Ay leaned against the flimsy doorway of the hut and cursed every ache and pain in his body. He felt like he was eighty years old. No… he left like he was a hundred and eighty. It ached to stand, to walk, to breathe. He had the suspicion if it hadn't been for the… well, let's be honest here, somewhat creepy way that the three cubs had insisted upon religiously licking his wounds clean every day, he might not have pulled through at all. He definitely wouldn't have been moving around now.
Once again those three youngsters had proven themselves valuable. Transformation into cats, their ability to physically interact with seals, and potent healing properties in their saliva… no wonder Konoha was willing to throw so many resources into retrieving them.
The hollering and ruckus being raised by those same three children were what woke him from his slumber. But it was his self-discipline that had convinced him to rise. He was regretting listening to that now. It hadn't hurt half this much when he was lying down.
Ay closed his eyes and hung his head, willing away the throbbing soreness rippling through his neck and shoulders. Gods, he was feeling so weak… pathetic… deplorable… If his father saw him now… In this state… having to depend on a kunoichi from the Hidden Leaf and three children… children! To care for him…
The Third Raikage, Ay's father, was a legend in the shinobi world, known for his strength, tenacity, and almost superhuman endurance. He could laugh off almost every bodily insult with casual ease... it was expected of his son to do the same.
Of course, his brother Bee was also the Raikage's son, by adoption… and, of course, he was also expected to endure the same strength and discipline training as his older brother. Ay would never admit it out loud (not unless he wanted a smack about the head from his father) but sometimes… sometimes he envied his younger brother. Sometimes it seemed to him as if Bee had the easier time of it. All Bee had to deal with was the Eight tails.
Granted, that was an enormous burden in its own right, but it allowed him certain… leniencies…He was, to an extent, allowed to have his own life… Or perhaps more accurately, whenever Bee vanished off on one of his idiotic quests to further his career (as a rapper of all things!) he never seemed to feel the overwhelming guilt that Ay did when he incurred father's displeasure. Nobody expected him to fill the Raikage's shoes. Nobody had as high expectations of Bee as they did of one of the Raikage's own bloodline.
In a harsh kingdom, like the Land of Lightning… home to earthquakes, deadly storms, rockslides, and countless enemy attacks, not even the strong were guaranteed survival. In a land where, what those soft fools in the Land of Fire would refer to as a 'traditional family', could be destroyed without warning... it made sense to have a fluid attitude towards the family unit. There was none of the state sponsored orphanage nonsense like you found in Konoha. Amongst the Hidden Cloud Village's smaller population all orphaned children had a place to stay. It was accepted in Kumo that this lead to happier shinobi and happier children. After all, who focuses better on a mission: the shinobi worried about his children and their future or the shinobi confident that if anything happens to him or her, Uncle Hiro and Aunt Jun will be right there taking care of little Akira?
In Kumo, group housing was the norm. Every square centimeter of potentially fertile flat space in Kumogakure was put to its full use growing crops. What little area was left his people used to build those uniquely Hidden Cloud towering buildings that clung tenaciously to the mountain sides. It was the only way to house and feed everyone at the same time.
Several adult shinobi would all come together to live in one of those huge communal structures. Maybe they were squadmates or teammates, maybe they were just friends. Maybe they were a group of several couples, maybe they were even having some sort of free floating open group relationship… that didn't matter and honestly no one had the time to care. What mattered was that the children were cared for, the missions were run, that life in those group houses continued as normal... that the business of the village continued without pause. Having so many 'Aunties' and 'Uncles' around certainly helped matters.
The one time he and Mizako talked about this, she insisted the Leaf had something similar, that in Konoha the Clans took care of their own… in Kumo, Clan affiliation only mattered to those interested in genealogy. Those impossibly restrictive rules used by the Hyuga, or the Uchiha to keep their clan members in place would have never worked in Kumo. Everybody was too busy ensuring survival to care about old family feuds, or maintaining a legacy, or whether your child's dating habits would affect the clan's business or not…
Unless of course you were the Raikage's heir… Then, according to Ay's father, your entire life was the village's business.
He reached out with arms to each side, stretching his fingers as far as they would go, and inhaled deeply. It was all he could do to not lose that breath in a gasp of pain. Fighting against his own muscles every step of the way, he brought his palms together in the center of his chest and pressed them against each other as hard as he could. A basic, simple, isometric exercise.
It was almost too much for him. He almost dropped his arms, almost sat weakly down on the wood pile next to him, almost gave up… but he could picture his father's scowl of disapproval in his mind.
To distract himself from the pain, Ay watched the three cubs as they scampered and meowed through the snowy field in front of the hut. They were chasing after a lean rabbit, a crafty animal that was evading their poorly coordinated hunt far too easily. There was something about the three of them that made him think of Mizako that first time they met. They projected the same mix of being delicate and vulnerable and yet fiercely determined.
When he was still just a wet behind the ears brat, a handful of years older than those three lion cubs scrambling about in the snow, his mother had been killed in the now infamous Suna poisoning attacks on his village. It had been a devastatingly effective assault pulled off by a mere two or three enemy shinobi. In the dead of night they had dumped their toxins in two of the village's wells and sprinkled more in a majority of the grain silos. By noon, a full third of the population of Kumo was either dead or dying.
He had spent that night blubbering away over the cooling body that had once been his mother. Of course he had known about loss, every child growing up in a shinobi village learns about that, but this was the first time it had really struck home for him.
The Raikage's wife had been the quiet power behind the throne. Ay's father would bluster and bellow and threaten, but it was Ay's mother who often brought reason and logic and justice to the ruling governance. Ambassadors often assumed that because the lithe, almost delicate beauty wasn't threatening to cut their heads off at every meeting, and treated them with some modicum of respect, that she would be a pushover to negotiate with.
They were wrong. 'An iron fist in the finest velvet glove' was a phrase the legendary Leaf shinobi, Jiraiya had once used to describe her while on a diplomatic mission from Konoha. What struck Ay the most was the kindness and tenderness she somehow managed to keep alive in this harsh land. His mother was the one who filled the house with laughter. His mother was the one who kissed his hurts. His mother was the one who made the effort to show him that life might be hard, but it could still be warm and fun.
He remembered feeling strange as he returned home from a particularly hard run in the practice fields. It had been an unseasonably warm day, he hadn't drunk enough water, and he had barely touched his lunch. He ate a few bites, but stopped when he felt queasy. He stumbled home, first feeling lightheaded followed by a burning clench in his stomach. He threw up on the steps to his house and hoped his father wouldn't be angry. The last thing he remembered before the whole world went gray and he collapsed on the floor was calling out for his mother.
He was one of the few who had been poisoned and lived… Saved by a mild case of heatstroke. The medical-nins who treated him told him he had been very lucky...
He didn't feel lucky.
His mother was dead, his world was forever changed, and despite all the harsh training his father had made him undergo, Ay just couldn't get his head to accept that she was really gone. So he spent the night crying at the head of his mother's burial shroud, as the Raikage stood like a granite pillar in the center of the room, meeting with all the Kumo officials and shinobi who had come to make panicked reports, listing casualties, looking for orders and leadership.
For the whole of that evening, Ay's father tacitly lamented the loss of brave men and women under his command and made muted promises of vengeance with mourning parents. With a handful of stern faced orders he made sure that orphans were cared for, the poisoned food stores were burned, the tainted wells were sealed off, and the guard around the village was doubled.
And not once did he spare a moment to look at his dead wife and his crying son. As Ay wept, he had decided that he would never forgive the man.
As the sky slowly brightened and the mad scramble of advisors and commanders and supplicants asking for assistance dried up, the Raikage had placed one huge hand on Ay's shoulder. "Come my son," he had said in the raspy raw voice of of a man who had been up all night. "We must go and greet the village."
"No!" insisted Ay, shaking his head violently.
The hand tightened. "There will be time again for tears later," the Raikage said in an uncharacteristically soft voice. "Right now we have a duty."
Young Ay wiped at his nose with his sleeve. "I don't care!" he said, gripping the side of the viewing platform tightly. "I am going to stay right here with Mama!"
"Kumogakure needs us," his father insisted again, giving his shoulder a shake. "Let's go."
"Fuck Kumogakure!" Ay choked out between sobs.
There was a moment of stunned silence and then the old man grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him up to the tallest peak overlooking the village. There, the Third Raikage had forced him to sit in the dust and to watch as the sun rose over Kumogakure. One by one the doors to the houses opened and various villagers began to walk about their business. "Do you see your fellow villagers down there? All of them have lost someone they care about, be it family, friends or lover... Yet not a single one of them is sniveling in their beds this morning… Do you know why?" the Raikage had growled at him.
Ay was irrational with grief over his mother and full of loathing for his father. "Because they're all a bunch of heartless assholes… just like you!" he spat.
His father's blow knocked the young Ay sprawling. The boy crumbled in the dust and started bawling again in great gasping howls. He heard his Raikage's grunt of disgust and his great clomping footsteps as he walked away. He came back a few minutes later with someone in tow. Ay looked up. His father was holding the hand of a young girl about his age with wavy red hair and bronzed skin. Her golden eyes were red as if she had been crying all night. "Marui," said his father in a bass rumble, "this is my son. Son, meet Marui." He turned back to the girl, "I apologize for the lack of manners in my son, he just lost his mother in the tragedy." The Raikage's face was expressionless but Ay could feel his father's disapproval being focused on him. "Marui-chan would you be so good as to answer a question of my son's? He wanted to know if, like him, you happened to lose anyone close to you in this cowardly attack against our village?"
The girl glanced at Ay's prone form for a second and then back to the Raikage. "My mother, my father, my uncle and my older brother, Raikage-sama," she answered in a flat emotionless voice.
"Tell me child… Did you cry?" Her face flushed red, but she nodded her head once. "No shame in that," said the Raikage. "We've all felt loss. Now tell my son this… why are you not crying now?"
"Because.. my family…needs me," she said a little hesitantly. When the Raikage nodded his approval she went on. "My little brother needs me, my aunt and cousins need me, my…"
"Thank you Marui, your strength of character does you credit… If either you or your brother ever need assistance, ask at the Raikage's office and it shall be granted to you." The girl bowed and quickly walked away.
When she was out of earshot, his father turned back to him. "Stand up," he rumbled in a low growl. "Stand up you sniveling little whelp… right now, that girl has ten times the courage that you do. The least you can do is stand up and look at me like a proper Kumo shinobi."
His head still hurt like the blazes from where his father cuffed him, but Ay ignored it and forced himself to get up and stand at attention. The Raikage's face was still a thundercloud of dark emotion, but he did give young Ay a begrudging nod. "Good... you look like a man now, not some whimpering dog. Wipe your eyes, look down at Kumogakure and tell me what you see."
"I… I see our village," Ay said.
The Raikage sighed again. "You see our village continuing on as it always has," corrected Ay's father, a note of pride creeping into his voice. "You see a devastated population of men, women and children. Saddened by loss, yet climbing back up to their feet again, ready to face whatever this unkind world may throw at them." He looked askance at his son. "Do you have the slightest understanding what helps them get out of their nests of sorrow and face the future?" Ay mutely shook his head. The Raikage gave a short growl and pulled at his beard. "If I asked any of those shinobi to go on a mission for the good of the village that would ultimately end in their deaths… they would not hesitate to accept… Do you understand why?"
"Because you are the leader of this village and they have to obey you," said Ay, his voice filled with resentment.
"Wrong!" bellowed the Raikage, his patience gone. "They will do it because they know in their hearts… They know," he shouted, "that I would not ask any of them to perform any mission that I was not willing to do myself… And that my son… that is leadership! That is what sets us above those scum in Mizugakure, those treacherous cowards in Iwagakure, those lily livered fools in Konoha, and those poisoning bastards in Suna." He swept out an arm to encompass the whole village. "Our people will fight on and our people sacrifice themselves for our village because they know that I am willing to do the same! They look up to me and they take their strength from my strength." He seized Ay by the front of his shirt and shook him. "This morning you shed the last selfish tears of your life. You can cry and weep for your comrades but you will never…. ever... again let it stop you from doing YOUR DUTY!" He dropped Ay to the ground with a thump. "Your mother... she had high hopes for you," said his father with just the smallest hint of a quaver in his voice. "She used to ask me at night if I thought you had it in you to succeed me… to lead our great village onward after I am gone..." He glared down at his son, a frown on his face. "If you are man enough to carry out the last wishes of my wife… If you want to become the Raikage in the future, you will start acting like one now... People respect strength… people respect discipline… People want a man who has the courage to share the same risks that they do." The Raikage snorted deep in his chest like a bull. "A leader who is lacking in those, is no leader at all… You have to lead by example... you have to be someone your fellow shinobi will aspire to be."
His father turned away and stared off at the horizon. "Whatever else happens, Kumo must always survive!" The old man had roared at the sky his fists clenched but young Ay had no idea who he was talking to. "Whatever happens in this world... Your mother's death, my death, your death, being beaten in battle, losing a war, finding yourself broken and bloody on a battlefield… whatever happens… Kumo… Must… Survive!" The Raikage sighed again and just for a second his father's mighty shoulders drooped. He looked back over his shoulder at Ay, tears on his wet cheeks glistening like diamonds in the morning sun. "You call me heartless... You selfish, brainless boy… Do you not think that I too mourn your mother? Do you not think that I also ache? Do you not think that I want to scream and wail and pull at my beard and beat my fists against the walls till they are bloody? Do you not think that I would kill the Gods themselves if that could bring her back to me?!" His father took a deep shuddering breath and roughly rubbed a huge hand over his face. The tears were gone. Only his reddened eyes gave truth to his crying. "Her death cuts me deeper than any wound I have sustained… but by standing strong and continuing on I am giving her a better memorial than a whole ocean of tears." The Raikage loomed over his son, once again, impassive and invincible, and lowered a hand to help him up. "That is the kind of tribute she deserves as a proud Kumo Kunoichi."
His father pulled him forward, marching off into the sunrise. When Ay stumbled, his father caught him with one arm and steadied him. "Remember this boy," said his father, brushing the dust off Ay's shirt to make him more presentable, "for it's one of the few truths of the world: Tears never made tomorrow a better place. Sobbing never rebuilt a home. Crying never filled anyone's stomach. It's only through our strength that we manage to carry on."
If his father could see him now… Ay had no doubts that he would be in for another boxing of his ears.
He could almost hear his father's deep bass growling at him from the back of his mind. "You stumble about like a weakling! Look at you! Pathetic! Dependant on the scrawniest kunoichi from Konoha to fill your rumbling belly! You needed to lean on that girl this morning to make it to the nearest tree to take a piss! This is my son? Where is the mighty Ay? Who is this weak, lazy, sniveling, little shit to whom I was foolish enough to entrust the future of the greatest shinobi village in the world?!"
Ay hooked an arm across the other and pulled it tight across his chest. He cursed again under his breath as nerves and muscles screamed in agony. Despite the fact that his father's imaginary berations always got louder when Ay was alone, he was glad Mizako had left to forage. The looks she gave him when he swore were caustic enough to clean glass. He needed this time, alone, to slowly get his body back into some sort of shape.
Heh, Mizako… He grinned at the thought of her as he bent over and creakily tried to press both palms down on the dirt floor of the hut. That little midget had been getting herself into trouble of one sort or another since the moment he first laid eyes on her. She hadn't changed much in the two and a half years he'd known her. She still had that wide-eyed innocence that was in her face at their first meeting, hiding in a cave from an ambush of Hidden Mist shinobi. That honest purity, to this day, alternatingly infuriated and fascinated him. She had such a naive, trusting view of the world... she did the things that she felt were 'right' without once stopping to ponder what the greater consequences might be.
Gods, he wanted to protect that innocence in her. He wanted to hold her in his arms, shield her with his body from all the cruel realities of this world, keep her giggling and happy and safe.
Ay straightened, inhaled, and stepped forward into a lunge, reaching both arms to the sky. Slowly he stretched them out to the side and pivoted, lining his upper body up with his lower. This relationship of theirs… it was supposed to be a one time thing. A single moment giving into the possibility of fantasy, before heading back into reality.
Except after that first tryst, he found himself daydreaming about her, reliving that moment over and over in his mind.
He ignored the complaints he was getting from his legs and sank a little lower in his stance, swinging the front arm up and dropping the one behind until he was looking up at the roof. His father was not amused by how distracted his eldest son was in those days. Bee had found the whole thing hilarious. He even wrote a rap about the situation: "The Iron Claw vs the Daydreaming Lover" it was called.
To his great relief, Ay received a second secret note from Mizako asking if he could see her again. He readily agreed, hoping not to seem too eager… after all, there was no way this could turn into anything serious… He just needed to work this girl out of his system.
He knew he was in trouble when, upon not hearing from her for the next two weeks, he found himself hastily scribbling out a note for her… Asking when she next had some free time.
He put both hands on the floor, kicked out both legs behind him into a pushup position and slowly, creakily, began lowering himself to the floor. By now knew why he enjoyed his time with her so much. She was the one small slice of his life that was outside his father's influence and control. His time with her was the one solitary moment he had where he wasn't putting Kumogakure first... where he wasn't the Raikage's heir.
She was his one flaw, his one weakness. The only time he had where he didn't have to be perfect. Gods he loved that feeling.
He had no doubts it wouldn't last… Ay knew that somehow, someday it would all come crashing down and he would have to move on… keeping nothing but his memories. But until then he would enjoy it. He grinned again at his thoughts. How very Kumo of him… no doubt Mizako would be offended.
He looked up as the cubs collapsed into a tangled yowling mess of legs and tails. The rabbit they were stalking had stood, stock still in front of them as they charged. Then at the last second, it had bolted towards them. The cubs couldn't stop in time and had crashed in a heap. A few meters away, the rabbit stopped its run, and began cleaning its ears. Ay had the suspicion it was taunting them.
"Dammit!" shrieked a shifting Kyo, also apparently taking advantage of Mizako's absence to get in some much needed swearing. "Tohru, it ran right past you! What the hell's the matter with you? That was our lunch! Now we're going to starve!"
Actually, if Ay was keeping track correctly, it would be the boy's fourth meal of the day. Frankly, given the state the three cubs were in when he first saw them, he shouldn't have been so astonished that they would be so hungry, but… the sheer amount of food that Kyo could put away was beginning to worry him… There was only so much to eat in the middle of a forest after all.
And then there was that one time that he had slept through Mizako's return from the hunt and she had foolishly, once again, attempted to cook a brace of game hens she had caught by herself. The stench of burning flesh had woken him, but it had been too late to salvage anything from the cook fire. He, Mizako, Tohru and Yuki had all decided to pass on the meal, but not Kyo… To Ay's horror/admiration Kyo crunched his way through the two carcasses, burped hugely, and promptly fell asleep.
"Don't yell at Tohru!" interjected Yuki, also shifting back up to two feet. "It's not her fault! That rabbit is just too fast."
Kyo snorted. "Yeah right, she's too slow is more like it."
Yuki took a step forward and glared down at the shorter boy. "I didn't see you able to catch it a few minutes earlier."
Kyo scowled. "That's because you got in my way!" he growled.
Yuki snorted. "It's because you're turning into a fat ass."
Kyo barred his teeth. "You take that back!" he snarled.
Yuki grinned at him, gave a half turn, and stuck out his bottom. "Ooh! Look at me! I'm Kyo! My butt is so big!"
"Fuck you!" screamed Kyo as he charged and tried to tackle his brother. Yuki was ready and waiting for him. While Kyo had the advantage in weight, Yuki had the advantage in height and reach, so it looked like their little impromptu wrestling match was fairly even.
At first, Ay found it amusing, the way they flailed about at each other in such a laughable clumsy way. Neither of the boys clearly had any sort of martial arts training. He supposed that if Mizako were around she would have stopped the fight but really… there was nothing he could do. I mean, he supposed that if their little fight lasted long enough, say, five minutes he might be able to hobble his way over there… but instead he tiredly opted to watch them from the doorway as they grunted and shoved.
It was Tohru's cry that snapped him awake and convinced him to take some action. She shifted up onto two legs and started yelling at the boys. "Stop it stop it STOP IT!" she shrieked. "We are a family! And you do not fight with your family!" she was jumping up and down in the snow, two medium length braids bouncing on her back. Ay could see the sunlight glinting off the tears on her cheeks.
When did she start wearing her hair like that? The braids shocked him almost as much as her words… words which reached down into his brain and gripped his imagination. She called them a family… the moment she said it, it was as if Ay could picture it in his head. He and Mizako, living together… they had a house, which looked surprisingly like the hut they were sleeping in now, only roomier… he glanced up at the squabbling cubs… children… that needed his care...
He shook his head quickly. Just another dream that would never happen. But that didn't mean he shouldn't do anything about the chaos here and now...
Ay bent down, biting his lip against the pulling and twanging in his back, and scooped up a huge double handful of snow. He packed it into a ball the size of a melon and let fly.
His shoulder hurt like hell but his aim was true. The snowball burst right on the back of Yuki's head, showering both boys with snow. The fight instantly stopped and everyone turned to stare at him. "Your sister is right," he declared, his voice still a little hoarse, but carrying. "You are a family. Don't waste your time fighting each other. You should be saving your energy to catch that rabbit." He found himself smirking as he echoed one of the sayings of his father: "Fighting amongst yourselves never filled anyone's belly." Striding forward, he reached out and used his thumb to wipe a tear from Tohru's chin. "Neither have tears young lady."
"Neither is chasing the damn thing!" snapped Kyo gesturing wildly at the rabbit who was still sitting on its wide feet, wiggling its nose at them. "She's too slow, and he's," Kyo shifted his glare to Yuki, "...he's too stupid to know how to hunt anything!"
Yuki narrowed his eyes. "I am not too stupid to know…"
"Actually," Ay said, slowly hobbling to the center of their group. "None of you have the foggiest idea what you are doing."
All three children turned to look at him in surprise. Kyo's face quickly turned into an arrogant sneer. "Oh yeah? Let's see you turn into a big cat and catch that rabbit then!"
Later, Ay decided he must have be feeling a little better. The speed at which he suddenly loomed over the defiant boy wasn't anything close to impressive, but Kyo's eyes widened slightly just the same. "I don't need to change into a cat to catch a mere rabbit... boy," he said, arrogance dripping off of every syllable. "I don't need a special jutsu. I don't even need a weapon. I need just three things." He held up one meaty hand and counted off with his fingers one by one. The three C's his father had called it. "I need my cranium… my courage… and my comrades."
"Hey! You said no weapons!" said Kyo accusingly.
"A cranium isn't a weapon, dumbass," said Yuki with a embarrassed palm on his face. "It's another word for his head… his brain."
"I knew that!" Kyo insisted angrily.
"Um… Ay-sama?" asked Tohru, shyly. "You… You don't have your comrades with you."
Ay kept his face impassive, but inside he was pleased the girl had spoken up to correct him on that point. She needed more assertiveness. "Hmmm," he said in a deep thoughtful rumble. "You seem to be quite correct." He rubbed his chin pretending to ponder the situation. Far back in the dark recesses of his mind, his father's voice grumbled at him, asking him what the hell he thought he was doing wasting his time with this bunch of foreign brats.
Ay ignored his Father's patriotic complaints. He gingerly brought himself down to one knee to be more at the children's level. "I guess if we want to catch our lunch, we'll have to make our own team. Let's see, shinobi squads are usually teams of three." Yuki and Kyo slightly stepped forward trying to surreptitiously push each other out of the way. Tohru was left at the back, her chin dropping towards her chest. "All of you, come with me," Ay commanded. "For this mission, a fourth member of the squad will be an absolute necessity." The girl cub's smile was wide and proud.
The rabbit watched as the tall human picked up a stick and started drawing lines in the snow. This particular human was pathetically slow, so it didn't even bother to hop away more than a few jumps each time he approached. The lines themselves didn't seem to be much of a threat, so the rabbit just went on ignoring them, classifying it as one of those crazy things that humans sometimes do.
Of more interest to the rabbit were the three cat-children. When he had first caught scent of the three of them crashing through the snowy forest, he had been horrified… the smell of the giant predators had triggered some deep seated instinctual flight response in his brain. However, they had spent most of the afternoon simply running aimlessly after him. Never before had he been able to evade those hunting him so easily. This was no battle for survival. He was actually starting to enjoy himself.
The three cat-children turned into those big felines again and fanned out. This was different. Before they had always come at him in a tight headlong rush. Well no matter, he could always just…
The cat on the far left started first. She ran in a wide swooping arc that wouldn't even come near him. A second later the one on the far right started his run. He loped through the icy crust, again on a path that would take him nowhere near the rabbit.
The remaining cat-child, the one in the middle, was staring at him with narrowed eyes and a twitching tail. He waited until he saw its haunches bunch like coiled springs before he turned tail and sprinted away.
A rabbit's evasive ability is not dependent on speed, although that certainly plays a large part. What really enables a rabbit to avoid becoming a predator's dinner is its ability to corner, to turn directions suddenly and lose a pursuer. This particular rabbit was mature and wily and had long ago mastered the art of stopping suddenly and veering off in a new direction.
He took a step to the left and quickly staggered back. The leftmost feline was right there next to him, pacing him. He turned his head to the right. The other cat-child was on that side effectively boxing him in.
The rabbit ran faster, but he still wasn't nervous. The path they were keeping him to would take them right past an ancient gnarled oak tree. He could easily lose them there.
He put on a burst of speed and accelerated past the shadow of the tree. He had just enough time to look up as a second shadow came crashing down on him.
Ay hauled the still twitching rabbit up triumphantly, immensely pleased with himself that he had actually caught the damned thing. Perhaps he wasn't as useless as he thought. His mental image of the third Raikage merely gave an unimpressed shrug. "Congratulations, you caught a stupid rabbit," his father said sarcastically inside his head. "That means that right now... you're about as skilled as a novice genin. Pardon me if I'm not dancing with glee."
Tohru was jumping up and down excitedly chanting, "We caught it! We caught it! We caught it!" Yuki was trying his best to calm her down, but Ay could tell from his grin that the boy was also pleased with their achievement. The feeling was infectious. Ay was still feeling stiff and sore, but it was suffused with the warm glow of pride.
Kyo was still in his lion form, a hungry glint in his eye, slowly creeping towards the limp rabbit Ay held in his fist.
It was Kyo's awkward, impromptu hunt, that gave Ay the idea. He held the rabbit high over his head. "Alright team," he said with a thin smile. "Now we enter phase two of this exercise. Do you want to eat lunch?" He gave the cooling rabbit a little jiggle. "Try and take it from me."