By Shiny
Chapter 1 – Tropics
He always considered himself a loner. A stray wolf, if you will. He was still wild, like a wolf, and stray from the Mibu. That was until he met him, Onime no Kyo, the thousand-slayer. Then, he joined the Shiseiten, Four Emperors, and went off with them. He liked his times in the Shiseiten, he had come to realise.
The pointless killing, the late drunken nights, the pointless killing, singeing Akira's clothes when he's sleeping, drunken rampages and, of course, the killing. He felt a void when the group disbanded, but didn't come to realise it until lately.
He was travelling again with Kyo, and the rest of his new group. He still though he was a loner, even though in a group, but he was no longer a stray. He belonged here, with Kyo and Bon and Akira. He belonged fighting back to back with these men. He wasn't a lone wolf anymore.
He was more of a stray dog
"DAMMIT TORA!"
After that feminine scream came a sound that sounded oddly like the Tiger's skull being hit with the butt of a gun. The Inn staff paused, and strongly considered going to check on the noise, but that would involve talking to one customer in particular. And they would, personally, rather hack off their own fingers with a chopstick than converse with Demon Eyes Kyo.
The door to a room slammed open, and Shiina Yuya stormed in, dragged the mangled body of Benitora. Her face was flushed and beads of water still stuck to her skin and trickled over her white yukata. She threw the corpse into the middle of the room, where a circle of men sat.
Bontenmaru cocked an eyebrow, Akira sighed and shook his head, Kyo spared a glance from his saké and Hotaru looked out the window.
"Will he ever learn?" Akira mused aloud
"Apparently not," Bon answered, lighting his pipe.
"Yuya-han," Tora mumbled from his mangled state. Yuya came so close to smacking him again, but took pity on the Tiger. The Tiger slowly sat, rubbing his head.
"Ow", he muttered.
"You finished in there, dog face?" Kyo asked her so charmingly.
Yuya glared at him. "Yes, your asshole-ness," she commented. Kyo narrowed his eyes at her for a moment before leaving to take a bath. Of course, he took his saké with him.
It was quiet for a good few minutes. Akira slowly sipped his hot tea, Bontenmaru smoked his pipe, Yuya calmed down, Tora nursed his wounds and Hotaru stared out the window… still.
Sometime Yuya couldn't help but wonder if Hotaru's mind was even in the room, let alone the country. She mused upon the possible places his mind could be, stopping on some place warm. Like the tropics.
She got a visual of the Shiseiten fire-bender standing knee deep in water on a sandy beach, surrounded by people. She could imagine him… oddly enough, burning someone's face off and snickering like a madman.
Yuya snapped into reality when she heard that same snickering coming from the fire-bender. She saw that Akira, Bon and even Tora had stopped their actions to look at the orange-haired man.
"Heh, Asshole-ness," he snickered.
My god, his mind really was in the tropics!?