wouldn’t be able to get a reaction out of the stoic wolf.

Kenshin set his teeth as another biting insult and scathing retort sounded out over the snow. They were not yet off the mountain, but the idea of the sound carrying down to any of Shishio’s followers was raising his hackles, and again he had to weigh whether or not it was worth it trying to tell the two to keep quiet before they came into Shishio’s territory. His ears twitched just as a familiar scent reached his nose and the decision was neatly taken from him.

"You do realize that other beasts can hear you,” Saito’s familiar disparaging tone preceded him as the northern wolf came into view, looking just the same as the last time Kenshin saw him, lean and deadly with dark amber eyes that gleamed with their own vicious sense of humor.

Hiko rolled his eyes dramatically at Saito’s arrival. “I suppose you’re the one they’ve been waiting on,” he drawled, unimpressed. “Is there anyone else here to trample over my home? Any more friends you’ve got hiding behind boulders or up trees?”

“He is not our friend,” Misao grumbled, the fur on her back fluffing a bit as she visibly reacted to Saito’s presence. The Shinsengumi looked back at her with an arched brow.

“Perhaps not, but we are allies, here to make use of one another.” His upper lip twisted in disdain, “For all the use you’ll be.”

Misao sucked in a breath at the insult and bristled, ready to defend herself as Aoshi stepped forward.

“Saito. If we are allies as you claim, I would advise you to not insult my subordinate.”

Kenshin arched a brow of his own, but kept his words to himself. In hindsight he supposed it shouldn’t have been a surprise—Aoshi was just as native to this area as Saito was, as alphas of neighboring territories, the two would have met at least once.

For his part, Saito smiled thinly at the black wolf, “Aoshi Shinomori, so you found your way north again. Nice to see you were able to find someone useful, Battousai.”

“Where have you been, Saito?” Kenshin ignored the subtle dig at his choice in companions; he was long past ready to have begun the work of removing Shishio from his position of power. Saito blinked innocently at the question.

“What do you mean? We were to meet here, and here we are. I don’t think we ever agreed on a time.”

“This one would think that you of all of us would want Shishio gone sooner rather than later,” Kenshin pointed out. “Wasting time like this does none of us any good.”

“Then there’s little point wasting time discussing the past, don’t you think?”

 “That’s enough, both of you,” Hiko’s arrogant tone broke into the barely civilized conversation between the two old enemies. “This is why I hate dealing with other wolves. We came to do a job, now let’s get on with it.” Kenshin held his silence a moment longer before speaking; to be sure his master had said his piece. A small part of his mind that sounded suspiciously like Yahiko was crowing in glee that Saito had shut up when Hiko told him to.

“We have decided to scout out Shishio’s position and power in the land,” he informed Saito matter-of-factly, “once we know more we’ll be able to make a plan for getting rid of him.”

Saito smiled sardonically, apparently finding Kenshin’s goals to be over-simplistic, but he didn’t voice any criticism. “This way then, there are back ways to travel so we can pass unseen.”

The days had run together as Kaoru and Yahiko had run north, eating miles with long strides, desperate to regain their splintered pack. North was a pull lodged in the wolf’s bones, a direction she never had to stop and check, and she wondered if her association with Kenshin had allowed the north to sink its claws into her by proxy.

Yahiko had been exceptional on the trip, the normally-complaining young dog showing rarely-seen determination as he followed his surrogate sister mile after mile.

“It’s the husky in me,” he had said with pride when Kaoru had commented on it the first night. “I’m built to go long distances.”

And it certainly was long. Up past the Uramura’s old territory, across a smallish mountain range before the land opened up to the vast plains of the North. At least Kaoru had known for sure that they had found the right place when she and Yahiko had to slip past a border-patrol of Shishio’s goons. She couldn’t say that she thought much of them—they seemed jumpy, more afraid that they would have to defend the territory than eager to actually do so. Still, there was no sense in looking a gift moose in the mouth.

The cover of night and a fortuitous snow flurry had seen the pair past the sentries and safely bedded down until morning. But now the morning hours were past and Kaoru had to admit that she didn’t know where to go from here. Out of some lingering sense of purpose she and Yahiko continued north across the territory, but…

“Quit dragging your paws, ugly!” Yahiko snapped in irritation, “at this rate we’ll be lucky to find Kenshin before winter’s over!”

“Keep it down, Yahiko!” Kaoru hissed, darting a furtive look around the white landscape. A moving shadow made her tense momentarily, but it was only a hawk circling high overhead. “This is enemy territory, it’s not safe here.”

The dog’s ears flattened at the rebuke, but his expression was positively mulish, “Well duh. That’s why we’re here isn’t it? So Kenshin doesn’t have to do this alone.”

Kaoru reigned in her temper to keep from yelling back at Yahiko out of sheer habit, “And that doesn’t involve getting caught before we even find him!”

Yahiko’s curled tail drooped a fraction and his expression flickered. “Where do you think he is, Kaoru?”

That’s… the tanuki hesitated, “I don’t know,” the answer was brutally honest—brutal in that it squeezed her lungs like an iron band to think about it at all. “But we’ll find him,” she continued firmly, “we know he came to stop Shishio, so if worst comes to worst we’ll just find Shishio and wait ’til Kenshin shows up.” Which of course assumed their ability to find Shishio, but since he had set himself up as alpha and tyrant Kaoru figured it couldn’t be too hard.

The land beneath them slowly rose, and Kaoru felt herself relax slightly as the trees began to grow more thickly around them in the beginnings of a proper forest. The sacrifice in visibility was worth it for the concealment it offered.

“Yeah,” Yahiko agreed after a moment’s thought, moving from tree to tree in what was probably half attempted subterfuge and half a game. “Boy, would he be surprised if we showed up then.”

Kaoru didn’t really think that surprised would cover it—part of her worried that the red wolf would be angry at her for not only coming north against his wishes but for bringing Yahiko into danger as well. She really didn’t want to meet up with Kenshin right before (or worse, during) a fight and exacerbate the situation. “Surprised,” she echoed absently, stepping around a particularly deep snowdrift, “right.”

Yahiko eyed the pile of snow, and she could read the longing in his eyes to charge through it fighting with her earlier warning about not attracting attention. Or, in this case, leaving behind a very obvious trail.

Not how any pup wants to spend their first winter, Kaoru sighed. It’s a shame he hasn’t had more time to play. But bringing up the issue would be worse than pointless—not only would it not change the circumstances of their travel, the young dog would probably take any such remarks as an insulting commentary on his age.

The brown and white canine came to his own decision regarding the drift and skirted it, following Kaoru’s own shallow pawprints. It bothered the tanuki to no end that they were leaving a trail at all, but the skies that had granted them snow the night before had cleared completely. Still, with any luck the wind that had chased the clouds away would scatter the snow on the plains, blurring the edges of their prints.

Uneasiness crept up her spine, raising the fur along it against the chill in the air. She scanned the area for any hint of the cause, but could see no sign of anyone but their circling friend the hawk. Still, despite the evidence of her eyes she knew—they were being followed.

The wolf came to an abrupt halt, listening hard. Yahiko continued on for a few steps before faltering to a stop himself. “What—”

“Quiet,” Kaoru bit out, twisting her ears to their limit in search of sound. There—it was gone now, but she could have sworn she heard footsteps continuing for a second after Yahiko’s aborted question. She slid slowly into a crouch, lowering her center of gravity and making herself a smaller target.

“Someone’s found us.” Her voice was barely a breath against the snow, but Yahiko’s eyes widened, red-brown gaze darting around the trees as he mimicked her motion.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

The pair remained crouched, silent, waiting for further information from their straining senses. Just when Kaoru was about to decide she had imagined the noise after all, it came again. Yahiko took off like a bolt after the source, charging in a flurry of churning snow.

What the—? That idiot! Oh, he probably thought he was making a good decision, taking down whoever had found them before they could report back. The problem, Kaoru tried not to panic as she chased after the young dog, is we don’t know how many there are!

“What the—” a surprised female voice yelped, “Hey!”

With another burst of speed she could see the scene. Yahiko had come upon a group of five and was busily attacking the smallest, a silvery creature that looked to be a coyote. Kaoru had a vague impression of the others—an earthy-colored giant, steel gray and shadow black—before red caught her eyes.

“What? Yahiko—” his voice hit her like a sudden blast of spring air, warming her completely, easing the tension she had had to live with since he went away. Kenshin’s violet eyes landed on her and Kaoru stopped running, stopped breathing. “Kaoru?” Her name was a breath of wonder from his mouth, his expression one of hope warring with disbelief.

Kaoru’s heart thundered relentlessly in her ribcage, as if to break free of it with the force of its beating. An unfocused part of her brain wondered if it pounded so fiercely because she had yet to draw breath again or because, despite being miles away from the den she had known all her life, she finally felt like she was home.

“Kenshin.” Saying his name used the last of her air and she had to inhale again. Hesitantly she stepped forward—she was glad to see him, but he hadn’t moved. Did he… want to see her?

The tanuki realized horribly that she had taken it for granted that he would want to see her again. What if he were angry, or annoyed that she had followed him? He had told her to stay behind after all, even if it was to protect the others. Maybe—Kenshin moved forward without visible hesitation, but he moved slowly, as if she were some easily-spooked creature who might bolt. But that was silly because clearly she couldn’t move.

Finally he was directly in front of her, close enough that she could breathe in his subtle scent without difficulty. He still looked torn between hope and disbelief, but hope had the larger hold.

“You came.”

Kaoru was dimly aware of Yahiko some distance away making some noise about Kenshin’s companions, but making sure her little brother minded his manners was so far from being important right now.

“I wanted to see you,” Kaoru managed, sounding plaintive to her own ears as she looked up the small distance into Kenshin’s scarred face. “Are you angry with me?”

“Angry?” Surprise crossed his features and his ears twitched as if making sure he had heard her correctly. “Why would this one be angry?”

“You told me to stay behind, and I came anyway.”

Kenshin closed his eyes for a moment, but amazingly his expression remained unguarded. “Truthfully I am a little worried,” he admitted softly. “The North is dangerous, especially now. But,” a confused smile tugged at his features, his eyes reading her face as if he could work out the answer to his puzzle there. “I am also… relieved. I wanted to see you again, despite the danger.” He sighed, and repeated softly, as if marveling at his own feelings, “I wanted to see you again.”

Whatever invisible bands had held the majority of her being loosened instantly with relief. “Good,” she replied after a moment, struggling to marshal her treacherous voice into its normal playful tone, “because we came a long way, and I’m not turning right back around.”

“Well duh,” Yahiko interrupted, looking torn between sulking and smiling. “What would be the point of that?” Kenshin seemed to realize that the dog was feeling left out and turned to look at him with a smile.

 “Yahiko, you’ve grown! This one hardly recognized you.”

Kaoru blinked, since she had been with him the whole time she hadn’t noticed, but Yahiko was bigger. The puppy that had been carried home by Kenshin had been replaced by a scruffy youngster whose head was level with her shoulder. When did that happen?

One of Kenshin’s companions, a female coyote, coughed meaningfully.

“Miss Kaoru, Yahiko, let me introduce you,” Kenshin hurried. “This is Misao Makimachi of the Oniwaban. Aoshi you know,” he nodded to the dark wolf standing behind the coyote. Aoshi inclined his head gravely in return. Kaoru blinked. Okay… so he’s not trying to kill us anymore? That’s… nice.

“And this is Seijiro Hiko, this one’s Master,” he indicated the giant of a wolf looking at the pair with almost humorous interest. “Of course, Saito you know.” The words were not a growl as the violet gaze cut to the dark amber one, but to anyone familiar with traditional Rurouni cheer they were ice cold.

The coyote he had called Misao bounced in place in apparent delight. “So you’re Kaoru! I’ve been hoping I’d get to meet you!”

“Ah, hi,” Kaoru offered weakly, “I’m sorry Yahiko attacked you…”

“No worries. I’d be a pretty poor ninja if a surprise attack like that could take me down.” Misao shrugged off the assault with a confident smile, and Kaoru did have to admit that despite Yahiko’s attack the coyote didn’t seem to be hurt at all.

Saito snorted, cutting off Yahiko’s bristling retort, “Ignoring that a ninja should not be so lacking in stealth that she gives away our position.”

“But it led to this reunion,” Kenshin pointed out mildly, bland expression almost daring the Shinsengumi to keep taunting.

I really hate that he’s here, Kaoru shifted uneasily, wishing that Saito had kept quiet so she could pretend the wolf didn’t exist. He had come to her territory because he was against Shishio, so she supposed his presence here now meant he was an ally. But she would never feel comfortable when the older wolf was around, not with the effect he seemed to have on Kenshin’s behavior.

“What’s he doing here anyway?” Yahiko glowered, shifting uneasily as he stared at the deceptively relaxed form of Saito. Kaoru wondered if, like her, Yahiko was having a hard time suppressing the memories of blood and snow, Sano lying gasping on his side, and Kenshin, a furious amber-eyed stranger attacking a wolf that seemed to match him in skill.

It was a bit odd, but despite the fact that Kenshin had fought Aoshi as well as Saito, Kaoru found herself worrying far less about him. She had understood the Oniwaban in the end, and doubted that the dark wolf would either attack or antagonize. Saito seemed to do both just by breathing.

Kenshin seemed determined to take Yahiko’s question at face value. “We came to scout out Shishio’s position in the land and the number of his followers so we can work out a strategy.” The red wolf looked around uneasily, as if expecting the enemy Kaoru was embarrassed to admit she hadn’t thought of since seeing him. “As he had the most experience, Saito was our guide. Though this one thinks it is time to return to the mountain and lay our plans, indeed it is.”

Hiko groaned, obviously uncaring whether anyone outside the group heard him or not. “More outsiders in my territory. And this brat seems just as noisy as the other one.”

“Hey!”

“Just a minute you—!” Furious voices rang out from twin hotheaded throats, and Kaoru could have sworn she saw a flicker of a smile on Aoshi’s muzzle as he turned his head to scan the landscape.

“Master,” Kenshin’s sigh was exasperated in the extreme—for a moment Kaoru could picture him as a very young wolf, all paws and sullen attitude toward an adult who clearly didn’t understand what it meant to be young. The image made her turn her head to hide her own smile. I wonder if Kenshin became so polite to try and compensate for his master’s rudeness…

“I know, I know,” Hiko grumbled. “It’s either you lot or Shishio’s crew. Believe me; the choice isn’t as easy as you think.”

The seven assorted canines assembled back in Hiko’s den, which was by now beginning to feel quite cozy with all of the new additions to it. Kenshin sat in the same spot where he had slept the night before as the others arranged themselves so they could see one another’s faces. Hiko naturally did not join the gathering, but slouched against a wall by himself, watching the proceedings with dark blue eyes.

“Shishio is denned about half a day away from here,” Kenshin began, bringing Kaoru and Yahiko up to speed on the information uncovered earlier that day. “His Juppongatana are with him at almost all times, and squads of other pack members move in and out daily. In addition to them are the border patrols, which could be pulled into the heart of the territory to augment the main force.”

“We snuck past a few of them,” Kaoru put in, “they didn’t seem much like fighters, very nervous, but there were a lot of them.”

Saito nodded dryly at the she-wolf’s opinion. “They would be. We wiped out one of their outposts a few days back.”

“We’ve got a few options,” Kenshin said. “One is a war of attrition. Logic dictates that our smaller force will be overwhelmed by Shishio’s larger one—fighting by attrition would mean slowly picking off his followers until we reach a more manageable number.”

“That would take weeks and weeks,” Misao protested.

“Seasons, more likely,” Kenshin corrected, “and Shishio would not be standing idle while we gnaw away at his force—particularly in his recruitment. But there is another way. With the exception of a core group of lieutenants, Shishio’s followers are not close to him; their loyalty is to the power that they perceive he has. It is very similar to how it was with Kanryuu. If we remove that power, it is likely that the average followers will disband on their own.”

“So,” Yahiko swallowed, “you want to go in and… remove Shishio and the Juppongatana?”

“It’s the way hitokiri work,” Saito noted dispassionately, “eliminating specific threats rather than standing to fight the war.”

“Kenshin’s not—!” Kaoru started angrily, but was cut off by Kenshin’s apologetic tone.

“In this instance Saito is right Miss Kaoru. This one is afraid that the core idea of this attack is very hitokiri in nature.”

“There are still the guards to deal with,” Aoshi pointed out objectively, “It will not be easy to get past them to Shishio.”

“Not if we can get Shishio to come to us,” Kenshin smiled grimly. “As this one understands it, he seeks to conquer the north indisputably, and by now he must have heard of this one’s presence here. I believe that if I offer him challenge he won’t allow the main body of his pack to interfere.”

“Because this is like that time with Kanryuu,” Kaoru said slowly, trying to get a handle on Kenshin’s train of thought. “If it really is and he doesn’t hold the majority of his followers’ loyalty closely, he can’t afford not to answer a challenge.”

“It would be seen as weakness,” Kenshin agreed, “when followers flock to him for his strength.”

“That still leaves his Juppongatana,” Misao pointed out gravely. “They are devoutly loyal to him. If he told him to, they would still attack.”

“We will move against them as we need to,” Kenshin told the coyote. “This one plans to send Shishio the challenge tonight and face him tomorrow. We should be able to see quite clearly then whether he is accompanied by his lieutenants.”

“And we’ll take care of them while you go after Shishio,” Yahiko interjected fiercely, his eyes daring anyone to naysay his proposition.

“That’s all very well for you,” Hiko said from his position outside the group. “But I’ve got a plan of my own.”

Kaoru caught Kenshin’s lightning-fast flicker of surprise—apparently the crimson wolf had not expected his master to be doing anything more to help than providing a place to sleep.

“What is that, Master?”

Hiko grinned grimly, “You’re putting an awful lot of hope on the idea that Shishio’s followers won’t interfere. I can understand your reasoning for it, but I’m a lone wolf, and proof that creatures don’t always live in a way you’d expect. I’m going out to deal with Shishio’s army. It’s time I cleared the air of the stench of this rabble.”

“We would be grateful for the distraction, Master,” Kenshin began, but was cut off by Hiko’s arrogant expression.

“What distraction? We both know I’m the real threat. If anything you lot are the distraction while I go to work!” Silence stretched in the wake of this statement as everyone waited for someone else to contradict Hiko’s statement. Finally Kenshin coughed to change the subject.

“If there’s nothing more to be said, this one will go to call out the challenge to Shishio.”

The sunset was golden across the snow, amber waves deceptively warm looking, only deep blue shadows giving hint to winter’s chill. Shishio let his gaze scan over the land—his land, won by blood and conquest. His Juppongatana snarled and snapped at one another as they quarreled over the remains of the evening’s kill, though no blood was drawn under the watchful eye of their lord. Those eyes narrowed as they landed on Hoji, the other wolf slinking into view out of those cold shadows.

Red eyes caught gray, and the follower changed direction to approach his leader.

“Yes, lord Shishio?” The tone and posture were both deferential, displaying a respect that should have soothed the alpha, but instead raised Shishio’s hackles.

“Where have you been, Hoji?”

The earth-patterned wolf ducked his head, “I sent Henya on a scouting expedition to try and discover where the Battousai might be hiding.”

The burned wolf quashed his first, instinctive reaction—irritation that Hoji had given orders to one of his subordinates without his permission—it had been a good thought, and he wasn’t such a poor commander to turn down information. “Oh? And what did he find?”

A frown deepened the black circles around Hoji’s eyes, “The number of his allies has grown. The lone wolf of the Northern Mountain was seen traveling with him, as was Saito of the Shinsengumi.” He paused before continuing tactfully, “The surviving Oniwaban are with him as well—apparently the Okashira made his way north again.”

Shishio snorted, “I have no intention of worrying about such a creature as our old friend the Okashira, nor about that other one who was only able to run away.” He could see in his lieutenant’s quick flattening of his ears that Hoji didn’t agree with this assessment, but he wisely didn’t bring it up again.

“Two more joined him today. Strangers to the North, both of them. Though judging by Henya’s account they are quite close to the Battousai.”

“Hm, an unknown element,” Shishio mused thoughtfully. “I assume since they are working with the old hermit they are encamped on the Northern Mountain?”

Hoji inclined his head in an affirmative gesture, dark eyes studying his leader for an indication of his plans. It would be expedient, Shishio knew, to send his lieutenants with several squads to go and deal with the threat to his sovereignty. Expedient, yet… he had not started in a position of power, protected by underlings. He had been a striker, a bloody fang in the night, the same as the Battousai, cutting through any who stood in the way of his vision.

What would it be like to face the Battousai? To challenge the wolf that legends considered the soul of the conflict that had birthed Shishio’s ideologies? Glorious. Conquering the personification of the will of the North would cement his position forever.

“Lord Shishio,” Hoji began, but stopped abruptly as a sound rose over the snow. An eerie howl rode over the land, blowing down from the Northern Mountain. The Juppongatana stopped squabbling, pricking ears toward the message. Shishio felt his blood heat until it boiled through his veins—this, this was a challenge. The Battousai called down to him, demanding combat to determine the fate of the land, warning him of a future of blood if he did not deviate from his path.

Shishio grinned, charred lips peeling back from gleaming fangs. Oh, this was rich. Did his predecessor truly not understand? Blood was not death, blood was life. It was the gurgling, red flow that the strong glutted themselves on to increase their strength. How disappointing that the revolution’s bloodiest ghost didn’t understand his own strength.

The ancient call faded away into dusk, the amber sunset giving way to the pale blue of twilight. The Juppongatana looked up at him, and oh, some of them were so easy to read. Cho grinned like a pup with an elk bone, eager for a fight. Yumi looked worried, but caught his eye and offered a smile, letting him know she would support his decision as she always did. Soujiro smiled as if intrigued by the idea of the challenge, though as always with the coyote hybrid it was hard to tell if that was what he was really thinking.

“Lord Shishio?” Hoji interrupted his alpha’s thoughts, “What will you do? Surely you don’t mean to rest the success of our entire venture on a single battle between you and the Battousai?” The incredulous tone ruined Shishio’s good mood and he snapped at his follower, only just missing his face as the other wolf pulled back.

“Do you think I couldn’t do it? Do you think I couldn’t beat the Battousai?”

Hoji was silent, perhaps sensing that there was no safe answer. Shishio continued, “I am the lord of the Northern Lands, and I will not have anyone thinking that this land is not mine by my own strength. You’ve achieved the opposite of your goal by doubting me,” Shishio growled. “I will take up the Battousai’s challenge.”

“It is not my intention to doubt you, lord Shishio, I am sure that your strength is without equal. But my purpose is only to ensure the defeat of the enemy by any means necessary. To obtain ultimate victory. To achieve that goal, I would gladly be hated even by you. Please, consider taking the Juppongatana with you to the fight—we already know that the Battousai is not working alone.”

“I had already planned to,” Shishio informed his follower. “It will be a reward for my Juppongatana, getting to fight challenging opponents for a change.”

She couldn’t say what woke her; she just came suddenly awake in an unfamiliar cave. All was quiet, the night cloaking the bodies around her, buried deep in slumber. Kaoru slowly raised her head, scanning her surrounding with eyes and ears, trying to find the reason for her sudden wakefulness. It might only be sleeping in a den again, after so many days of fitful rest exposed to the elements, with only Yahiko at her side. He was still by her side, lying within easy reach, collapsed in a boneless sprawl that reminded her wistfully of Sanosuke. Beyond him, Misao was a streak of silver against the black of Aoshi’s pelt, the two ninja keeping to their pattern of closeness even in sleep. Hiko was huddled in the very back of his den, conspicuously not touching any of the interlopers.

Where’s Kenshin? She scanned the darkness again for any sign of the red wolf. Nothing.

Oh, tell me I didn’t wake up just because he left! The tips of her ears were hot with embarrassment, and the tanuki was fiercely grateful that Hiko was not awake to notice and tease her. Or Yahiko for that matter. But still, worry curled in her stomach as she realized that she had just found the wolf and now he was gone again—

She was out of the cave and blinking in the starlight before she could remember deciding to move.

Snow had fallen sometime earlier during the night, wiping clean the slate—except for a set of prints leading out of the cave and curing to move further up the mountain. Kenshin?

Kaoru followed the trail silently, the red wolf’s subtle scent lingering in the air reassuring her that Kenshin had not been out long. The trail meandered between pine trees, ever upward. The mountain was quiet, as if it too slumbered in the chill winter’s night.

The trees began to clear and Kaoru found herself slowing, gaze continuously teased away from the tracks and toward the sky. The stars blazed down at her like frozen diamonds, larger and brighter than she had ever seen, as if the mountain’s peak drew so near the heavens that she might touch them at a single leap. Even the darkness seemed less all-consuming, the sky showed deep indigo shading into cerulean where the stars pierced it. There was no denying it, the North was certainly beautiful.

Finally the silver she-wolf came to a large clearing, where a stony ridge forced the trees to relinquish their claim on the land. Gray boulders dusted with snow soared up thirty feet before continuing their rocky march up towards the summit. And here, at last was Kenshin, lying with his back to the stone wall, looking out toward the foothills of Hiko’s mountain, the snow-bound territory of the North.

Kaoru could have sworn she didn’t make a sound but still Kenshin’s head turned and violet eyes lit on her.

“Miss Kaoru,” he sounded surprised and, maybe… pleased? “This one did not expect to see you out so late.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” the half-truth came out easily as she approached him. “When I saw your tracks, I wanted to see where you had gone.”

Kenshin smiled up at her, “And here with one is. Will you join me for a little while?”

“Sure,” Kaoru managed, suddenly feeling very clumsy as she closed the remaining distance on soot-colored paws. How close was too close? She couldn’t plaster herself to his side like Megumi might, but it would be rude to be ridiculously far away. Finally she settled down beside the Rurouni, her silvery pelt just brushing his scarlet one. A single flinch and even that small contact would be lost.

“What is this place?” She inquired when she could trust her voice again. Kenshin’s smile remained as he turned to survey the view once more.

“This one often came here as a pup, when Master was being especially prickly.”

“So, always,” Kaoru observed dryly. Kenshin laughed in agreement.

“Well, let’s just say this one spent more time here than in the den”

“You came for the view?”

“And for the quiet,” Kenshin agreed, his smile turning wistful in the starlight. “It gave this one space to dream without Master crowding in his opinions.” The red wolf caught the look of curiosity on Kaoru’s face before she could entirely mask it. “This one often thought about going down the mountain to join one of the packs below,” he explained, “and as a lone wolf, Hiko didn’t have much patience for such thoughts.”

“With just you and him, I think it’s natural to want to be a part of something a little bigger. When I just had Tae, I still felt lonely,” Kaoru found herself defending that long-ago puppy’s dream of a family.

Kenshin shook his head. “It was still foolish. This one had no idea of the politics involved in the larger packs,” he sighed, violet eyes distant. “When this one came to the Isshin Shishi, its alpha saw only a threat. But he happened to be a wolf that preferred to keep threats close, the better to watch them. He assigned this one the role of hitokiri in his war, and by the time I had learned how packs operate, I was so enmeshed in blood I had no strength to pull back, to pull free.” His voice dropped to a whisper, “Not alone.”

Kenshin trailed off into silence. And here it was, right here was where Kaoru would back off, respecting the privacy of the crimson wolf, allowing him to keep his secrets behind walls that she made easy for him to maintain.

But that was before I realized he could leave even if I didn’t push. No more. He can decide if he wants to let me in, but I am going to ask.

“What happened?” the tanuki’s question was soft, the strength of her resolution at war with the churning anxiety in her stomach and a quiet dread of what Kenshin might tell her.

The Rurouni looked up at her, grief in violet eyes, but also… something like relief. “This one was in the service of the Isshin Shishi, working as a hitokiri,” Kaoru nodded, she had known this much since the encounter with Jineh. With her acknowledgement Kenshin continued. “This one was especially skilled in ambush attacks; even against larger numbers it was not difficult to prevail. Until…” he hesitated, “this one met an unfortunate wolf called Akira. He was not skilled or high-ranking in the Bakufu. This one suspects that his leaders intended to buy time with his death to allow the higher ranking target to escape. What was not counted on was Akira’s will to live.

“Twice I dealt him a mortal blow,” Kenshin recalled, gaze distant even as the warmth of his body radiated against her side, seeming closer than the distance she had originally given him, “twice he returned to his feet to engage me again. The third time his fangs finally reached me,” Kenshin inclined his head meaningfully, but Kaoru still stared for a moment before realizing that the crimson wolf was referring to the scar that branded his face. “However mine reached him again and he was not able to stand before I… finished it. It was a moment of clarity for me, of coldness. Because this one… I couldn’t understand how anyone could want to live so much, and I had never before taken such an injury.

“That night I began to question my path, I realized that I had no joy in being alive since the first of my missions for the alpha, and yet I felt trapped by my oaths of service and the weight of those I had slain. I managed to convince myself that if I were to abandon the war then the deaths I caused would be meaningless. But it was a hollow goal; my life was so stained with blood that I couldn’t bring myself to care about anything, and I had no real plans for life after the end of the war.” He sucked in a long breath before continuing.

“Lone wolves were fairly common in those days, mostly those trying to flee the war, abandoning their packs to do so, or young ones who had heard of the bloodshed and sought to make a name for themselves by allying with one side or another. When she came to our territory, she told us she was a lone wolf, a refugee.”

She… Kaoru’s heart stilled, huddling in on itself like a puppy trying to hide its hurts. Kenshin pressed on, voice staying calm although it was tainted with obvious sorrow.

“Her name was Tomoe Yukishiro, and she found me fighting off a Bakufu hitokiri. She didn’t move to help either of us, she didn’t seem afraid or distressed or surprised when I won. She was always so still, so quiet, as if she was a part of the night itself.” He shook his head, visibly pulling his focus back to the story that Kaoru almost wished she hadn’t asked him to tell. Almost.

“She came with me back to the Isshin Shishi leaders. They told her to move on, and she seemed to have no desire to stay, but she never quite left. There were so many other things to focus on that no one bothered with a lone female, so she just… stayed. Tomoe was the only one to seek me out and spend time with me, despite my role as the Battousai. Though she didn’t say any more to me than she did to anyone else. Perhaps it was inevitable,” Kenshin sighed.

“I grew to care for her, breaking my own silence, the living death of my soul to speak with her. She never told me where she was from, but she listened when I told her of my doubts, of my fears for the future and my desire for change. Spending time with her, it brought back the dream that had sent me from this mountain to find the Isshin Shishi. I wanted to protect, not to kill. To live as a wolf, and not as a nightmare. For as many terrors I had committed, I wanted to save that many more joys. Especially hers. I wanted to protect her happiness, and I even felt hope that I could do it. Hope enough that I told her so. She just looked at me with her dark eyes as though she understood.” Kenshin’s own eyes slid shut, “But I was the one who didn’t understand.”

Kaoru just waited, her throat too tight to even think of speaking, following her predecessor in silence. Eventually the crimson wolf continued, “In the winter we had a visitor, a young white wolf named Enishi, Tomoe’s brother. I had never seen her as happy as when she saw him, and I found myself wondering about her family, her past. But I stepped back, allowing them to be alone, particularly since Enishi hated me.” Kaoru’s brows rose unbidden. A kid not liking Kenshin? That’s… that’s weird.

“When I returned Enishi had gone and Tomoe was quieter than ever, except to say that she had sent him back to their father.  I should have pressed her—she was so happy to see him, why would she make him leave? But I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, so I let it go.” Kenshin sighed and Kaoru felt the tips of her ears grow warm, unable to keep from comparing her situation with his. “Looking back, I think her silence was a plea,” Kenshin continued, oblivious, “I think that she was desperately hoping that I would ask her what was wrong, because she wouldn’t lie to me. But I didn’t, and in the morning she was gone.”

Kenshin took a shuddering breath, the tremors vibrating against Kaoru’s frame where they touched. “I followed her trail, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to find her again.

“I crossed from the Isshin Shishi’s territory into a no-man’s land, a known hunting reserve for humans. I was ambushed by Bakufu wolves again and again, but I didn’t think of what that could mean. I didn’t want to think of what that could mean—I just kept following Tomoe’s trail until I met him.

“Tatsumi was the Bakufu’s beta, a powerful wolf in his own right. By then I was gravely injured, hardly able to stand or see—but he knew how to draw more blood from me yet.” Another shuddering breath, and Kaoru realized that she was holding hers. “He told me about Tomoe, about a pair of low-ranking Bakufu wolves who were promised to be mates, and how Akira had been killed by Battousai on a mission to protect his lieutenant. He told me how I had unknowingly made revenge the sole reason the wolf I loved had for rising in the morning, that when he had approached Tomoe with a plan for neutralizing an Isshin Shishi threat she had agreed and crossed territories to become a spy. How every moment that we spent together was engineered to bring about this result, the Battousai, alone and injured, crushed in spirit and waiting for death.

“But he miscalculated if he meant to make me hate her as he said she hated me. She had done all she could in the name of her first love.” Kenshin’s voice had lost its calm gradually over the course of his tale, and now resonated with a tearful horror. “I—I had promised to protect her happiness, completely ignorant of the fact that I had been the one to steal it away from her.

“When Tatsumi attacked me, I retaliated out of instinct, nothing more. Why should I want to live? While aiming for redemption I had unknowingly slid further into hell. Eventually I made a grave misstep and landed in a human’s steel-jawed trap. I was pinned, injured and half-blind with blood loss and grief. I had nothing left, except, perhaps, that I ought to apologize to Tomoe.” Kenshin’ smile was bitter, a jarring sight after so many Rurouni smiles, with deep veins of self-loathing coming to the surface in his eyes. “It was foolish, because an apology would change nothing, and yet I wanted to see her again, to be sure that she was safe, even if she hated me. So when Tatsumi came in for the kill, I struck with all of my remaining strength, unable to even see my target.”

Kenshin fell silent, and when he spoke again his voice was filled with a sort of sorrowful wonder. “I don’t know when she got there, or if she had been there all along. I don’t know why she chose to move—I had never seen her fight before—but Tomoe… Tomoe had moved between us, baring her fangs at her own leader, turning her back on her vengeance. And I… I struck her down for it.

“Tatsumi fell, gravely wounded, and Tomoe did too. She had taken the brunt of the attack meant for him. She… she smiled at me when I asked her why. She had never smiled at me before. She told me that, coming to know me, she had begun to change. That she too wanted to protect the happiness of the one she loved. I don’t understand why,” Kenshin whispered brokenly, “I will never understand why. I killed her, but she smiled, she forgave me and she asked me to find a way to live the way I had dreamed, protecting the happiness of others.

“I don’t know how long I lay there, trapped on the battlefield with her body. Eventually men came, and by then I was in no shape to fight back. They took me, and I was sold to a man called Iizuka. For a long time I refused to fight my opponents in the ring, but as I have said before, Iizuka was shrewd. He found out who owned the other wolf that had been taken that day, and eventually he matched me against Tatsumi. I don’t know how he had survived, but he bore at least some of the blame for what happened to Tomoe. Killing him stilled the aching pit I had been holding inside, enough that I could think clearly again, even if I was still trapped.” Kenshin let out a long sigh. “I had years to come to terms with what happened, to dedicate myself to the dream Tomoe charged me to uphold, but until I escaped it was only a dream.

“And… until I met you I did not realize just how selfish a dream it could be. Protecting your happiness became the same as protecting my own, that it did, Miss Kaoru,” His voice was gentle, violet eyes locked nervously on hers. The wounded puppy of her heart stirred, slowly raising its head in renewed hope. “And such a thing… it is terrifying, that it is. I do not believe that I would be able to survive the loss of someone I… cared for. Not again.”

“And I—” Kaoru’s voice cracked from disuse, “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you, Kenshin. So when you went off by yourself and wouldn’t let me follow—” she shook her head. “I know that you wanted to keep me safe, but doesn’t what I want matter too? Because even more than wanting to be safe, or wanting you to be safe,” Kaoru swallowed, “I want to be with you, Kenshin. I don’t care how dangerous the world is, as long as we get to face that danger together.”

Kenshin’s expression was stricken, and Kaoru faltered, her ears going flat in embarrassment. I screwed it all up, of course I did. I’m such an idiot. What’s the point of Kenshin finally talking to me if I don’t bother to listen? Subtly she began to ease away from the crimson wolf, preparing to bolt for some quiet spot far away where she could sob out her stupidity and her heartbreak.

What happened next… was a surprise.

The tanuki had been readying herself to stand when suddenly there was a warm weight on the back of her neck, holding her in place and the scent of autumn leaves and endless wind rose all around her. Kenshin’s head rested on the back of her neck, burying his muzzle in her ruff while encouraging her to rest her own head on his chest. Kaoru’s heart was choking her throat, beating too fast; surely he had to notice how fast—

“Please don’t go,” the crimson wolf whispered, and hesitantly Kaoru began to relax, shoving back the memory of the last time she had been held like this. Her head came to rest against the white fur of Kenshin’s chest, and a thrill of surprise tingled from her nose to her tailtip as the she-wolf realized that his heart matched hers, beat for racing beat.

“I don’t want to go, and I don’t want you to leave either,” she managed to whisper. “I just found you again.”

“Kaoru…” Kenshin seemed to savor saying her name the way she savored hearing him say it. “You cannot ask me not to protect you.”

“I know that, Kenshin, but you have to trust that I want to protect you too—and if that means keeping myself alive, I’ll do that too.”

The crimson wolf who shared her heartbeat was silent, as if thinking about her words. Kaoru smiled, even though he couldn’t see it as she wiggled a little closer, knowing that he would be able to hear it in her voice. “Besides, it’s like I told you; it’s not as though I don’t know how to look after myself.”

Kenshin made a humming sound, the vibrations of it rumbling pleasantly through her bones. “If this one recalls correctly, you said that you were not some pampered housepet who needed saving all the time, and that you could take care of yourself.”

“You remember it that well?” Kaoru marveled, before dismissing it. “Well, it’s still true, Kenshin. And I’ve decided that the safest place for me is right next to you.”

Chapter Text

So you think that you can take me on?

You must be crazy.

There ain’t a single thing you’ve done

That’s gonna faze me

Oh, but if you wanna have a go…

I just wanna let you know

Get off of my back!

-Bryan Adams, Get Off Of My Back

Kaoru felt almost completely content, a sleepy warmth encasing her mind and gently but firmly shushing any half-conceived thoughts of getting up. They only thing that let her know she was skirting the edges of consciousness and not locked in some blissful dream was that one of her hind paws was cold where it stuck out into the snow. Uncomfortable, but it hardly seemed worth the effort to draw it back it when the rest of her was so comfortable, if oddly… heavy.

“Oro…”

Hmm? Nobody says that but Kenshin. Kaoru’s groggy thoughts tried to marshal themselves into some sort of coherent order. That’s right… I found him again. She smiled and snuggled her face down deeper against its warm rest. I found him and everything is okay now. Shishio wasn’t even a thought this early in the morning. I found him last night and he finally told me about… things.

About Tomoe. It was worth it—even if the thought of Kenshin with another female had hurt—because at least he had told her. He hadn’t lied, hadn’t refused to talk about it.

Although, something about last night was niggling at her, like a robin trying to wrest a particularly stubborn worm from the ground. She remembered coming out after Kenshin and lying out under the stars talking. But she couldn’t seem to recall going back to Hiko’s den. Which argued that she hadn’t gone back to the den. Which meant that the comfy place she was resting…

One sky-blue eye opened a sliver. Sunrise touched the earth with rose-hued gold all around her, painting warm light on the boulders that had ringed the back of Kenshin’s spot and making the snow on the ground look deceptively warm. Definitely still outside then. The sleepiness leeched away slowly, leaving Kaoru to become aware of her position. She was half-curled into what could only be Kenshin’s side, her head resting on his forepaws while a weight on the back of her neck told her that Kenshin’s head rested there.

“Oro,” his soft voice filtered down to her ears once more in a sigh. Kaoru inhaled deeply before letting it out as a contented sigh with a sleepy murmur.

“You know, if all this time ‘oro’ was just some backwoods way of saying ‘good morning,’ I think I’m going to be very annoyed.”

A light chuckle shook the red wolf’s frame and the weight of his head slowly lifted off the back of her neck. “Good morning, Miss Kaoru,” his voice was still soft, as if he worried about waking her.

“So it doesn’t mean good morning?” Kaoru frowned sleepily, not sure if she was ready to work at getting up yet. A pause.

“This one doesn’t know. It doesn’t seem to mean much of anything.”

The response struck Kaoru as mildly funny, “So, you’re saying that you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“So this one would suppose.” The red wolf sounded amused, and Kaoru couldn’t help but suspect it was more at her sleepy-morning talk that what she was actually saying. With a grumble that was at least half yawn, half irritation, Kaoru raised her own head and stretched out her forepaws in front of her. The movement seemed to finally convince her body that yes, she did plan on getting up, and her mind cleared a little further.

“Good morning,” she offered, a small smile creeping out on her face to meet the one that Kenshin offered her.

“It is indeed.” The wolf cocked his head to one side, regarding her with that amused smile. This close to him, Kaoru could see the whiskers on his muzzle twitching with silent laughter. “This is the first time that this one has seen you this way in the morning, that it is.”

Kaoru’s ears flattened self-consciously. “I-I was tired, that’s all! Yahiko and I have been travelling almost non-stop for days—I don’t think either of us got much rest.” That and she had never felt so wonderfully protected and comfortable as she had last night. “I imagine it will be the same after the fighting,” she rambled out quickly before she could lose her nerve. “When we go home, we’re going to sleep for a week.” It wasn’t fair that she still felt nervous and fidgety around Kenshin—hadn’t they both admitted that there were feelings the night before? A cautious voice in the back of her mind pointed out that neither had said what those feelings were, specifically, and Kenshin was such a master of redirecting conversations…. Kaoru swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth. “You are coming home, aren’t you, Kenshin? We can all go back together.”

The red wolf blinked as he sorted through her rushed words, and violet eyes searched hers as if trying to read a map of stars. A slow gentle smile softened his expression. “That sounds rather good, that it does. If this one’s place is still open…”

“Silly,” Kaoru shook her head, relief a giddy warmth in her ribcage. “Your spot is always open.”

The red wolf’s smile turned to pure mischief, purple irises glinting with reflections of the amber sunrise. “What if this one prefers your spot, Miss Kaoru?”

Kaoru stared as he ducked his head in close to nuzzle at the soft fur that covered her cheek and then sprang away, agile as if he hadn’t just spent the night in the elements.

“We should return to the others, that we should,” his voice jarred her from her slack-jawed stare and she jolted to her paws, clumsy as a newborn fawn. She was still trying to think up a retort when the smile on his face dimmed. “After all, we must be at the lakeshore by noon.”

He didn’t have any nightmares. Kenshin stole a glance behind him at Kaoru, following him back to the cave, her surprised expression becoming troubled as she remembered what would happen today. He didn’t have any nightmares, the red wolf marveled, directing his eyes forward once more.

Generally he had at least one a night, more often more as his dreams shifted in and out of one another, bloody memories a fertile ground for a subconscious that seemed to delight in torturing him. He had settled himself alongside Kaoru last night, finally resting his own head as she slipped into slumber—the white forest of his dreams waited for him when his eyes closed.

A black shape had flitted through the trees and his sleeping mind waited with dread for the scarlet that would engulf the shape. It didn’t. The shape came closer, resolving itself into a black wolf with black eyes, the only hint of difference on her pelt the rings of white that just barely dusted the fur around those fathomless eyes.

Tomoe stared directly at him and Kenshin’s dread coiled like a trodden-upon serpent in his gut. This was going to be one of the really bad ones—the ones where she watched him with accusing eyes while his dream-self ripped out her throat—

Except her eyes weren’t accusing tonight. Tomoe smiled at him, a real smile, a friend’s smile, and Kenshin was sure she would speak—but the black wolf defied expectations again by turning and vanishing into a white wood, where hints of green poked through the snow on the boughs and a sky the blue of summer promised warmer days to come.

Perhaps it had been foolish to tease Miss Kaoru, still caught up in the fierce elation of feeling forgiven, he had probably startled her. Certainly he had surprised himself. And yet… quiet, wondering joy warred with the soldier’s mindset trying to take control for the fighting to come.

He hadn’t had any nightmares.

His paws found the trails of his childhood as easily as they had the night before. His master might call him an idiot, but there was nothing wrong with his memory.

“I told you they weren’t far away.” And speak of the devil…

The scene was easy to read for anyone with a little experience with the players. The group of creatures with a grudge against Shishio had made their way out of Hiko’s cave and into the chill morning. Yahiko was bristling even more than usual, probably a bit panicked to have woken up in a strange place with strangers and no sign of his self-appointed guardians. The young dog had clearly been yelling at Hiko, as he stood toe-to-toe with the large wolf, but Hiko was distinctly unruffled, a bored expression on his earthy features as he eyes sought out his wayward pupil.

“Ah, good morning!” Kenshin called out cheerfully, trying not to wince in the face of sudden scrutiny from his allies. It was a small miracle that Saito wasn’t here yet—but no one had seemed overly pleased at the idea of sleeping in the same cave as the Shinsengumi, and no one had protested when he didn’t stay the night. Small mercies.

“Where have you been?” The red wolf stifled a reflexive smile at Yahiko’s explosive question. When did he become the responsible adult, and I the foolhardy young one? Kenshin wondered with amusement, out loud he tried to appease the annoyed dog.

“This one apologizes; he went on a walk last night and simply forgot to return.”

Yahiko’s twisted muzzle said he was unconvinced and his gaze slid over to Kaoru. Perhaps one of his guardians wandering off could be overlooked, but apparently both doing so was a bit much.

“Well if we’re all here now,” Hiko’s voice was suspiciously bland and patient—a clear sign that the wolf was fed up with even these minor dramatics, “maybe we can get to work on getting everyone off my territory.”

Misao bristled instantly, turning to look at the lone wolf rather than study Kenshin and Kaoru with obvious interest. “Like anyone would want to stay here with you!”

Perhaps we should go face Shishio before we find ourselves at each other’s throats. Kenshin purposefully ignored Misao’s comments—“We should depart, that we should.”

“Kenshin. A word.” Hiko interrupted, inclining his head to the side to suggest that the two of them leave the others. Trepidation rose in the red wolf as he followed his master away from the group. Once the earthy wolf judged that they would not be easily overheard, he turned.

“You didn’t mention them.” Deep blue eyes flicked back to where they had left the others, specifically Yahiko and Miss Kaoru, the former joining Misao in a scowling match, the latter trying hard not to look interested in their conversation. Kenshin shook his head fondly. Always so transparent, Miss Kaoru.

“This one did not expect to see them again,” he admitted, facing his master once more. Hiko sighed, the thick ruff of fur around his neck shuddering as he did so.

“That’s because you’re an idiot. I don’t know why any of us put up with you.”

“So you are fond of reminding this one,” Kenshin observed dryly.

“Well it’s true,” Hiko’s answering scowl was fiercer than his teasing usually warranted. “Because you’re an idiot who tore off looking for something, and still haven’t realized that you found it.” He grumbled a bit under his breath before moving to explain, “You left to find a pack, determined to look in the worst place possible. Neither the Isshin Shishi nor the Bakufu were true packs by then, hell, the Bakufu was split into so many divisions within itself that they would have never held together without an enemy to face.

“You think I don’t know anything about packs? I know enough to recognize perversion when I see it. It was the last place you should have gone.”

Kenshin shifted uneasily on his paws, but the wolf that had raised him plowed on. “You’ve never been a lucky kid, not from the day you wandered onto this mountain as a bloody scrap of fur and not now. Just barely lucky enough not to die, and you didn’t do yourself any favors by getting involved with the Isshin Shishi.

“So then you go and meet this lot,” his shaggy head nodded toward the tanuki and the dog, “and you don’t even recognize what you have. I knew you were an idiot, but this is the pinnacle of your long career in stupidity. That’s. Your. Pack. And you thought they wouldn’t follow you?”

Kenshin felt his eartips warming even against the North’s chill. “This one would never have asked it of them—”

“That’s the point, idiot. You don’t have to. And unless you really screw something up, you’ll never have to.” Hiko sighed, raising his head awkwardly, avoiding Kenshin’s eyes in favor of looking out over his mountain. “Look, you left spouting some crap about protecting other’s happiness, but happiness isn’t so simple. Try protecting your pack, and you should find yourself protecting that happiness along the way.”

A gentle grin quirked at Kenshin’s muzzle as some of Miss Kaoru’s words from the previous night came back to him, I want to protect you too—and if that means keeping myself alive, I’ll do that too.

Hiko coughed and glowered down at the red wolf, “Even if you are an idiot, you’re my apprentice. You should at least be able to manage that much.” Without waiting for a further farewell, the lone wolf turned and moved off through the snow, leaving behind the others to embark on his self-imposed mission to rid the land of Shishio’s followers. Kenshin watched him go for a moment before turning back to his waiting companions and his own task.

“It is time we left, that it is.”

Kaoru found herself walking with the young coyote. She had to admit that she had been feeling rather curious about the other female. Some of the story of Kenshin’s journey up here had been relayed yesterday, and she couldn’t deny her interest had been piqued when she had learned that Misao had been his travelling companion. If she hadn’t already seen how the Oniwaban obviously adored Aoshi, the tanuki might have felt the faint stirrings of uneasy jealousy. But since she had seen it, the bitter tang of jealousy had had given way to curious interest.

Misao grinned at her companionably, seeming to recognize a kindred spirit. “I’m glad I got to meet you,” she repeated her sentiment from the earlier day. “Red missed you.”

The tips of Kaoru’s ears warmed. “He talked about me?”

A shrug rippled the fur along Misao’s small ruff, “Not at first; I don’t think he really trusted me until we got here and he saw I wasn’t some spy of Shishio’s. But yeah, he talked about you more than anyone else. And then the two of you leave everyone behind and spend the night under the stars…”

“It wasn’t like that,” Kaoru shook her head. “It’s not like I planned to sneak away or anything…”

“You don’t have to explain it to me!” Misao grinned. “I don’t think you even have to explain it to that spiky nuisance you brought with you. I mean, it’s obvious to me how you feel about Red, and I just met you.”

Kaoru’s ears went flat against her skull in embarrassment. “I don’t think it’s as simple as you’re making it out to be.”

“No?” The coyote shrugged carelessly. “I think that others tend to overcomplicate these things. Though I guess I can see how things would get complicated with Red, what with his history and all.”

“That has been a subject of some interesting adventures,” Kaoru agreed dryly. “Still, I can’t say he didn’t warn me.”

“So, why did you… you know. If he told you that.” Misao’s expression had fallen into relentless curiosity, but Kaoru wasn’t quite sure what she was asking. I don’t think anyone really chooses who they fall in love with. But still, there had been something that set Kenshin apart from the rest, even at the very beginning.

"Kenshin was the first one who... stayed." The words drifted out almost without her knowledge, and Kaoru rushed to amend her statement, "I mean—it's more than that of course!"

Misao shrugged, her teal gaze uncharacteristically serious. "Sometimes that's enough. There's a lot to be said for someone who's there for you when you need them."

“Still, I guess following him out seems a little clingy,” Kaoru admitted, ears flattening as she did so.

Misao shrugged, the bounce in her step never faltering. “I don’t think so. I thought it was sweet. I know that if I’d just found him again and Aoshi-sama wandered off without me I would go after him.” The coyote smiled to herself, eyes seeking out her leader walking alongside a suspicious Yahiko. “But I’ve been following Aoshi-sama for as long as I can remember, so he’s used to it. I think part of the reason he decided to team up with Himura is he knows I’ll follow him, so he’s trying to stay where he thinks I’ll be safe.” Misao nudged Kaoru’s shoulder sneakily, her tone lowering even as her grin widened. “If you ask me, Red’s still not used to the idea of somebody following him, but if you’re persistent he should catch on pretty quick.”

Kaoru’s answering laugh was a little nervous. I don’t think I can do that. Not as… enthusiastically as Misao anyway. “I’ll keep that in mind. But,” a smile of her own pulled at Kaoru’s muzzle even as her eyes sought out Kenshin, pacing forward at the front of their party, “we did talk about my staying with him, so I guess you could say he’s been warned too.”

Ahead of the females, Kenshin gave a quiet sigh and Saito appeared out of the snow-dusted pines to join them. Misao ducked her head a little closer to Kaoru’s to whisper conspiratorially.

“There’s our resident kill-joy. I wonder what he’s done with his mate.”

Kaoru startled, shot a reflexive reassuring smile back at Kenshin when he looked over his shoulder to see what had caused the disturbance. The red wolf agave her an answering smile before turning back to the path ahead.

“Saito has a mate?” Kaoru hissed to Misao when she was sure the males weren’t paying attention anymore.

“Apparently,” the coyote answered in a low tone, ears twitching as the scanned for eavesdroppers. “I’d wondered if she would be coming along to fight. I guess not.”

Kaoru shook her head as her brain tried to formulate a response to this. Unfortunately, her brain was having none of it, too preoccupied with the idea that Saito of all beings would have a mate. Perhaps, she wondered doubtfully, he wasn’t horrible and abrasive all the time. After all, Kenshin wasn’t as prickly as he was around Saito all the time either. Perhaps the two wolves simply brought out the worst in each other.

The part of her that was still annoyed at Saito for preceding Kenshin’s departure (a very large, very vocal part,) refused to see the logic of this.

Still, even the distraction value of Saito’s apparent love life wasn’t powerful enough to last more than a few moments today, and the quiet conversation she had kept up with Misao faded away as their paws carried them closer to the fight to come. At length, they came down from the mountain to the crest of a natural rise in the land, a final high place from which to view the sprawling territory of the North. Here Kenshin and Saito stopped, the others following suit silently to stare out over the center of such bloody changes in the lives of wolves.

Saito looked down the ridge to the icy lake and snowy pain, a predatory gleam lighting his amber eyes even as he curled his lip to display a fang.

“It seems that Shishio has accepted your challenge, Battousai.”

Kenshin followed his old enemy’s gaze grimly. On the edge of the woods beyond the lake a group of creatures were visible, presumably Shishio and his closest followers. Yahiko crept forward to stand by his leader, though he kept low to the ground, as if stalking.

“I guess it was too much to hope that he’d come alone,” the young dog observed, eying the group clustered together. Kaoru shook her head.

“Well, we didn’t come alone either. Is there any sign of other reinforcements?” She couldn’t smell or hear any herself from this distance, no matter how she strained, but the she-wolf was not at all embarrassed to admit that compared to her companions her skills were probably lacking in that regard. Kenshin gave an abortive shake of his head to answer her question, never once taking his eyes from the central figure below.

“Reinforcements or not, those are still Shishio’s Juppongatana,” Misao was uncharacteristically quiet, perhaps remembering the last time she had been this close to the burned wolf’s lieutenants. “We shouldn’t underestimate them.”

Aoshi stepped up beside the small coyote as if sheltering her with his presence. “We will not.”

Saito flicked he gaze back to the little ninja with a scowl, “If you’re too afraid to fight, perhaps you should go.”

Aoshi fixed his icy green gaze on the Shinsengumi. “Look to your own courage, wolf, and do not question that of the Oniwaban.”

The gray wolf snorted and turned away, but Misao stood a little straighter and Kaoru thought she could hear the other female whisper very quietly to herself, “I’m not alone.”

“Battousai,” Shinomori continued, “how shall we do this?”

“This one will seek out Shishio,” the red wolf answered. “He is the central threat. Doubtless the Juppongatana are there to prevent his being surrounded.”

“Leave them to us.” Yahiko’s words, brashly confident, reminded Kaoru almost painfully of a fierce, pinned puppy, incapable of looking after himself and unwilling to accept the suggestion that he couldn’t—but Yahiko’s stance, still and waiting, eyes fixed on the enemy with the calculation of a hunter leant his words a new weight. This was something else entirely, the kind of dog he had learned to be by watching Kenshin, responsible and brave.

Kaoru shook herself free of such thoughts and did a quick mental tally of the figures below versus the group on the ridge—

“We’re outnumbered,” she observed. Kenshin finally tore his gaze away from the enemy to smile wryly at her.

“Are we not always?”

Her answering smile was equally wry, but she found that she couldn’t help it. Still, Kenshin’s smile didn’t last long before he sighed and continued,

“This one will try to move through the Juppongatana’s ranks to get to Shishio.”

“And we’ll keep them from closing ranks behind you.” Kaoru finished. Saito shook himself, gray and white fur shifting with the motion.

“Don’t think that you’re going after Shishio alone, Battousai. The North is my watch.”

“This one expected as much. But Saito…” Kaoru caught the faintest glimmer of amusement in deep amethyst eyes. “Try to keep up.” The red wolf vanished in a flurry of snow—a moment later Kenshin’s lithe form could be seen streaking towards the group at the forest’s edge. Saito snarled expressively and hurled himself after his ally, pushing his larger body to catch up.

Kaoru caught Yahiko’s eyes for a moment, reading in them the same terrified excitement that shook her muscles, and then the remaining four followed the frontrunners down, spreading out as the land opened up on the plain.

“Don’t start without me!” a familiar voice howled breathlessly. Kaoru turned, scarcely believing her ears, to see a familiar brown and white hybrid loping towards her on long gangly legs.

“Sano?”

Behind the fighter, a slower, sleeker shadow, came a black fox.

“Slow down you idiot!” a curious mix of professionalism and worry laced the doctor’s tone, but Sano’s reckless grin as he came to a halt beside Kaoru told the tanuki plainly that he was back to full health. His plumy tail waved gently back and forth, lightly buffeting Megumi as she managed to catch up to his longer limbs.

New confidence bubbled through the tanuki in a relieved laugh, “You made it!”

“Barely,” Sano mock-grumbled, “the fox here would hardly let me walk five steps at a time.”

“You’re blaming me?” Megumi countered absently, burgundy gaze sweeping across the assembled creatures in an assessing glance. “This great lummox tried to get us lost at least seven times a day.”

Sano snorted and rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s old gossip. Hey Missy, I hope those guys back at the border weren’t ours. They didn’t let us through so I had to persuade them.”

Kaoru blinked, her smile turning wry, “You are definitely feeling better.”

“Damn straight,” Sano nodded with a grinning flash of fangs. “When the doc here patches you up, you stay patched. I might just keep her around when this is over.”

The look Megumi leveled at her former patient could have stripped the hide off the leanest hare’s ears.

“Just point out the bad guys, Missy.” Sano said, studiously ignoring the glare. Kaoru shook her head.

“It’d be a lot faster to point out who’s on our side. Kenshin and Saito,” she nodded down the slope where the two fighters had gone, “went that way to try and cut a path to Shishio.”

Sano growled, “I don’t like the idea of helping Saito with anything.”

“Nobody does,” Kaoru swallowed her answering growl, internalizing her irritation to use later on some unsuspecting foe. “But he’s one of the only allies we have. The rest of us are attacking Shishio’s lieutenants to give them a chance to get close. Hiko is going to work on keeping the patrols Shishio might call in off our backs so we don’t wind up surrounded.”

“Who’s Hiko?”

“Kenshin’s old master, apparently,” Kaoru explained rapidly. “Keep an eye out for him—big wolf, brown fur, horrible attitude. Don’t attack him, please.”

“Got it. Anyone else I should put on the no-pummeling list?”

“Just Aoshi and Misao.”

A tremor rippled through Megumi and her head snapped back around to stare at Kaoru in horror.

“Aoshi Shinomori?” Sano questioned, shifting on his paws slightly. “Kanryuu’s Aoshi?”

“The same,” Kaoru admitted. “Apparently Shishio killed the pack-members he was holding hostage—Aoshi and Misao are the only ones left now.” She turned to Megumi, lowering her voice, “He won’t hurt you, Miss Megumi. He and Misao are dedicated to getting revenge on Shishio.”

Sano shook himself, taking a searching glance at Megumi’s inscrutable expression before continuing grimly. “So, who’s Misao?”

“Little silver coyote,” Kaoru smiled fondly. “More energy than Yahiko and a hair-trigger temper to match. Kenshin told me she’s been looking for Aoshi for a long time—I don’t think she’s let him out of her sight since finding him again.” She glanced downslope again. “We really have to go—the Juppongatana have numbers on their side.”

“Or they did until I showed up,” Sano grinned, but nodded and rushed off towards the promise of battle.

“Wait up you idiot!” Sano faltered a step, looking over his shoulder to see a sleek black fox in his wake like a shadow, trying to keep pace.

“Megumi?” Surprise momentarily drove away his customary nicknames. “What are you doing here?”

The fox’s scowling expression tightened, “Where do you suggest I go?”

You could wait—the reply tangled itself in his tongue, never quite making it past his teeth. They had only just arrived and plainly everyone else was planning to fight. Still, she could stay where we met up with the Missy— But there was something in that tight expression, something he hadn’t seen there for a long time…

“You’re scared,” Sano blurted, only just realizing the fact. Megumi growled at the comment, her dark expression reminding the fighter just how familiar she was with poisons. Why wouldn’t she be scared? The thoughts raced like his paws across the snow-covered ground. She had a pretty normal life before Kanryuu scooped her up—living by herself, occasionally treating patients, when suddenly this jerk with a horde of killers abducts her and tells her all about how he works for someone even worse, and that she’ll never get away. It’s amazing that she came at all. And completely unsurprising that the healer would have no wish to be alone here.

Though why she latched on to me instead of high-tailing it over to Kenshin… Sano rolled his eyes. Clue, Sagara. Kenshin’s going to be, oh, about way-too-close-to-Shishio that way, and he doesn’t even know she’s here. The doc’s not stupid. No, that was his job in their little rag-tag pack.

“Stay in sight,” he called back to her rather than share any of his thoughts, “but keep back when I’m fighting. I don’t want you pulled in.”

“I know how to take care of myself, fleabrain!” Megumi sniped back, but when Sano slowed fractionally she pulled up alongside him and kept so close to his flank that their pelts nearly brushed.

Shishio’s followers approached in a thundering line, racing to meet Kenshin’s forces as they charged. Up ahead Sano could see Kenshin, closely followed by Saito, slipping past the front line in a blur. From the corner of  his eye the hybrid saw a dark shadow lift itself from the snow to snap at the Missy, saw Yahiko throw himself to one side as an enemy came after him—but there was no time to worry about them because he was facing down his own adversary.

What the heck is that thing? The question rose unbidden in the fighter’s mind—he had always considered it funny when wolves or dogs had difficulty identifying him as a hybrid, but this creature must laugh at the world. He looked like nothing so much as a red fox whose legs had been stretched to impossible lengths, easily the tallest canine Sano had ever encountered—even without taking into consideration the mane-like ridge of yellow fur that ran from the crown of his head to his shoulders. His tail seemed almost unusually short in comparison to his over-long legs, the white tip barely reaching his hocks.

But if the creature was unfamiliar, the fanged smile as it approached Sano certainly wasn’t. A tight-lipped smirk of his own rose to answer that manic grin—this was another fight-loving fool. Someone up there must like me.

The pair skidded to a stop, kicking up plumes of snow before they crashed into one another.

“Hello there!” the stranger howled, the grin never wavering. “We didn’t hear about you in Henya’s report.” He craned his neck at an awkward angle to get a look behind Sano and winked one blue eye, “Or you, beautiful.”

Megumi gave a growl of displeasure at being addressed and Sanosuke found himself stepping in on her behalf.

“Hey buddy, eyes off the lady, huh?”

The stranger sighed melodramatically, “I’m hurt—I mean really, what’s the world coming to when a guy can’t even chat with a lady in his own territory?” Despite his professed injured feelings his expression morphed into a grin as he shot Megumi another wink. “The name’s Cho if you ever decide to ditch the deadweight, sweetheart.”

“Yeah? Well we’re here to settle a little dispute about this being your territory, and it’s been weeks since I had a good fight.” Sano growled around a rigid smile. Despite being another fighting idiot, Sano was starting to find himself disliking this guy the longer he talked. Best to get the fight started before he really worked himself into a mood.

“Wish I could say I thought this was gonna be a good one,” Cho sighed. “But you obviously don’t know what you’re up against, spiky.”

Sano’s head shot up indignantly. “Spiky? You’re one to talk longshanks!” A displeased snarl was his answer; apparently Cho agreed that the pleasantries were over and it was past time for the fighting to begin. Sano didn’t disagree.

The hybrid turned his head slightly to address Megumi while keeping an eye on his unusual opponent. “Stay back, doc.” The fox didn’t answer, but Sano thought he caught a flicker of motion in his peripheral view as if she had nodded. He was given no opportunity to turn and check this supposition as Cho launched himself forward with a snarl that contrasted strangely with the delighted gleam in his blue eyes.

Sano snapped his head back around to fully face the charge, throwing his weight to one side to avoid the first attack. The hybrid wasn’t stupid—he might be able to take a bruising better than just about anybody he knew, but there was no reason to take a hit so early when he had just recovered from his injuries. There was also the added worry that Cho’s height mean all of the Juppongatana’s attacks would be in a perfect position to rain down blows on Sano’s spine. Despite the fox’s worrying, Sano did know how to look out for himself. A guy who loved picking fights like he did would never have survived on his own if he hadn’t figured out how much his body could take.

Cho followed Sano’s movement, long limbs moving around each other gracefully as he pivoted, his maned head approaching rapidly. Sano backpedaled, annoyed that he was on the defensive so early in the fight—especially since he didn’t like defense on the best of days. On his next recoil Sanosuke rested his weight on his hind legs for a second before leaping forward, crashing into a startled Cho.

Despite the Juppongatana’s greater height, he didn’t weigh much more than Megumi. The pair went down in a snarling heap. Cho’s teeth closed shallowly on the skin and fur of Sano’s ruff and he growled as he tried to get better purchase and deal more damage. Sano trusted to his thick fur to keep him safe and pressed his attack, biting down hard on Cho’s shoulder and ripping loose a chunk of orange fur in the aftermath. Cho’s growl became something like a bark of protest and he finally regained his feet, shedding Sano like a duck shedding water.

The hybrid allowed himself to tumble free, using the added momentum to roll clear of a retaliatory bite. Despite his bleeding shoulder, the grin was back in Cho’s eyes.

“Maybe this will be a fight,” he allowed. “But you still shouldn’t dream of winning.”

“Lines like that sound a lot better when you aren’t the one getting blood everywhere,” Sano pointed out. Despite the bravado in his voice the fighter remained wary—the injury to Cho’s shoulder shouldn’t hamper the creature unduly. And Cho’s answering smile hadn’t lost any of its confidence.

“Come on.”

This time when Cho attacked Sano moved to meet him. It was a bit odd, fighting someone so tall, Sano felt he finally knew how all those opponents had felt fighting him. The temptation to go for the legs was overwhelming—but Cho had to be just as used to that tactic as he was.

The taller fighter seemed to taunt Sano with his movements, deliberately offering parts of himself as targets, leaving them open to attack as he darted, snapping at Sano with curved fangs he had to work to keep from finding their mark. Grimly, Sanosuke admitted to himself that before meeting Kenshin (before realizing that brute strength couldn’t win every fight) he probably would have latched on to one of the limbs, counting on his ability to break it before Cho’s retaliation. But now he could plainly see that was what the Juppongatana wanted. Attacking Cho’s main body ran the risk of exposing himself to attack—but what was a fight without some risk?

Sano lunged, ignoring Cho’s legs to close his jaws on the Juppongatana’s tail—not a damaging bite, except to pride. The orange-furred menace twisted, long front paws coming up to shove Sano away, his fangs slipping through the silky-fine fur of Cho’s tailtip. The hybrid stumbled slightly, locking the joints in his legs to keep from losing his balance as he lost purchase—this was the only thing that saved him from crumpling to the ground as weight crashed into him from above.

Cho had jumped and come down on Sano’s back, and was now using his position to savagely tear into the muscles that protected his spine. Panic-laced irritation surged within the brown hybrid, lending extra strength to his movements as he twisted and bucked, trying to throw the other fighter off, or at least keep him from latching onto the back of Sano’s neck. A sound like sniggering came from his opponent, and Sano fought back an aggravated growl as the maned creature ripped another deep gash into his back. Blood spattered the churned-up snow of their battleground, and Sano was no longer sure if it was his or Cho’s.

The fighter twisted from side to side, trying to get at an angle where he could snap one of Cho’s long legs, but the Juppongatana blocked his every move with ease. Sano couldn’t turn, go forward or backward, above him was Cho, his narrow chest pressing into Sano’s spine, long limbs meaning that the hybrid fit neatly beneath him. Sano thought quickly even as he continued to struggle. That left going down, a position of submission, although maybe it would let him get loose of Cho’s hold, maybe even give him a chance to tangle up Cho’s legs.

An uneasy feeling, a prickle in the ridge of fur along his spine as it tried to rise kept Sano from doing this. Cho was experienced, that was easy to see, and giving him another chance to attack, maybe even to pin Sano on the ground… No. Not going to happen.

Which left the wolf-dog exactly where he had been before—with nowhere to go.

Or maybe…The hybrid got an idea. A fairly awful idea, and it was going to hurt like anything, but with any luck it would hurt Cho too.

Moving quickly, Sano allowed his legs to cave, just a little, as if he was going to enact his first plan, and dropped his head until his nose nearly brushed the snow. He felt more than heard Cho’s gleeful lunge toward this bowed target and forced every ounce of strength he had left into his legs and neck. Sano’s skull snapped up, crashing into Cho’s approaching maw with a flash of pain and a mind-numbing thunk of bone on bone.

The Juppongatana reeled, his mouth a sudden hive of agony, and Sano reared up on his hind legs, continuing his earlier motion. Cho was forced up with him and over-balanced, crashing backwards into the snow—Sano didn’t even try to stop his own fall—he dropped onto Cho back-first and rolled off. Cho twisted, trying to regain his feet before Sano could take advantage of his vulnerability, but it was too late, a flash of fangs and one of the long legs bleeding onto the snow, though Sano didn’t take the time to break the bone.

Another flash and Cho’s earlier wound to the shoulder gaped wide—then Sano’s heavy paw came down on Cho’s throat, stopping his struggles.

Sano panted as he looked down at his foe—his back ached like fire and he could feel the thick fur of his ruff clumping as blood matted it together. He blinked as something tickled at his eye and realized that the throbbing in his skull wasn’t just from being used as a battering ram (again)—apparently Cho’s teeth had done some answering damage and blood was now trickling through the short fine fur of his face.

The hybrid ran his tongue over his chops before speaking. “We can keep going if you want,” he told his captive, “but we both know what happens next if you do.”

The fox-like face snarled up at him. “So you beat me. Big deal. There’s other Juppongatana, and lord Shishio—”

“But one way or another, you’re out of the fight.” Sano cut him off ruthlessly. “You can either clear out now or I’ll wipe you out.”

“This is my place!” Cho bared his fangs, his eyes blazing, “The first place that I’ve belonged.”

“I know a bit about that,” Sano answered grimly, “about finding a place to belong, and about losing it too. But I’ve learned that the world is an awful big place, and if you just keep on walking eventually there’ll be another place to belong, another pack to call yours.”

Cho snarled, clearly not ready for such advice, but that was okay. He would be someday.

“You should get out of here. My buddy over there,” he nodded to where Kenshin had disappeared, “is gonna make sure Shishio’s reign ends today.”

Cho snorted in disbelief. “Your buddy is a dead wolf. Lord Shishio doesn’t lose to anyone.”

Chapter Text

And little people know

When little people fight

We may look easy pickings

But we’ve got some bite

So never kick a dog

Because he’s just a pup

We’ll fight like twenty armies

And we won’t give up

So you’d better run for cover

When the pup grows up!

- Les Miserables, Little People

Yahiko thundered down the slope, a mix of exhilaration and terror speeding his way. No one had suggested that he stay behind this time; everyone was expecting him to do his part to bring down Shishio. It was something he had wanted for such a long time, to be treated as an adult, but now that it was happening he didn’t feel at all ready.

Off to one side, Kaoru dropped back from her charge. Yahiko darted a glance at her and was surprised to see Sano loping towards her. Should I stop…? No. Gotta keep going. Kenshin’s counting on us.

It was a moot point now anyway as the adults’ brief conversation came to an end and they turned back to the work before them. The akita-mix fixed his eyes on the stand of trees where the Juppongatana had waited—the enemy was visible as dark shapes that rapidly gained definition as the two forces raced towards each other. From the corner of his eye the young dog saw Misao nudge Aoshi and the pair streaked together toward a dark lanky figure moving quickly through the snow.

A sudden prickle of fur on the back of his neck was his only warning and Yahiko struggled to leap backwards against his own forward momentum. Something dropped out of the sky, letting out an ear-splitting shriek of disappointment as it missed its target and swooped upwards again.

Is that a hawk? Yahiko tried to divide his attention between the flying attacker and the ground-based threats, but his eyes stubbornly followed the dark shape wheeling in the blue sky. What the heck is a hawk doing working for Shishio?!

Getting an answer seemed unlikely in the extreme, but a second attack was imminent. The hawk stooped, wings folded to arrow through the air and sharp talons outstretched to grab and tear. Yahiko waited, watching the thing approach, tensing in anticipation. The hawk screeched in triumph as he connected with Yahiko’s back, raking bloody lines through spiky fur—but the victory was short lived as the akita-mix wheeled and bit down hard on a black flapping wing.

He shook his head briskly, ripping the bird free of his back. Something snapped and the muscles under his mouth went suddenly slack. The dog released his grip to let the bird tumble to the snow, its head flopping at an unusual angle. Yahiko eyed it warily for another few seconds, making sure the hawk was really dead before raising his head to survey the landscape. Some distance away Sano fought against an orange creature that towered above him, and Kaoru disappeared in thick plumes of disturbed snow as she dodged the creature she fought. Closer to the forest’s edge Kenshin was visible as a flash of red, chasing and being chased by a flicker of gold.

Yahiko couldn’t see the Oniwaban anymore, but that hardly surprised him. They were ninjas after all.

The fringe of the forest loomed a short distance away, startlingly dark against the morning snow. Something moved in the darkness and Yahiko strained his eyes to try and pick out the shape—but soon he didn’t need to, it was coming toward him.

A wolf, as large as Hiko, padded out of the gloom towards him on massive paws. He looked… odd, even considering Yahiko’s admittedly skewed perspective on “normal.” It wasn’t so much the coloring, though that was strange too. Brown fur covered his legs and underbelly, crawling up his body like a rising tide, getting darker and darker until even his muzzle was stained with it. Then right up against the dark a shock of white fur started between the stranger’s eyes and flowed up and over his skull to about the middle of his back. But there was something about that skull, something that wasn’t quite right for a wolf. His muzzle was too thick, and there was hardly any difference in angles between it and the slope of his forehead. Compared to the rest of his oversized body the wolf’s white triangle ears were tiny and didn’t seem to have as much range of motion.

“Who are you?” Yahiko barked out, his natural rough temper lending its weight to the words.

“A rude question for the aggressor to ask.” A high, nasally voice that didn’t match at all with the mammoth wolf answered. “But manners are rarely displayed by ones so young.”

“What…?” It took a long moment of searching for Yahiko to find the voice’s owner. A rat. A fat, sleek rat with tan fur that clung to the wolf’s shoulder with a self-important gleam in its beady eyes. Yahiko gave his head a hard shake and looked again—still there.

Birds, rats, is there anything this Shishio guy didn’t try to recruit? The rat, apparently, wasn’t done speaking.

“So it falls to us to teach you some manners, pup. When asking a name, it is customary to first offer your own,” the rat lectured. The dog bristled, spiky fur standing up a little straighter as he did.

“Yahiko Myogin, son of Samurai and member of Kenshin’s pack,” he growled out, tense. “Who are you?”

“Saizuchi of the Juppongatana.” The rat’s front claw released its hold to give the fur on which it rested an absent pat, “This is my partner, Fuji.” Saizuchi’s tiny head tilted to one side, his long whiskers twitching. “I assume this ‘Kenshin’ you claim as an alpha is the Battousai.”

Yahiko eyed the pair warily, Fuji the strange wolf had yet to so much as twitch forward, and his stillness while the rat climbed on him and spoke for (apparently) both of them was making him nervous.

“And if he is?”

“Then I presume he has gone to challenge lord Shishio, which leaves you in the awkward position of fighting for a dead wolf.”

“Kenshin’s not dead!” Yahiko exploded, shifting by angry instinct into a low fighting stance.

The rat may have raised a tiny brow, Fuji didn’t move. “For all intents and purposes he is. Those who stand against lord Shishio do not survive, thus the conditions for the end of his life have been met. I hope you said goodbye, child.” Malicious glee laced Saizuchi’s tone as he explained, Yahiko’s growling mostly drowned it out, but worry for the red wolf wasn’t so easy to quiet.

“You don’t know anything about Kenshin,” the akita-mix challenged, “and if you don’t shut up I’m going to make you shut up!”

A definite snigger from the rat greeted this, “You seem as eager to die as your leader! No one stands against the might of Fuji! He was genetically engineered from your distant ancestors and boasts a strength long since disappeared from your line. And with me by his side, the brains that engineered his escape from the laboratory, the likelihood of your survival drops to below zero percent!” Fuji moved at last, heaving a rumbling sigh and stepping forward, the blunt lines of his face a melancholic contrast to Saizuchi’s manic glee.

Yahiko’s brow crinkled slightly in confusion, stealing force from his snarl. What’s that guy talking about? Ancestors and laboratories… guess he means this Fuji guy was planned out by humans? Like his father, perhaps, bred to be a guard dog. Still, they were in the wild now, what did humans have to do with anything? Besides...

“You already said that Shishio was unbeatable, and now you’re saying that Fuji is too—they can’t both be, and if you’re lying about one then you’re probably lying about both,” Yahiko pointed out. “Which means Kenshin and I will be fine.”

The scowl on Saizuchi’s face was plainly visible and he bared long incisors. “I tried to be kind, you fool, I tried to warn you. On your own head be this folly. Fuji!”

The last word was a sharp command, and now there wasn’t any time for conversation—the hulking wolf charged. He moved faster than Yahiko expected for a creature of that muscle-mass, and the akita-mix scrambled to get clear of that first powerful attack. Fuji turned ponderously to get the dog in his sights once again.

The raised fur on Yahiko’s hackles fairly tingled with its efforts to climb higher—Fuji’s expression was unlike any Yahiko had ever seen on a fighter—the expression of no expression. None. No hostility, or anger, no snarls or determination. Heck, there wasn’t even the psychotic glee that sometimes stole over Sano’s face, or the cool focus of Aoshi. It was almost like Fuji didn’t even see him. As if Yahiko wasn’t quite real. And none of this was helpful because here the ancestral wolf came again.

Again Yahiko retreated, uncertain of his chances in going toe-to-toe with the Juppongatana’s momentum. Of course, he would never win by retreating either. No, bad impatience. Plans were good things. Fuji had a plan… or rather, Saizuchi did. The rat had clamped like a tick onto his friend, clawed feet anchoring him against the rough movements of the wolf. Every now and then Yahiko could hear fragments of whispers, the orders Saizuchi gave to the large creature. Which wasn’t fair, Fuji didn’t have to divide his attention or think for himself—Yahiko frowned, testing that thought as he jumped back to avoid a crushing bite. 

Was that an advantage? Fuji didn’t decide what to do himself so he couldn’t anticipate—the rat might have a plan, but he still had to relay that to his partner. And  that took time. It took time to decipher those commands and act on them too—a delay a quick dog could probably use to his advantage.

Fuji was charging again, but this time Yahiko waited, waited, waited until he could practically feel his opponent’s hot breath blasting down on him in advance of the fangs. Now!

The akita-mix slipped to one side, doing his best to mimic how Kenshin moved, dodging attacks by a whisker’s breadth.  He had probably done it a little too early, but it worked, Fuji’s momentum had him thundering past, just like the first time, and when he turned it would be slow.

Yahiko rushed to close the distance before that turn could begin, ready to target a hind leg, dark against the backdrop of snow. What happened next just shouldn’t have.

Fuji wheeled, kicking up a spray of snow in a turn that went against everything Yahiko had seen in their fight so far, and Yahiko hadn’t even heard Saizuchi give the command to turn. But he could hear him now a high, vicious snigger as Yahiko’s momentum carried him forward toward impassive eyes—and implacable fangs. He had just enough time to protect his throat by ducking his head before impact.

The teeth were almost an afterthought, tearing through the loose skin of his scruff, the real damage came after. Yahiko saw dark paws tense to spring and muscle slammed into him like a boulder pried free in an avalanche. Air evacuated his lungs as ribs creaked warningly against the impact. His paws left the earth to follow the path of least resistance, the force of the blow sending him into the air before gravity yanked him back down with a malicious chuckle.

Impact. And no more air for his lungs to lose. For a crucial moment Yahiko struggled with instincts torn between refilling his battered lungs and getting back to his paws before—

A heavy paw planted itself on his stomach and thick jaws tore into his side—

Pain

Pain

Pain

PAIN.

Yahiko wasn’t thinking anymore, not even a little, he writhed, twisting like a mad beast, uncaring of further injury as long as it got him away now. It was the only thing that mattered, the only thing that ever could—stop the pain. Stop the fangs splashing his blood out over the snow.

A wordless roar tore itself from his throat, spilling out over fangs that turned and latched on to the upper shoulder of his enemy—a shallow bite at the wrong angle to deal real damage, but hard to ignore for any creature. Fuji made a noise, it rumbled through Yahiko’s teeth as it shook his opponent’s throat, a grumble of annoyance. The great wolf drew back, shaking his head from side to side. Yahiko locked his jaw and held on, letting the resulting pull drag him to his feet. Saizuchi was a scolding presence on Fuji’s shoulder, almost nose to nose with Yahiko. Yammering about strength working with intelligence in deadly concert—

“Shut up,” Yahiko croaked, sliding free of Fuji in a desperate scramble as his jaw opened. “Just shut up. That wasn’t you. That was nothing to do with you.” He eyed the almost-motionless wolf. “That was Fuji.”

“Fuji does as I tell him—” the rat shrilled. Yahiko cut him off.

“When he’s got time, sure. But you can’t move fast enough to stay alive if you’re always listening to someone else. Sometimes you just have to move.” Narrowed brown eyes met Fuji’s dark ones. “That’s your game, isn’t it? You let opponents think they’re fighting the rat, and they are, but you count on them forgetting you can make your own decisions. And it’s easy, because he,” Yahiko glared at the rat, “tells everyone that you can’t.”

Fuji was actually looking and him now, a fixed stare that could have matched Aoshi for inscrutability. But still… something had shifted, as if the Juppongatana no longer saw an obstacle, but an opponent. Yahiko’s side was a bloody mess, his scruff stinging from the early bites and his bones aching from taking Fuji’s weight full-force. But he sees me. It still felt like a victory.

            The ancestral wolf’s head tilted fractionally to one side, but it was more than enough for Saizuchi to feel. “You don’t know anything about us!” The rat’s voice was tight with temper. “Fuji!”

That cry of command again, but Fuji didn’t charge, instead he began to circle towards Yahiko, moving at an easy trot. Instinctively the dog moved, falling into the arc to keep Fuji more or less the same distance away from him. It was only after he did so that he realized the direction of their circle kept his injuries on the inside, closer to further attack. The limited amount of blood that had already clotted in Fuji’s fur was a stark reminder of just who had the advantage. Saizuchi’s chosen shoulder was now outside the circle, but his whispers had increased in pitch and urgency, a clear sign of anxiety even if Yahiko couldn’t confirm the emotion with his eyes.

Fuji shifted, breaking the pattern to attack and Yahiko let himself jump to one side in reaction. Pain was a too-close memory, spurring him away from the jaws that had brought it. Not a bad thing, if it kept him from racking up more injuries, but not anything that would necessarily help him cause any either. The Juppongatana turned smoothly to follow Yahiko’s retreat, eyes locked unswervingly on the dog. Yahiko allowed himself to back up a further two steps before steeling his nerves and rushing forward. He skirted the edge of Fuji’s approach, twisting to avoid the teeth that followed him even as he tried to land a bite on the wolf’s flank. It was only a glancing blow—to stay in range longer was to risk further injury—but the small victory soothed the persistent fear in the back of Yahiko’s mind into something quieter.

“Fuji, now!” the rat’s insistent shriek brought it roaring to life again and Yahiko’s paws shoved hard against the earth to propel himself away from the coming catastrophe. No good. The jaws that had savaged his hide broke it once again, clamping down on one hind leg just before he was out of range.

The sudden, jerking halt nearly made him lose his balance and he scrabbled desperately to keep it. The heavy Juppongatana pivoted, sending Yahiko skidding across the snow a short distance, his legs locked in a desperate attempt to not wind up on the ground once more. His claws scraped through churned up snow, searching for purchase and just barely finding it.

Position secure for the moment Yahiko looked up frantically to see where this new location had brought him in relation to Fuji. The ancestral wolf was bearing down on him again, the intent to ram Yahiko to the ground once more obvious in the broad lines of his face. Not again!

There was no time or space to dodge, he would never get out of range in time and it would only sacrifice his footing. And he couldn’t take another attack like that. The akita-mix braced himself, but not for impact. As Fuji thundered ever nearer he dug his paws into the snow and propelled himself forward.

Faint surprise registered on Fuji’s face for a moment, but no concern—his greater mass and momentum would win out in a head-to-head encounter. Still, Yahiko came nearer, showing no signs of wavering, ears pressed flat to his skull. Time shuddered by oddly— it had been only seconds since Yahiko saw Fuji’s approaching attack, yet the adrenaline coursing through him seemed to slow the world, allowing him to notice and factor in the little things.

Saizuchi’s wide-eyed grin at being partners with such a powerful creature.

Angry voices raised in the distance.

The exact way the muscles in his legs expanded and contracted to push against the earth, racing the steady pulse of his heartbeat.

Fuji’s stunned expression when, just before impact, Yahiko latched on to the top of his attacker’s muzzle and wrenched his body violently to one side.

The world whited out for a moment as a fresh wave of agony ripped into Yahiko’s injured flank. He clung on, fighting against the roaring in his ears blocking out the world as much as he fought against Fuji, and reluctantly it began to recede. The effects were all he could have hoped for. Fuji’s body might be a mass that would laugh at any attempt by Yahiko to change its trajectory—his head on the other hand… It was snapped to one side, following the path of the dog’s weight. The body it was attached to stumbled, surprise doing what weight alone could not.

The Juppongatana might be faster than Yahiko had initially given him credit for, but Fuji wasn’t created to execute tight turns at high speed. His hind legs slipped out from under him and the front legs skidded, unable to correct the stumble. Yahiko released his death-grip on the other canine’s muzzle with a gasp, scrambling to find his own footing before he was tangled with his foe and trapped on the ground.

The thud the wolf made as he crashed to the ground made Yahiko’s bones shake as the shock of the impact traveled through the ground and up his legs. But only up his legs, he had managed to stay upright. Fuji tensed and Yahiko dove for the submission hold, fangs pressed warningly against the pulsing jugular and one paw planted firmly on Fuji’s neck to help hold the titan down.

“You lose.” Yahiko growled out menacingly.

“Inconceivable!” a high voice shrilled. “Fuji and I are an army of destruction!”

Damn, I was kinda hoping that he would have been crushed in the fall.

Maybe a little cruel, but any charitable thoughts about the rat vanished when the tan creature crawled over to Yahiko’s paw and started biting at it savagely with his sharp incisors. The instinct to shake off the diminutive attacker or, even better, kill it with one well-placed bite, was overwhelming, but Yahiko sat on the impulse.

Saizuchi couldn’t kill him from down there, and clearly wasn’t brave enough to draw near Yahiko’s throat and thus his teeth. But if the akita-mix moved, Fuji might get up, and the big wolf certainly could kill him.

“Tell your buddy to cut it out,” the dog ground out between teeth that longed to crunch into the rat. “He’s got to be at least a little important to you if you’re still with him, so I’d like to not have to kill him. But if he keeps biting I make no promises.”

Fuji’s dark body shifted, and Yahiko tensed, ready to bite if he had to despite the yawing pit of nausea that had lurched into being in his gut. Damn it, he didn’t want to kill Fuji.

“Saizuchi,” the wolf’s deep rumble was calm despite his position. “We’ve lost. Don’t shame yourself.”

“Life is not shameful!” The rat blazed back at him. A sigh shuddered across the large frame.

“We are not humans. Wolves do not need to kill their fallen foes. Are dogs so different?”

Yahiko hesitated, memories of the last pinned fighter he had released rearing an ugly head. Rai had gone on to try and kill him when his back was turned. Did he really trust Fuji not to do the same? And even if I don’t, do I expect to just stand here until somebody else shows up? I need to move, one way or the other, and there’s only one way that I’ll be able to live with myself, even if it is only for five minutes.

“No.” Yahiko answered, slowly pulling back. “We’re not.”

Saizuchi scampered to his customary place, anxiously parting Fuji’s fur with his clever paws to see if there was any damage while the wolf slowly got to his feet. Yahiko watched tensely for any sign that he would have to leap away to dodge an attack. Fuji plainly noticed this and shook his head slowly.

“No more fighting,” he insisted. “It would not be honorable.”

“And what’s a guy with honor doing in Shishio’s pack?” Yahiko demanded. “Haven’t you seen what he’s been doing? Building a super-pack like this, going after more and more territory, it’s crazy!”

The rat sniffed. “Lord Shishio intends to wage war against humanity itself; the side effects are necessary sacrifices to achieve that goal.” Beady eyes glittered. “Where else can we strike a blow of vengeance against the humans for what they’ve done to us?”

Now it was Yahiko’s turn to shake his head. “But you can’t get revenge on humans, even if you could find the right ones in the first place. All Shishio is going to do is get everybody following him and a bunch of innocent bystanders killed when they retaliate. I was born by a town—you don’t think every now and again there wasn’t some crazy dog who decided it would be good to go after people? It always ended up the same, with him dead and any dogs that happened to be around him dead. You can’t get revenge on humans. The best thing you can do is go enjoy your freedom. Live your life, find a pack somewhere that you fit into, that likes you for more than your muscle.”

“And you don’t think that Shishio’s pack is such a place?” the rat asked wryly.

Yahiko allowed one fang to show in a half-snarl. “Shishio’s pack isn’t an option. It’s getting shut down today.”

Fuji’s gaze was thoughtful, but it was hard to get a read on whether or not he agreed with Yahiko or Saizuchi. The rat hesitated. “Perhaps it would be wise to… consider our options. If the alpha is the strongest in a pack…”

And I was stronger than they expected, Kenshin might just win against the guy they think is invincible. Yahiko fought back a grin, he didn’t want t the pair to think he was laughing at them. Fuji inclined his head.

“We will withdraw to confer. It would be dishonorable to interfere further with this struggle.”

As if the bad guys have any honor—oh what the heck, I trusted him this far. And I’m not in much shape to argue. The odd pair turned and melted into the snow-shrouded gloom of the forest. Yahiko’s legs trembled with exhaustion as adrenaline drained from his system. I hurt everywhere.

Surely it wouldn’t hurt to sit down, just for a minute? Get his breath back before seeing how everyone was doing. Maybe see if Sano had won his fight, and let Megumi fuss over him, if she wasn’t too busy scalping the fighter.

Ow…

Chapter Text

This is how it feels when you take your life back
This is how it feels when you finally fight back
When life pushes me I push harder
What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger

- Skillet, Not Gonna Die

Kaoru’s nose was her first warning, the keen sense housed there sending a cry of alarm, of remembered fear through her system. Her other senses took that fear and used it to sharpen themselves to hyper-awareness even as Kaoru struggled to place the memory tied to the feeling.

A rustle high in the trees above her was the second warning, and the tanuki brought herself to an abrupt halt as a powerful force landed squarely where she would have been. The sight of her attacker slotted the memory back into place easily. Tan fur, lean muscles, heavier on the front paws to hint at the powerful blows he was capable of, a long black-tipped tail that lashed the air and an alien face, features flat and distinctly not canine. A cougar.

Memory tugged frantically at her—an empty place where her mother once stood, the scent of blood in what should have been a safe place—with an effort the female put it aside. The past had done its job in warning her, but to pay it further attention would put her in danger. Well, in more danger anyway.

“Oh!” the big cat’s voice sounded cheerful in its surprise, the tone reminding her strongly of Tae. “You are a quick little thing aren’t you? I didn’t expect you to get away so fast.” Kaoru shifted uneasily, trying to prepare herself to dodge again. The cougar’s whiskers twitched in a smile. “No need to be so shy,” he purred, “I’m the last face you’ll ever see, so we might as well be friendly.”

The muscles in Kaoru’s jaw clenched in an involuntary response—she was not going to die here. Certainly not at the fang of the same species that had half-orphaned her as a pup. A cougar didn’t kill me then, and it won’t kill me now, as if the seasons spanning the two encounters were inconsequential, as if her death by mountain lion attack was an immutable fact.

“I am Kaoru Kamiya,” the strength of her own voice surprised her in the face of the feline’s smile. “And I will not die here.”

The whiskers twitched again. “Kamatari of the Juppongatana,” the cougar returned cordially, “and I say that you will.”

He charged, an oncoming nightmare of tawny fur and displaced snow. Kaoru snarled, anger rising to give her a surge of energy,

“So I’m supposed to give up just because you say so?!” She moved swiftly, paws drawing her away from the cougar’s attack. Kamatari was grinning as he turned to follow her movement.

“Of course not! That wouldn’t be any fun!”

Kaoru didn’t waste her breath on further dialogue as she was forced to leap backwards to avoid the heavy paw tipped with vicious claws arcing towards her face. The cougar immediately followed the stretching motion of his attack with a bite, the second attack flowing seamlessly in the wake of the first. Kaoru faltered—after the apex of the cougar’s swing had passed she had begun to lunge forward for an attack of her own—motion that now brought her directly into Kamatari’s line of attack. It was too late to pull back; instead the tanuki threw her weight forward, curving so her right shoulder would take the brunt of the blow, sacrificing it to shield her neck.

Thick fangs tore into flesh and muscle—black crept into the edges of Kaoru’s vision, shock and pain threatening her with an unconsciousness she could not afford. A sudden motion from Kamatari jarred her, bringing her back from the edge even as fresh agony throbbed up her shoulder. The big cat was shifting, raising a paw to rake at her captive form—and now Kaoru really remembered the danger of cats whether great or small—while a wolf might attack with its fangs alone, felines had another weapon on which to rely. She couldn’t let those claws get a grip on her; once they did Kamatari could reposition his fangs freely in a far more lethal place.

The paw came nearer between rapid pulses of pain. Ears flat to her skull in rigid preparation, for she couldn’t afford to clench her jaw against the coming pain, Kaoru turned to meet the blow as much as she was able. Kamatari’s grip was too strong and too deep to twist free of, but the female was able to get her head pointed in the direction of the attack without causing much more damage to her shoulder than had already been done. With savage desperation Kaoru ducked her head under the curving claws and then angled her muzzle up to bite down on the central pad of the cougar’s paw.

Claws raked her scalp as the paw half-closed in startled reflex, thin lines of pain that trickled crimson into her snowy world. Kamatari yowled, shaking his paw to try and dislodge Kaoru—and opening his mouth to give vent to his spleen. The she-wolf slipped away like snowmelt on a mountain stream, coming to a shaking stop a short distance away.

Kamatari’s muzzle was now tinged by her blood as well as his amused smile. “Well aren’t you the clever one,” he purred again. Words were locked away somewhere behind the frantic pulse of Kaoru’s heartbeat and the far more regular beat of pain throbbing through her shoulder and tingling along her scalp. The tanuki realized that she was holding her right forepaw off the snow in an attempt to avoid damaging herself further with her own slight weight. The fight had barely begun and already her speed had been severely hampered. And despite her desperate attack, Kamatari was largely uninjured.

She would never win this way.

The thought sluiced down her spine like ice, clearing her mind even as dread tried to take hold. She would never win this way. She couldn’t afford to take another hit or she might not be able to move. But there’s no rule against changing the rules, and I have every reason to survive. Kaoru needed a distraction, something to change the odds and give her a sorely needed edge.

Warily she began to circle the great cat; he turned lazily to follow her motion without much concern. The tanuki limped heavily, keeping weight off of her front right side as much as she could—perhaps if she played up the injury Kamatari would underestimate her capabilities. It couldn’t hurt to hold a little surprise in reserve… unfortunately it didn’t seem to be much of a stretch. Still, watching Kenshin time and again had proven that even the space of a whisker could be the distance between victory and defeat.

“I’m surprised,” the cougar was saying now, seeming to be in no great hurry to finish her off. “Most don’t last long enough to need a second blow. Especially not little females.” Reflexive anger stiffened Kaoru’s spine, bringing with it an accompanying protest from her injuries—and Kaoru almost stopped in surprise as an idea took hold.

Anger.

Distraction.

It had served her once already by getting her free of Kamatari’s teeth, but perhaps it would help her again.

“I’m surprised too,” she forced the words from a throat that rather preferred to be closed just now, thanks. “I didn’t expect to see a mountain lion in a wolf pack.” A stray memory whispered a suggestion and Kaoru took it, hoping desperately that her mind wasn’t playing tricks and confusing cougars with bobcats under stress and blood loss. “Aren’t your kind solitary?”

A hint of a snarl banished the good humor from Kamatari’s face. “Lord Shishio isn’t as judgmental as the rest of your kind, little female.”

“In other words,” Kaoru’s voice was coming easier now despite the danger, “he sees a use for you and so he lets you stick around.”

The answering snarl was more than just hinted at—it was an angry noise accompanied by a sudden feint across their paced circle with outstretched claws. Kaoru dodged hastily back, forgetting to try and mask the severity of her injury as her body wailed in alarm at the approach of the thing that had hurt it. Her heart picked up its frantic pace—still; this was good, it was very lucky that she had happened on something that irritated the cat so quickly. I suppose I must thank Yahiko for all of that constant bickering. He seems to have sharpened my ability to annoy creatures. Though I’m not sure that’s such a good thing. A little smile at the thought teased Kaoru’s muzzle, the cougar saw it and seemed about as amused by her smile as she had been by his.

“Don’t talk about what you don’t understand!” Kamatari spat, his pale eyes flat and angry in his strange face.

“What’s to understand?” Kaoru countered, recovering her footing and picking up her pace. “As power-hungry as Shishio is, he has to have made the decision to keep you around based on how useful you would be to him.”

“And what if he did? So what if I’m useful? It’s not like little Yumi is much use to anyone. And why shouldn’t Lord Shishio value strength?”

Kamatari stopped circling as he spoke heatedly, long tail lashing the air at his sides in a wide arc. Kaoru darted in as the cat slowed to make his point. Distraction delayed his reaction; his brain noted the oncoming threat and tried to wrench itself away from the argument, but too slowly. The wolf bit down hard and fast on a heavy foreleg. The cougar shifted to counter attack as she leapt free, landing with a stumble and a scrabble for her bad side to reestablish a safe distance. The cougar lowered his center of gravity, readying himself to spring—

“There’s nothing wrong with strength,” Kaoru said hurriedly, “but that’s not all there is. Packs are about friendship, about family, and if that isn’t why Shishio let you in, you aren’t really in, are you?”

“What do you know about it? Nothing! They are my friends!”

“Are they?” Kaoru countered, still holding herself tense in case the cat chose to spring. “Even this Yumi you insult so casually?”

“I don’t need someone like her for a friend,” Kamatari glowered, almost seeming to sulk in spite of his rage.

“Don’t you? I wonder if she says the same about you.”

“You think I don’t see what you’re getting at? That I’m the odd one out, the cougar, that I don’t belong?”

Something in the cougar’s wail stopped Kaoru short—a flash of pity, of the remembered pain of loneliness and of her first awkward conversations with Tae. Destined to never truly know the company of her own kin, as bobcats were solitary, and stuck in an in-between state of being part of Kaoru’s pack and yet, not.

It struck Kaoru too that Tae was older than this mountain lion, more cheerful and better adjusted to her own warring nature by seasons spent carving out a place for herself that gave her both the solitude she craved and the companionship she so enjoyed. Kamatari was young still, awkwardly looking for that place and thinking he had found it among Shishio’s followers.

Well, he’s angry now. And for good reason, if his confidence in the place he’s found is so fragile. Kaoru winced slightly, but there wasn’t much point in it. Whatever she knew or guessed about Kamatari’s intentions, he still stood between her and a safe return home with her pack.

“I know what you have to say!” the giant cat snarled, his face contorted in fury and pain, “That different species can never be friends—you don’t understand!” None of which Kaoru had actually said, but then, the implications had been planted, and Kamatari’s personal fears and experiences had likely taken them to a conclusion the large cat was well-acquainted with.

“Back home I have a friend, Tae,” Kaoru interjected quietly into the brief silence following the snarl, holding herself in a deceptively relaxed stance. “She’s a bobcat. I think you should meet her—you two are a lot alike. I’m not fighting you because you’re a mountain lion. I’m not fighting you because you want to protect your friends. I’m fighting you because you are threatening my family.”

Kamatari didn’t answer her with words, instead launching himself forward in that same attack that had pinned her so effectively earlier. He said he hardly ever needs a second blow… maybe he hasn’t learned how to change his attacks effectively yet.

“You say I don’t understand, but I do,” Kaoru shouted, twisting to avoid the heavy paw that crashed toward her. “You feel alone, so terribly alone that every second of every day it gnaws away at your bones until you’re just a shadow. And when someone sees you, when someone stays with you, or takes you with them, it feels like they saved you from a fate worse than death. I know.”

Kamatari snarled at her, his alien face twisted in fury and fear. A twinge of sympathy made itself felt, Kaoru accepted the sensation, folding it firmly into her determination. “I know Shishio was that for you, so you’ll never stop fighting for him. But Kenshin was that for me. So I won’t lose. I’ll see him again.”

“You can see him when you’re both dead!” Kamatari reached out with his claws again, grasping for her face, her throat, any part of her he could catch to force her into silence. Kaoru summoned up the last vestiges of her speed to arc around those claws, past the raging fangs which safeguarded Kamatari’s throat and along his long body to the hindquarters. Her own attack landed on one of the cougar’s hind legs, she bit down hard and pulled—she would never be able to throw him off balance, the difference in their weight and her own handicapped leg would see to that—but the space of skin and muscle her teeth had separated from the greater bulk of the cougar parted with each other to give way before her tug.

Kamatari yowled at the attack, his heavy body turning towards her along its own length. Kaoru didn’t wait for him—she scrambled along the outside of his curve, away from where his teeth chased her, and back up along his undefended side. Of course the great cat realized his mistake, turning his head to fight the momentum his speed had pledged to his previous motion. Black was creeping back into Kaoru’s vision as the snow was splashed with drops of red underfoot, her injury strained by the motion she demanded of her body and exacting its own bitter price. But she was there, and bit down on the cougar’s neck with the last of her strength.

His head tossed and she let the motion carry her, dragging limp paws back and forth across the snow. One set of claws came around, scrabbling for a hold, raking down her side, but seemed unable to get a real grip on her to tear her away. She held on.

I am going to live. I am going home with Kenshin and the others, and I am going to pin down that red-furred Rurouni on exactly what he feels for me. The thoughts were stubborn and clear against the darkness threatening to overtake the world. Still, the snarls that battered against her ears seemed fainter; the questing claws less frequent, until they faded away.

This puzzled her, and it was some time later that Kaoru realized she was now lying on the snow with her jaw still locked into warm fur and Kamatari lying beside her. Careful, don’t want to kill him… Gingerly she released her hold, pushing herself shakily to her feet. …Did I kill him? She didn’t want to, she didn’t want to kill someone who reminded her so painfully of Tae… Hesitantly, she nosed his form, his head moved slackly on his injured neck, but slow shallow breaths from a pink nose sent tiny snowflakes scurrying away from his muzzle.

Only unconscious then. Good. Kaoru hadn’t been really sure that her attack would work, restricting the airflow in his windpipe without crushing it, but it had been all she could think of at the time. Likely it had only worked due to her own weakened state.

With an effort and a sigh the tanuki raised her head to look through the thin trees on the forest edge. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t in much shape to encounter any more of Shishio’s goons, and more could easily be lurking in the deeper woods. She would have to work her way back towards the more open spaces. She had last seen Yahiko and Sanosuke back that way as well, and it seemed high time to give safety in numbers a try.

Her eyes rested on the fallen cougar for a moment before she turned away to limp back towards her friends.

“I’m not alone anymore. And as long as you’re alive, you can find someone to ease your loneliness as well, Kamatari.” The cougar didn’t answer, and she doubted he would have said anything worthwhile even if he had been awake to hear it. She shook her head, trying to clear out some of the dimness. Blood loss is not a pleasant thing…

From her place under the shadows of the snow-bound trees Yumi had had an excellent view of the ridge as the Battousai’s small group came pouring down it into the valley. Anxiety had racked her nerves, tensing her usually relaxed frame. A streak of red had been far in front of the oncoming rabble, like a dart of flame let loose from a careless spark and drawn inexorably toward the blaze of Lord Shishio.

Battousai… The husky had tried to reassure herself that there didn’t seem to be many of the attackers, and as the Juppongatana saw the attack and moved to meet it she was able to relax, if only a little. Lord Shishio now paced the edge of the trees as if they were iron bars holding him back from his prey. He had, at length, been persuaded by Hoji and Yumi to remain withdrawn from the battle until the Battousai’s companions were dealt with. For, however noble a duel between the two might seem in theory (as if an acknowledged murderer could hold to such a hazy concept as honor), Battousai’s companions included at least two wolves with known grudges against the Northern Alpha. Yumi would not put it past either the Oniwaban or the Shinsengumi survivors to attack by surprise while her mate was distracted by the fight with the Battousai.

Yumi herself sat a little farther back in the trees, out of Shishio’s way, but not so far that she could not see what was going on. Soujiro, the dear boy, had lingered by her side as a calming presence with his soothing smile and unshakable faith in Lord Shishio. But, as his master’s best lieutenant, he had eventually dashed off towards the intruders, his golden-tan pelt clashing with an oncoming crimson one. He was probably getting himself all mussed about, and would come trotting sheepishly back after all was done, good-naturedly disgraced in the face of Yumi’s future scolding.

Fights are such messy things… the husky thought quietly, eyes drawn to her mate. Messy indeed, and horribly bloody, but useful. Useful to Lord Shishio. “I am one of the Juppongatana, aren’t I?”

The question was soft in the snow-covered stillness, she didn’t want Lord Shishio to hear and be distracted from the oncoming battle. She could at least do that much…

“Certainly, Lady Yumi.” The answer was unexpected and the red husky jumped before turning with a frown to see Hoji’s patchwork coat materializing out of the forest’s gloom. She frowned, ears tilting back uncertainly.

Why isn’t Hoji fighting with the others? He’s capable isn’t he? She paused, frown deepening further. Is he? Or is he… like me? Only fit to serve Lord Shishio’s health or oversee his pack.

Hoji continued, ignoring her frown to sit by her side. “One might even say that you are the first among us, for it is you who lies closest to Lord Shishio’s heart.”

“For all the use that is,” Yumi’s words were bitter, echoes of a life lived pampered and preened and useless among the humans threading through them like a thorny vine. Had her life changed so little, for all it had changed so much?

Hoji’s dark gaze remained fixed on her, although his ears twitched and strained towards the sounds of battle. His attention, divided though it was, prompted the husky to continue. “We are before the greatest battle Lord Shishio will ever face, and I must sit in the shadows, useless.” She heaved a frustrated sigh. “If I knew how to fight—”

“But you don’t,” Hoji pointed out, cutting off her thought before she could fully verbalize it. “And it is an ugly, ugly thing when those who don’t or can’t fight interfere with them.” The words were, surprisingly, almost kind. Yumi had never had much to do with Hoji if she could help it, as she disliked his multi-layered schemes almost as much as Kamatari’s needy attention-seeking ways or Usui’s obvious bloodthirst.

“Still…” she faltered on, “I just wish I could be with him, could help him.”

Hoji seemed to hesitate, a gleam coming slowly into his gray eyes. “Yes,” he said, almost to himself, “yes, that is the way of things, isn’t it? Perhaps you should be there.” Those eyes, ringed by black fur, fixed on hers once more, “After all, you are the one closest to him.”

The red husky’s gaze was drawn back to the burned form of her lord Shishio. He had stopped now, staring down at the whirling fight between the Battousai and Soujiro with impatient anticipation. “At the very least I should be there,” she was unaware that the agreement slipped from her, for it was the heartbeat of her soul. “I swore never to be parted from him, to always be at his side. Now more than ever I should remain.”

“Truly, you are a faithful follower,” Hoji murmured, ducking his head slightly and drawing Yumi’s attention back to him, but his own seemed to have turned inward, likely diverted by one of his endlessly forming and unfolding plans. Slowly he rose, shaking himself briskly, his heavy coat swaying with the motion. “I must go,” he told her, ears still straining towards the distant fight. “I ought to spy out how our Juppongatana fare.”

Then he was gone, leaving only a patch of dirty snow where he had been sitting.

“More faithful than you, at any rate,” Yumi muttered, coming to her own dainty paws and closing the distance between herself and Lord Shishio. She was certainly no fighter, but that didn’t mean she could do nothing—even if it only amounted to witnessing the triumph of her mate. For Shishio never lost.

Chapter Text

There's no one in town I know
You gave us some place to go.
I never said thank you for that.
I thought I might get one more chance.
What would you think of me now,
So lucky, so strong, so proud?
I never said thank you for that,

- Jimmy Eat World, Hear You Me

I made a choice that I regret
Now what I see is what I get
It's too late to look back
I've got no way to switchback
It's too late to look back
Ain't okay, I've got no way to switchback
- Celldweller, Switchback

“It’s a monster, a monster!” The terrified wail rose above the infernal din of growls and snarls, desperate gasps and choked-off yelps.

Damn, it’s noisy. And crowded.

Hiko moved bad-temperedly through the horde of wolves and dogs that thronged him. The creatures that had yet to face him surged to get at the lone wolf from the mountain, while the wise and those who had already seen his fangs up close took flight as best they could in any direction they could, so long as it was away from the earth-toned wolf.

“‘Don’t worry, Master,’ he says,” Hiko grumbled, seizing a fleeing wolf by one hind leg and slinging him ingloriously into his snarling compatriots, eager to try their luck. “‘I’ll take care of Shishio,’ he says.” A well-placed bite to some sheepdog mutt cut short an attack angling for his throat. “Idiot.”

But really, that was nothing new—Kenshin had always been an idiot. An unlucky idiot. And if this was his student’s best hope of ridding the North of Shishio (of driving out some of the crowds that irked Hiko with their presence), then something was bound to go wrong. Potentially very wrong, if the North decided to notice the little blue-eyed female following Kenshin and decided to reenact history once more as a welcome-home present.

The least Hiko could do was to get rid of Shishio’s followers, to stop numbers from doing what even skill might not and slowing down his slow-witted apprentice. He was grown, of course, and his battles were his own, but no one would dare begrudge Hiko some much-needed spring cleaning.

Probably could have done this before, the earthy wolf acknowledged as he buried his teeth in the muscle of a snarling dog. But it hadn’t been on his mountain and he had no love for the packs that lived in the valley, as he referred to all of the lands at the base of his mountain, so it hadn’t been his problem. Heh, first time I’ve come down since…

Well, the last time had been the idiot’s fault too. Hiko could still remember it clearly, that winter day long seasons gone. Noisy seasons, loud with the company he hadn’t looked for—then quiet again, quieter than before, despite the war in the valley, when his solitude was returned to him.

That day had been a dark one, the wind half-howling like a spectral wolf pack of cold as it whipped fat snowflakes along, driving them across the mountain face as the heavy clouds overhead poured them forth. Hiko had thought that the howls were more of the wind, groping its way along the treetops—until the scent of blood came to him. The North had been treacherous even then, though the Isshin Shishi and the Bakufu packs had yet to fully form, and Hiko would have turned away from the smell and the noise had not a dark suspicion grown in his mind that whatever was happening was going to cross into his territory.

So he had moved down the slope of his mountain, chasing the voices in the wind and the blood in the air. It hadn’t been long before he realized that the fight wasn’t in his territory proper—really it was barely to the edge, but by then he had been curious. Curious, but morbidly so. What new violence were the valley wolves wreaking on each other now? The answer had been dismaying, but hardly new.

Across the invisible line of his territory had stood seven males, most of them scruffy and young. Destructive influences most likely, even in these dark times there were wolves darker still and unwelcome in family-packs. These had likely left the packs they were born in to form up a group of bachelors. In the blood stained snow at their feet were the torn forms of three small females. Strangers, even more than the valley wolves usually were to him. Hiko had surmised that the three females had been traveling and had run afoul of the bachelor-pack. The males would have wanted them to join—and must have grown violent when the females refused.

But it was good that he had come down—a rough pack like this might easily decide to try and steal his territory—as short and foolish a theft that would have been. As short and foolish their lives were. The rogues sealed their fate when the one who fancied himself an alpha had crossed the invisible boundary to attack Hiko. They had all fallen rather quickly after that. Still, he had paused in the gruesome place. It was a shame about the three little females, they looked young and terrified, even in death terrified, the usual peace that came at the end of a life curiously absent. But then, Hiko had supposed, scanning the remnants of the battleground, it was a very bloody death. The bitter tang of it clogged Hiko’s nose and painted whorls of red against the white snow.

Something small and crimson moved. Hiko had supposed it to be just one more bloodstained snowdrift, but the shape shivered and shifted. A young wolf pup sat up amidst the devastation, red as the blood spattered around him, shivering against the biting, howling wind.

“You’re an unlucky one.” Hiko had told the small pup, seeing little need to soften his words any more than he usually did. “I came too late to save your family, but I have avenged them for you.”

Violet eyes, serious and grieving had darted to look at his face before sliding back down to the still forms of the females. “They weren’t this one’s family.” The answering voice had been quiet, barely heard over the wind. “Miss Kasumi, Miss Akane and Miss Sakura found this one after this one’s parents died and took him away to live.”

And when this lot came along with their offers for the girls, they turned them down because they were already caring for a pup, thought Hiko. And bachelor packs have no use for pups that aren’t theirs. The puppy stood while saying the names, and staggered through the deepening snow to the nearest female, who looked as though her fur might have a copper tint to it under the stain of blood. “They wouldn’t let them kill this one, and they wouldn’t let this one fight. This one had wanted to protect them, at least.” A big goal for a little scrap of a wolf. But still…

“What’s your name?” The question echoed in Hiko’s memory. He had known even as he asked it that he was going to break his solitude for a scrawny, shivering little pile of fur with eyes that were too old for a pup.

“Shinta.”

Hiko snorted. “That’s a weak name. You’ll never survive your bad luck with a name that weak. From now on, you’re Kenshin. If you come with me now, I will be your master. I will teach you how to survive despite your ill-luck.” Kenshin had stared at him, but hadn’t argued.

He hadn’t argued much during those early seasons, only as he had gotten older, had gotten more foolish and listened more closely to the howls of the valley-wolves had that happened. Idiot.

Hiko shook off the memories along with a wolf trying to pierce his thick ruff. Kenshin wasn’t lucky, never really had been, just small and too stubborn to die. The North had robbed him of Kasumi, Akane and Sakura as he entered it, and that other wolf, the one Hiko had never met, as he left it.

Kenshin wasn’t lucky, and the North was cruel.

Hiko told himself that he wasn’t worried for the idiot, but his efforts against Shishio’s pack grew ever more furious.

It probably hadn’t been the best of ideas, taunting Saito just before battle. Kenshin could and did admit that freely. That didn’t mean the vicious curses fading away behind him didn’t put an extra spring into his stride. Starting a battle by annoying an old enemy seemed like a good beginning. That he had caught Saito off guard just made it all the sweeter.

The ground raced beneath his paws, the distance between himself and the shadowy edge of the wood falling away steadily. If he strained his ears behind him, Kenshin could hear the sounds of the others, sprinting through the snow, growling curses and panting in the chill air. But the majority of Kenshin’s focus lay to the front, where the enemy lurked.

Forms slipped out of the forest, moving to attack those following the crimson wolf. A streak of gold like a stray shaft of dawn sunlight came across the snow towards him. Fast. Very fast. The creature was near enough to distinguish features within seconds of seeing it. The approaching creature was slight of frame and small for a wolf, standing only as high as Kenshin himself. His fur was a pale tan that glinted gold where the sun struck it, a white underbelly and a half-collar of silvery gray fur on the back of his neck broke the blaze of gold. His eyes were startling slate blue in a smiling face.

He smiles. Misao’s voice chimed in his memory, Like, even more than you.

His slight build was another clue—if Kenshin remembered correctly then the smiling Juppongatana was half coyote and half wolf, a hybridization not generally looked on with favor in the North.

Shishio’s follower slowed to a trot, his smile as friendly and open as though Kenshin were some dear relative, long absent. It seemed to be the simplest thing in the world to carry on past the cheerful creature to the woods and Shishio, and yet… Kenshin slowed, then stopped, ears pricked toward the enemy and a frown creasing his brow. Where he should have been able to read intent there was… emptiness.

An uncomfortable prickle told him that the fur was rising on the back of his neck. He reminds this one of the pens, Kenshin realized, of the dogs that had been emptied of all but hate, who could only bare their fangs at the world. Only he seems to have lost all but… amusement. Where the angry dogs had been easy to predict, this hybrid was impossible to read.

“Hello,” the Juppongatana’s voice was as cheerful as his smile, and far too polite for a battlefield. “I assume that you are the Mister Himura Battousai who challenged Master Shishio.”

“And you are Soujiro of the Juppongatana.” Kenshin’s reply lacked any semblance of Rurouni-cheerfulness. “Shishio’s beta.”

Soujiro blinked as though surprised, but the emotion seemed stilted, feigned somehow, as if his face no longer remembered how to properly form other expressions. “How did you know?”

Kenshin inclined his head slightly to one side, the memory of Misao bringing just a touch of his own amusement. “The smile gave you away. One of this one’s friends described you.”

“Ah,” the smile took hold of the features once more, “That’s right, Hoji did say that the little Oniwaban coyote was working with you now. Well, I suppose in the end it doesn’t matter.” Silver fur rippled against gold as he shrugged, “Not when all of you are going to die here.”

This is perhaps the first time this one has been told he will die with a smile. Somehow the expression made the statement that much more unnerving. Still…

“This one’s quarrel is with Shishio, and would prefer not to fight you, Soujiro. Will you not stand down?”

“Ah, no, sorry.” The Juppongatana’s plumy tail waved gently through the air, “You see, Miss Yumi is quite worried about your fighting Mister Shishio, and she can get quite unpleasant when she’s fretting, even if there’s no real reason to worry.”

“You seem very sure that this one will lose.”

“Well of course.” Soujiro looked at him quizzically, uncertain of why he had to explain his reasoning. “Master Shishio is strong, those who stand with him are strong and his plans are filled with that strength. You stand on the side of the weak, Mister Himura.” Soujiro shook his head, smile serene once again. “Weakness cannot win against strength.”

“Some would argue that it is the purpose of the strong to defend the weak.”

Soujiro beamed at this reply, “That’s just silly, Mister Himura. The strong live and the weak die. That is the truth.” The last words were spoken with a strange cadence that lent them the weight of a chant.

Further conversation choked in Kenshin’s throat as the young beta moved, fast, very fast, and seeming faster still when no hint of his intentions leaked past his cheerful mask to telegraph his intentions in lean muscle and sinew. Kenshin pulled back from the lightning attack, pushing unsaid words to the back of his mind. Fighting the one Shishio had deemed strong enough to be his beta demanded the wolf’s full attention.

He withdrew a little further, watching for the moment when Soujiro would overreach himself, falter and change his stance and stride as his attack changed from a short-range charge to a longer chase. But if the moment came he missed it, hidden under the oncoming placid smile along with who-knew-what else.

Soujiro arced, a loping turn that obliged Kenshin to move in kind or run the risk of being caught on the flank. The red wolf pivoted to face the new direction, very aware that only his own small size granted him the maneuverability he needed to adjust his course at such speed. He moved for an attack of his own, rushing to meet Soujiro’s oncoming charge.

Kenshin meant to land a testing blow, to more accurately gauge Soujiro’s abilities while still affording himself opportunity to pull back if necessary. It was fortunate that he did not fully commit to the attack. Soujiro flowed bonelessly away from Kenshin’s questing fangs, avoiding injury by a scant but decisive fraction.

The Juppongatana turned, he must have, though his speed made it difficult to see the maneuver. Teeth sank into Kenshin’s flank, pulling at the healed scars of his fight with Saito, catching slightly on the thicker tissue. The beta’s attack faltered, as if surprised, and Kenshin twisted away, bleeding from a shallow bite, the line of fur that ran along his spine tingling with the knowledge that it could have been much worse.

Soujiro’s ears were angled in a show of solicitude that sorted oddly with the stinging bite. “My, but you are quick, Mister Himura. It seems I will have to try harder.”

He did.

Gold flashed across the snow towards Kenshin like a line of pale fire—at the last moment the crimson wolf leapt into the air, angling to land in the place where Soujiro’s attack would have connected. There was a frozen moment in the winter afternoon, the crescent shape of the red wolf looking down, the gold-white shape of Soujiro staring up, slate blue eyes locking with serious violet.

The moment fractured, gravity resumed. Kenshin arced down with all the extra force it could lend him—Soujiro blurred away, disappearing in a plume of snow raised by his passing and enhanced by Kenshin’s forceful landing.

This time the bite was so quick that the pain which should have accompanied it was absent for long moments, long enough for the smiling beta to withdraw once again. Only now he wasn’t smiling, a line of confusion written in the wrinkle of his brow and the set of his ears.

Blood dripped freely from Kenshin’s shoulder, the site of the new injury, the price of his missed attack. Still, it wasn’t what he had expected.

Ruthless, he seemed to recall Miss Misao saying of this hybrid, yet twice now Soujiro had stopped short of delivering a fatal injury. It might only be that pressing his attacks would have left him open to a dangerous counterattack, something Kenshin admitted he would use to great effect given the opportunity. Yet…

“I’m afraid I haven’t been taking you seriously enough even now, Mister Himura,” Soujiro apologized, breaking into the Rurouni’s thoughts. “Allow me to fix that. This time I’ll be serious.”

Mister Himura’s surprise was almost comical, understated though it was, as Soujiro moved easily into another attack, using the speed that was his hallmark. It must be quite disconcerting for the wolf, Soujiro supposed, to no longer be the fastest creature in the North. He really shouldn’t have come back; the Battousai’s time was over.

The coyote-wolf hybrid arced in on the left as Mister Himura’s head turned toward the right, tracking where Soujiro had been. Sharp fangs cut a line of crimson against scarlet fur, scoring the Battousai’s flank. It was bit unkind to whittle away at the legendary wolf like this—really Soujiro ought to move quickly and finish the fight…

Not yet. Something within him snarled, an alien, almost frantic sensation. He needs to see he was wrong. Soujiro’s smile faltered.

Mister Himura moved away from the origin of the injury with no more than a sharp intake of breath to give away the pain he was surely feeling. His ears twitched constantly, flicking this way and that seemingly at random. Soujiro angled for another pass—but Himura sidestepped at just the right moment, facing completely the wrong way to have seen the attack coming.

“Oh, I see, Mister Himura,” Soujiro called without slowing down, seeing how the ears followed him, “very clever, listening for me rather than looking.” And impressive, to fight using his ears as a primary source of information. Admirable even. Not something a weak creature would be capable of.

But Mister Himura used to be strong, before he gave it up to defend the weak. The growling of his mind returned, a little louder, and Soujiro winced. This needed to end.

“This one found as a hitokiri that your eyes can deceive you, don’t trust them. The ears are harder to trick.”

“You were strong then, Mister Himura. You should have stayed that way.”

“This one has strength enough to do what is necessary.”

But not enough to react to my attack if I speed up. Even if you can hear it, you’ll never turn in time. Still the coyote shied away from going all-out. Not yet, not until he had no other choice. I need him to see he was wrong, I can’t end this too quickly or he’ll die without knowing anything.

Mister Himura cocked his head slightly, apparently the better to hear, and seemed to subconsciously curve his body to keep his injured flank away from further attack by putting it on the inside of his curl. But his other side was wide open.

“I don’t understand you, Mister Himura. If the strong are really meant to protect the weak, then back then someone should have…” The words slipped from Soujiro before he realized it and he shook his head sharply to drive them away. The angry voice in his head rising to a sharp cry.

This is what protecting the weak gets you!

The red wolf wheeled, a wave of motion, the reaching pull of a cyclone wind, fangs flashing where an unguarded flank had been mere seconds before. Strength, where Soujiro had seen only weakness.

It cut into him, but he was fast, fast like his mother had been and strong, stronger than the father he had survived. The unwitting memory cut into him deeper than Battousai’s fangs had, and Soujiro increased his speed to its utmost. He was nothing now, only burning lungs and straining legs, a glint of gold on the snow, there and gone like a half-glimpsed dream. But his mind was racing too, racing to keep pace as his composure slipped.

How dare he be so weak and so strong? It doesn’t make sense, he doesn’t make sense! The snarling voice in his mind broke through to the real world.

“You’re wrong!” Soujiro howled as he moved, weaving a dizzying dance around the red wolf. “If the strong protect the weak then where were you? Why didn’t you save me? No one saved me!” His eyes were stinging from the wind, it must be from the wind, he didn’t cry, if you cried they knew you were hurt—but his vision was clear enough to do what was necessary. Attack from the back and the left, there—where the jaw meets the neck and the flesh is soft, grip and tear and be done with it. Be done with him. The strong live and the weak die. I’m strong. I’m strong!

Soujiro curved in for the attack, the fastest he had moved yet, it would all be over soon. He could go back, back to Master Shishio, who understood the world so much better than he did, and back to Miss Yumi, who took care of him and who was… weak? The beta flinched at the thought, the twinge of uncertainty he had felt swept into the angry tide formed by fighting the red wolf.

The Battousai turned, impossibly, those searching violet eyes locked onto the Juppongatana, the target now out of reach. Soujiro balked, remembered pain stopping him some distance away from Himura, watching the other fighter warily. He shouldn’t have been able to predict Soujiro’s attack, not with the way the fight had been going until now. And this was… wrong. Mister Himura was just standing there, watching him, the red wolf not pressing the advantage at all.

“This one cannot remember the incident you’re referring to,” the Rurouni’s voice came, regretful.

That’s because you weren’t there! I needed someone and you weren’t there!

“What happened?”

Soujiro laughed, half-startled at the manic sound of it. “Nothing unusual, not for my kind, not for here.” The dim ghosts of that night were clawing their way forward now, out of the darkness he had consigned their memories to. “Someone thought I was weak, but I wanted to live, so I became strong.” It had been his own father, large and gray, shaggy from the lean winter. He had incited the pack against his offspring, the half-blooded product of a dalliance with a coyote.

It had been dark that night and Soujiro had dropped his guard, thinking that the shadows would hide him as he returned from caring for the burned wolf that had wandered into the territory, half-dead, but lethal. It had been foolish to think he could keep Master Shishio a secret in the cramped territory, feeding him Soujiro’s own small portion of what the pack managed to hunt, which wasn’t much to begin with.

His father had cornered him in the den, furious and snarling while the rest of the pack watched with wicked gleams in their eyes and on their fangs. How dare Soujiro give their precious food to a stranger? The little upstart was no better than his coyote mother, no true wolf, no true member of the pack. They had needed little else to decide to kill him.

Soujiro didn’t think he had said any of this out loud, but Mister Himura grimaced, as if he could see the tangled web, the mess of Soujiro’s early life and the lightning-studded night he had severed his ties. It had never been easy in his father’s pack, he was the lowest of the low there, a convenient source of stress relief when there was no prey to be had and another inconvenient mouth to feed when there was. It was easier to simply grin and bear it back then, as snarls or yelps invariably dragged out the torture. The smile he had learned to put on back then had stayed with him ever since.

Except he wasn’t wearing it now. His features felt foreign, stretched and bunched in unfamiliar ways as if his face were no longer his own. Fighting Mister Himura was wrong, it was making him feel strange… almost desperate. Soujiro wanted to shut up the wolf, half-terrified of what he would say, while some other part pricked its ears in rapt attention, hanging on his every word.

“It occurs to this one that you have been made to defend yourself for a very long time, alone.” The red wolf took a step forward, “This one doesn’t know what events began this path for you Soujiro, but…

“…If you saw such a thing,” Himura’s voice slipped through the haze of memory. “If you saw what happened to you happening again—who would you want to be?”

Soujiro snarled reflexively, tossing his head in an effort to shake loose the memories the manslayer’s voice brought screaming out of the darkness back to life. If I saw—

A crowd of large, angry wolves taking up all of the space for the air he needed to breathe. The walls of the den tight and dark around him; he couldn’t get out, they were going to kill him…

Who would you want to be?

The world tilted, shaking him loose from the place of the terrified young half-breed, submissively pleading for his father to stop. Soujiro could see with a clarity had hadn’t known back then, the focus he had only learned through battles at Master Shishio’s side. The moment had frozen, a crystalized place in time while the red wolf’s question echoed in the stillness. Looking into the face of his father hurt, lines of twisted fury and blazing eyes, spurred on by scarcity of prey to turn a shame-filled dislike of his progeny to murderous intent. The rest of the pack were shadows of satisfaction that twisted in his stomach even now.

Who would you want to be?

What did it matter? It was over and he had survived.

Why didn’t—

The echoes of a different question started, a different voice.

Soujiro startled at the internal sound, twitching away from the wolves of his memory, his slate-blue eyes alert for threats. Lightning had frozen as it flashed outside the cave, an impossibility of motion in the frozen memory, white light forcing the scene into sharp contrast even as Soujiro’s gaze darted toward its source and the distant entrance. There was a figure there, silhouetted against the wind and rain, still as the wolves threatening a half-grown half-breed. Soujiro drifted towards it, hardly aware of what he was doing, stepping past the pack as though they didn’t exist even in memory.

The figure was tall to his eyes, but misshapen, his outline not smoothed by thick fur. His ears were ravaged stumps, barely distinguishable from his skull.

Why didn’t you—

Soujiro froze, trembling. Slowly he turned his head to look back the way he had come. A young hybrid cowered, blue eyes wide and terrified and pleading—Soujiro followed that gaze, his own gaze seasons gone, buried in the furthest recesses of memory, back to the cave entrance to red eyes that almost glowed in intensity, but not with sympathy or any promise of rescue.

Master Shishio.

WHY DIDN’T YOU SAVE ME?

The question he had snarled at Himura howled through the world of memory, splintering it with the lightning that crashed through the world outside.

Who would you want to be?

Memory fragmented, shifted, he could see Himura again, the red wolf staring at him in concern—but he seemed to be standing next to the memory of Master Shishio. The wolf who hadn’t saved him and the wolf who had never had the chance.

“I—” Soujiro gulped, eyes wild and throat dry. “I…” his head was pounding, trapped in the rhythm of terror and death all around him and he couldn’t get away.

The strong live and the weak die. Was that Shishio’s voice or his own? Be strong, kill him! Kill him and live! “I…” Soujiro retreated, shaking his head, trying to rid himself of the crowding images and voices crippling him.

If you saw such a thing, who would you want to be?

Who did he want to be? Not who it was logical to be, or who Master Shishio needed him to be—“I would want to save them.”

The world of memory shattered around him, blood and tears and a desperate smile, silently begging the world to get better, to believe that he wasn’t weak, wasn’t crying in the rain, because he wanted to live.

Himura was wide-eyed with sympathy, the memory of Master Shishio swept away as the present came flooding back in. Soujiro staggered, caught off balance in the sudden blaze of afternoon sun gilding snow frosted pines. The snarl on his face felt so alien, he was supposed to be smiling, wasn’t he? He had to be smiling or the world would think he was weak, and he wanted to live, and Shishio said only the strong lived.

The beta launched himself at a startled Himura—but I don’t want to kill anyone. Is being weak… is it really such a bad thing?

His legs folded limply, unable to summon their customary grace and speed. The snow was a shock of cold against his face as he collapsed, dropping to earth without landing another blow. “I don’t want to kill anyone.” It was a whisper against the cold flakes, a shame he hadn’t dared to voice in all his seasons at Master Shishio’s side.

“Then don’t.” Himura’s voice as gentle as he approached the fallen hybrid. “You are very strong, Soujiro. Strong enough, this one thinks, to find a way to live without killing.”

Strong enough… to be weak.

A paradox of thinking… but in a strange way that explained Himura. Strong enough that he could afford to be weak.

“You don’t make sense,” Soujiro felt a weak smile tug at his muzzle even as hot tears streamed down it from either side to drop into the snow.

Kenshin hesitated, his breath coming in pants of plumy white into the cold air. Soujiro remained where he had fallen, the once-smiling muzzle twisted by an old, old misery, tears carving a wet trail down the fine fur of his face. There would be no more fighting from the beta.

Not for Shishio. Not today.

Still the red wolf hesitated, it seemed wrong to simply leave the young hybrid in the snow, even with Shishio and the final battle so near…

“You are strong, Soujiro,” the words picked their way cautiously across the cold air to the Juppongatana. “Whatever else Shishio told you, that much is true. Strong enough, this one thinks, to have survived your unlucky past… and strong enough perhaps, to decide how you want to use that strength in the future.” The crimson wolf shook himself, feeling the lingering ache as the motion pulled at his injuries. This one has spent too much time with Master of late… “Whatever you choose, Soujiro, this one wishes you well.”

With nothing further to say Kenshin turned and headed for the fringe of trees, the faint scent of old smoke and blood.

Shishio waited.

Chapter Text

Oh, to anyone who’s hit their limit

It’s not over yet! Not over yet!

And even when you think you’re finished

It’s not over yet! Not over yet!
- For King and Country, It’s Not Over Yet

For the first time in her life, Misao wasn’t chasing after Aoshi.

No, much better. She was running beside him, stride for stride in step with her beloved Okashira.

Well, almost. He had legs that were much longer than hers after all, so in reality she ran beside him in waves, surging forward to keep pace and falling back when her short legs (why did she have to be so tiny?!) couldn’t keep up, only to surge forward again. It wasn’t the perfect image conjured in her mind when she had dreamed of finding Aoshi again, but it was right, it was real in a way that her fantasies had never been able to touch. He was really with her, really letting her be with him. And, from the ear he kept cocked in her direction, he was making sure she stayed with him.

Misao let herself bask in the warm feeling, letting it chase back the apprehension curling in her stomach. Soon they would face the Juppongatana to give Himura a chance to go after Shishio. She remembered them all vividly, the audience to her great failure, to the captivity that had been used to control her pack. Part of her, a young part that wailed at the loss of the Oniwaban, didn’t want to see any of them again. They were sure to remember her, and she dreaded hearing their taunts with Aoshi there to witness them.

But there was another part, a savage, angry fire that had been shut up in her bones and kindled into new life when Aoshi found her again. Usui. The survivors of the Oniwaban owed the wolfhound. Owed him blood and pain and the nightmare of being paralyzed by fear. So she let Aoshi focus on following Himura, trusting the dark wolf with their direction while the little coyote extended her sense to the utmost, seeking out Juppongatana in the thickening trees.

Distant scents and sounds tugged at her attention, whispering of her allies colliding with the enemy in places she couldn’t see, couldn’t reach to help. And any one of them might not make it out of this fight… Misao pushed fear back, keeping her airways clear by force of will. Himura had trusted the others enough to let them come, so she had to trust that they could fight, his Miss Kaoru and the bratty Yahiko. Something tickled at her nose, tugging at her attention and sending her head craning on her neck to follow it.

Old blood, oily fur. Usui.

“Aoshi-sama!” The dark wolf turned toward her cry, a hint of a question in his icy eyes, and Misao let her expressive face answer his stoic one, only able to give one word in response to his silent query. “Usui.”

The Okashira ducked his head in response, shifting his weight to follow her lead. Misao went streaking across the snow, Aoshi keeping her pace easily, allowing her a slight lead while she followed the bitter tang of her enemy. Dread coiled in Misao’s stomach like a serpent that had been trod upon, the grim specters of her fallen family circling close in her mind. But Aoshi was closer still than their ghosts, and he was trusting her to lead the way to the wolfhound.

The trees grew ever thicker together as they moved into the forest, but still there was no place where the ground was free of a covering of snow. The wind had been harsh, driving snow across the ground and through the trees to land where it might not have touched otherwise and built heavy drifts against the trunks of trees that had dared to stand against the winter. Misao skirted these drifts as best she could—it would be horrible if she got stuck somehow in the deep snow. Not only because it would be embarrassing, but it would take time away from finding the blind dog… and justice had waited long enough.

She almost ran by him, he sat so still in the snow, his grinning, sightless head turned into the breeze. Aoshi’s sharp warning of, “Misao!” came at the same time as her own awareness of the threat, and the coyote threw herself violently to one side to get some distance between herself and the unpredictable dog. Distance that proved to be wise as ivory teeth snapped down on the air where she had been. Misao regained her footing with a scramble, allowing Aoshi to come alongside her, acting as a mental bulwark between her and the foe. Usui straightened lazily, the dark scar tissue coving his eyes bunching in thick lines as he grinned.

“Well, hello there, if it isn’t the frightened one. You seem to have forgotten which way to run.”

Misao bristled, her silver-tan pelt rising in a useless display of anger—it wasn’t as if her enemy could see her trying to make herself more threatening. “I’m not running!” she informed the wolfhound hotly. Doubtless he heard the anger in her voice but ignored it.

“Oh? And what was that charging about you were doing just now?”

“I wasn’t running!” The coyote insisted, struggling to keep from being drawn into a real argument with the abrasively superior Juppongatana. “I was—”

“Misao.” Aoshi’s quiet corrective tone warned that she was in danger of doing just that and Misao choked off her explanation.

Usui inclined his head, sightless gaze directed now toward the black wolf. “Oh, and if it isn’t the quiet one.” His teeth flashed in a grin, “Not that I call you that, Okashira. I wonder if anyone else would if they could hear how loud your heartbeat is. Such a noisy heart you have, former leader. It beats with rage, I think. Hm.” He cocked his head as if to better listen. “Oh yes, rage. For your pack, I see. Terribly sloppy of you, losing so many. They say that you are rather an emotionless wolf… but I can read the truth in your heart.”

“You have much to say,” Aoshi observed tonelessly. “Shall I assume these are meant to be your last words?”

“Bold words from the leader of a dead pack,” Usui countered. “Would you bark so loudly if you knew how quickly they died, I wonder? How hopelessly outmatched they were?”

Misao shuddered, seeing them again, Okina, Shiro, Kuro, Omasu and Okon, charging the evil Juppongatana, then the bloodstained snow and panicked aftermath.

“The frightened one can tell you,” the wolfhound sneered, clearly not missing Misao’s reaction. He turned back to her. “Have you come to leave another of your pack to his death?”

Cold gripped Misao’s heart, spreading quickly to numb her limbs. He wants to kill Aoshi-sama. A fine trembling started in her muscles, an energy so strong she could not keep it from shaking her lithe frame. He wants to kill Aoshi-sama. He had already taken Okina, Okon, Omasu, Shiro and Kuro. Hannya, Beshimi, Hyottoko and Shikijou were likewise gone.

And he wanted to take the last of Misao’s pack.

“Usui Blind-eyes,” her voice sounded strange to her ears, as uncontrollable as her shaking and so, so angry. “You are an enemy and a murderer, and the debt of blood you spilled must be paid.” The coyote’s lips curled back from her almost-delicate fangs. “You killed my family, you bastard!”

Aoshi shifted beside her, preparing to move, and Misao readied herself to follow his lead. If Usui had still possessed visible eyes he would have rolled them.

“That’s what happens in a war.”

The Okashira moved, and Misao’s reply was lost as she followed him. Aoshi pelted straight for Usui, the blind wolfhound still standing loosely, unconcerned by the attack. At the last moment the dark wolf sheared off to one side to circle the tree Usui had his back against. Misao was only a heartbeat behind him, moving in the other direction when he broke away so that there was an Oniwaban on either side of the wolf-killer.

Usui grinned. “I can read your strategy before you even make it! You can’t hide your hearts from me!”

Aoshi ignored the taunt, moving in for a harsh bite at his enemy’s unprotected flank. Misao followed in mirror image of her leader to attack Usui’s other side—at least one of them should get through to draw blood. Should.

Usui shifted, stooping down from his great height in a bizarre and fluid motion. His dark gray body curved, presenting Misao with a wall of dense muscle where a relaxed flank had been and turning his fangs toward Aoshi. The coyote carried through with her attack, but Usui’s sudden readiness resulted in her only striking a glancing blow before retreating.

Aoshi saw his opponent’s gleaming fangs but held true to his own assault. It was a good thing that Misao had retreated—the dark wolf met his enemy’s mocking grin with an implacable charge, crashing into the wolfhound’s stooped form with all his weight and speed. Usui stumbled, and if he had been standing at his full height he would have fallen with the Oniwaban on him in vengeful fury before he could rise again. But the crouching posture he had adopted mitigated this to only a few straggling steps to absorb the force of the blow.

Blood spattered onto the snowbank in fine drops. Panic seized Misao—she couldn’t see who was bleeding, but blood had been on the snow before and she hadn’t done anything to stop the precious spill—she wouldn’t do that again, she couldn’t! The kunoichi attacked recklessly, throwing herself on the hide that had balked her before. She scrabbled for purchase against the oily fur, biting down as hard as she could and tearing at the taut muscle of Usui’s shoulders.

On the other side Aoshi had recovered from Usui’s attack with only a small bite to show for it. The wolfhound shrugged his shoulders as if in annoyance, but chose to keep facing Aoshi rather than turning to deal with Misao. As ferocious as the coyote’s attack was, she was unlikely to cause any serious damage back there. Aoshi hesitated, likely he had meant to draw away after his own attack, but was now unwilling to leave Misao alone against Usui, where the wolfhound might easily choose to deal with the threat that was in reach.

That hesitation cost him.

The Juppongatana, as if smelling his uncertainty, lunged for the Okashira, his blinded eyes above a gaping maw almost seeming to smile as he approached. The sudden jarring motion of his charge was enough to shake Misao free, and she watched in horror as Usui bit down on the side of Aoshi’s neck.

The leader’s thick ruff and the rushed angle of the bite were all that spared him a permanent end. But the blind Juppongatana was preparing to shift his grip to pierce anew, and deeper. Misao could see the muscles that had denied her purchase shifting under the dark gray coat and could read what would happen there as clearly as Usui apparently could. No, no, no! She couldn’t let it happen, but he had shrugged off her attack so easily earlier, as if she didn’t pose any threat and so he need not spend any time on her. He was crazy and evil, but he was strong and strength to strength she just couldn’t measure up.

But… that’s not how the Oniwaban are supposed to fight… we’re supposed to be smarter, pitting our strength against their weakness.

She might not deal him a fatal blow, but she could certainly manage a crippling one.

Misao came in hard and fast just as Usui began to shift his grip, biting down with all her strength on the wolfhound’s long bony foreleg. Something under her jaws cracked and Usui howled in rage—her timing had been perfect, the Juppongatana’s unwitting response to his pain allowing Aoshi to pull back out of range without further injury. Misao followed suit, disengaging and moving to circle back to Aoshi’s side—the clash of closing jaws sped her on her way before she even registered the pain of Usui’s retaliatory bite on her back leg.

She made it to Aoshi and shuddered next to him in the snow. Too close. Too close. Usui had almost taker her most important person, the very last one. And again it would have been her fault.

“So the coward finds her bite.” Usui sneered, one paw held mostly off the ground, though the break was not visible. “A pity it will do you no good! I have been driven to the brink of death itself by Shishio and have gained power—the power to read your hearts!”

“No, you haven’t.” It was hard to tell, given Aoshi’s customary lack of inflection, but Misao thought he sounded almost… bored. “If you knew hearts as well as you claim, you would not call Misao’s cowardly.” Icy green eyes bored into sightless scar tissue. “All you have are your ears—though it is a wonder you can use them to hear over your own boasting.”

Usui snarled terribly, the face that smiled with such malice now contorted in fury. “Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Aoshi didn’t answer, his expression icy and remote, the Okashira long since ready to avenge his pack. The lack of response seemed to enrage Usui even further, and with a howl he sprang at the pair. Misao and Aoshi retreated, untouchable as moonlight, even injured as they were—the wolfhound’s fury at being slighted was making him careless. The leg Misao had fractured wrenched violently to one side as Usui landed on it, turning his blow aside and making him stagger to regain his balance.

“I see more than anyone with eyes!” He called, spinning around and lashing out as Misao passed by him. The coyote felt her heart speed up as she threw her weight to one side to dodge. Usui seemed not to notice, planting his feet and casting his head about as if he actually were trying to use his eyes… but there was only scar tissue there.

Aoshi picked up his pace, beginning to circle the wolfhound in a wide arc. Misao caught his eyes and followed, moving in the opposite direction. Usui was smiling now, the expression crazed in the midst of his anger as he ranted.

“Shishio thinks I’m beaten, that I’ll never have my revenge—but he doesn’t see the viper he has coiled around his neck! No one sees. But I hear his heart, and only one thing stirs it!”

Misao reached her top speed, barely hearing Usui’s taunts now, her mind was locked in a cool, clear place where the only thing that mattered was moving in step with her leader. The black wolf angled in sharply toward the Juppongatana and Misao followed a heartbeat behind.

Usui must have heard their thudding paws and righteous hearts and realized his peril, his head came up to meet it—but Aoshi and Misao were on him within seconds of each other, each carving a diagonal path into the wolfhound’s neck, one on each side as they crossed before him. A spray of crimson greeted their efforts, severed arteries and veins emptying their contents. Usui’s legs buckled in seconds, his anger bleeding away with the rest of him.

“Hah,” he gasped out, “Ha, I can see… I can see…” The sightless eyes could not close, but the breath left his body with a rattle, and did not re-enter it.

Misao shuddered with exertion and receding adrenaline. It was done… well, at least this part. There was still Shishio to deal with, wherever he had gotten to.

Too bad, I’d really like to curl up next to Aoshi-sama and just sleep for a week. She glanced over to her leader, staring at Usui’s form and breathing slowly and deeply through his nose. Misao faltered a half-step closer.

“How is it?” her voice was small, ashamed, and her eyes were caught by the deep injury to the black wolf’s neck. Aoshi’s eyes pulled slowly away from his fallen foe to look at his little follower.

“It will heal.”

“I’m sorry! That was my fault, I wasn’t thinking,” the apology burst out before Misao could think of how to refine it, to make it sound less childish and desperate.

“Rage is a powerful motivator, but uncontrolled it delivers you into the power of your enemy.” The dark wolf’s expression softened, taking any possible sting out of his instruction. “I am pleased that you are all right.”

Misao’s ears flushed and half flattened, torn between being giddy and being embarrassed. “Ah, anyway,” she coughed against the bubble of emotion caught in her throat, “we should probably try to catch up to Himura—who knows what trouble he’s getting into by himself.”

“Indeed.” Was it her imagination, or was there a tiny smile on Aoshi’s face? The dark wolf started off and Misao scrambled to keep up, trying to keep her eyes fixed on the vanished expression, in case he displayed any other trace of emotion.

A tremendous crashing sound interrupted her perusal and the Oniwaban exchanged tense looks before speeding off in the direction of the sound. Misao now kept pace with Aoshi easily despite her injury—blood loss slowed him, the realization eating into Misao’s lingering relief with quiet anxiety. Thicker and thicker the forest pressed, dark fir trees pushing back daylight in a shadowy canopy. Another crashing sound came—something large carving a path through the forest the hard way. The sound oriented the pair, and using it as a guide the quickly followed it to its source.

Two great shapes clashed in the woods, a familiar steel gray wolf and a massive white dog. The crashing had been caused by their struggle, but it was nearly over now. The wolf, Saito, shifted his weight backwards onto his hind legs, then sprang forward, uncoiling as he came into a long fanged shape. The white dog seemed to recognize the motion, the blood marring his fur giving testimony to similar hits already taken.

Still, the knowledge didn’t help him—Saito was too close and too fast, giving no time for his opponent to turn the blow aside. It slammed into him and he was forced backwards, another red stain appearing to mat the long white fur.

Misao’s mouth went dry, her tongue shriveled and useless. It wasn’t that odd to see the Juppongatana, today of all days when she and her allies had sought them out, but she hadn’t looked for this one. Anji.

“Don’t,” her voice was a breathy squeak, no more than a mouse buried deep under snow might make. But it was enough. Aoshi turned away from the fight to look at her, taking in the half-panicked expression on her face. Worry for the enemy.

I must be going insane.

“Saito.” The Okashira’s voice cut across the space between them and the fight, which was drawing to a close. The Shinsengumi’s fangs arced for Anji’s throat, and the white dog closed his eyes. At his fellow northerner’s call, however, the dire charge slowed, then stopped.

“Shinomori,” Saito’s dark amber eyes regarded the black wolf, skimming over the coyote at his side before apparently dismissing her as not important enough to greet. “Why are you interrupting me?”

A flash of anger warmed Misao’s blood at her ally’s (loosely termed!) characteristic contempt for her. It loosened her muscles and gave her back the voice that had hidden.

“How about because that dog saved me?” And Saito didn’t get to judge her for that, he hadn’t been there that night. Still his lip curled, displeased, as Anji shifted to a more stable position on his wide paws.

“And that earns him a pass, does it?”

“It gives him a chance to withdraw,” Misao retorted almost before she had time to think. The crumpled form of Senkaku came to her and cold crept back into her limbs. Himura had said that he would have been allowed to flee from Saito—but would the gray wolf really allow it? Himura, she had already noticed, had a somewhat-alarming tendency to see the world as if it were as honorable as he was.

“Or do you not intend to allow him to surrender?”

Aoshi stirred beside her, adding his quiet voice to her argument. “Remember that you are not alone in the North, Saito. The Oniwaban do not welcome neighbors without honor.”

“All two of you.” Saito replied dryly, one brow arched in long-suffering superiority. “Perhaps the Oniwaban would have done better to leave fewer enemies at their backs than to let their judgment be ruled by children.”

“Is your pack so much greater, Saito?” the black wolf gave no indication of the wrath Misao now felt, his voice was as cool as ever. “Even if we are few, the Oniwaban know much—and the remnants of the Shinsengumi fell to Shishio just as those of the Isshin Shishi did.”

A thin smile appeared on Saito’s muzzle, a razor-edged smile, betraying a mind that found no real humor in the Okashira’s words. He took a step back, inclining his head toward the silent Anji, mockingly inviting Misao to speak. The coyote swallowed hard, and forced herself a few steps closer to the behemoth, stopping well out of range. He was almost a perfect opposite to her strengths, she was slight and quick, he was large and powerful. She could lead the Great Pyrenees on a merry chase if she must, but his mass would overwhelm her if he ever caught ahold of her.

Still, she didn’t think he would attack. Probably.

His dark eyes were calm, almost like Aoshi’s calm, and found hers without reservation. “I remember you,” the deep voice began, “you’re the survivor.”

“I—yes, I am.” She hadn’t thought of herself like that before, as the last, certainly, or as the youngest, the weakest, the most frightened, or simply as the one who was left alive. But… the survivor. It sounded almost like he was commending her, like it was through some skill of her own that she had escaped death and not his crucially timed appearance. “You saved me that night, you said that Shishio gave you power over life and death. Why?”

“Because it was my condition for joining him.”

“No, I meant…” Misao backtracked to clarify, “why did you save me?”

Anji raised his head slightly, until he was no longer looking at her but somewhere over her shoulder—and yet, much, much farther away, into a place he could no longer reach.

“You reminded me of someone. Someone… young. Sometimes,” his voice dropped along with his gaze back to her face, her features, clearly not the ones he was longing to see, “sometimes it is not possible to save all of those who deserve saving.”

And you thought that teaming up with Shishio was the way to do it? The question burned her tongue, but she kept it between her teeth. She didn’t want the herding dog on the defensive or to justify whatever choices he had made in his loss. She wanted him to leave. Leave and survive.

“This is your chance, Anji. Shishio’s falling today, there are a lot of angry folks here to make sure of it. You don’t have to die for somebody like him. You can go, go and find someone else to protect.” The words tumbled out quickly, and then Misao had to hold her breath to hold in more words—a veritable barrage bent on pestering the white dog into flight.

“Do you think it is so easy to find ones worthy of protection?” Anji’s voice held a faintly bitter, jaded tone. While Misao fumbled for an answer, Aoshi stepped forward.

“You find what you are looking for. You sought revenge and found blood, but if you look for a new cause you will find it. Or is your determination so weak?”

Anji’s eyes glinted in the feeble sunlight, and he drew himself up to stand tall despite his injuries. “Do not doubt my will, Northern wolf.”

“Then take your chance,” Misao urged again. “Leave this land and live.”

The white dog hesitated for a long, long moment. Then he spoke, slowly, haltingly, as if even the time he had already taken was not enough to choose his words. “I will withdraw, as you wish, but there are those among the Juppongatana I would seek out before departing. They are not all such poor company as Usui. Indeed, some of them might even be worth saving.”

Saito stirred, “If you gather your comrades against me and mine,” he warned, “nothing will stop me from killing you. You’ve spent your chance.”

“Use it well,” Aoshi added on to Saito’s warning, softening it slightly. Anji’s broad head dipped in acknowledgement, and then he turned and walked away, a white shape disappearing into a white world. Saito released a sigh that was half a growl.

“I’m going after Shishio. He’s not going to do any of us a favor and kill himself.”

Usui opened eyes that had long been sightless and was met by the appearance of a dark and sinister forest. The trees were blighted, twisted things, barren of leaves to show plainly their myriad branches like hooked claws, dragging at a blood-red sky.

So he had come to the Dark Forest at last.

Desolate howls and shrieking, painful whimpers echoed in the wood, hinting at other denizens. The wolfhound’s folded ears twitched, following some sound from the other side. He had always heard more than those he had lived with, now his ears followed pawsteps moving through the snowy wood he had left behind, so different from the one he now stood in.

Quiet steps, methodical steps, steps that led a heart choked by rage to bloody, bloody vengeance.

On the other side of Hell, Usui grinned and licked his chops, waiting for new arrivals…

Chapter Text

What is it really, what’s going on here?

You’ve got your system for total control

Now is there anybody out there?

Now watch us suffer ‘cause we can’t go

What is it really that is in your head?

What little life that you had just died

I’m gonna be the one that’s takin’ over

Now this is what it’s like when worlds collide!

-When Worlds Collide, Powerman 5000

The sun climbed steadily to its zenith, where it hung suspended for a breathless moment over all the wintry lands of the North. Motionless the sun might be, but Sano paced a short circuit by the forest’s edge. The fight was there, he could feel it, the blood in his veins burning for a chance to go and see what he might do. One paw lifted, ready to cross his boundary of trodden-down snow in search of the battle. A pained yelp drew it back before he could disturb the pristine flakes beyond his boundary.

“Stop fidgeting!” Megumi’s voice scolded, the irritation in the words dwarfed by concern for her patient.

“If you didn’t keep hurting me, I wouldn’t fidget!”

Sano glanced back over his shoulder at the pair he was ostensibly keeping watch over. Yahiko lay in the snow at Megumi’s feet while the doctor worked on the torn flesh of his flank. The young dog scowled and his ears lay flat on his skull in a clear sign of pain-induced irritability, but he kept very still as Megumi worked. None of the others were in view, the Missy had disappeared into the woods sometime while he was fighting, and Sano had lost track of their other comrades long before, leaving only he, the fox, and Yahiko. The kid wasn’t up to another fight, and Sano wasn’t such a heel that he would leave the non-combatant doc with only her patient for protection.

It’s not fair that I don’t even get to see Shishio, the thought still came mulishly. I’m the one who got mauled by Saito so you’d think that would earn me some consideration, but no, that bastard made me miss everything! Though without Megumi he probably really would have missed everything, either too weak to make the trip or too, -ahem- navigationally challenged to get here on time. Another startled curse burst from Yahiko and Sano sighed. Guess I have to leave it all up to you, Kenshin.

Kenshin left Soujiro behind, following the beta’s trail back the way he had come. It wasn’t certain that Soujiro had come straight from his master’s side, but there was little point in casting about blindly. Soon enough a faint scent came to him, one that raised his hackles and set his instincts to nervous mutterings, wanting to flee even as he knew he was on the right path. Old smoke, charred flesh, the lingering traces of fire, enough to worry any wild thing.

They said Shishio was burned… how badly, this one wonders, if the smell of smoke lingers so close still?

The answer was not long in coming, as Shishio was making no effort to hide himself. The trees had opened around a rocky outcropping, boulders shattered by time and the elements. At the top of this heap sat a grotesque wolf with patchy fur unable to cover his fire-ravaged frame. Burned brown skin showed through wide gaps of the remains of an off-white undercoat. The creature at his side was a perfect contrast to the war-ravaged alpha, an exceptionally beautiful dog, not one strand of her lush coat out of place. The alphas, Shishio and Yumi.

Shishio grinned down at the new arrival, blood-red eyes seeming wider than was normal since they were unframed by fur.

“At last, the predecessor I’ve heard so much about.” He cocked his head, displaying ears that had been gnawed to ragged edges by tongues of flame. “You’re late.”

“This one was delayed by entertaining your Juppongatana.”

“Well, you’ve got to let the underlings have their fun,” Shishio arched one furred brow at Kenshin, “Though I am still disappointed, Battousai, that it took you so long to get past them. This may not be the challenge I was hoping for.”

Kenshin stood firm, expression not altering at all. “This one is not here for your enjoyment, Shishio.”

“I suppose not,” the burned alpha stood, the motion smooth despite his scarred frame. “I’ll just have to find a way to enjoy myself regardless.”

Kenshin hesitated a moment, looking up at Shishio’s companion, but she showed no sign of moving, even with the worry flooding her eyes. Those eyes did not shift to meet Kenshin’s own, remaining locked on her mate. Her mouth opened as if to call out some warning or plea for caution, but she closed it again without uttering a sound.

Shishio approached, his voice filled with the easy confidence of a lifelong fighter. “Are you sure you want to begin, injured as you are?” As if in answer to the burned wolf’s attention Kenshin’s injuries gave at dull throb of protest. As if it would be as simple as turning to leave. Things had gone too far for a respite.

“This one could ask the same of you,” Kenshin pointed out. Shishio paused, as if he truly hadn’t thought of himself as injured, before continuing his approach with a smile.

“Then it would seem we are both too stubborn to withdraw. Good.”

Kenshin gave a short, sharp shake of his head, negating the statement. “It would be best if there was no fighting. Shishio, your polices as alpha place the lives of your subordinates and your neighbors in jeopardy, and cannot be ignored. If you would but change them—”

“My policies?” Shishio interrupted, mirth gone and a hint of disgust curling his lips. “You talk like one of those Isshin Shishi higher-ups who thought to slay me without ever soiling their own fangs. My polices… the truth, I think you mean. A truth you ought to know well, my blood-soaked predecessor. The strong live and the weak die, those with power take that which they want. It has always been so. Or would you deny that you survive on the deaths of those weaker than yourself?”

“This one would choose to differentiate between prey and wolves,” Kenshin shot back, the line of fur along his spine slowly rising. “You are oversimplifying the nature of the world.”

“And you are overcomplicating. I am disappointed. I gathered from your message that you didn’t understand, but I didn’t want to believe that the Battousai could be so weak-minded. I’ll put an end to you here and now, while your legend can still be of service.”

“This one will not lay down his life for the sake of the world you would build.” Kenshin shifted, lowering his center of gravity, legs braced in preparation of sudden movement.

Shishio tossed his head, the blood-red iris of his eye rolling in the over-exposed white. “You say that as if you have any choice, Battousai!”

The northern alpha exploded into movement, launching himself toward Kenshin, his patchwork fur giving a clear display of the powerful muscles working on that frame. Kenshin pushed himself forward in answer, colliding with Shishio in a rush of fur and flame-touched skin.

The force of it jarred him—although not much taller, Shishio was more muscular than he—but Kenshin held his ground, head rearing back to strike at his foe, scoring the undefended shoulder. Shishio raised himself to his hind legs, wrapping his front paws around Kenshin’s neck in a pinning hold. The red wolf just had time to duck his head to protect his throat when the fangs closed down on his already wounded shoulder.

Shishio ravaged the flesh and muscles, digging deeper into the damaged tissue. Kenshin sidestepped, trying to break the hold and dart away—Shishio followed, grinding down into the meat of Kenshin’s shoulder. The pain burned along nerve endings, scorching and blistering its way through the red wolf.

Steeling himself against the sensation Kenshin turned his head at an awkward angle, ready to bite down on one of the legs that pinned him and braced his foe. Shishio gave a vicious twist of his own head before the bite could land, pushing off from Kenshin with a powerful shove. There was a horrible tearing sensation and Kenshin staggered, leg reluctant to take his weight given the bloody void Shishio’s fangs had carved into it. The red wolf looked up in time to see the muscles of Shishio’s throat move as he swallowed.

Realization hit a second later like a blow to his stomach, leaving the red wolf feeling sick. Shishio grinned, muzzle slick and red with a coating of blood.

“I told you, the weak exist to nourish the strong.”

“That’s disgusting!” the exclamation burst through the moment and Kenshin’s gaze darted to one side to pin down the speaker. Misao, Aoshi and Saito had arrived, apparently just running up in time to see… that. Misao, having expressed her opinion, looked positively nauseated and hung back nervously. Aoshi didn’t allow anything as easily readable to show in his expression, though he did offer the red wolf a nod of greeting. Saito had one brow raised, though Kenshin suspected that was directed toward him, and the lip that slightly curled in censure was for Shishio.

“What a bitter taste,” Shishio mused; seeming not to care that he was now outnumbered. “Reluctant to do me any good in any way, I see.”

Kenshin grit his teeth in response, holding back the angry words that ached to escape him. It was what Shishio was waiting for, outcry of shock and anger to knock his opponent’s focus awry. The damage dealt to his shoulder was manageable, however severe, it was Shishio had done that leant the greatest dread to his attack.

Don’t let it get to you, the red wolf reprimanded himself sternly, watching his opponent steadily. The burned wolf, in contrast, now shifted his attention to the newcomers.

“Ah, Aoshi Shinomori and Hajime Saito. How thoughtful of all my obstacles to line up for my convenience.” A grin wrinkled his charred skin. “Wait your turn, gentlemen, wait your turn. The Battousai goes first.”

A barely audible sigh seemed to come from Yumi, relieved, as if her mate’s word was all that was required to control the battle. Aoshi looked to Kenshin, a hint of a question in his gaze. A grimace tugged at Kenshin’s expression in return, but he gave a slight shake of his head. After all of Shishio’s words confusing prey and wolves, even victory would feel hollow if we were to fell Shishio as anything other than an alpha in a duel. Foolishness, the red wolf wanted to berate himself, giving respect to someone like him. But then, his master had always called him an idiot.

The interlude was over and the two fighters took up a wary circle, taking more care with their next attacks. Shishio feinted inward, the savage grin on his face belied by the calculation in his eyes. Kenshin read the hesitance in the movement and did not flinch. The circle picked up speed, Kenshin straining against the weakness in his leg from Shishio’s bite. It would be unlikely at best that he could gain his best speed on that leg. Still, even at his slowest, the red wolf was faster than most.

Shishio broke their continuous arc—not a feint this time—with a lunge, low and quick as a striking snake. Kenshin kicked off the snow, springing with his hind legs to glide over the attack. Landing, he pivoted as quickly as his shoulder would allow and fell on Shishio’s flank as the other turned.

The burned flesh was unevenly textured, thick and corded with scar tissue in some places, delicate and thin as paper in others, and it tore strangely and deeply under Kenshin’s fangs. The fire had done a heavy work on Shishio’s form, now any attack that reached him went deep. But the alpha was resilient—Kenshin felt the beginnings of fangs closing on his scruff and abandoned his own attack for retreat, pulling away from the potential injury.

Shishio held himself as though insensible to the pain. Maybe he is, Kenshin thought, circling once more, maybe the fires so ravaged him that he is always in pain, and thus, does not heed it. An interesting idea, but one the red wolf wasn’t sure he could use. We rely on pain to tell us when we’re in danger, when we need to pull back and heal. But if he is always in pain… He never stops, never knows when he has overreached himself because the pain never changes. There can’t be any surrender if he doesn’t know when to stop.

An uncomfortable thought for the Rurouni, the impossibility of surrender. But the Rurouni had been the Battousai, just as the Battousai had become the Rurouni. The wanderer knew how to kill, and the killer knew how to seek peace. And he had come to the North to do both.

“Is that all, Battousai?” Shishio called, “I hoped for more.”

“This one takes no pleasure in fighting as you do, Shishio,” Kenshin responded, subtly shifting his weight, “and yet this battle is unavoidable.”

Shishio approached at a run, focused on his crimson challenger and long-since ready to put an end to this fight. Yes, an end. The world around him seemed to slow. Kenshin turned, divorced even from the pain as he presented Shishio the curve of his flank.

Vulnerability, unable to see his opponent’s approach, but his ears had never failed him. Wheeling with all of the speed he could muster to strike—Shishio stumbled, crashed to the ground, a long bloody gash across his shoulder and chest giving the reason for his fall. He struggled to rise, scrabbling against the snow, but seemed, for the moment, unable to regain his footing.

The red wolf sprang towards Shishio—it was almost over, he could almost rest, give himself up to the oblivion that called to him of healing—but the forgotten Yumi was faster.

The husky threw herself between the two wolves, guarding Shishio even while her ears lay flat to her skull in terror. Kenshin could not have been more swiftly halted if he had stepped into a steel-jawed trap. His mind balked, the memory of black fur, white snow and red blood too strong, too close for mere recollection.

“Stop! Please stop!” Yumi begged, still terrified despite Kenshin’s aborted charge. For a moment all that could be heard were the harsh panting breaths of the two wolves, wounded and exhausted. “You don’t have to kill him,” Yumi continued tearfully, “you don’t have to. We’ll go, we’ll leave the North, you’ll never see us again, just please.”

Shishio’s face was impassive behind his mate, blood red eyes sliding from her to Kenshin without giving hint to his thoughts. Still, Kenshin hesitated, adrenaline beginning to recede, leaving his injuries sharp and fresh. The husky’s green eyes implored him and the red wolf shifted to answer, not quite sure what he would say—blood sprayed across his face and agony bit into his neck.

Only Shishio’s own injuries prevented the bite from being instantly fatal. Kenshin jumped back, tossing his head to throw off his weakened attacker and was left staring in horror at a too-familiar scene.

Yumi had collapsed, breaths faltering as her life poured out from a deep gash in her neck, one that seemed to have caught her jugular by chance as Shishio’s fangs passed through her, seeking his enemy. Shishio stepped back to her side, hovering over her, but his attention remained fixed on his challenger. The red wolf’s limbs trembled with effort and blood loss and he staggered, only just catching himself.

“What have you done?” His voice quaked, though whether that was a result of his shuddering body or his flayed emotions the wolf could not say. “What have you done, Shishio?!”

The burned wolf looked at him as though he were crazy. “What have I done?”

“You attacked your own mate!”

Shishio bared his teeth, “Because she is my mate, I know her best. This is what she wanted.” Impossibly, the grotesque lines of his face softened and almost against his will turned to look at the beautiful dying female. “I gave you what you wanted.”

For a moment it seemed that Yumi was too far gone to offer any reply, but with a rattling breath she rallied her strength to raise her head, meeting Shishio’s caress. “You heard me…” tears slipped down her face, diluting the spilled blood, but she was smiling in the midst of both. “You heard me.”

“Of course I did.” Shishio answered quietly.

“I’m… so happy. I… helped, didn’t I, Lord Shishio? I helped you fight the Battousai.” She gave a breathless chuckle and Shishio had to shift position to hold her face close own, as she had no more strength to hold it up. “Beat him, Lord Shishio. For me? ...I love you.” The burned wolf gave a sighing exhale even as Yumi did, but the husky didn’t inhale when he did, and Shishio allowed her head to sink back onto the snow.

Tremors continued to wrack Kenshin’s frame as the burned wolf returned his gaze to his opponent, though the red wolf could now discern that the origin partly lay in almost helpless rage. Shishio’s frame trembled as well, apparently from the strain of his injuries, but his gaze was steady.

“You would sacrifice your own mate for a chance at victory…” Kenshin made no attempt to mask the disgust and horror in his tone, there was no point in wasting energy on charades.

“I granted her desire in allowing her to become part of my strength.”

“Surely she desired to live!”

Shishio snarled at this response, pain and wrath contorting his expression even further, “There is no time now for such talk, Battousai. I will make an end to you as she wished!”

The burned wolf staggered, only held upright by the stiffness of his forelegs. His hind legs sank to the snow. Kenshin wavered, the warm anger that had kept him upright bleeding away from the fresh wound in his neck. He found himself on the snow without any memory of collapsing—were his wounds that bad? Dimly the wolf realized that his blood loss had long since approached dangerous levels and only his will had kept him from succumbing to it. Will that was faltering, fracturing at the sight of a female spread out on the snow, her blood on her lover’s fangs.

The wolf was dissolving with every faltering beat of his heart, sounds and shapes distorted in a lingering blackness that grew and grew, as if glutting itself on the blood he spilled.

“So falls…” Shishio’s voice faded into obscurity, though Kenshin tried to claw his way back up to attention. But there was nothing for him to seize hold of.

“What’s your name?” Master? The Northern wolf’s voice continued as if he answered now as he had back then. “That’s a weak name. You’ll never survive your bad luck with a name that weak. From now on, you’re Kenshin.”

Now he could see shapes out of the darkness, the swirling snow that danced through memory and his master’s dark blue eyes. “What do you think you can do in that valley, besides get caught up in a war that isn’t yours? Go then! I knew that you were unlucky, but you truly are an idiot.”

“Have you ever killed another wolf?” Katsura’s voice, the Isshin Shishi alpha’s voice slightly suspicious, but his level eyes still looking for an answer. “Do you think you could?” Death, in answer to the question, blooming flowers of blood streaking across the North, a perverse garden with a coppery stench.

“You have made it rain blood…” A black wolf with black eyes lightly ringed by white fur—Tomoe. She looked at him as she had that first night, inscrutable and mysterious and faintly sad.

“Sister!” A white wolf bounded up out of the darkness to stand beside her. Enishi grinned up at his beloved sister, the dark patches of fur around his gray eyes bunching as he looked to her in adoration. But, as it had during their first meeting, that head turned to catch sight of him and he muzzle creased in a silent snarl.

The images lost coherency, coming too fast to be fully understood, the voices growing distant. Tomoe’s black form stretched out on the snow, smiling at last.

Blood and straw and angry dog after angry dog. Izuka’s face leering at him behind bars—“I guess we’ll call you Battousai the man-slayer…”

Flickers of faces like the final faltering embers of a fire. Yahiko. Sano. Megumi. Tsubame. Tae. Kaoru.

"I can't hold a space this big all on my own, I need help. Yours, maybe. If you wanted to stay, that is. I wouldn't mind."

"Yahiko Myogin, I'm the son of Samurai, so watch who you're pushing, ugly!"

"Talk is cheap. All these words about you being such a good guy… I'm gonna see for myself just what you're living for. So, guess you can't go off somewhere without my say-so, huh, Kenshin?"

Then even those were gone.

Breath came shallowly to his lungs, but it didn’t hurt. Pain was so distant now, its call turned into the distant sigh of wind across a dark forest. All around him his lifeblood seeped from his tired body, intent on staining the ground with the colors he had borne all his life.

I’m dying… a thought, oddly peaceful despite its message. Kenshin felt a smile flicker at the edges of his mind, but by now was too distant to tell if it had reached his battered body. …again.

He and Death had chased one another all his life, in still midnight and hot noontide, through snow and rain, sun and shade. He had brushed Death’s icy pelt before, but never had it felt so near. So this is Death in truth.

But that was all right. He had done enough; anyone would agree he had done enough. Shishio’s forces were in shambles, and what remained of the northern packs had time to recover. They would not fall again, especially with Saito nearby.

Kenshin’s vision was blurring rapidly, sliding in and out of focus. Sometimes he thought he could see Shishio, struggling to his feet, but the shape was so dark it was hard to tell.

A good death, he reminded himself, and I am… so… tired…

“When we go home, we’re going to sleep for a week.”

Miss Kaoru? That had to be her, that fond exasperation… he could see her now, as he had seen her this morning, pale gray fur glowing softly in the rosy light of dawn, sky-blue eyes hesitant, filled with anxiety and hope.

“You are coming home, aren’t you, Kenshin? We can all go back together.”

“To… gether…” the red wolf breathed against the chill snow. He had promised, hadn’t he? He couldn’t care if such a future was impossible, not then. Not when he’d had the power to bring a smile back to those blue, blue eyes.

“You idiot!” That was his master, determined to berate him even as he died, “Happiness isn’t so simple.”

If he didn’t come back… Kaoru would be sad. That was… wrong, when he had wanted so badly to see her smile. It was wrong to take that away from her.

His body was starting to hurt now, pain sensing his escape and trying to goad him back into death’s embrace. But pain was just pain. And that smile…

“I have,” his voice rasped from his throat, punctuated by breaths that grew in depth, “No reason to die.”

The crimson wolf tensed, abused muscles coming under his control once more as he separated himself from the blood-splattered snow. “I said,” his eyes focused slowly on his ravaged opponent, “we’d go home together.”

Kenshin Himura raised his head, defiant, as death slunk back into the shadows and red eyes regarded him.

“You are no reason for me to break my word.”

Shishio smiled a terrible smile, “A pity that the future is not yours to decide.”

“Nor yours,” Kenshin countered, rallying his strength. “You are not the only one with promises to keep!” With an effort of will Kenshin flung himself forward, Shishio moving to meet him with bared teeth.

The alpha and the Battousai crashed together, both too exhausted for finesse, kept fighting by stubbornness alone. The impact carried them up to their hind legs, forepaws locked around each other, holding the enemy in place as their heads twisted, trying to angle past opposing fangs for a final bite. Kenshin strained, pushing himself forward, trying to knock Shishio off-balance, but the burned wolf was heavier, and catching on to Kenshin’s tactic began to do likewise.

The red wolf grit his teeth against Shishio’s oncoming grin of triumph, the strain in his limbs warning him that he could not resist his foe’s pressure for long. Rather than stumble back the red wolf twisted to one side, shoving at Shishio with his front paws to break the other’s hold and give him greater freedom to move. Shishio stumbled, falling forward onto all fours while Kenshin continued his twist to land moving, circling to angle for another attack.

Shishio hurled himself into an arc to avoid the assault, the rough motion causing his damaged skin to split in several places that were untouched by fangs. His mouth was open wide and a ribbon of saliva clung to his fangs, glinting in the light, but the unexpected pain as his body betrayed him stole precious slivers of his speed. It was the best opportunity Kenshin would get.

His leap wasn’t as graceful as it usually was, but he rose as high as he ever had, the inverted crescent of a red moon. Then there was only gravity, air howling past his ears as the ground shrieked to reclaim him and Shishio, turning uselessly in an attack that would never land. Front paws came down first, stunning his opponent, then the jaws on the back of the neck—bone splintered—snapped, and Shishio crumpled to the ground.

Kenshin followed the burned wolf down,  Forgot to plan for a landing… idiot… and lay in the snow, struggling to regain his breath. Everything hurt, but the cold bite of the snow made it a clean hurt somehow. Something that would heal. And Shishio wasn’t moving. Would never move again.

It was over.

Finally.

It took time for something like strength to come back to the red wolf, allowing his vision to clear and even, ambitiously, for him to stand.

Kenshin braced himself awkwardly, locking his legs to hold his body up when it desperately wanted to collapse. It was over.

To one side Misao peered around Aoshi’s form at the bodies of Shishio and Yumi, her eyes wide, but a flicker of relief growing in them.

It was over.

The wind rose in a sudden flurry, and the fell away, as if the Northern territory heaved sigh. He had survived, and so had Saito, Aoshi and Misao… Kenshin didn’t really make a conscious decision to howl, his muzzle simply rose and let out a call, a question, to weave through the winter air.

Fallen foe, days of peace, pack-together?

Misao’s voice rose to join his first, rose and rose, the eerie notes of her coyote’s howl high and shivering in the air, though they seemed to quake with nothing more sinister than relieved laughter. Aoshi’s voice was lower, an anchor to the high notes of his packmate, the call bringing to mind long winters nights in snow-draped woods, moon and stars and an endless darkness between them.

Saito did not howl, although he did deign to bark, a short, sharp noise that was more command than query.

But Kenshin’s ears were tuned for voices farther away.

Pack-together? Will be, want to be. Pack-together?

An answering chorus sounded from the way they had come—had it only been that morning? And Kenshin blinked in surprise—Sano’s tenor tones were foremost, as rough around the edges and loud as the hybrid himself. When on earth had he arrived? Though perhaps it was foolish to think that Sano could be kept away from a fight, any fight. Knowing his voice made it easier to recognize Megumi’s—the fox was seldom heard to raise her voice in such a fashion, and it sounded quite as alien as Misao’s distinctive howl and for much the same reason.

Climbing steadily and stubbornly in waves came Yahiko’s young call, rising to an almost adult timbre before falling as the young dog struggled to catch his breath. From farther away a short deep howl echoed back to the red wolf—Hiko, as brief and to the point as ever. Still the sounds of the howls lingered in the air.

Fallen foes. Days of peace. Pack-together. Will be, want to be, pack-together.

The sound swelled and then broke as Kenshin cut off, violet eyes wide.

Where is Kaoru?

Kaoru lifted her head, feeling cold and stiff where she lay in the snow, but the sound coming to her brought a small bloom of warmth. Howling, her pack was alive and calling to each other. Is it really over? Can we go home now?

With an effort, the she-wolf pushed herself to her paws, wincing as her barely-crusted over injuries pulled, threatening to bleed again. The tanuki raised her head to give voice to a call over her own—

Something snapped, close, too close, and Kaoru froze.

Her first thought was that Kamatari had regained consciousness, but the great cat still lay in a tawny heap a short distance away. Not Kamatari, and she could hear all of her allies in the howl—none of them were close to her.

Another snap, then the steady crunch of unquiet footsteps through snow, the owner making no attempt to mask his presence beyond the natural muffling of the icy flakes. Kaoru shifted, willing the life to flow back into her stiff limbs and wondering with dread if she would be able to make it to her allies if it proved to be an enemy.

The sounds came from the deeper forest, and the shape of a wolf followed them through the trees, the mottled brown and white of his pelt helping to break up his form against the snow piled landscape.

A stranger, another of the Juppongatana? Somehow facing two of the elite lieutenants in short succession didn’t feel quite fair. I guess that’s what we get for being outnumbered. Damn.

The stranger’s black-ringed eyes lit on her and he smiled, an enigmatic yet pleased smile that didn’t reach his gray gaze. “Here you are,” the words breathed out of that smile, though like the smile, they seemed meant more for the wolf himself for all that they were directed towards her. Still he had spoken as though he expected to find her, her specifically…

The wolf charged her.

Caught off guard despite herself Kaoru scrambled to dodge, not trusting her battered body’s ability to take many more hits. In the distance the pack’s howls splintered and broke. She escaped the attack by mere inches, more by throwing herself gracelessly to one side than by finesse. Her wounds, having once warned her, began to bleed again at the motion.

The strange wolf’s momentum carried him past her, burying his form in a deep snow drift, the powdery whiteness stealing him from sight. Kaoru shifted uneasily, gathering herself to break and run for help—even Yahiko would have checked his charge better only three weeks after coming off the streets, it seemed impossible that the Juppongatana were less skilled than a half-starved puppy.

Is he really…?

“Who are you?” The challenge in her voice sounded strong, at least.

The patchy wolf stood and turned back to her. His movements were calm now, deliberate instead of wild and he shook himself briskly as he climbed free of the drift. The snow seemed to dust his form, lightening his pelt even as that which he had touched darkened with brown smears.

The strange wolf shook the color off his pelt, staining the snow with the dirt that had been masking fur that was pure white. Pure white except for a black patch around each eye that seemed to give him a permanently dark expression.

I don’t understand… that much dirt… was he disguising himself? Why? Kaoru didn’t like how the stranger looked at her from those dark eyes, as if he didn’t see her at all.

“Who…?” The challenge was less strong now, and Kaoru grit her teeth to hold herself together against the uncertainty.

The smile that he gave her was pleasant, there weren’t even any teeth in the smile, no obvious threat… but still something in it reminded her of the madness in Jineh’s gaping grin.

“That’s right,” his voice was polite, cheerful, to match his smile. “We haven’t been introduced at all. You would have heard of me as Hoji,” he named the noncombatant of the Juppongatana with an apologetic smile. “But I’m afraid that’s not my name.”

So, yes. A disguise, but for whose benefit…? Kaoru surreptitiously eased a step back from the white wolf, who either didn’t notice her retreat or wasn’t concerned by it.

“Who are you?” Kaoru’s voice sounded sharp as shattered quartz compared to his cheerful politeness, but she didn’t care. The wolf’s smile never faltered.

“My name is Enishi, little sister.” Enishi…? I’ve heard that name before… Last night, had it only been last night? Tomoe’s brother? “I have nothing against you personally,” the voice never wavered, but his expression morphed sincere and polite regret, “but I think I have finally found the best way to make that murderer suffer.”

Chapter Text

And the blood will dry

Underneath my nails

And the wind will rise up

To fill my sails

So you can doubt

And you can hate

But I know

No matter what it takes

I’m coming home

I’m coming home

Tell the world I’m coming home

Let the rain

Wash away

All the pain of yesterday

I know my kingdom awaits

And they’ve forgiven my mistakes

I’m coming home

I’m coming home

Tell the world I’m coming…

-Coming Home Part 2, Skylar Grey

When, exactly, had her life gone so absolutely nuts? The reflexive answer was, of course, when she had met Kenshin—life before him seemed so distant and vague, a dull blur, but it didn’t feel quite true. She was the one who had tried to hold a territory by herself after the death of her father and the arrival of a new pack. She was the one so desperate for companionship that she had befriended a bobcat and cajoled and bullied a wanderer into the putting down roots. Was my life always so nuts, and I just never noticed? Still it had to be acknowledged that Kenshin’s crazy life experiences were on a whole new level.

Case in point, the psychotic white wolf talking about making Kenshin suffer. Kaoru lowered her head slightly, the fur along her back bristling uneasily. He can’t. Enishi doesn’t know how… broken Kenshin has been. Oh, but her heart did, with a pang it flung to the forefront of her memory all those stolen moments when the Rurouni façade had slipped and grieving pain had creased the red wolf’s features. And, last in that long line, the moment only last night when he had finally broken both his silence concerning Tomoe and his mask, no longer even trying to hide his guilt and lingering shame at the she-wolf’s death. Kenshin’s suffered enough; he doesn’t get to make him suffer more!

“Although I imagine that my introduction is still a bit lacking,” the white wolf’s voice interrupted her thoughts, his face the very picture of courtesy. “That blame you may also lay at the Battousai’s feet, for never telling you… You may also,” he cocked his head to one side, the black patches around his eyes stark against the white, giving his face almost the appearance of a skull, “blame him for getting close to you and putting you in danger.”

“I know who you are,” the words slipped out angrily—even though Kaoru was frantically running through her options and finding them pitifully few. “Kenshin told me about Tomoe.”

A spasm of emotion contorted Enishi’s face distorting the polite mask into a ghastly snarl of rage. “He dares to speak her name after what he—” The wolf cut himself off, swallowing back words like bile with an obvious effort. “So he told you of his crime, and you chose to stay with him anyway.” Kaoru half expected censure to accompany this statement, but the white wolf sighed as if resigned. “You are not the first to be ensnared by his façade.”

“You accuse Kenshin of hiding his face while you were walking around in disguise? Under an alias?” I’ve got to keep him talking as long as I can, distract him, buy time. The others didn’t hear me answer them so they’ll be worried.

Kenshin would be worried, and Enishi planned to make him suffer… Kaoru pushed the thought aside ruthlessly. She would not be used as part of a plant to hurt Kenshin. Not now, not ever.

“A necessary subterfuge, and one that served me well. Battousai has come prepared for war, not vengeance, a far more bitter blow… and that he never saw it coming will torment him all the more.”

Kaoru shook her head sharply in negation, regretting the motion as a wave of dizziness assailed her. But she couldn’t let the weakness show. “But you couldn’t have known that Kenshin would be involved when you joined Shishio as Hoji—that would have been before he even escaped from the pens!”

Enishi smiled slyly, an expression that seemed almost feline in its utter self-satisfaction. “You’re right, of course… when I joined Shishio there was little chance of getting to strike at the Battousai directly—but I could reach his territory, the land he had fought over, the place he slaughtered my sister and left her to bleed out on the snow. It might take seasons, but eventually word would come to the murderer that the thing he fought for was a corrupted wasteland, a place of blood and bones befitting a devil like Shishio. And he would find his way here, to see if even his legacy, his legend had been taken from him… and I would be waiting. I did not expect the murderer to come so soon.” The smile turned brittle and cold, warning of a malice that turned malevolent eyes toward her, “Or that he would bring along his replacement for my sister.”

“I’m not a replacement for anyone,” Kaoru insisted tightly, acutely feeling her peril. Stall, stall, stall! Every minute she could keep Enishi talking was another minute for help to find her.

Enishi shrugged, as if her opinion did not matter much either way, not when he was so convinced of his own words. “Either way, all I had to do was wait and let the Battousai exhaust himself.”

“You’re a scavenger!” Fury ripped the words from her throat. “You couldn’t face Kenshin on his own so you waited until after he had to fight Shishio!”

“Not a scavenger,” Enishi corrected coolly, “I’ve merely used my assets to their fullest. Revenge doesn’t need to be fair, it only needs to succeed.”

I have to signal the others, help them find me… but the minute she did that the game would be up and Enishi would attack in earnest. “You call Kenshin a murderer—how many have died while you helped Shishio take the North?”

“If you’re going to kill a demon, you had better be on good terms with the devil.” Enishi said softly, and then cocked his head to one side. “If Battousai hadn’t been so tied to this place, they might have been allowed to live. I know that you are stalling me,” he continued conversationally—blood like ice sluiced through Kaoru’s veins in dread. “It’s quite alright,” the white wolf reassured her, “the shorter the interval between your death and the Battousai’s arrival, the greater his pain. To have just missed saving you… there is no greater torment.”

Kaoru bolted.

She couldn’t help it, couldn’t stay, a roaring sound building in her ears, trying to drown out the frantic tempo of her only thought—Have to stay alive, stay alive, stay alive. I won’t hurt Kenshin, I won’t! Her speed was greatly hampered by her injuries, but the suddenness of her flight had gained some precious distance between herself and the white wolf. A cry bubbled from behind her teeth, half-howl, half words, Help! And she could only hope that someone heard.

An angry snarl from behind her told her that Enishi was not quite as ready to face Kenshin as he had said if he was threatened by her call, but the feeling of victory this thought evoked was short-lived. Teeth clamped down on her hind leg, arresting her limping sprint with a hideous jerk, her paws lost traction on the slick snow, forcing her body to follow a curving arc as Enishi yanked at her.

She scrabbled for balance against the pain, the numbness in her limbs, but her tired body was slow to respond. Enishi bit at her again, piercing the flank that had already been scored by Kamatari’s claws. With a wordless snarl Kaoru forced herself to turn, snapping at the white wolf—she missed his face, striking a glancing blow on the muscles protecting his throat.

Enishi released her anyway, though the motion was clearly not a reaction to her attack, rather it was to create space between them, allowing the wolf to slam into her again. The world grayed and her limbs gave up trying to hold her. No, dammit, no! She had promised Kenshin she would stay alive. She had promised! Enishi was standing over her now, head lowering with almost delicate precision.

“It’s not your fault,” his reassuring words were anything but, “you need not suffer long.”

Furious, Kaoru forced her body to react, muscles tensing in preparation—she would go for the throat again, would rip it out even as he sought hers—

“Kaoru!” an anguished howl, a voice that she could not ignore.

“Kenshin!”

The pair that had been locked in combat only seconds before turned simultaneously to the source of the cry, drawn irresistibly by opposing emotions. Kenshin, he was there, sides heaving as a body that needed more than oxygen was pushed to do without even enough of that. Blood marred his already crimson form and there was a fine trembling in his limbs that matched the desperation in his eyes. He looked closer to death than Kaoru had ever seen him. A swooping sensation of dread took the bottom out of her relief. Kenshin…

Saito, Aoshi and Misao came behind him, the coyote cursing breathlessly—though whether it was for Kenshin charging about while injured or the sight that greeted them Kaoru couldn’t spare the attention to determine.

“Battousai,” Enishi’s greeting was half-breath… as if his subconscious knew that this was a dangerous, dangerous game he played, but his mind still thought itself in control. Recognition kindled in Kenshin’s gaze, bringing an added element of horror to his expression. “Welcome,” Enishi continued, a smile tightening the skin across his muzzle, and turning deliberately back towards Kaoru. “Although you are a little early, I’ll be with you in a moment—”

The sentence went unfinished—Kenshin slammed bodily into the white wolf, knocking him away from Kaoru in an unexpected and uncharacteristic attack, unconcerned with anything but getting the wolf away from Kaoru. Words didn’t matter. So focused was the red wolf on his goal that he neglected even to bite at his opponent.

Kaoru staggered to her feet, her limbs opting to function now that the immediate danger was past.

“Kaoru!”

Her name, again, but Kenshin was the one in danger now—Sano, Yahiko and Megumi came up from the opposite direction, the young dog supported by the adults on either side in case he faltered. Yahiko’s hurt? But Kenshin was hurt too, hurt badly and Enishi was not—

The white wolf twisted, regaining his balance to slide away from the Rurouni’s charge. Kenshin stumbled at the sudden loss of resistance and Enishi bid down on the red wolf’s tattered scruff, slinging him back with a powerful twist of his head. Kaoru’s limbs still felt clumsy beneath her, but willing to move now with Kenshin so near. She scrambled forward, using her own body to intercept Kenshin’s arc, angling her shoulder to support him, keeping him on his feet. The eyes that met hers were wide and worried—and blazing amber.

“Kaoru?” Her name was a question, a breath, unheard by any but her. The eyes might be amber, but it was still Kenshin. The female summoned up a shaky smile even as her throat tried to close around her heart.

“I’m all right, Kenshin,” the reassurance was for her as much as for him. “I’m okay.” She could feel his shuddering exhale at her words, could see the panic in his eyes clear somewhat, allowing him to think again.

“Enishi…” he shook his head, seemingly the only way he could convince his eyes to leave Kaoru’s. The white wolf stood impassively, observing the ring of fighters that had formed around the three wolves with faint displeasure. His white pelt had gained a few reddish streaks—but it was Kenshin’s blood not his own. “What are you doing here?” the red wolf’s question was tired, emotions unreadable under a thick cloak of exhaustion.

“He was working with Shishio,” Kaoru supplied quickly, “as Hoji of the Juppongatana.”

“What am I doing here?” Enishi ignored Kaoru’s interjection, his good-humored politeness a thin veneer over vicious and unrelenting hatred. “From the day you killed my sister there has only been one purpose to my existence. I want you to suffer—there is nothing I would not do to achieve that. Shishio thought me his follower, when in truth he served my purposes.” Enishi’s lip curled, displaying white fangs against black gums, “This is about justice, Battousai—”

“You have got to be kidding me!” The words burst from a bristling Sano with the force of an oath. “You gave up any chance of a one-on-one when you went after the Missy!” A chorus of growls echoed the sentiment, but Enishi hardly twitched in acknowledgement.

“This is not what Tomoe would have wanted.” Kenshin didn’t acknowledge Sano’s words either as he straightened, taking responsibility for his own weight once more.

He’s going to fight by himself anyway, Kaoru realized, even with all of us here, even with everything that’s happened, he’s going to do it alone.

Because Kenshin always fought alone, from the first time she met him and realized that she couldn’t keep up and years before that, when the alpha of the Isshin Shishi had chosen to make use of the wolf’s deadly skills—without ever including him as part of the pack. Kenshin didn’t know how to fight alongside anyone else, and didn’t expect help.

“Don’t tell me what my sister would have wanted!” Enishi snarled, “If you dare say her name again I will soak this land in so much blood that nothing will grow here for a hundred years, before sending you to hell with the knowledge that it is all your fault.”

“This one says again that your sister would not have wanted this.”

Enishi’s lip curled in contempt. “And you knew her heart so well? You who didn’t even know that she was a Bakufu spy?” The white wolf shook his head, glaring darkly at the battered Rurouni. “No, Battousai. Blood calls for blood—and the best way to wound your heart is not through your chest.”

Sano shifted, clearly preparing to leave Megumi with the bulk of Yahiko’s weight to attack the vengeful wolf.

“Don’t, Sano.” Kenshin’s amber gaze had grown harder and harder as Enishi spoke, even if the body that had supported it was sorely wounded. “This is between us, please don’t interfere.”

Sanosuke didn’t bother to choke back his snarl of displeasure, “Dammit Kenshin! You’re two breaths from being flat on your back!”

“Please, Sir Ken,” Megumi added her own entreaty to Sano’s rougher one—but the red wolf only shook his head again.

“This reckoning has been put off for too long already.”

“You know he put you in this position on purpose, don’t you, Red?” Misao implored, bristling from her position beside Aoshi. “Bastard was just waiting until you were chewed up by Soujiro and Shishio and thought it was all over!” Aoshi himself did not venture comment. Does he agree with Kenshin? It was possible, the Okashira knew both the driving force of revenge and the responsibility a leader had to those who followed him. With the threats Enishi was making… if he wasn’t stopped here and now, many lives would be at risk. And Kenshin would never ask others to do something he wouldn’t do himself—especially something as personal as this.

“Justice deferred is justice denied,” Saito’s abrasive voice mused, and Kaoru started in surprise. Somehow she had not expected the Shinsengumi to still be here now that Shishio was gone. “Is that your thinking as well, Battousai?”

Kenshin’s head dipped fractionally to acknowledge the other wolf’s words, but his gaze was drawn like a lodestone to Enishi’s. “We will put an end to this, Enishi,” the red wolf said sternly, shifting from his position of loose readiness to a crouch of charged potential.

Enishi likewise shifted, “That is all I have wanted for years.”

A signal, something unseen but felt nevertheless and Enishi and Kenshin sprang towards each other, fangs bared in fast-realized promise. Enishi came in lower than Kaoru would have expected, crouching to keep his head below Kenshin’s. The red wolf had to be exhausted, but was drawing on some hitherto unknown reserve of strength to keep moving, though his customary speed was conspicuously absent.

The two collided, snapping and snarling before breaking away in hasty arcs, each wheeling for the opportunity to catch the other off guard. Kenshin broke to the left, putting the ghastly injury to his shoulder as far from Enishi as he could. It made sense, Kaoru had been expecting it, even Enishi had probably been expecting it. What he was not expecting was for Kaoru to silently and ferociously throw herself on the white wolf. This would be her only free shot, while Enishi was focused only on Kenshin—she had to make it count. Teeth closed down on Enishi’s hind leg—she felt him startle, instinctively trying to move away from the source of pain. Ligaments caught and tore, not all the way through, but enough—he wouldn’t be running circles around the red wolf now. As quickly as she could convince her own battered body to move, Kaoru disengaged and retreated.

“Kaoru!” the tanuki had never seen quite that expression on the Rurouni before—she couldn’t help but wonder if half of it was utter bewilderment. Her ears were pressed flat to her skull in instinctive protest as she answered,

“This involves me too—I’m the one he tried to kill Kenshin, don’t tell me I’m not involved!” Don’t tell me not to help you! Though this couldn’t have been her first choice of fights to finally stand by his side during. Not when Enishi had already come so close to his goal.

“But it’s too dangerous—” Kenshin began, cutting himself off with a snarl as Enishi took advantage of his apparent distraction and he had to dodge.

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about.” Kaoru answered grimly. Enishi took the time Kenshin used to retreat to send a look of pure venom at Kaoru. She was getting in the way of his plans, still alive after he had decided she should die, and now drawing his focus away from Kenshin in the moment he had been imagining since he first came upon his sister’s body, abandoned on bloody snow.

The look only lasted a fraction of a second before returning to Kenshin, and Kaoru growled lightly, moving to join the fight. She would not be intimidated. Kenshin shifted, changing his motion abruptly from retreat to a leap that carried him over the white wolf to land without his customary grace on the other side, his foreleg unwilling to bear much of his weight for long.

Enishi wheeled, low and swift as a striking snake, catching the red wolf’s back leg as he recovered from his maneuver and moved to put some distance between them. The subsequent yank as Kenshin’s body tried to carry through with his earlier intention jerked Enishi forward a few inches on the snow, but the anchor of his weight allowed his bite to deal more damage. Kaoru fought against the urge to scramble forward without a plan, even if her instincts were screaming to force Enishi to let go of Kenshin right now.

Instead she came in an arc, looking for an angle that would offer her a good target without presenting one. Kenshin twisted as his attempted retreat failed, trying to turn along his own body to get a shot at Enishi, who was awkwardly positioned for any retaliatory bite. The white wolf shifted, keeping himself out of Kenshin’ range while the muscles tensed along his jaw.

The fear that he would break Kenshin’s leg, leaving the red wolf all but crippled for the duration of the fight lent speed to Kaoru’s own struggling body. She slammed into the white wolf with all of the force she could muster, multicolored stars exploding in her vision as her nerves screamed in a sensory overload of pain. Blindly she bit out at whatever she could reach while the world tilted, yawing threateningly on its axis.

Vision cleared reluctantly, Enishi had staggered, almost crashing to the ground with Kaoru in a tangle of limbs and fangs, but he recovered, his resistance lending stability to the tanuki while she found her own. She had bitten down on his shoulder, and now had a unique view as the white wolf released Kenshin’s leg, his black-ringed eye visible as he looked over his shoulder to the little female that had dared to interrupt him again.

Moving would be good. Moving with speed would be better, but her body’s steady groan as she released her enemy and tried to step back was her only answer on that front. Enishi was faster—he whirled and fangs came slicing down—Kaoru had a split second to instinctively duck her head against the attack, taking the blow on the back of her neck rather than across her face.

Pain, and the searing heat of her own blood exposed to the cold air bloomed across her neck. The white wolf bit down harder, grinding through muscle towards bone, shaking his head from side to side like a terrier with a rat. Kaoru scrabbled against the snow, trying to find purchase to get away—an angry yowl of pain brought relief from the crushing grip and Kaoru bolted, getting clear before turning to look.

Enishi’s left flank had been laid open in a bloody gash that might have even reached the bone. Kenshin moved to stand beside her, the blazing amber eyes that once made her almost sick with worry and dread now a relief.

“Are you all right?” he didn’t quite look at her as he asked this, catching her nod out of his peripheral vision as Enishi considered the pair for bare seconds, choosing his next target. “Please, be careful.” The words were half-reprimand, half-plea as the red wolf moved away again, hoping, Kaoru was sure, to draw Enishi’s next attack away from her.

But the white wolf hesitated, the more serious injury jarring him free of his almost-thoughtless quest for revenge. It was two on one, and whichever he attacked, the other would retaliate. The obvious goal would be to reduce the number of combatants, but Kaoru wasn’t sure how the revenge-crazed wolf meant to achieve that.

Kenshin had no desire to wait and let Enishi plan his next move. When the white wolf hesitated, the red one attacked. He came in at what was probably his top speed in his injured state, keeping low. Enishi snarled and jumped back a pace, curving in the air to avoid the Battousai’s bite. Kaoru rushed forward, arcing for Enishi’s other flank, forcing him to split his attention.

“Coward!” Enishi snapped, forced to a twisting retreat to avoid harrying bites from either side. “You’re afraid to face me without your precious pack!”

“Maybe we’re just using our assets to their fullest.” Kaoru threw Enishi’s words back in his face before Kenshin could respond. “I thought it was fine to use others to achieve your goals!”

Incensed, the white wolf used his latest twisting evasion to face Kaoru more fully, snapping at her in a rage. The tanuki faltered a step, pulling back instinctively as her injury throbbed a warning in anticipation of fresh pain. Enishi took full advantage of his momentary breathing room, a tight smile making it plain that he was still scheming, not merely reacting in rage. He twisted toward Kenshin, angling to meet the red wolf that had not faltered in his own attack. He had little time to correct, to find a vital target, but Kenshin was so injured at this point that it would almost be harder for Enishi to land his attack somewhere not torn and bleeding.

Kenshin bit down on his opponent’s shoulder, but Enishi bulled forward, insensible to the pain and his jaws closed on the side of Kenshin’s neck. There was a keening noise, harsh and distraught, that Kaoru didn’t—couldn’t realize was coming from her. Damaged skin tore further as she pushed herself, beyond caring about such petty things as pain.

The she-wolf dove in for Enishi’s face, going for his eyes in desperation. The white wolf flinched instinctively, trying to protect his vision, releasing Kenshin as he did so. The red wolf shook on his paws, amber eyes glazed with pain and exhaustion, his body pushed beyond all reasonable limits—but he blinked it away, shoving it back to where it could be dealt with later. If there was a later.

Kaoru continued to harry Enishi across the snow, driving him back, but it wouldn’t last long. As soon as she had seen Kenshin able to stay on his feet her mind had cleared, and soon Enishi would strike back against the little female trying to drive him away. She just wanted this to be over! Sure enough, the white wolf’s stance shifted and he dove forward, snapping, forcing Kaoru back. The tanuki stayed low, not trusting her body to make any leaps or twists on demand. Enishi stayed high—he actually stretched himself, as if aiming for the deep bloody bite on the back of her neck to finish the job.

Kaoru flattened herself until her belly almost brushed the snow, increasing the distance between herself and the oncoming attack—and Kenshin was there, as she had somehow expected him to be, sliding into the space she had left as the she wolf let herself drop completely and roll to one side to get clear.

He came in low, fast and focused—Enishi reared back a little in surprise at the crimson menace, a fatal mistake. Kenshin followed the motion, surging upwards and his jaws found the soft place under Enishi’s jaw where the throat began. Blood burst against white fur.

“No more.” Kenshin released his hold, standing firm as the white wolf teetered, his eyes wide with fear and fury, surrounded by their black rings. His mouth opened to curse Kenshin’s existence, but no words came out, only crimson bubbles, betraying him as his body took on the hue of his hated foe. He stepped backwards a pace, one, two, three, shaking his head, not seeming to notice how it moved erratically side to side, tilting and dipping as he lost motor control. White legs crumpled beneath him and he twitched before lying still, vacant eyes staring accusingly at the wolf who had spilled his sister’s blood on this land so long ago.

Enishi was gone.

Kaoru got back to her feet with an effort; she only had eyes for one red-furred Rurouni now. Kenshin wavered, almost like a mirage when approached, then folded onto the snow, his eyes sliding shut with eerie finality. Kenshin… the world seemed distant and dreamlike as Kaoru made her way over to the red wolf. Sensation was leeching away, the cold, the sounds of her friends breaking their circle, their worried voices a faint murmur. Kaoru was somewhat gratified that she was able to make it to Kenshin’s side before she too fell, resting her head on the back of his neck. Vision was blurring now, black creeping in at the edges in plain warning of her own coming unconsciousness.

There had been something she wanted to say, hadn’t there? Something important that hadn’t been said before.

Her voice was quiet… it was probably a good thing she was so close… “I love you, Kenshin.” Kaoru paused, half expecting a reply, but darkness swept over her before she could hear any answer.

Something was tickling her nose, something soft and fine and barely noticeable except it was the only sensation that was registering at the moment. Inhale, and tickle, exhale and gone, inhale, and there it was again.

Other sensation slowly built around this first one—her head was on something soft and warm, which tickled her when she breathed. The breaths brought scents… most of which could wait to be deciphered, but one which needed no thought to identify. Kenshin.

Why was she-? Oh, that’s right. She had followed him out onto the mountain and spent the night curled into his side. Except… that wasn’t right, was it? Kaoru thought that she remembered waking up, so how could she be waking up again? Her nose teased her, trying to offer the answers if only she would focus. Kenshin’s scent, yes, she knew that one, and… blood.

Her eyes tried to open instinctively in panic, but the blackness of unconsciousness was slow to recede. Shishio’s pack, a snarling mountain lion, blood. Enishi. Kenshin. Blood. A shiver ran down her frame, bringing feeling in its wake. She hurt, but it was dull now, her wounds willing to stop complaining as long as she stopped moving. Kenshin’s body was warm beneath her head, and as she held her breath in hope, his sides gently rose and fell in regular breaths. Alive. He was alive.

Another shiver and her eyes cracked open against the bright world. Was the sun still up? She could have sworn from her stiffness that she had been lying motionless for hours. With an effort, Kaoru shifted her head—one of Kenshin’s injuries fell into her line of sight and she blinked at it stupidly.

There was… stuff on it. Plant stuff. Oh, right. Megumi. Trust a catty healer-fox to find the tools of her trade even in winter. And now the green scent of the herbs was in her nose too, identified after the fact. Something entered her field of vision, and she focused on it, blinking again. Now she had no answers. A strange gray she-wolf observed her with gentle eyes the color of a fawn. A stranger? Or a hallucination? Which was more likely at this point?

“I think she’s awake.” Well, the hallucination was speaking to someone, and she didn’t think it was her. There was a mad scramble from somewhere out of sight and raised voices.

“Kaoru?”

“Is she awake? Let me see!”

And overriding them all, the imperious voice of Megumi. “Stay back, all of you, and give me some room to work.” The healer herself followed this statement, stepping into view with an authoritative flick of her plush tail. It was nearly the only thing about her that still looked elegant, she seemed harried and ruffled, and her eyes were tired too.

Well what do you know… I finally get to see Megumi looking scruffy and I still look worse. Somehow it just didn’t seem fair.

“How are you feeling?” The tired eyes assessed her with determined practice, checking over her various injuries. Kaoru had to work the muscles in her throat for a minute to respond, and the voice she managed to coax out was faint and tired.

“I’m okay…” Megumi fixed her with a distinctly unimpressed look and Kaoru amended her statement. “Hurts a little.”

“Do any of the injuries feel warm, or hot? Do you remember receiving your injuries?” The fox launched a series of questions, Kaoru answering yes and no as Megumi prodded at some of her deeper wounds. “Do you—”

“How is Kenshin?” Kaoru interrupted unconsciously pressing her body closer to his. It felt strange to be asking about him when he was so close.

Megumi’s ears went back a little, apparently in annoyance at being interrupted, but her expression softened. “His injuries are much worse than yours, even before fighting Enishi. I honestly thought we were going to lose him—but he’s held on and his breathing is stable. The bleeding has stopped and as long as nothing else happens and he gets plenty of rest…” A tired smile finished out the sentence and Kaoru closed her eyes in relief. He would be okay, he had to be.

“Now,” Megumi cleared her throat and her expression with a cough, sliding back into tired professionalism, “do you feel up to eating something?”

Kaoru took stock of herself, wondering if it was possible to move. Yes, came the grudging consensus, swiftly followed by the addendum that such a thing was not desirable. “Do I have to move?” If her voice was a little stronger, it might have been a whine, fortunately not sounding quite like herself meant that the question was only tired and pitiable.

“If you can,” Megumi arched her brow as if she heard the whine anyway. “It’ll be easier to look after Sir Ken without you hovering over him.”

Ow. Well, okay, that was probably true. Still not what she wanted to hear, but true. With a grumble and slightly more effort than her body had led her to expect was needed Kaoru shifted, shakily transferring her weight to her paws and ordering it to stay there. Megumi stood close on her uninjured side, offering support to her patient as she hobbled a few token steps away from Kenshin.

The rest of the pack hovered in various uneasy positions around the clearing where the two wolves had fallen. Sano sat nearby, scanning the area with a scowl, apparently on guard against further attacks, but he smiled at her when she caught his eye. Misao nosed around a rabbit—apparently meant for Kaoru—in restless worry while Aoshi quietly conversed with Hiko and Saito (that bastard was still here?) some distance away. And Yahiko was… covered in puppies?

Kaoru blinked, wondering if she was hallucinating again but… okay, two puppies probably didn’t qualify as being covered. Though they were rather effectively keeping the young dog from moving. They were wolf puppies, but young ones, just barely growing out of fuzzy brown puppy-fur and currently sleeping—one sprawled bonelessly across Yahiko’s foreleg, the other plastered so close against his side that its head was practically underneath the dog. Yahiko himself was scowling as if he wanted to get up—but there was another dog, a German Shepherd about his age watching him with rapt attention lest he disturb the pups. Um. What happened while I was out?

Megumi must have noticed the fine tremble that went through Kaoru’s frame as she lost focus and decided they had gone far enough. Lying down was easier than getting up had been, though the black fox checked over Kaoru’s injuries once more to be sure none had reopened. With that done she scurried back over to Kenshin, ready to examine the wounds that had been blocked by Kaoru’s body.

Misao snatched up the rabbit she had been pushing and practically bounced forward, her eyes bright with worry as she almost dropped the meal on Kaoru’s head in her haste to speak.

“Kaoru! I’m so glad you’re awake!”

Kaoru wondered if it would be rude to forgo conversation in the interest of getting rid of the hollow feeling in her stomach—but the relief in the little Oniwaban’s voice was so sincere it didn’t feel fair to ignore it. “I’m glad too. How long was I out? What’s happened?”

Misao’s eyes were still worried. “Two days.”

That explained the ravening beast where her stomach had once been. Though worry bit down hard on her too—Kenshin had lost so much blood—he needed to eat to get back some of his strength, so he had to wake up.

“Oi, Misao,” Sano called, looking over to the two females, “the Missy still has to eat you know!” He sent a comfortable wink at Kaoru, his own version of relief no doubt. “She doesn’t know your appetite like we do, right kid?”

Yahiko snorted, then froze as the motion caused one of the pups to squirm. “At least we aren’t trying to feed you, famine face.” His red-brown eyes sought out hers almost anxiously. “I told them you’d probably rather have fish, but they wouldn’t let me go catch any.”

Kaoru couldn’t help but be touched. “Thank you Yahiko, this is fine, but,” she repeated, “what’s happened?”

Misao sat, “You eat, and I’ll talk.” This arrangement seemed perfectly acceptable to Kaoru so she didn’t waste any more time. “After you and Himura finished with that Enishi guy you both passed out and everybody freaked.” She paused, glancing around at the assembly and modified her statement, “Well, almost everybody freaked.” Well, yeah. Kaoru had a really hard time picturing Aoshi, Saito or Hiko “freaking.” Like, impossible even. “So,” Misao continued, “the Megumi-fox-lady—”

“Hey,” Sano corrected, “It’s Megumi, or fox-lady or vixen.”

Misao rolled her eyes, continuing, “Anyway she jumped on the pair of you, working to keep you both… alive, I guess. But it was tricky ’cause it’s winter and most of her supplies aren’t growing anymore.” The coyote darted a glance toward Aoshi and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “So Aoshi-sama asks Saito if he’s going to help his allies or not, and Saito says that Battousai’s not his ally, they just had the same enemy for a while. Then Hiko comes up and says if Saito’s going to use his apprentice to clear out the neighborhood he’d damn well better clean up after himself, and I thought everybody was going to get into a fight—but apparently Megumi heard some of it and latched on to the idea that Saito could help. She begged him to, even said that if Saito still regarded Himura as an enemy at least he could help you. And Aoshi said something about it not being honorable to ignore those who had helped you, and Saito left.” Misao drew in a breath before continuing her speedy recital.

“I thought he’d just left—got sick of everyone telling him what to do and left. But that night he came back with them,” she nodded toward the puppies and dog holding Yahiko captive and then back over towards Kenshin, where Megumi… and the apparently-not-a-hallucination wolf were working quietly. “That’s Tokio, his mate.” Misao’s ears quivered as if to say—are you still freaked out by this? Because I’m still really freaked out by this.

“Apparently she’s something of a healer too, and had a stockpile of stuff to use.”

“And… the puppies?” Kaoru managed to ask around a mouthful of rabbit she couldn’t really taste. Saito has offspring? And they aren’t demon’s spawn? Not to say that they couldn’t be demon-spawn, but right now, asleep, they just looked cute. Misao’s ears quivered more enthusiastically still.

“The Shepherd is Eiji, Himura and I met him on the way in. The little ones are Tsutomu and Tsuyoshi. When Tokio saw that Yahiko wouldn’t stay still long enough to heal, she told her kids that he really wanted to cuddle, and told Eiji to make sure he didn’t wake them up.”

“It’s been surprisingly effective,” Sano put in, tail beating the ground lazily. Yahiko scowled, but the effect was largely mitigated by one of the pups shifting and yawning hugely in his sleep. Kaoru managed to smile, but her gaze kept straying over to Kenshin, the red wolf seeming small and abandoned on the snow.

“He’ll be okay,” Yahiko interrupted her thoughts, speaking forcefully, as if by his words he could make it so.

“Megumi says it probably saved his life—you helping him against Enishi.” Misao’s voice went quieter still, and her own eyes flicked to Kenshin’s still form uneasily. Enishi, Kaoru shuddered, and surreptitiously looked around for the body.

It was gone.

A bubble of panic rose in her throat instinctively—no, he was dead, she knew he was dead—and she forced it down, staring at the spot where he had been until her eyes could make out the trail in the snow.

“Where is Enishi?”

“We dragged him off and buried him,” Sano answered, brow furrowed in targetless wrath. “Didn’t want to give him that much respect, but also didn’t want you and Kenshin to have to look at him.”

Kaoru let out the breath she had held and forced herself to relax, something her lingering exhaustion welcomed all too readily. Her eyes strayed back toward Kenshin, only to find Tokio was approaching.

“It’s good to meet you, Miss Kaoru,” the wolf’s voice was soft and pleasant with a sweet smile. “Hajime says that you’re brave.”

Kaoru was smiling her way through her own polite hello when her brain caught up. Hajime. Hajime Saito. Saito. Erk. I’ve died. I’ve died or I’m still asleep and having some sort of psychotic dream. Tokio laughed at Kaoru’s expression, taking a modicum of pity on the flabbergasted tanuki.

“He does say nice things occasionally; you just have to listen around the growling.”

“I, um, I’ll take your word for it?” Kaoru responded weakly, not sure she wanted any further information. “How’s Kenshin?” Okay, it had only been a few minutes since she last asked, but she was willing to bet that everyone wanted to know.

Tokio shrugged gently. “He’s still sleeping, we’ve treated the injuries we couldn’t get to before, but other than that not much has changed. He might wake later today or tomorrow.”

Kaoru wondered ruefully if she started belly-crawling back to Kenshin’s side if anyone would notice. Her stomach was full, and she was already tired again. If she had to go to sleep, she would prefer to do it where she could feel Kenshin’s breathing and know he was still alive. It was, perhaps, a bit much to expect though.

“Will you let me know when he wakes up?” She might need to sleep again, but the sooner she saw Kenshin with his eyes open the sooner that sleep would actually become restful.

“Of course we will!” Misao’s answer was emphatic enough to disturb the three wolves still in conference.

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Hiko’s answering grumble made the female jump in surprise, the thick-coated wolf had turned his head away from the Shinsengumi and the Okashira to look over toward the others. “Just put her back where she was. She’s the first thing that idiot’s going to look for anyway, and if you don’t want him undoing all that herb craft you’ve done on him, she’d better be nearby.”

Kaoru blinked in surprise—not so much at what had been said as who had said it, and looked toward Megumi, instinctively feeling that objections would come from there. Megumi, however, had finished examining Kenshin and was apparently doing a run-through of the other injuries in the impromptu camp.

To one side of the others Sano grumbled at Megumi as she circled him critically, cataloguing his injuries with a tone of scolding that was audible, even if her words weren’t. A particularly loud exclamation from Sano was cut off abruptly as the fox began to lick the top of his head where he had been bleeding, his ears going flat.

“Come on,” Tokio said gently, nodding for Misao to get up as well. “We’ll help you over.”

The trip back to Kenshin seemed much shorter than the trip away had been. It must be because I got to eat something, a wry smile tugged at Kaoru’s muzzle. Yeah that must be it. Not the fact that she was back at Kenshin’s side. The tanuki curled up against the Rurouni’s side, trying to avoid blocking access to his injuries while still maintaining close contact. He was warm, and real, and this time losing consciousness seemed much gentler.

There were words, important words, but they hovered just out of reach, mocking senses that had long been attuned to even the quietest of whispers. But perhaps it was only to be expected. Kenshin had pushed his body so far, demanded so much that it was no surprise that it had given up the moment he relaxed.

The words echoed through his subconscious, teasing him by remaining nebulous. Wake up, they seemed to taunt, wake up, and maybe you’ll remember us. But Kenshin wasn’t sure he really wanted to wake up.  He was tired, and he was quite sure that pain, along with memory, waited on the other side of consciousness. Surely the world could get by without him for a little longer… and there was an odd, bone-deep certainty that the words would be waiting for him no matter when he woke.

Kenshin drifted, not dreaming or thinking or remembering, and it was surprisingly peaceful. Perhaps even… too peaceful? The words taunted him again, and he felt quite sure that their origin was not a peaceful one... but that somehow that was the way he liked it. Because if the origin of the words went silent, he would never know peace again.

Perhaps it was time to rejoin the world after all. It took time, his resolution having little immediate effect on the blackness around him, but with the decision to try little things came trickling back. Memory and pain returned one after the other… the sensation allowing him to register physical discomfort unfortunately not giving him control over the body it pertained to as of yet. Still, the pain wasn’t as bad as it could have been, as fortunately consciousness was not a requirement for a body to begin putting itself back together. Even if there was a lot to put back together again.

Soujiro, Shishio and Enishi, one after the other after the other… he was lucky to still be breathing, so he really couldn’t complain about a little pain. More sensation filtered through, surprising in its messages. He knew both from memory and sensation that he was out in the open, exposed to both the elements and whoever of Shishio’s followers might still be around. What was surprising was that he didn’t feel at all concerned about it, long years of survival instincts not even twitching at his vulnerable state. He was safe, and somehow, everything was okay.

Waking up came slowly and even when Kenshin opened his eyes he couldn’t help but wonder if he was dreaming. His friends crowded around him as his eyes opened, relieved and happy. Yahiko and Misao trying to talk at the same time while Megumi scolded and Sano complained about having been left out of the “real” fighting. His answering smile was tired, but genuine, letting the voices wash over him.

“Kenshin,” her voice broke through the gentle haze enfolding him. Kenshin turned his head, following the sound to find Kaoru curled up against him with a smile of her own.

“Hi,” it wasn’t at all what he wanted to say, but that didn’t seem to matter much. The red wolf rested his head on Kaoru’s back and closed his eyes again, content. She was here, everyone was here and safe and it was over. The words were here, but their meaning was what mattered most, and all was finally well.

Kenshin slept a long time, interspersed with brief periods of wakefulness where a concerned Megumi made him eat something and, as he improved, move around some. Kaoru stayed close to his side throughout the process, healing from her own injuries. But as time passed the periods of wakefulness grew longer and conversations progressed from, “How are you feeling,” and “what’s been going on,” to “what happens now?”

For some, the answer was obvious.

As Kenshin grew stronger and stronger, Saito displayed an growing irritability, along with an as-yet unspoken desire to move his clan back to their secret den. Kaoru thought privately that one reason for this might be that Saito’s sons, Tsutomu, Tsuyoshi and Eiji (who, as it turned out, was an official adoptee of the wolf family) had all grown rather attached to Yahiko. Though the affection showed itself in different ways—Tsutomu and Tsuyoshi wanted to play and bother their often-grumpy babysitter, while Eiji and Yahiko bickered as much if not more so than he and Sano had ever done, and the akita-mix’s injuries healed the arguments frequently evolved into spirited fights.

Of course, Saito could also be grumpy because Tsutomu and Tsuyoshi seemed just as attached to Kenshin as they were to Yahiko. The red wolf tactfully did not go out of his way to rub in Saito’s face that his sons were coming to view the Shinsengumi’s longtime rival as a surrogate uncle, but it was still painfully obvious that Saito was ready for life to go back to normal in the North.

Hiko also loudly complained of being “crowded” but noticeably had not returned to his mountain territory as of yet. And that was two of the Northern alphas accounted for. Aoshi and Misao were rather more obvious in their attachment to Kenshin’s small pack—or rather; Misao was obviously attached for the both of them. It was nice, really, really nice to interact with a young female who had no designs on Kenshin and showed a similar outlook to Kaoru herself.

“I’m going to really miss you,” the tanuki told the little kunoichi one day late in the convalescence, after the joined packs had finished eating.

Misao’s ears drooped pitifully low, her eyes large and sad as she all but wailed, “You’re leaving? Why? The North is plenty big; you guys could stay up here!”

It was nothing Kaoru hadn’t thought of herself off and on, usually when her aching body reminded her just how long of a walk it was back to the den hidden by the hazel tree. But the North wasn’t home… and she worried about Kenshin living in a place that not only held so many ghosts for him, but also had Saito as a close neighbor.

“We can’t stay up here,” Yahiko broke in, looking alarmed and leaving off surreptitiously sneaking Eiji’s bone away from him. “What about Tsubame?” Sano snorted in amusement and the dog rushed to continue, “And Tae? They’re waiting for us to come back.”

“But I’ll miss you guys,” Misao blinked hard, trying to dispel the moisture that seemed set on accumulating in her cool green eyes. “Even that idiot.” She jerked her head toward Sano, who bristled indignantly at the insult.

“Hey!”

“We’ll come back and visit,” this promise came from Kenshin, smoothing over the potential argument before it could really begin. “This one will be looking forward to seeing how the North will change under its new leadership.”

Well, cooperative leadership, anyway, Kaoru supposed was a little closer to the truth. Aoshi, Saito and Hiko had conferred together repeatedly trying to work out the future of the snowy land. Hiko, by definition, had no interest in either joining a pack or starting one and refused to cede his mountain to anyone. Similarly Aoshi and Saito refused to join the other’s pack, and likely would not have wanted the other in their pack despite being on fairly cordial terms. The three had, with Hiko acting as an impartial if acerbic party, worked out territories for the Oniwaban and Shinsengumi that would allow both good access to natural resources and game. The three had further recognized a need for closer cooperation to avoid a mess like Shishio cropping up again and pledged to learn from their predecessors mistakes by regularly sharing intelligence.

Still… “We might be back sooner than you think,” Kaoru shared her private worry with rueful cheerfulness. “I left Sano and Megumi to watch the territory, and they followed us up here.”

Sano paused mid-scratch to look over at the little female. “Hey,” he objected for the second time in as many minutes, “give me some credit! I left instructions for the territory to be watched.”

“By who? Tae and Tsubame?” Kaoru just shook her head. Tsubame was probably the least confrontational creature she had ever met, and while Tae could typically defend herself it was not in her nature to defend a territory against anything but her own kind.

“No, I called Katsu,” Sano corrected, scratching his ear in earnest once more.

“You left Katsu with the territory?” Kaoru tried to quash the dismay in her voice, but there was a lot of it. One dog to guard the borders, and a town dog at that? She knew how hard it was to hold a territory on her own and, well, she had never seen Sano’s old friend fight before. And she was trying not to be petty, because a territory didn’t matter as much as the beings living in it, and most of her family was here now, but still…

The hybrid answered her with a lazy grin. “I’m guessing you don’t realize just how popular you are in town, Missy. Soon as I asked him Katsu called up some of his buddies and had them spread the word. Apparently there are a lot of folks you led back to town or helped on their way when they were passing through. Not to mention that we’ve pretty well cleared out trouble-makers from the area and the folks left behind are pretty grateful. Trust me, he has plenty of help.” He grinned, “The territory will be waiting for you when we get back.”

“When are we going back?” Yahiko wondered aloud. Assessing gazes turned toward Kenshin and Kaoru as the two had been the most injured of the group it would be their recovery that dictated a departure time.

“This one believes,” Kenshin began, only to be cut off by a bristling Megumi—

“That you will take it easy for another week before you even think of gallivanting off on a rigorous cross-country trek!”

“It wasn’t that rigorous,” Kaoru protested half-heartedly, she wanted to go home, to fulfill the promise made with Kenshin, never far from her thoughts, but she didn’t want to rush the red wolf’s recovery.

“No.” Megumi’s response was flat as her ears, unamused and daring anyone else to gainsay her expertise. The most anyone ventured was an aggrieved sigh, and that came from Saito.

Still Megumi’s prescribed week passed, and at its conclusion the doctor had to admit that Kaoru and Kenshin—specifically Kenshin, was no worse off than Sano had been when he cajoled her into making the trek. Though she was quick to point out that there was no need to rush themselves on the journey as “that hard-headed spiky-furred idiot” had done. Regardless, it was definitely time for goodbyes.

The Saito clan pre-empted this process by leaving early in the day for their own den, the adult wolves and juvenile dog shepherding the two wolf pups along. Tokio had told Megumi about a few hidden places in the land where healing herbs could be found sometimes in winter as a parting gift, and Yahiko had extracted the promise of a proper fight from Eiji when next the two dogs met.

Saito ignored Sano when the former fighter-for-hire made similar noises about a rematch, but he and Kenshin did exchange civil nods before the gray wolf led his family out of sight in the wintry North. Kaoru supposed that it was the closest to friendly that the two wolves would ever come.

“Oi, idiot,” Hiko’s voice interrupted Kaoru’s protracted farewell with Misao, and Kenshin reflexively looked toward his master, apparently resigned to the unflattering name. “Come here.”

The conversation between the two wolves was not audible, although everyone else stayed suspiciously quiet in an effort to overhear the pair. The only thing that greeted their snooping ears was Kenshin’s aggravated, “Master!” followed by a loud brash laugh from Hiko. Without bothering to call a further farewell to anyone else the northern wolf turned imperiously and strode away toward the mountain looming over the North.

“You have to come visit soon,” Misao repeated her plaintive and frequent entreaty. Kaoru managed a laugh.

“We will, Misao! But give us a chance to get settled before we turn around and come right back!”

“Then we’ll come visit you! We can visit them, can’t we Aoshi-sama?” The dark wolf this was directed toward dipped his head in acknowledgement of the question, but did not verbally respond. By now Kenshin had made his way back over to the two packs, his smile was somewhat frayed and his ears were flat against his head. Despite whatever Hiko had used to tease him this time, the smile was genuine.

“You and Miss Misao would be welcome indeed whenever you choose to visit.”

Aoshi inclined his head again, and some previously imperceptible tension left his frame. “Understood.”

“If we’re going to go, we’d better get,” Sano observed, “Winter’s only getting stronger and we’re burning daylight.”

Misao grumbled at the fresh reminder but apparently didn’t want them to leave with the fresh memory of a fight. The small group set off, Misao calling farewells as the southern pack walked away, Sano and Megumi bickering about direction in the front, with the occasional interjection by Yahiko on the route that he and Kaoru had taken.

Kaoru herself brought up the rear with Kenshin, and soon the coyote and Okashira faded from earshot and the North was silent, watching them leave.

Kaoru couldn’t help but inhale deeply as the pack finally crossed the invisible boundary on the last leg of their journey. They were back. They had all made it back. She breathed in again, almost giddy with relief.

We’re home. And everyone seemed to know it. Sano jostled roughly against Megumi and sidestepped when she turned to snap at him, initiating an impromptu chase that was less about irritation and more about the sheer energy of joy, a chase which roped in Yahiko too with fairly little effort. The tanuki laughed at their antics, stealing a quick glance toward Kenshin, by her side as he had been the entire week-long trip.

He was looking at her. Heat flushed through Kaoru’s body in nervous embarrassment, but there was joy in the midst of that too, twisty and complicated and inextricably caught up in the wolf at her side.

“I love you, Kenshin.” Her fainting confession came out strongly now, no chance of going unheard or being misunderstood.

Kenshin smiled. “This one had hoped that was not a dream.”

Kaoru rolled her eyes in mock-annoyance, “If you remembered you could have said something!” Okay, maybe not entirely mock-annoyance. But she was teasing. Mostly.

“This one fears he is not so brave as you, Miss Kaoru.” The she-wolf opened her mouth to instinctively protest this, “But this one does love you, Kaoru.”

Kaoru’s mouth snapped shut, her half-planned words fading away to nothing. Kenshin’s smile was not doing good things to her ability to form new ones either.

What eventually came out was a rather mangled word that might have been, “Good,” before she buried her face against Kenshin’s shoulder. His quiet chuckle vibrated through her, and his head dropped to rest on the back of hers. Somehow, Kaoru found the ability to pull away from the warm embrace, just moving enough that she could smile up into Kenshin’s face, because there was just one more thing left to say.

“Welcome home, Kenshin.”

The red wolf smiled, nuzzling her head with his. “This one was home the minute you found me again.”

Chapter Text

There’s something that I can’t quite explain
I'm so in love with you
You'll never take that away
And if I said a hundred times before
Expect a thousand more
You never take that away

-Calling You, Blue October

The sun was high, and summer was high, and Sanosuke Sagara had found the perfect shady place for a well-deserved nap. Dappled sun broke through the heavy foliage overhead in golden and green discs of light, playing gently over the reclining hybrid. The oak that sheltered him grew in a lazy bend of the river, a good distance from the crowded den. (Once, being so far out without someone around to point his nose toward home would have resulted in Sano becoming lost in distressingly short order—but now, as he was fond of saying, he knew even the expanded territory like the back of his paw. At which point the fox lady would promptly ask which of his hind paws was brown and which was white—which wasn’t fair, because clearly he had meant his front paws, and it really wasn’t fair that all of her paws matched perfectly.)

At least, the tree was a good distance from the new den. One late winter day Kaoru had stopped in her tracks on the way to the den under the hazel tree and declared that her life-long home was both too small and too close to town. As this was a massive turnaround for the she-wolf who had formerly verbally decapitated her pack-mates for even the suggestion that there was something wrong with the den Sano and Yahiko had been instantly suspicious of some sort of tricky female trap meant to get them into trouble.

Thank the stars for Kenshin—levelheaded and sweet-natured as ever, helping his mate track down a new location that met her exacting standards. (When Sano had asked Megumi if this was some weird female thing, the normally poised black fox had sat back on her haunches and howled with laughter.) Of course, shortly after that it had been apparent just why Kaoru was anxious to move, and suddenly Sano had charge of a twitchy ex-hitokiri, ex-Rurouni red wolf vibrating with nerves and unable to enact either of his usual strategies for dealing with stress (killing the problem or running away. For such a complicated guy Kenshin could be surprisingly simple at times.)

It had been two full seasons since then, but Sano would still argue that he deserved this nap. The drone of brightly colored dragonflies hovered closer, providing a counterpoint to his own deep, rhythmic breaths. He deserved this.

Yahiko wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve this. He couldn’t ever remember being this difficult when he was a puppy—but Kenshin and Kaoru had somehow produced… offspring was too kind, spawn, they had produced spawn, that, while seeming sweet and tractable around their parents, had all of Kaoru’s impulsive energy and Kenshin’s positive gift for figuring out how to do things that seemed impossible.

Eventually the young dog had little choice but to offer them a lesson in stalking in attempt to hold their attention for more than a few minutes. “Uncle” Sano could forgive him or not, at this point Yahiko didn’t care, annoyed that the older canine had dodged babysitting duty for a nap in the shade. Not fair, especially when Yahiko could have been showing Tsubame the tiny cache of delicate white and yellow blossoms hidden in the lee of several jagged boulders—even if they wound up not being useful to her as Megumi’s apprentice, they would have made the pretty young fox smile, just for him.

That, Yahiko thought darkly, eyeing Sano’s form through the dense underbrush, was what the lazy Beta had cost him. The Akita-mix pulled back his head to survey his troops—not standing in any sort of order whatsoever.

Kenji, his red fur bearing a striking resemblance to his father’s, was scuffling with dark-furred Kamen, his younger brother’s amber eyes burning with anger as the older puppy moved to pin him. Right on cue Kemuri, looking like an oddly tiny Kaoru, threw herself on Kenji to give Kamen a chance to regain his footing. Yahiko let his suspicious eye fall on the last two puppies, Hatsu, gray and white with  Rurouni-purple eyes wouldn’t be trouble on purpose, but his sister Kiri, mostly white with black socks and striking red markings was trouble at any time, for any reason. If Yahiko hadn’t known for a fact that she was Kenshin and Kaoru’s daughter he would have guessed her to be some long lost relative of Misao’s. Still, at least all five were accounted for, even if they were being ridiculously noisy for a stalking lesson.

“Quiet,” the babysitter hissed at the three still brawling, “you’re going to wake him up.”

Kiri got to her feet with a catlike stretch and an evil grin as she moved over toward her other siblings, “I thought that waking Uncle Sano up was the point,” her innocent tone did not at all match her words, and Yahiko shook his head despairingly. Kamen disentangled himself from Kenji and Kemuri to scowl at his sister.

“Not before we get to practice,” he growled, then shot Yahiko a look that was almost pleading, “We didn’t wake him up, did we?”

Kemuri stood, shaking herself to get her fur to lay more or less flat again, “Uncle Sano sleeps really deeply. Aunt Megumi is always yelling at him for it.”

Kenji had wound up on his back, white belly in the air, but he rolled over with casual good humor in is bright blue eyes. “I thought he was just ignoring her because he likes when she’s mad.”

“That’s because Sano is crazy,” Yahiko muttered under his breath, “Ok, let’s see if we can’t get into position…”

The dragonfly that had been investigation his nose lifted off and buzzed away lazily, the receding sound barely making Sano’s triangular ear twitch in acknowledgement—what garnered a stronger reaction was the sudden sharp bark of “NOW!” that immediately presaged four small furry bodies pounding into his own with surprising force for such small beings.

The former fighter-for-hire’s eyes flew open even as his breath gusted out in a sharp exhale at the impact. Turning to look, he found himself being swarmed by puppies, the offspring of his best friends squirming in excitement as they mock-attacked his larger form. And coming out of the bushes, chuckling evilly was the no-longer-little Yahiko, wholly unrepentant at spoiling a perfectly good summer’s nap.

“Ack! Murder! Assault! Robbery!” Sano yelped playfully, flailing feebly as if trying to shed the little bodies. Kemuri stopped where she had pinned down one of his huge front paws (they were both white, thank you very much Megumi), cocking her head to one side with curious gold eyes searching his own.

“What did we steal, Uncle Sano?”

Sanosuke nudged her gently with his nose, bowling her over with exaggerated care, “My beauty sleep kid, so it’s going to be all your fault if I end up looking as ugly as Yahiko here.” And suddenly he had a much larger body attempting to chew on his ears. Some things never did change.

“Yahiko, did we do it right?” Ah, at least Kamen was distracting the ear biter. It was mildly distressing that Yahiko had grown to be roughly Sano’s size, as he no longer had to leap to reach his favorite targets. Reluctantly it seemed Yahiko relented and turned to address his charges.

“You guys—”

“And girls!” Kiri piped up in mock indignation, her red tipped tail wagging and proving that she wasn’t really annoyed.

“And girls,” Yahiko corrected himself with a long-suffering sigh, “did great. Your mom and dad are going to be really impressed with all of you.”

Kiri grinned, displaying a few baby teeth alongside her single adult fang, giving the smile a crooked appearance. “I know who mom won’t be happy with,” the little troublemaker announce smugly. Yahiko felt his heart stop and begin a ponderous journey down toward his toes. There was Kiri, there was Kamen, half-draped over Sano’s “evil” marking, there was Kemuri, resting her head on the leg that she had formerly claimed, there was Kenji, looking at him askance as if he couldn’t believe that his adopted brother had let his baby sister do this to him again… and nowhere to be seen…

“Hatsu wandered off ages ago.”

Kenshin allowed his stride to lengthen just slightly, though he did not break into a true lope, it was simply too nice of a day to walk the territory, and he couldn’t deny the appeal of finishing his patrol early to reunite with his… family. The word still sent a shock of surprised wonder through him, though that paled in comparison to the heartrending joy of knowing that family included five little souls who looked up at him as if he had howled the moon into the sky, as if the blood of another wolf had never touched his crimson pelt. Of knowing there were five little souls who called him “Dad.”

He had never truly dreamed such a thing might be possible, not even with Tomoe who had at least given him hope that a future beyond the war might exist—it was Kaoru, his Miss Kaoru, who had grabbed him and dragged him into a future far brighter than his wounded soul had ever believed that he deserved… And yet it was the future she had wanted, a future with him, and Kenshin had long grown comfortable with the realization that he couldn’t deny her anything, not the smoke-hued wolf who had stolen his heart.

The crimson wolf glanced skyward, marking the sun’s position overhead. Kaoru ought to be done with her errand by now, delivering yet another lost dog back to the town it had come from—if he hurried, he would reach the den just as she arrived, would get to see her face soften all over again when she saw him, saw the children and knew that they were all home again and safe. Surely, cutting the patrol a little short would be worth it to see that again—it had been seasons since there had been any serious incursion on the pack’s expanded territory… but even as the former wanderer prepared to turn to home, his keen nose caught a familiar scent and drew him back out towards the border.

This time he didn’t hold back the lope, though there was no sign of a struggle or of any other scent at all. Hatsu again, the youngest puppy seemed to have inherited a full portion of the wanderlust spirit that had led Kenshin to claim the title of Rurouni. The gray puppy’s trail wound a path northwards, meandering around obstacles and onto side-trails where he had apparently been distracted by something in the wind or the grass.

Kenshin slowed back to a walk as his son came into view, sitting on a rocky overhang with an unobstructed view of the lands before him, the ground sloping downward in green velvet rolls of vibrant canopy before rising into foothills in the distance and the beginnings of rocky peaks with tiny pockets of snow held safe against the summer sun by virtue of their proximity to the heavens.

Hatsu sat perfectly straight, his tail lying flat behind him, tiny triangle ears perked toward the land beyond the boundary.

“You’ve come out quite a long way, that you have,” Kenshin called gently, as he approached, not wanting to startle the puppy. He needn’t have worried, Hatsu leapt to his feet and spun around to face his father with a wagging tail and a bright smile.

“Dad! Have you seen this view?”

“Yes, Hatsu, I have,” Kenshin smiled in return, “though this one has never seen you out here.”

 Hatsu hesitated, then squinted, scandalized at his father. “You said ‘this one’ again. Mom’s going to send you to bed without dinner.”

“Do you think so?” Kenshin claimed the seat next to his son, “Perhaps if we apologized…”

The puppy seemed to mouth the word apologize, looking confused, before abruptly looking around himself with fresh eyes. “I didn’t mean to wander off dad, it’s just, everyone was going to jump on Uncle Sano, and I was going to, but I saw this really cool red dragonfly and then…” the puppy trailed off helplessly, his ears lowering in dejection.

“Hmm, well, it did not end badly this time, but you know that you aren’t yet old enough to walk the territory alone, that you aren’t.” Kenshin reminded gently, Hatsu shuffled unhappily,

“I know, I just…” small purple eyes turned back out to the view wistfully. “What’s out there?” he half-whispered in plain longing. Kenshin felt his customary smile tugging at his muzzle.

“Well, if you walked and walked and walked into those low hills, you would find a sheep farm with several collies guarding the flocks and sleeping in the barn, and if you minded your manners, they might even invite you inside.

“If you passed there, you would find forests of evergreen and the way through the mountains. Beyond that…” the crimson wolf trailed off, only to be prompted by his son,

“Beyond that?”

Kenshin continued with a smile, “Beyond that lies the North lands, the home of snow and ice. Aoshi and Misao live up there.”

“When can I meet them?”

“Not just yet, it would be a long journey,” Kenshin shook his head ruefully.

“I can take long trips,” Hatsu insisted, “I can walk all day without getting tired!”

Kenshin eyed his young son, “I’m sure that’s true,” and it indeed, it was truer for Hatsu than the others, almost since he first began walking Hatsu had been wandering off to explore the territory, managing truly impressive distances before being found and returned to the den. “But I don’t know that your brothers and sisters would take the trip as well as you might, and surely you wouldn’t want to leave them behind.”

“No… I guess not,” the puppy sighed wistfully, “I just want to see.”

“See what?” Kenshin asked, faintly curious. Hatsu’s eyes drank in the distant scenery like cool clear water.

“Everything.”

“You are still very young, that you are. There will be time to see everything.” Kenshin promised with a soft smile, “For now, would you like to see your mother?”

The puppy yawned hugely before nodding agreement, his purple eyes growing heavy despite the assertion that he could walk all day. Carefully, Kenshin lifted his small offspring by the scruff and turned to make his way back home.

On reaching the den, Kenshin released his precious burden as Kiri ran up to them eagerly, telling all about how much trouble Yahiko had gotten into, and what great fun it had been to watch Mom chase their big brother around he clearing, forgetting her weekly promise to be a good example for her children and mind her temper.

Yahiko was sulking, ears flat against his head as he sat a little ways away from Kaoru—who was now berating a disgruntled-looking Sano.

“I thought you were going to help him watch them!”

Sano tried for an easy grin, “Aw, Missy, the kid seemed like he had it under control—”

“There are five puppies Sano!” Kaoru broke in hotly, “how many do you see here?”

“We’re home, that we are,” Kenshin called before Sano could scrape together an answer for the understandably upset mother. The look of pure gratitude that he Beta shot the crimson wolf’s way was lost on him as Kaoru turned and caught sight of them. Kenshin could see the tension easing off her taut frame, the relief that instantly swamped her.

“You found him,” it was a breath, a sigh more than words and Kenshin felt his expression shift to a reassuring smile on instinct.

“Yes,” he agreed, coming alongside the tanuki to give her a comforting brush with his muzzle, “and he’s fine.” Kenshin shot his son a prompting look, and Hatsu fumbled his way through extracting himself from the pile his siblings had made on him as soon as they realized he was back.

He looked up into Kaoru’s dark masked face earnestly, ears flattened slightly in remorse. “I’m sorry for going off alone, I didn’t mean to,” he apologized, shamefaced. Kenshin felt his mate sigh before lowering her head to nuzzle the small puppy gently,

“I’m sure you didn’t, but we worry when we can’t find you.”

“I know…” the answer was an unhappy whine more than words.

“The next time you want to go on a walk, tell one of us,” Kenshin suggested, “so an adult can go with you.”

The puppy sighed heavily, obviously not enthused at the idea of making his ramblings wait, but he ducked his head in a nod. “Okay.”

Perhaps sensing that the serious part of the discussion was over, the other four immediately set upon their sibling again, distracting him from the gloom of having gotten into trouble.

Kaoru sighed, burying her face into the white fur of Kenshin’s chest. “They told me they were sure that you were going to cross his path and they needed to get the others back to the den, but…”

Kenshin ducked his head to rest his muzzle on the back of her neck soothingly, “I know, it is still frightening, that it is.” And it was, for both of them, they loved their children so fiercely, so strongly, that it seemed if anything were to happen to them it would shatter the parents under the recoil.

“He was looking out north,” Kenshin continued, to ease away the black thoughts of what might have been, “I may have promised him a trip in the future to go meet Aoshi and Misao.”

Kaoru snorted in sudden laughter, stepping back to look at him with those brilliant sky blue eyes. “And Hiko?” her face crinkled in mirth, “I can’t wait to see you try to explain to him that you had children.”

Kenshin felt his own face contort into something that was not really amusement thinking of the often-pointed advice his old master had given regarding his barely-begun relationship with Kaoru the last time they had met—and suddenly he was quite grateful that the puppies were still too small to make the journey. The smug superiority of Hiko was enough to drive him mad even without dragging his personal life into it.

Still, those things, seeing Aoshi and Misao, trying to avoid Saito and watching his children ignore Hiko’s boundaries to climb all over him and call him Grandpa, all those things were in the future and for now it was quite enough to be home.