Disclaimer: I don't own KnM and I still can't find the freakin' DVDs. Manga comes out in May, though.
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Chapter 7
By the time the two girls made it back to the mansion, darkness had begun to fall, the setting sun splashing the sky with bright reds and yellows and oranges as Himeko cautiously slid off Chikane's back. "I could have walked, you know," she said as Chikane straightened, stretching. "You didn't have to carry me the whole way if it was bothering you."
"Oh?" Unable to resist, the dark-haired girl smirked. "Worried about me?"
Himeko squeaked and looked away, blushing deeply. More amused than she could remember being in a long time, Chikane laughed and reached out, gently brushing a loose strand of hair back behind Himeko's ear. "Relax, I'm just playing around with you. You're too easy, Himeko."
"Really?" Himeko frowned, thinking this over. "You know, Mako says the same thing…"
"Mako?"
She froze, realizing what she'd let slip, but she couldn't take it back now; Chikane was looking at her curiously, obviously intrigued by this slip of tongue. Up until this point Himeko had said nothing about her home or the people in it. Biting back a groan, Himeko went with the train of thought. "Her name's really Makoto," she said, "but I've always called her Mako."
Not Mako-chan, Chikane noted, not missing the lack of honorifics when Himeko spoke of the other girl. Such a thing usually indicated a level of closeness, or they were family. But it was hard to say. "You two must be close, then," she said quietly, glancing at Himeko.
"We are." Himeko smiled briefly, forgetting her security, and there was no mistaking the wistfulness in her eyes. "I probably wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for her." She tilted her head back, gazing up at the stars. "I'd die for her in a heartbeat."
Chikane didn't know what to make of that, or of the sick, hard ball beginning to coil in her stomach. Her good mood suddenly gone, she looked away. She frowned. "You know, you're talking like a wolf. My father said they always put their pack mates before themselves."
A tremor rippled down Himeko's spine; she lowered her eyes, glancing at Chikane, but the other girl wasn't looking at her. As she walked to the door, Himeko bit her lip.
"You never know, Chikane-chan," she murmured, following her. "Maybe I am a wolf."
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The ironic thing was, Orihime never actually gave the black dog a name.
It wasn't so much that she didn't want to give the dog a name more so than she simply didn't know exactly what to call her. She'd originally dabbled with the idea of calling her Aoi, but it merely meant "blue" and didn't really apply to the rest of her.
Maybe if the dog hadn't been so complicated, she could have received a name. But she was complicated, more so than Orihime liked to think. The half wolf was extremely protective of her and always wanted to be near her, but she was also gentle and kind to Sakura.
And then there was the shell pendant around her neck, the pendant that brought back the memory of Tsuki-chan, sharp and clear.
Sighing, Orihime shook her head and looked down. The black dog was curled faithfully at her side, her head resting on her paws and her eyes closed as she dozed. Without thinking the woman rubbed her head, gently scratching her behind the ears.
"Maybe I should just call you Tsuki-chan and be done with it," she muttered with a sigh. The dog opened her eyes, lifting her head to look at Orihime as the woman continued to scratch her behind the ears. "I think she'd like knowing I can't get her out of my head, so I name a dog after her."
The dog in question snorted, shifting her slim black body so she could rest her head on Orihime's lap, closing her eyes with a contented sigh. Pausing, a soft smile curved her lips, and she leaned down to gently kiss the dog's head.
"You probably don't care what I call you as long as I don't leave you alone, huh?"
The dog just nuzzled her muzzle into Orihime's other hand and sighed again.
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Himeko made it her business to avoid Chikane's parents when she heard the door bang open and heard the mixture of voices. It wasn't like they were hard to avoid; the stench of wolf's blood rolled off them in waves, making her several shades paler than she probably should have been.
She fought instinct and her own stomach as it rolled and jolted. "Easy," she whispered raggedly, resting a hand against her grumbling belly. The knob to her room felt cool and slick against her sweaty hand, and she wrenched it open and slammed the door shut, sagging back against it and sinking to the floor as soon as she was in her room.
The closed door only succeeded in partially fading the scent of blood, but it still wasn't enough. Blowing out a long, ragged breath, Himeko closed her eyes.
Okay. Okay. Obviously, some people were easier to identify as hunters than others. Around those people, Himeko needed to be more careful. The scent of blood was enough to make her wish she could run to the trees, but she had a job to do.
At least this gave her a better idea of who was a threat to her pack. By the amount of blood she smelled coming off Chikane's parents—particularly her father—she could easily guess both of them were very active wolf hunters. Their daughter, on the other hand, didn't carry a whiff of the stench despite being an acknowledged wolf hunter for four years.
Himeko frowned, slowly opening her eyes as the gears in her brain began to click together. If she could go on scent alone, it meant that Chikane was certainly a skilled hunter, but no where near as active as her parents were. From what she'd heard once from older wolves, the business of wolf hunting tended to split down two alleys: the hunters that actually genuinely loved what they did and did it as often as they could, and hunters who did it but usually preferred to find a way to keep their prey alive.
Miyako had told her that; off-handedly once, about how some hunters preferred to set traps and catch the wolves, then release them somewhere else instead of killing them. Himeko's frown deepened.
Come to think of it, Miyako always seemed to know quite a bit about wolf hunting…
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"Are you telling me that Kinjo Miyako walked into this house and you just let her leave?!"
Chikane scowled and resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest. "What was I supposed to do, Father, shackle her to the couch and kindly ask her if she'd like some tea as she waits for my parents?" she snapped angrily. "She had a husband to get home to. By all accounts, she doesn't seem interested in this kind of life anymore."
Her father's eyes lit up. "Does she have any children?"
"Father, if she does, I highly doubt she'd want them to take up the life she chose to leave behind."
Grumbling, Himemiya Isamu ran a hand through his hair as his wife laid a gentle hand on his shoulder to soothe him, shooting Chikane a look of quiet approval over his head. "If you remember correctly, Isamu," she murmured, "Kinjo-san was good at what she did, but she only killed if she had no choice. She's not the kind of hunter we need right now."
"Right. You're right." Isamu sighed. "Kinjo-san was always the type who preferred to trap the beasts than shoot them. She even had a pop idol friend who took them in so her brother wouldn't shoot them himself. She vanished too, if I remember correctly."
Content that disaster had been averted, Himemiya Kazumi came around the couch to sit next to her husband, directing her attention to her daughter. "But away from that, Chikane, why don't you tell us about this young lady Kinjo-san brought?"
"You mean Kurusugawa-san?" For a moment, Chikane almost called her Himeko. "Well… she's my age, but she's really quite innocent. She was attacked by wolves, but she can't seem to stay away from the trees. I'm beginning to think she's one of those nature people… you know." She's also hiding something about her wounds and just how close she was to the wolves that attacked her, and every time I'm around her I want to make sure no one hurts her. But I probably shouldn't tell them that yet.
Chikane knew instantly that she would have been better off living out her prediction about what kind of person Himeko was, as Isamu's face darkened notably. "You mean she has sympathy for wolves?"
"I never said that, Father. I just said she seems to love the forest and sneaks off to it every chance she gets."
"Those types usually—"
"Kurusugawa-san isn't a 'type', she's a person, and if you try and throw her out because of what you think I'll personally stand in the doorway and refuse to move."
A soft snicker from Kazumi told Chikane that her mother wholeheartedly agreed with her daughter, but when Isamu turned to her she covered the laugh with a delicate little cough. "She sounds like a pleasant girl. How are her wounds?"
"Healing very well, actually. She's strong, though she doesn't look it. She can handle herself."
"And yet you still sound so protective."
A gleam of humor lit Kazumi's eyes as Chikane promptly snapped her mouth shut and refused to speak for the rest of the night.
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The scent of blood, cruelly, reminded Himeko of her parents.
Maya, her mother, had been a young she-wolf, a dark charcoal gray with gentle golden eyes that could harden in a heartbeat if someone she loved was threatened. Aki, her father, hadn't had quite the fur coloring his daughter had but it had been perhaps a shade darker, more of a dark brownish-gold like a shiny copper penny. He had been the one who wore the shell pendant before his death, once telling his curious daughter that it was a pendant passed down through their family.
Her parents had been good wolves, devoted to their pup and to their niece, Makoto. They'd been loyal to their pack, and they had loved each other.
They had been killed in one of the great hunts the town sometimes had when the citizens were demanding wolf's blood or when the hunters were feeling restless and eager to kill. Aki had given Himeko to his brother, Makoto's father, and quickly licked her ear and promised to show her how to hunt rabbits before plunging with Maya back into battle.
They didn't come back.
It had been her uncle who gave her the pendant, taken from Aki's dead body. She'd worn it ever since, in loving memory of her parents.
Funny… you know… Himeko gazed up at the ceiling as she lay on her bed and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. I don't think I ever saw their human forms, either. She smiled and tried to ignore the tears sliding down her cheeks. I wonder who I look like, Mom or Dad? Or maybe I look like both…
She'd gone to live with Makoto and her parents after that. And when they'd been yearlings, barely turning two, her parents had died, too.
Makoto was the only blood family she had left.
And right then, Himeko desperately wished the reddish-brown she-wolf was there. Her best friend, her cousin, her big sister. She'd know what to do.
"Mako…"
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They'd only been riding in the forest for a few minutes when Orihime began to realize something was wrong.
For one thing, the horses were skittish; snorting nervously, dancing from hoof to hoof, their tails and ears flicking. Sakura narrowed her eyes. "Orihime," she began.
"Sakura-chan, look at the dog."
They both looked.
The black half wolf in question seemed to be just as agitated as their mounts, if not more so. The fur along her back, neck, and shoulders bristled and her lips curled back to reveal bared teeth. Her whole body trembled as though she was struggling to keep from shooting into the trees and attacking whoever was there.
"Shit." Sakura gritted her teeth and tightened her hold on the reins as her horse nickered nervously and shifted beneath her. "What is it, wolves?"
"What else could it be?"
"Ah, shit. It's always wolves. No offense, Blackie-chan."
"Blackie-chan" flicked her ear briefly to acknowledge Sakura's quick apology, but her dark eyes were completely focused on the hill before them.
The wolves came out of the trees silently; their bodies were long and slim, and hard muscle rippled beneath their fur. Their eyes were cold as they silently crept around the small hunting group.
"I don't see the alpha male," Orihime murmured, her eyes scanning the wolves.
"I thought most wolf packs had several leaders nowadays."
"Most of them do, but this one clings to the old ways. The alpha male would be the largest wolf, the most powerful looking."
The black half wolf barked sharply, causing Orihime to look down at her in surprise; the dog was still bristling, but her blue eyes were no longer wary. Hatred burned within their dark depths, hatred and pain rolled into a ball like brilliant midnight fire.
Swallowing, Orihime slowly followed her gaze.
And saw the alpha male.
He was large, and made purely of muscle. His golden eyes seemed to burn like twin suns in the fractured sunlight that fell threw the leaves of the trees overhead, and his dark gray fur made no sound as he slipped quietly through the bushes to stand on the hill.
And he was gazing down at the black dog with the same amount of hatred that she was looking at him with.
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Anyone who can guess who the dark gray wolf is gets an imaginary cookie. And yes, I am dropping hints the size of cars about Miyako's past. Not to mention that "pop idol friend of hers". Hm.
Read and review, please!
