We Were Wolves

-Chapter 1: No Man's Paradise-

By: Sara Angeldust

Disclaimer:

All characters pertaining the anime/manga Wolf's Rain are property of their creators. I am purely using them for fictional situations and do not claim them as my own.

Spoiler Warning:

If you haven't seen the end of this series, then you don't want to read this fic.

Summary:

Is this truly Paradise? After their first search for the place Kiba said would find them happiness, the wolves are now living in a world where they don't remember they were wolves. They're just humans trying to survive the harsh reality before them.

Blue, an assassin and informant for a street gang, can't help but feel something is missing in her life. When she meets Hige, the bumbling klutz and womanizer of her worst nightmares, memories of love, of hate, of struggle and a journey that she can't recall begin to haunt her dreams, and threaten to shatter the only life she's ever believed in.

Can the wolves find each other again in a world that threatens to destroy their lives? Or will events from the past repeat themselves when old enemies return and new struggles begin? Besides, if this isn't Paradise, then what is?

The Dream

What is Paradise anyway? I'd never questioned the thought, never believed a word of the silly drabblings that had rippled through our group for many years. I used to believe it was just a dumb story told to children in order to teach them how to dream. That's what I believed, until he came; until he spoke words that opened doors in me that had been shut and locked since as far back as I could remember. Yet I could still hear the infinite whisper deep in my soul. Paradise, it teased. It was a word that I had never thought of before; a word lost to me. So then, if I don't believe, then why do I consider leaving everything I've ever known for a bumbling, joking young man with red-brown eyes that pierce me so? Why do I believe in a flash of memory that I can't even make sense out of over a world that has taught me what reality is? But I keep seeing that whisper beyond his eyes, I hear it in his voice when he speaks to me half jokingly. It's telling me something, it's making things move in me.

"…paradise..." it whispers.

Yet it all seems like a dream that I can scarcely remember….

The Life

I couldn't smell anything as my feet beat the steady rhythm in my head, my nose cold and dry; the black hair of my bangs falling into my face. I couldn't see anything either, but not because of my hair. There was a film before my watering bright blue eyes as I tried to run down the dark hallways of the abandoned apartment building, my breathing heavy, every muscle aching. I could hear the man I was chasing in his vain attempt to find a place to hide, his slamming of doors and heaving breathes keeping me on his path. Even though my eyes had long been accustomed to seeing in darkness much deeper than the peeling, decrepit walls, all I could see before me were the blurry edges of peeling paint and cloudy shadows that I knew were door entrances. I cursed the man I was chasing for inhibiting me, my breath catching in the air as I stopped, gun posed, to check the rooms near the silence of his movement. It was like a deadly dance. He'd stop moving and I would check the rooms around me for any sign of him, using my dulled senses to peak around corners and shoot off a round to scare him into moving again. Then he'd get listless and I'd follow his deep, frightened breathing to another hall, another section of rooms; stopping, waiting, gun shots, running. It was a waltz I was slowly getting tired of and I cursed him again under my breath.

I hated him already for fighting dirty and surprising me on the first floor with some sort of grenade that had spouted a cloud of foul smelling gas. The cloud had stopped me for a second, dulling my senses to the point of having to go by touch and my hearing alone as I stumbled after him. Since then my eyes had almost stopped watering, but my ability to smell, one that I had always relied heavily on , was gone. The over-bearing scent of sulfur and something else I couldn't place making me choke, my vision still blurry beyond the drying tears.

It seemed like so much effort for a man who wasn't even worth the time I was putting into his capture. If I'd had it my way I wouldn't have even been in the situation, but it had been an order from the top, even higher than the man I took orders from. "Find him." They told me. " Find him and bring him back. Don't kill him if you can, but bring him back."

So that 's what I was doing, hunting down another stray something or other for a man I didn't even know. And for what reason? For what ultimate purpose? Humph, ultimate purpose, such a silly question. It was simple; this was the only thing I knew to do, the only thing I had ever known to do. To hunt, to capture, to kill; if the occasion so called for it. It was a cycle I was comfortable with, one I had come to allow to become the normalcy in a life that was far from normal. Yet, beyond that, it was something that felt right for me, even with half my senses dulled. I felt invigorated being put up to the challenge of using my other senses to find a man in a world full of things to lose one's senses in. I felt….alive.

His foot steps finally began to ring louder in my hollowed ears, and I could hear cursing and the slamming of doors as he tried to find an exit, a futile attempt within these damp and rotting walls. As I slowed my pace and found a door to hide behind. I knew from experience that none of the rooms in this area had more than one exit and entrance, and he was too far from any of the flights of stairs. To be truthful, he'd back himself into a corner; there was no way out of this area without going back the way he'd come, and now that was through me.

Slowly but surely I could feel myself getting closer to him, his breathing, his fear, louder then ever in my ears. I could have held my excitement back, but the adrenaline was serving to keep me awake, finally keeping the effects of the gas at bay. Finally he stopped moving and I slid slowly across the wall towards the door he'd entered last. My breathe was low, far too low for him to hear so when I turned flipped around the door frame, my gun poised he couldn't have heard me.

A shot rang out and my finger was still on the trigger. I felt the hit as if someone had shoved me hard, the pain only registering after my anger. I could see the fear in the man's eyes as I rushed toward him, so caught up in my anger that I didn't even shoot him, just smacked him hard with the butt of my gun, a blow that crushed his clavicle. I had been like a flash of lightening, so fast to get from the doorway to the back of the abandoned apartment where he'd shot from that the man was completely caught off guard, so much that he didn't cry out until I was right above him.

"Please! Don't kill me!" He pleaded as he huddled on the floor, crawling into a ball from the pain and fear. If he'd been any less of a man I was sure he'd have wet himself.

I stared at him with cold eyes, not realizing I was breathing so heavily until I found that the sound was my own and not his. I calmed myself as I checked the wound on my shoulder, just a graze. I wiped some of the blood away as I put my gun back to the holster at my thigh, knowing I wouldn't need it anymore; this job was done.

"I'm not going to kill you." I sad monotone, the blood slowing in my veins, the man still astonished and not fully registering what I'd said. I hadn't moved that fast in so long that it had almost shocked me as well. Then again, I wasn't really so normal of a human.

"I'm taking you back."

This strict fear in his eyes, caused him to forget his pain for a second as he crawled and stagger, trying to get away from me. But I was faster and grabbed his wrists before he could move too far, pulling them behind his back, mindful of his crushed left collar bone.

"Don't, don't take me back there!" I ignored his pleas as I dragged him to the door frame, less concerned with how easily I could move him and more of getting him back down those 3 flights of stairs without much fuss.

"Don't do it, I'll tell you what I know! I'm sure you want the information, you can sell it!"

I wasn't interested, so I ignored him. He wasn't the first to try and sell what he knew for his life and he probably wouldn't be the last, I just had no interest in what he offered. My job was always simple; find the target and either bring it back or kill it, the in-between was the fun part, listening to them jabber was not.

"Paradise!" I paused for a split second at the 2nd floor, giving him a quick look then forgetting what he'd said.

"See, see you do want to know! I know how to get to Paradise, I know you've heard of it, come on I…"

I pulled my gun faster then he'd taken the time to register the fact. I didn't know what'd come over me, but that word had struck something within me and it made me want to kill him.

"Listen good, I don't have any interest in what you're trying to sell."

I could taste my own anger in the air. He gulped as he stared at the gun pressed against his forehead, I was still rather struck by this man, he was holding back more pain and fear then I imagined someone like him could.

"It's what they're looking for." He stared slowly, his eyes watching the gun, cautious with how he handled this pissed off woman with a pistol pointed at his head.

"Why would I care?" I spat, just wishing he'd stop talking before I decided to kill him and say it was an accident.

"Don't you want to know?" He said with curious eyes. "Don't you want to get out of this hell hole and live some place where you don't have to point a gun at someone's head to survive?"

My eyes bulged and my temper flared. How dare he strike that nerve, how dare he talk to me like he knew me. I'd had it and cracked him one over the head, deciding it would cause me much less stress if I carried the bastard back instead of dragging his sorry ass down those two more flights.

"No." I said to myself, putting my gun away again and hefting him over my shoulder like a sack of charcoal.

"This place, this life, it might be Hell, but it's reality."

There's no such thing as Paradise.

The Beginning

I didn't mind living with the people in the gang, didn't mind that we were really only puppets in some business man's little production. I didn't even mind that I lived like a convict with a list of charges so long that any judge would have loved to track me down. Those things I didn't mind, but what I did mind was when people entered the gang and I didn't know about it. Especially when Brasco picked a new informant. Sneaky little bastards they were, and often inexperienced. Some kid or other he'd pick off the streets, often looking for a way of getting quick cash for drugs or something worse. They never survived either, they usually bit it in a few weeks time and they were all annoying, all kids. It was enough to give me a headache.

I'd just dropped off the noisy man, taking him to some office building in the city where Brasco'd been waiting. Brasco and some man in a nice suit, shiny and clean, who looked at me with a hunger I'd seen many a time on the men who frequented the prostitute filled streets in the area. I didn't even bother him a death glare, he didn't warrant it.

I left the men to their devices as I stood in darkness in the hall, finally hearing feet scrape and a door knob turn.

"He said he'd forego the hospital charges if you'd be so kind as to accompany him for the night." Brasco said as he came out of the room, adjusting his nicely pressed jacket and tie, pulling out a cigarette, lighter filling the corridor for an instant before it became a red dot in the darkness. I was leaning against the opposite wall, waiting for him to finish the talk he'd wanted in private with the man in the nice suit. I snorted at him. Not even the gang leader could make me do something so low. We'd come to an agreement the day I'd joined, the same day Brasco'd almost lost an eye when he'd tried that testosterone driven stunt on me. We had an agreement; he didn't touch me, I did what he wanted.

"Don't flatter yourself, I'm not one of your whores. Send one of them to him if he wants to strike even so badly."

Brasco chuckled, his dark blonde hair bouncing for a second before he scratched the short facial hair he'd collected on his chin. The man wasn't bad looking, and in his mid thirties, still young for his line of work. He was a lawyer by honest trade, but it was always obvious to me that he was a devious man, despite his good looks and formal education. He was quite knowledable in the way his handsome face and charm could get him almost anything he wanted. He was the perfect specimen to be a gang leader. Calm, cool, collected and intelligent to a fault. He wasn't really that disgusting for a man who was feared most in the city besides the business men and politicians he worked for. I could almost say I was friends with him, but I knew better then to trust such a man with my life. He'd given me an apartment, kept me with enough money to live by, and in turn I was his assassin, his go getter, a lap dog with honor, if there was such a thing. Had things been different maybe, just maybe we'd have been something more, but those types of thoughts were the ones that could get one killed, and I never let them infiltrate my head.

"One step ahead of you sweets."

I cringed as we left the building and crossed the darkened street, Brasco's car parked across the street and a block down from the building we'd exited. I caught a name printed on the side in bright letters, thought I'd recognized it, then let the thought fall away.

Prostitution. There was something I would never see myself doing, being a whore for any man who wanted me. Those women were the lowest of the low to me, nothing more then walking dead, clinging to any bit of light they might have found themselves entangled in. Yet they were Brasco's second biggest money maker, only slightly less profitable then his intelligence gathering services, of which I'd joined and made flourish. Businessmen paid big for someone who could keep their beds warm at night, right up there with someone who could get rid of a problem in secrecy and quiet, or bring them back something they lost. And I was good at the later, really good.

As we pulled onto the dead road and struck our way out across the highway, the words the man had said to me played again and again in my head.

Paradise. Why couldn't I get the words out of my head?

Brasco was talking to me now, but I didn't have the mind to listen to him. The street lights flew by my eyes and I just kept repeating what he'd said over and over, an endless tape that I couldn't stop. I thought it had just been the adrenaline that'd caused it to touch something within me, but even now, when the high had become complacent, the word kept repeating. Why….

"Hey." We'd stopped a red light, I hadn't even noticed we'd gotten off the highway, I grasped for my senses as they came slamming back to me, everything crisp and harsh again.

"Did that guy do something to you? You seem a little out of it."

I shook my head, rubbing a temple and then feeling for my wound again. The bleeding had stopped long ago.

"A sensory grenade. I guess the gas is still effecting me." It was a lie, sort of. But I didn't want Brasco on my ass about why I'd blanked out, it wasn't something he needed to know.

He gave me a quick glance before the light turned green and we continued on our way back to the south side of the city, to familiar grounds.

"Well then get some sleep and come rested tomorrow, I'll have the new guy there for you by 6pm."

I flicked my head to stare at him. "New guy?"

Brasco shot me a look. "Yeah, that's what I was just talking about. Man, you're gunna lose it if you keep letting those things get to you. Are you sure you're feeling alright?"

I was rather pissed now that he'd shot a flare at my pride, but shook his words away.

"I already said I'm fine, just tell me again."

Brasco sighed, another red light.

"I've got a new informant coming in tomorrow. I think he's the same age as you, but he's still inexperienced. I want you to set him up in his apartment and drag him along with you to a few house calls. He might be young, but he's hardy and I want him to start tagging on your sources."

I wanted to smack the man so badly right then, but I grasped the leather seats instead. I didn't want to bother driving myself home, it was nice to have someone else do it for you sometimes.

"Damn it Brasco, I don't need a dog." I spat, trying to cover up the pout I wanted to extend his way.

But Brasco caught it, a smile catching the corner of his mouth as he stared ahead at the darkened streets, I recognized our surroundings as we got closer to the apartment building.

"He just needs a little bit of training Blue, this won't be a permanent thing. Besides, you're the only one I trust to do the job right without corrupting him. I've got enough shit to deal with in my own gang without having to worry if a new kid's gunna try and bring me down someday."

I snorted, he was right though. I myself had dealt with a bunch of up starts who had tried to bring Brasco down from his high horse months or so back; ones he was still cleaning up after. It wasn't out of any sort of loyalty to him, but I didn't want to see the life I had given so much to gain, lost. It was for my protection and not his and no matter how much he thought he had control over me, deep down he knew he didn't, and was always careful with me.

I sighed, my signal that I was giving in, as I usually did. There was nothing left for me to protest in that situation, it was a request, and a doable one at that, albeit not so fun. It didn't take much to train new informants, mostly it was a matter of introducing them to the right people at the right time, they'd usually take it from there, and most of them did a good job; the bad ones died.

"Ugh, fine. But I'm not a babysitter. He gets ones chance to screw up then he's on his own."

Brasco nodded as we finally turned onto a street that I knew, the one in front of my apartment building. It was a seven blocks or so from the office building that Brasco's façade Lawyer company owned, close enough that I was reachable, but far enough away that I almost felt like I was on my own. Yet even that was a façade, he even owned the apartment building this far out, but not many knew that fact.

I opened the car door and got out, looking around as per usual, I couldn't be too careful, even in that area. I stood with my hand on the top of his car, bending down to peak back inside.

"You know, you're going to shoot yourself in the foot with these young guys one day Brasco, they die way too easily."

I heard him chuckle again, throwing the butt of his third cigarette out the opposite window as he stretched his fingers across the steering wheel.

"As well it should be, it keeps the loop fresh."

I humphed as I closed the door in front of me, Brasco taking it as his cue to pull forward and down the street as I began to search for my key in my jacket pocket. Everything rushed through my head for a split second as I felt my body recognize where I was. I told it to quiet down as I walked the flights of stairs to my apartment and shut the door behind me, just wishing I could get a shower and go to bed. The red lights on the clock in my small kitchen read 3:46am. I sighed as I threw my torn jacket on the counter. Late nights were going to kill me.

The Darkness

The room was dark, and not just the kind of dark that night brings, but deliberate darkness. A darkness that would draw the will to live out of the souls of anyone it touched, darkness that was created, not birthed. Someone breathed heavily in the dark, a man bound to a chair that didn't move, his arms and broken collar bone aching as the ropes dug harsh lines into his skin. A slight trickle of blood from a wound on his forehead slid blood down his cheek, giving him the impression of a man who had been through much that night.

Suddenly a break in the darkness caused the man to look up, the bright light from the door he faced opening to reveal another man, taller, less ravaged than he. His pulse quickened slightly at the familiarity of this man with dark hair and a lab coat, hazel eyes hidden behind glasses that saw the world with contempt.

"Ah, there you are Forrester." The man spoke, walking with strict stature towards the bound man in the chair to fumble for a chain to a light. He pulled it and the lone bulb clicked on, revealing the room to be a small abandoned janitorial closet, dirty from neglect, the rusty shelves the only proof it had ever been used.

The man with glasses patted his familiar friend on the head, a gesture meant to be demeaning rather then friendly.

"I see they brought you back, fantastic. Perhaps you can help us finish what we.."

"I saw one."

The man with the lab coat stopped, giving Forrester a look that could have killed had he been looking. He'd had a speech all planned out and ready, and he'd interrupted him.

"You what?" His words bit hard, more because of the interruption then from Forrester's reply.

"I saw an ookami, a wolf."

Now the bound man's words were hitting him as the man in the coat kneeled down to stare at his helpless friend.

"You've always embellished your words Forrester.."

The man bound to the chair pleaded now.

"I'm not lying, how could I?"

The man in the coat sighed, taking a knife from the pocket of his jacket as he turned to the back of the chair to undo the ropes that held Forrester there.

"Where was it?"

Forrester fell helplessly to the ground, the man in the lab coat only reaching down to help him up as if he were a piece of trash he'd dropped by accident. As Forrester struggled to stand, the man began to help him from the room, trying not to get the blood on his nice white coat.

"The one who hunted me down, she wasn't normal, not at all. I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on her."

Forrester's words were choked with pain, but the other man made no recognition of this, he just carried him from the room, his eyes betraying the glee in his thoughts.

"Well shit Forrester, could you give us a harder target?"

Forrester cringed, but not at the mans words. He was squeezing him like a bag of potatoes, completely careless of his wounds. He tried to calm his aching body.

"This means we can't use the gang to get her."

The other man snorted. "No Forrester, no we can't."

End of Chapter One. I hope it wasn't too long for any of you. I tried to keep it interesting, put a little twist at the end to leave you with a "Huh?". If anyone has any comments on the length, let me know. But I warn you now if I shorten it any the entire story is going to get really long.

Comments and criticism are always welcome. Keep the flames to a minimum, I don't respond to them.

I finished this chapter pretty quickly, so the next one shouldn't take too long. I think I got my fan fiction muse back!

-Sara