A/N

I'm not gonna keep you guys long because I'm so excited for all of you to get to reading this story, but I have so many ideas just waiting. But, just as a warning, this story is a little dark in the ways of plotline, but I'll make up for it with gayness and fluff, I promise!

(Also I took inspiration from Maximum Ride for this :3)

So, without further ado...

Enjoy the chapter ^^

Peace out, my lovely peeps!XxX

YUU'S P.O.V

"You're falling behind, Hyakuya. If you don't get your shit together, you know Guren's gonna dump your ass fast and hard," Kimizuki's grinding voice sniggers from behind me as the two of us trail our way through this godforsaken forest, my eyes and fingers constantly probing any of the traps I've set for any sign of a decent catch. But, right now, the only thing I've managed to land are a bunch of fluffy woodland animals, like our clients would want something so simple.

They want rarity. They want different. They want hybrids. And, as of late, my luck's been falling painfully short. "What can I say? It's a dog eat dog world, especially as a tamer. You don't produce, you don't turn in profit, you lose your job, you end up homeless. That's the way of the world, Hyakuya. But I don't think you grasp that concept, do you?" He adds, my hands curling into furious fists, which are just begging to implant themselves into that smug fucking face of his after I assess yet another one of my empty traps. But I don't hit him because I know he's right.

I'm losing my edge. Sure, I'm a good tamer when I actually have a hybrid to tame, but hunting isn't so much my thing. Especially when I constantly have the brass breathing down my neck, gasping for their newest source of income. Rich bastards will pay more than you could even imagine just to look at a hybrid, let alone own them. It's just getting your hands on one. "How long has it been since your last mutt? I'm thinking around two months? I don't know why Guren keeps you around," Kimizuki sighs, my teeth gritting together to showcase my anger, though I do everything in my power to keep my head and press my lips to a firm close.

To be fair, I don't know myself. Guren's all about the money. Always has been in this business. He doesn't care what method we use to tame the hybrids, only that we meet the deadline for doing so. If we're late, the hybrid is considered untameable and have their necks snapped then and there. If we're early, we get a larger fraction of the already tiny income we receive with each successful auction. It's not the most moral thing in the world, but it's money.

"I'll tell you why he keeps him around, Kimizuki," a feminine voice calls from the treetops, Shinoa daintily landing beside us after she so fearlessly and effortlessly flings her body from said branch, her lilac hair tangling around her shoulders as she stands upright again. "Because, unlike you, he treats the mutts like people, not circus animals," she points out, though I can't help but hate her for using the term 'mutt', an abbreviation of the word 'mutant'. Meaning mistake. But she's telling the truth; just because we're all tamers under Guren's watch, we all have different methods of training up whatever hybrid we manage to get our hands on. As for Kimizuki, well, his strategies make me physically sick. The one he's currently bullying, being a tawny-owl/kitsune boy named Yoichi, is only now realising the brutality of his ways, yet he's far too timid and terrified to oppose him. After all, it's not like he'd dare to try and take the shock collar off.

"Look, my methods work quick. If it works, it's moral to me. Besides, it's not like I beat them and break their bones like I used to. Customers got way too tetchy about that," he grumbles to himself as though physical abuse was once the highlight of his day, though, now that it's been taken away, he has nothing but a little bit of electricity to toy with. "You two can't deny that a shock collar's ingenious. Hell, it doesn't even leave a mark!" He breathes, the overwhelming hatred I feel for him gradually beginning to boil over. How the hell can he say that with such honesty to his tone. He likes hurting hybrids. He likes seeing them in pain. All because, according to him, they're not human, despite 96% of their genetic code screaming otherwise. Shaking my head in shame, I inspect another trap, Shinoa seemingly pissed off as well, though I know for a fact that she can't talk. She uses those damned things too; I saw one on Mitsuba the other day.

"A squirt bottle filled with water's always worked for me," I growl in a monotone voice, shooting a glare at Kimizuki as he turns his head away, cheeks tinted red with embarrassment within the space of just a few seconds. He hates it when I do that. When I prove to him that humane methods still work just as well and still result in meeting the deadline supplied to us. All because he loves to think he's right in treating the hybrids like scum. Like inferiors. I guess he forgets that, before everything went tits up, they were meant to be the dominant race.

They were meant to hunt us. But people choose to disregard that because they want to feel safe. They want to sleep at night knowing they're still the top of the food chain, even though they don't have a single thing to fear. Ever since the hybrids escaped from the lab in which they were tested on around 100 years ago now, they were instantly hunted in the packs they formed, all of the ones that held the more dominant genes standing their ground whilst the more submissive, fearful ones fled, leaving their leaders to die tragic deaths that brought any hope of the hybrids conquering humans to a screeching halt.

Now, hybrids are the playthings of the rich. They're a means of profit for people like me. People who have nothing else. All because, through breeding, the submissive gene was the only one to be passed on. Dominance was wiped out, leaving them as nothing but prey for the capturing. I can't help but pity them. They were bred in the beginning to claim their place at the top of the food chain. There was an opportunity for them to excel beyond humanity. And they were never given the chance to take it.

"Yeah, well you're a mutt-loving sap, that's why it works for you. Because you're too scared to grow a pair and realise that pain and fear is a much quicker method than kindness and care. It's like you don't want the extra cash." That's it. I can't take this asshole's crap any more. With a hand gripped into a viciously shaking fist, I throw it directly towards Kimizuki's nose, though Shinoa's clasps my forearm when I'm mere inches away from contact. Whipping my gaze in her direction, I meet the lethal venom of her magenta irises, flinching a little out of intimidation.

"You two need to get over yourselves and start acting like fucking adults! Yuu treats his hyrbids like people and you treat yours like animals. That's just how it is. So suck it up and accept that different styles suit different people!" She snaps, Kimizuki and I exchanging wary looks with one another before complying, my arm relaxing a little as a signal for her to let go, which she does with a gradual movement, just in case I'm duping her.

"So how many more of your useless traps are there to check through? I don't know how you've ever managed to catch a single hybrid with your crappy snares and drugged darts," Kimizuki snarls under his breath, a steady exhale that's filled with my pent-up fury being expelled from my nose in a drawn-out sigh, my teeth gritting together all over again.

"I'm sorry that I don't use bear traps and wired nets!" I retort with a snap to my tone, though it earns me a warning glower from Shinoa, who I turn away from just so I don't have to face the uncomfortable feeling I get whenever she stares at me in such a way. It feels like she's gonna strap a shock collar onto me at times. And I wouldn't be surprised if she did; if anything pisses her off more than the hybrid she's currently training, who's as close to a dominant as these remaining hybrids can possibly get, it's Kimizuki and I bickering with one another over and over again every single day of the week. It's not my fault the guy's a massive dickwad.

"Maybe you should. That way, you might actually earn a scrap of cash," he hisses, though my ears are more in tuned to the rusty jangling sound that echoes through the trees, which silently creak in the delicate breeze trailing between their vast trunks. It sounds like a cowbell, something that I always attach to my snares just in case something like this happens. Instantly, I turn my eyes in Shinoa's direction, a flicker of hope slicing through me before I take off in pursuit of the noise that's getting more and more frantic the closer I get to it, my heart roughly hammering against my chest. It could be nothing. It could just be a deer or something like that. But maybe, just maybe, I've gotten lucky.

Which is why, as soon as I'm sure I'm on the border of the clearing from which that noise is emanating, I come to a sudden halt, Shinoa and Kimizuki instantly following suit, clearly curious to seek out what I've captured. And, though I'm certain it's most likely nature teasing me into thinking I've acquired something much better than what actually lies within the snare, it still doesn't stop me from poking my gaze through the collection of leaves clustering around the edges of the small area before me.

When I do, a sharp gasp suddenly hitches in my throat, my eyes having to blink at least fifty times in the space of half a minute just to prove that what I'm seeing is the real deal, not just an illusion constructed by my desperate mind. "Holy fuck, Hyakuya. You've gotta be fucking kidding me. How the hell is that even possible?!" Kimizuki whispers, clearly not wanting to mess this moment up for any of us. After all, there's probably around a one in a million chance of ever coming across an Angelus Lupus.

Yet there he stands, desperately tugging away at the snare that just releases more and more clattering sounds the more he pulls on it, his wings beating in a desperation to free himself, though the force will only increase the grip that the rope has around his ankle, encircling it in a binding ring. As he does, the pure-white feathers grace his exposed skin, bearing a porcelain quality which accentuates the huge, sapphire orbs that are widened in his blind panic, tickled by the strands of his platinum, almost golden, hair, from which two distinct wolf-like ears stand on high alert. Finally, with his efforts, that insanely bushy, blonde tail of his flicks around in his frustration, a frightened whine leaking from his throat.

This is incredible. No, this is beyond incredible. Nobody knows the last time a hybrid with a genetic splice as rare as this was encountered, this one bearing the DNA of both a dove and a wolf, creating the mythical Angelus Lupus. Or Winged Wolf, if you wanna be basic about it. It takes Shinoa harshly shaking my shoulder to snap me out of my daze, her hand pressing a pair of clippers into my palm so that the sunlight filtering through the canopy overhead catches on the silver, making them glint.

"Go clip him whilst we call Guren for a cage. You're gonna be so damn rich, Yuu, holy crap," she breathes, her and Kimizuki barely able to break their eyes away from the hybrid before us in order to radio ahead to Guren, though they eventually manage to part their gazes so that I can approach this hybrid without him putting up much of a struggle. The last thing I want to do is harm him too much, and not just because scars don't look all that appealing to customers. Like Shinoa stated earlier, I treat hybrids as human. Well, as much so as I'm able.

Gripping the clippers in my right palm, which is sweating from the sheer anticipation, I gradually pace out from behind the brush in which I was just settled, though I ensure that I'm out of the sight of the struggling hybrid, whose wings are frantically pounding to try and elevate him from the ground, away from harm. And, only now, being this close, I'm able to see the glistening, platinum element of his secondary feathers, glimmering in the subtle sunlight that manages to poke through the trees' leaves.

However, before I'm able to pad any closer, he suddenly halts all movement, freezing on the spot, wings still a little outstretched. With visibly trembling hands, he mechanically begins to turn his head over his shoulder, his eyes instantly connecting with my own the second he so much as notices me. And, as though he's just discovered a bomb that's about to detonate before him, he instantly starts backing away, desperately trying to think of any kind of escape once he spots the clippers nestled in my hand. He's so scared. He's terrified of me. But I can't not capture him now; his rarity is unlike any other hybrid any of us have ever had the chance to tame before. He could be my only way out of how I'm living, meaning that I'll no longer have to prey on these creatures ever again.

With this thought in mind, I finally take action, stepping towards him a little carefully at first, the two of us sizing one another up, though I can instantly see from the immediate reluctance to actually fight me that he's a submissive. Probably as much so as a hybrid can get, his ears flattening against his head in fear the second I so much as attempt to impose any shred of dominance. Some of them would at least try a similar tactic, yet he's just frozen there, still trying to think of how to get away without physically distracting me in order for him to formulate a plan.

Taking this opportunity, I pounce at him before he's able to react, entrapping the bases of his wings underneath my arm with a strained grunt when he finally understands that I'm not planning to give him time to escape, the appendages I have gripped in my grasp viciously beating together in a frantic attempt to throw me off. However, it merely causes me to hold him tighter, squeezing the bases of both wings together until he releases a sharp yelp of agony, his body crumpling to his knees out of the sheer pain I'm causing him. I hate using that means of paralysing my prey, but it's not as though I have another choice. I can't afford to mess this up.

So, as soon as he's still in my arms, whimpering whilst attempting to twitch his wings back to life, I ready the clippers beside his feathers, cries of terror escaping him the second he catches onto what I plan to do. And, though it pains me to hear such petrified screams of desperation, I have to just bite the bullet and get on with it. Gritting my teeth, wishing that I could close my eyes, I begin to slice away at the tendons and ligaments that will render his wings completely useless, my ears desperately trying to block out his terrified wails. I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.