AN: Hola! I'm back and this is my first of many updates in a long while. I plan to finish this fic up before I move on to my other stories. I apologize about the small chapter but I'm trying to building momentum to write again. I think I'm off on a good start. I hope y'all like it too. And thank you for all the reviews in the recent years. Please enjoy.

Part 3:

His eyes bursts open with urgency.

Fear like no other erupts into his waking conscious. He was in a tight space, much too dark and stuffy.

His breathing became erratic in that instant.

For a second, Akihito thought the old grandmother must have stuffed him in the shoebox and buried him alive.

Frantic, he struggles to break out, completely ignoring the tightness aching at his side and explodes free of his confinement.

Cold wind greets him in momentary contact, causing him to shiver despite the fine thick coat of fur covering him all over. His eyes widen further upon seeing a blanket of whiteness fluffing the horizon everywhere he turns. His ears perk up, picking nothing but the whistling shrillness of the winter wind rustling through leafless branches.

A crow half his size flutters downward and perches on a branch above him. Its beady black eyes scan the vicinity before it alights on his huddled frame. The creature tilts his head sideways for what seem like minutes before it dive down and flew off, leaving the dying echo of its caw the only evidence of its passage.

Akihito gave the area before him another look around then ducks his head back into the box. He folds his front paws crosswise and rests his head atop it. All the while, his ears remain up in alertness.

So the old grandmother hadn't buried him.

Relief had already dampen the staccato of his beating heart, evening out his ragged breathing from earlier on.

He supposes being abandon back to the wilds from whence he came was the merciful thing to do from her standpoint.

However, considering that he is a human trapped within a fox's body, the thought of being in the wild as such a small creature like himself terrifies him. He is wounded still and giving off a feint scent of blood. He didn't need any innate animal instinct to tell him that he was not top of the food chain out here. He hadn't survived so many close calls when he was hanging around dangerous people or on the hunt for shooting criminal activities to understand the hierarchy of the hunt.

He understood the danger all too well. The fact of the matter is what can he do? He's lost and injured. And oh, don't forget, be-spelled. How else would one explain him being a fox in the first place?

It didn't make any sense: him being a fox. In this day and age, magic just doesn't happen. It was merely a word use to describe street corner tricks to skew a person's perception. It was the kind of 'magic' his friend, Kou, gets paid to do as a graphic artist or programmer or whatever he is. It is what entertainers and ad agencies do to fool consumers to buy their product. Except, it is in fact, he does look like one, moves like one, and even growls like one.

Despite how that saying goes: if it looks like it, acts like it and talks like it then it is. The truth of the matter is: he isn't. He isn't crazy either and this is no dream nor did he somehow became a demo guy for any hi-tech virtual version of a fox demon role playing game he'd play a long time ago. It would have been cool if it was, but it isn't.

The universal truth of it is that cinch the fact entirely, that he was indeed not crazy, is the plain and simple truth of the matter: he is Takaba Akihito. He remembers his human life and not that of a fox. He remembers his childhood, growing up and causing mischief with his best friends, Kou and Takato. He remembers getting into trouble many times over and how his father's words and camera bail him out from that lifestyle to his current one. He is a photojournalist. He could have been a darn good one too by now if he hadn't been caught by a certain golden-eyed someone who made him rethink his priorities.

Funny how even during his internal cataloging of his life events that the man warrants in the forefront of his memories?

Asami…

He missed him.

There, he's said it or at least in thought. Same difference when ones a fox and can't speak human words.

Akihito wonders what have the old man been up to. No doubt, being his same old bad-ass self sitting behind his large desk at Sion managing both his legit and criminal organization. He wonders briefly whether Asami misses him too. Probably not. There's been time where they've gone months without seeing each other. Who's to say the busy crime lord hasn't got his schedule full to New Years and then some?

Akihito deliberately dismisses the tug of his heartstrings as the tightness from his abdomen and whimpers the pain away as he readjusts his body. He sighs in temporary relief.

Odd, even thinking of the old man always manages to get him hurt somehow. That wasn't entirely true; thinking of him did give Akihito comfort for the past week while he adjusted to his temporary fox form. He refuses to think the change is permanent though.

Asami had explained to him once during their time in Bali, that his tenacity to never give up in the face of insurmountable odds is what first attracted him. At the time, Akihito wondered briefly whether the old man was a glutton for punishment to have a 'thing' for stubborn people. Regardless, the perversity of crime lords, it couldn't be helped. Akihito wasn't about to prove the man wrong in his judgment of him.

In spite of the short list of cool things he could do as a fox, Akihito wasn't bought and sold living the life as one. Ever the optimist, he figures whatever happen to him can and will be made undone. That is how the world operates. Cause and effect, equal and opposites, day and night, crime lords and photojournalists, yada yada.

With renew strength in his resolve, Akihito rose from his lay position and hop out of the box. He ignored the sudden dull ache on his abs and stuck his nose out to the cold wind. A minute and several large whiffs later from each direction he sampled, the photographer caught a familiar scent and took off on a sprint, his silver tail wagging in excitement.