I saw him turn his head and run away as though he were leaving behind nothing important, and that did nothing more than fuel the anger that I had already began feeling towards him ever since he first started giving in to the temptations to turn completely into a wolf. And I couldn't stand that; I couldn't stand him.

My mother crying and sobbing as loud as I had ever heard as she reached out to him, begging and pleading for him to turn around and come crawling back into her open and warm embrace. I knew that he wouldn't though, I could tell from the solemn, uncaring look that he held on his face. I couldn't just let him go, could I?

It may have been his choice, a choice that my mother warned me that the two of us would have to make one day, but that didn't make things any easier. That didn't make me any less furious. That didn't make my mother's tears stop flowing. I knew that there was only one thing that could do all of those things, even if it meant that I would be taking Ame's decision from him and forcing him to comply with what my mother and I wanted.

"Ame, don't do this!"

By the time I managed to call out to him, he was already running through the backyard towards the forest that the two of us had at one time spent hours upon hours exploring. My mother stood from her groveling position and began running towards him, but I quickly grabbed her and pulled her back down to a sitting position. Her running after him would be a fruitless effort, a waste of her energy. There was only one person that could keep up with him and save him now, and that person was me.

I put all of my efforts forth and began running towards where I had watched Ame disappear, feeling myself mid stride start to adopt wolf like features and transform my limbs into much more mobile, dog like ones. I paid no mind to the clothes that flung carelessly off of me, instead allowing them to fall to the ground on the floor of the house for my mother to pick up. I may have felt disrespectful for doing this, but I'm sure that bringing Ame back would help me get over the extra chore that I had given my mother.

His scent was still strong as I began running through the forest, leaping from rock to rock and patch of grass to patch of grass in an attempt to keep myself from getting covered in the mud that infested the forest floor. I thought that I might have been able to keep myself relatively clean, but I quickly came to my senses and realized that my personal hygiene was the least of my worries right now.

I burst through a single bush that sat on the edge of a large field, almost as if it were acting as a border between the calmness and serenity of the field and the stressful randomness of the forest. It was there that I captured another glance of Ame as he sprinted as quickly as he could across the field, obviously trying to get away from me. And that fact hurt me more than anyone could ever imagine. We may have always had our differences and fought just as most siblings did, but that was no explanation for the hate and lack of caring towards me that his purposefully running away implied.

"Ame! Why?!"

I cried out these words with as loudly as a possibly could, though my voice began to shake half way through. Tears had started rolling down my face, and all I could do was close my eyes tightly in an attempt to stop them from flowing so easily. I may have not been able to see him, but I could tell from the fact that his scent did not get any weaker that he had stopped running. After a few moments, I was able to force my eyes open again; and upon doing so, I was met with the image of Ame facing me with an intense look plastered on his face and a scowl pursing his lips.

"You and mom never understood me, there was no way you could have!" He cried this out frustratedly, taking a step in my direction as a means to emphasize his point, "We are both half wolves, Yuki, so why was I the only one that felt this way?!"

In any other circumstance I would have said at least something in response to what he was saying, but at the moment I was overwhelmed not just by my own emotions, but by the ones that Ame threw towards me. I could only stand there, not moving an inch as he continued his verbal assault.

"I was always the weird one, everyone liked you!" He continued on, and it didn't look like he would be stopping any time soon, "you got along with both humans and animals, and I'm the weird one that could only get along with a goddamn fox! How come you're so special?!"

He looked down at the forest floor to hide his face from me, though I could tell from his wavering voice and uncontrollable vibrating that he had started crying as well.

And so we both stood in the center of the field about twenty paces away from each other, no longer bothered by the cool drops of rain that covered our bodies and drenched our fur. I could have ran towards him and reached him before he had the opportunity to run away, but I knew that he could have done the same. And so we both simply stood there, overwhelmed by the emotions that weighed down our entire beings. I was the first to speak up.

"I'm... sorry..."

It wasn't much, but it was enough to get my point across and break the silence that had surrounded the two of us.

Ame lifted his head and looked at me with his powerful eyes, still drenched in both his tears and the rainfall. But as the seconds passed and he refused to break the eye contact that we both had acquired, the look on his face began transforming into one of pure anger and hatred. An anger and hatred much worse than what it had been any time before.

He hurled himself towards me with a single loud cry that seemed to shake the entire forest itself. He threw me down onto the dirt below and got on top of me, straddling me in between his legs. As he sat there, he began transforming back into a human from his wolf form. I did the same.

"Your sorry means nothing to me! Your sorry won't make mom love me as much as she loves you! Your sorry won't give me all the friends that you have!"

He spat these words in my face with intense force, bringing his face just a few centimeters on top of mine. I still didn't know what to say, and that fact seemed to make Ame even more furious.

"Your sorry won't bring my Sensei back!"

He brought his fist back and threw it at my face without a second's pause, causing a huge pain to erupt on the top of my head. I cried out in pain, but that only seemed to encourage him to lift his fist upwards against and slam it down onto my face a second time. Then he did it again, and again. And again. And again.

I was crying out desperately and pitifully, begging him to let me go so that I could be free from the unimaginable pain that he was showing me, but nothing helped. He kept coming, and my words seemed to only make him hit harder. It wasn't until it became much too painful for me to cry out again that he finally stopped. He looked down on me as he breathed hard, the punches he sent towards me having taken the breath out of him.

He stood up and left me on the ground, knowing that he had left me too weak to stand up onto my own two feet, much less fight back against him. He didn't say another word to me, instead turning back into a wolf and walking away in the direction of the mountains the two of us had at one time spent so much time on as children.

I looked up at the clouds above me not only because I was much too tired to move my neck and look somewhere else, but because the clouds were beginning to clear way for the sun to shine down once again; and that was something I could only describe as speechless and beautiful, if not only because the heat from the sun made the stinging of my bruises lighten.

The tears had been dried up and all of my feelings were numbed as the time continued to pass. The man that had just left after mercilessly beating me was no longer my brother, but instead just another animal that roamed around the forest looking to satisfy only himself. I knew I wasn't like that, and I knew that there was no way someone related to me could be like that.

It felt like I had been laying there for hours before my mother finally found where I was and carried me home. I'm sure she was still distraught about the whole situation, but I was much too tired to notice.

She took me to the house and laid me down on my fouton before going back out to search for Ame again. I wished that she wouldn't find him.

X

If this gets four or five reviews I'll continue it, otherwise I'll leave this as a one shot for you all to enjoy.P