"The three us us spent the next few days eating and sleeping and not doing much else. By nightfall of the second day it was getting harder for Mizako to find carp in the pool. She was beginning to get worried that it might be all fished out."

"The other problem we were having, was Ay. The knight was exhausted all the time. He had developed a heavy, wet sounding cough that woke him up in the night. Mizako used the pot she found in the hut to boil water to wash out his wound, but it didn't seem to help much. He was sick and he wasn't healing."

The storyteller shifted her legs again to keep them from going numb and looked around the fire circle. There were many more faces in the dancing light than there were when she started. A handful of adults had joined the cubs to hear her story. "My brothers and I could smell what was happening to the man… he was dying from the inside out. He was dying because of the thing Majo-sama had put inside of him."

The storyteller saw two heads dip close and heard an indistinct mutter over the crackling of the fire. "Why didn't we do anything about it?" she asked loudly. The muttering stopped. "Because we were scared… Life had taught us that it was foolhardy to act on our own violation. Life had taught us that displeasing the master led to being beaten. Life had taught us that taking the initiative was dangerous." She shrugged. "We know better… now."

"Mizako was off foraging. Yuki, Kyo and I were playing just outside the hut. We told ourselves that we wanted to give Ay a chance to rest… but really we wanted to get away from the smell. We were playing a game where we would set a group of logs end down in the snow, and then we would have to throw another log into the group to try to knock them all down. Kyo was accusing Yuki of cheating, saying he was setting the targets too far apart, and Yuki was mocking him, calling him weak, when we heard a crash from inside the hut."

"We turned and looked at each other, unsure of what to do. 'Ay-sama?' I called nervously creeping towards the door. 'Are you okay? We heard a noise…" Again the storyteller shook her head. "I was still so bound up in manners and protocol… I was still so afraid of saying the wrong thing that somehow would earn me a beating."


I peeked around the door jam to see him writhing on the floor, groaning in pain, clawing at his back. He heard my cry and looked up. His teeth were clenched tight and his forehead and hair were drenched with sweat. "Bee," he grunted, "Where are you? I need you! Bee!

We looked at each other. "Do you mean Bee-san?" I hazarded. I had overheard Mizako and Kira talking about someone with that name earlier. "I do not think he is here, Ay-sama."

His eyes were bright with fever. He was lost in a world of mad dreams. "Mizako then!" he commanded. "Go and get Mizako!"

The three of us stood there staring. It was Yuki who moved first. It was Yuki who took the first chance. He gave Kyo a shove. "Go get Mizako-sama!" he yelled. "Bring her back here!" he yelled after Kyo's retreating form. He jumped down to Ay and started trying to pull his vest off. The shinobi from Kumogakure was thrashing about, alternately beating at his chest or trying to dig at his back, and Yuki couldn't hold him still long enough to unfasten his armor. "Tohru!" he snapped as he struggled. "Help me!"

"What do you want me to do?" I whimpered.

Yuki dodged an elbow. "I don't know… Sit on him! Get him to calm down! Talk to him!" He grunted as he was tossed off and rolled into the wall. "Do something!"

I took a cautious step into the hut. "Um… Mister Ay?" I asked timidly. "Could you please… hold still?" He ignored me completely.

"Not like that!" shouted Yuki as he jumped across Ay's back. "Help me!"

I dove down on my knees and grabbed his face in my hands. His eyes were screwed shut as he tossed his head back and forth. "Ay-sama! Calm down! It's me Tohru! We're going to help you, but you have to calm down!" Ay groaned and writhed on the floor, not hearing a word I said. Yuki tackled his legs, but one foot slipped free and slammed forcefully against the wall shaking the hut and spraying us with dust from the roof.

I took a deep breath. "STOP IT!" I screeched at the top of my lungs.

The scream rang the hut like a bell. I could hear it echoing back and forth in the ravine. Yuki clapped his hands up over his ears. Thankfully, Ay opened his eyes again.

They were darting wildly from side to side, but he saw me and recognized me. "Tohru," he rasped.

I was grinning like a madwoman. "Good... You're awake. Ay-sama, we need you to hold still. Yuki and I are going to try to help you, but we need to get at your wound."

He nodded weakly. Every motion seemed to cause him agony. I could see his face blanch, and several timed it looked like he would almost pass out, but he had himself under control now. We got the damaged vest of of him and gently pulled the shirt up and over his head.

The wound on his back was an angry red bullseye, about the size of one of the old master's dinner plates. The hole the fang had made was turning grey around the edges. Red streaks were throbbing under his skin… and then there was the smell. The sickly sweet stench of an infection wafted across my nose and made me feel ill.

But the worst part was the huge spider web seal that crawled across his back. Ay-sama's wound was set dead center in that web. Right underneath that wound was a huge angry lump.

The lump twitched. It squirmed. It undulated up and down. It looked like there was a creature right under his skin, and it was making a burrow.

Yuki reached out and gave the swelling a tentative prod. There was a wriggle under the puncture in Ay's back, and a long, thin, jet black, appendage worked its way out from the hole.

I screamed again. This time Yuki joined me.

I don't know how Yuki decided on what he did next. Every time I asked him later, he would just shrug and say: "It just... seemed like the right thing to do." There was a series of loud pops and snaps as he shifted his fingers into paws and claws, dug them into the seal, and pulled.


The storyteller took a drink from her waterskin and smiled at her ever growing audience. "I am willing to bet that many of you cubs in our little village have never seen a seal before, let alone had the opportunity to play with one. Like all peoples who came from Uzushiogakure, we have sealing jutsu in our blood. Amongst the Tsukuineko clan, this manifests as an ability to sense seals, to pull them apart, to instinctively figure out how they work… But each of us will do this in his or her own way." She pointed to the green eyed twins. "Some of you may have to use your claws." She pointed to the red haired male cub. "Some of you may have to use your fingers." Her last wave was to a golden haired lioness child. "Some of you may be gifted enough to take apart a seal while sitting perfectly still, using nothing but the power of your mind… As I said before, Yuki was the best of us at this… and he was most comfortable using his claws. We all were, for that was the only way we had seen it done."


He yanked, and the leg disappeared back into the hole. Ay inhaled, a great groaning hiss of agony. The lump under his skin started to move, quickly creeping towards where Yuki had pulled on the web seal. "Tohru!" he said firmly. I have no idea how he was so calm in this situation. "I'm going to need you to grab the seal on the other side."

I sat on my hands. That seal was the last thing I wanted to touch. The smell… I don't know if I can describe it properly… and the feel… it was a dark miasma lurking in the air… The strange lump crawling under Ay's skin didn't help matters. "Tohru!" Yuki snapped, trying to get my attention again. "I need your help now!" The lump inched ever closer to his claws.

Gingerly I grabbed the edge of the seal and gave a half hearted tug. As soon as I came into contact, the knot under Ay's skin paused. Yuki used the opportunity to free his claws from the slowly unraveling seal. The growth gave an unnatural shudder and then started creeping back towards my hands. "Yuki?" I called out nervously.

"It's okay Tohru," he said quietly, as if the wandering tumor could hear us. "As soon as it gets too close, you let go of your end of the seal and I'll start working on it again… We'll go back and forth like that."

"For how long?" I asked, shuddering as that… thing creeped closer to my fingers as I worked.

"Until Mizako gets here," was Yuki's reply.

We must have gone back and forth at least five times, when Ay violently reacted again. He was clearly uncomfortable, but he bore the pain in a mostly stoic silence. The mass had just creeped over his spine in a particularly awkward manner, and this must have caused... considerable pain.

His fists were punching the dirt floor, and he was biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. I did what I could to soothe him. I patted his head. I stroked his brow. "It will be okay Ay-sama, Mizako will be here soon… she will take care of you!"

"Tohru!" Yuki called out. It was my turn again.

As I started working on my end of the seal, Ay's hand reached out for Yuki. "I… need a favor," he murmured in a hoarse whisper."

"Yes Ay-sama?" Yuki said getting closer to hear better.

"I… need you to... tell Mizako something… for me." There was a pause as he gritted his teeth and squirmed. The swelling oozed back over his spine again. When it cleared it and he could speak again, he took a deep breath. "Tell her... that she is the one person I…"

"Ay!?" shrieked Mizako, as she burst into the hut, her face a mask of worry. She turned to Yuki. "How long has he been like this?"

Yuki shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, why are you doing that?" she yelped at him a hysterical note in her voice.

Again Yuki shrugged. "It seems to help… Let go Tohru, It's getting too close to you. Let me pull at it from over here," he said as he latched his claws into the other side of the seal Mizako swallowed heavily as she stared at the creeping swelling. "That… thing... was hurting him…digging deeper. I poked it and it tried to come out of the cut to get me. I think it's something Majo-sama put in him… and she always uses seals… So I tried pulling on the seal and it started moving… It seems to live in the seal, maybe? I mean it's gross, but at least it's not going any deeper and it doesn't seem to be hurting as much now…" Yuki's words dissolved into sniffles and he started shaking as the nerves took over.

Mizako exhaled deeply and gave him a reassuring pat. "I'm sure it's fine," she said with a confidence that her face didn't share. She held on to Ay's hand. Yuki let go as the mass crept almost to the tips of his claws and I immediately started pulling on the opposite end of the seal again. Mizako watched the lump cross his back once more, skirting the edge of Ay's wound. "You said it almost... came out?" she asked with a frown.

I nodded. "It looked like it was trying to swipe at Yuki when he poked it."

Mizako took a deep breath, steadied herself, and gave the mass a sharp jab with her finger. The lump gave a twisting little roll and began to shrink. Almost simultaneously, every muscle in Ay's back tightened and he let out a strangled, panting scream. "Shirt!" swore Mizako. "It's digging in! Quick, pull on the seal!" she shouted to me.

I grabbed the black webs of chakra and pulled upwards. It was a lot harder than just trying to unravel the seal. It didn't want to let go of Ay's flesh. Still, with me standing, I had enough force to work it upwards. The lump did seem to detach itself and slowly slide down to the opposite side of Ay's back. Without needing to be asked, Yuki stood as well, seizing the edge of the seal and lifting it up.

Slowly, it rose off his skin, popping free, a centimeter at a time. Ay must have been in terrible pain, moans were escaping from his clenched teeth, but he did not struggle. The tumor under his skin however, was writhing and jumping from place to place. At one point it seemed to seize hold of something under Ay's skin. The whole seal became impossible to shift, and the lump refused to budge. "Kyo!" called out Yuki's strained voice. "You too!" My other brother's claws came free with a wet popping noise, instead of grabbing for the edge of the seal though, he raked them right around the mass under Ay's skin.

Whether he scratched it or not I cannot say... but the lump reacted. Whatever was holding the web-seal in place loosened and Yuki and I hauled it up. Eventually most of it was free. The only part still attached was directly underneath the wound the demon spider's fang had left in Ay's back… And right underneath that pus-laden hole was where the lump was hanging on. "I don't think it's stuck… I think it's too big to come out," said Kyo giving it another prod with his claws. "This isn't going to work."

I felt like crying. I didn't want to give up right now, not after all the pain we had put Ay-sama through. Mizako relaxed her hold on Ay's hands and reached into her equipment pouch. "Ay…" she began with a quaver in her voice.

"I know Kitten," he said his voice a hoarse rasp. "I've been listening… Do it. Just make sure you kill it... Quickly… If it is like her other... 'pets' we don't want to give it a chance to escape."

Mizako pulled out a fresh kunai and carefully placed the tip inside the wound. A hairy black foreleg squirmed out the hole next to the knife blade, but she ignored it. "Yuki, Tohru... when I cut... pull fast. Kyo… get out of the way. It's going to be very hot in a second." She took three deep breaths and then I think she tried to give us a reassuring smile. It ended up being a sickly grin. "Ready?"

Yuki and I pulled, the blade moved, and all of a sudden the web-seal sprang free and hung taut in the air between the two of us. Crawling in the center of that web was a black, dripping spider about the size of my fist.

It stared at me with gleaming red eyes, hissed, and sprang right for my face. There was a whistling in the air as Mizako's kunai caught the squealing beast and sent it tumbling into the snow outside. There was a bright white flare of light as Mizako raced outside after the spider skewered on the point of her knife. The shadows inside the hut were thrown into bright contrast as the fire burned bright in her hands. We could hear the small spider's flesh hiss and pop and smell the foul smoke and hot iron… But Mizako didn't release her jutsu until her blade had melted into a glowing orange puddle.

Ay was bleeding again, much worse than before. The re-damaging of the fang wound, the burrowing as the small spider was digging around in his flesh. It had all added up. He looked so terribly pale. And no matter what Mizako tried to do, bandages, or pressure, or cauterizing with fire, or washing with boiled water... she could not seem to staunch the bleeding.


The storyteller shifted uncomfortably in her seat in front of the fire. "Fortunately, I knew of something that would work… I shifted to my four footed form and began to lick the wound closed."

There was a low murmur from the surrounding adults at that bit of information. A few of the older cubs looked shocked as well. The burly, red haired, male cub let out a loud guffaw that stopped abruptly as the Crone fixed him with a warning glare. "I know now that... what we did was against the customs of our clan," the storyteller said quietly. "I know... now… that the closing of wounds is... reserved for those who are going through the mating ritual… that it raises a deep empathic bond between two people… But at the time… we were young. We hadn't been raised by the Pard." The storyteller paused and looked up at the starry sky. "For all my brothers and I knew at that time… we were the only members of our clan left in the world." She straightened and tried to meet the disapproving gaze of every adult around the campfire. "Ay-sama was very precious to us… Despite his occasional bad attitude, he was one of the few people we had met who was genuinely interested in caring for us… He and Mizako were… They were willing to fight for us… to protect us…"

The storyteller paused here and stared for a long time into the flames. Her face hardened as she relived the history of her tale. "We may not have consciously realized it at the time, but we were learning to trust them… we were trying to bond with them… to love them, as a cub loves its parent." The flickering flames from the dying fire cast long shadows across her face. "And we were willing to do anything to protect them," she said in a low growl.