A/N: Not mine. Thanks to Words without for the beta.
"The exit is this way?" The white wolf raised his nose to the wind, staring after the dissipating clouds that slid wetly towards the west.
Tsume yawned indifferently, luxuriating in the feel of sharp teeth beneath his long tongue. Kiba had been right… it had been too long since the gray had dropped his human projection. There was blending in with one's surroundings and then there was losing who and what he was. "One of them. I can make sure you're unwatched when you get out of here."
"Good. Catch up once you're done." Kiba trotted confidently down the alley, his tail held high until Tsume snaked out his jaws to catch the brushy white appendage.
"Run that by me again?" Tsume said, holding firm and digging in his paws.
The paler wolf turned to give him a disbelieving stare. "Do what you have to and then let's go."
"You don't get it, do you?" The silver-gray wolf released Kiba's tail and spat out the fur clinging to his jaws. "You're still limping from whatever the hell injured you. I need a night or two to call the gang and even convince Sedo to go along with this. Toboe's here, and I'm not leaving him."
The white wolf gave no verbal or visual response; he simply continued to stare. Tsume released a frustrated sigh. "I'm staying here, Kiba."
"We'll bring him with us. It's only right." The pale canine started walking once more, and Tsume felt as if he were being pulled on against his will, trying to keep up with this insane wanderer.
"Now who's deciding things for the runt?" the darker wolf muttered. "You remember what you've told me about what happened last time? You remember how I said that I've tried searching for it without you? Don't you think there's a reason I stopped?" The silver-gray wolf stepped around Kiba, raising his head so that the large X-shaped scar upon his chest was clearly visible. "You think I've heard one single goddamn good reason to follow you through hell for nothing again?"
The white wolf merely paused, and smiled. "Toboe."
"What do you mean?" Tsume growled.
"On the road to paradise, we became a pack. On the road to paradise, we can become wolves once more. It gets lonely, being a lone wolf…" Kiba said. Those yellow eyes, so often focused upon something in the far distance, seemed to stare directly through Tsume's marrow. It would have bothered him, if it had not been for the empathy in Kiba's expression. Because of that, those eyes just drove Tsume mad.
"Give me a couple nights and try to stay off your leg," the gray muttered in defeat. "I'll ask him."