I thought I had posted this chapter weeks ago and it turns out I didn't. I'm so sorry!

"'Cause we're all just kids

Who grew up way too fast

Yeah the good die young

But the great will always last

We're growing older

But we're all soldiers tonight"

Living Louder by The Cab

After another hour of teaching Scott how to play Go and both of us more relaxed after our brief moments of honesty and vulnerability with each other, Scott got a text from Allison telling him to meet at her apartment, and it was followed shortly by me receiving a text from Lydia saying more-or-less the same thing. Lydia also mentioned she had texted Ethan, Aiden, and Boyd.

"I guess you were right," I told Scott as we walked out to my car. "They decided we'd need more muscle."

"Maybe we should've bet money," he joked as he chuckled.

We climbed into my car, Scott sliding into the passenger seat as I started it up. "Though speaking of muscle." We both buckled our seatbelts and Scott took the moment to look at me questioningly, waiting for whatever I was about to ask. "Are you ever going to let the twins join the pack?"

Scott was quiet for a few seconds, and I studied the change in his expression. The slight confusion, the analysis on the question itself, all flickering through his eyes and the pinching of his eyebrows. Why said eyebrows had to be better than mine, I had no idea, but watching them twitch a bit made me realize that he was rather shocked to hear the question and didn't expect it in the slightest.

He met my gaze and tilted his head. "You approved of them joining even though the others didn't?"

"Ah, ah, ah." I raised my hand. "I wouldn't go quite that far. I approved of Ethan joining, not fully Aiden. And as much as I don't approve of what they tried to do to Boyd, what they did do to Isaac, and Aiden going too far in trying to get you to turn. . ." Nodding my head, I paused to figure out just what I wanted to say about them. "I think they're coming around to what they could be, but they can't do that without an alpha, someone to help guide them. Show them a better path. They just need a chance. Derek's a good advisor, good at being convincing," now that he's no longer rough around the edges, at least, "but I wouldn't quite say he's a leader since a good leader leads by example, not words. You could lead them."

The car went dead silent as he thought over what I had said, and I pulled out of the driveway.

Everyone seemed to show up at roughly the same time outside of the Argent apartment building. Ethan and Aiden looked ready to go, ready to do something useful, ready for a fight. Boyd stood more on the hopeful side though with a distant look in his eyes. Scott was still rather quiet as he glanced over the twins before leading the way into the building. After a semi-awkward elevator ride and waiting at the front door of the apartment, Allison opened the door and went right into talking.

"My father said all of the Katashi evidence is being moved to a federal lockup by armored car tonight," Allison explained, leading us into the apartment with Lydia standing at the end of the hall in the doorway to Allison's bedroom. "Probably within the next few hours."

I frowned as Ethan asked, "We're going to rob an armored car?"

"You have to be joking," Boyd blurted, his expression stoic. "Please tell me you're joking."

Scott looked absolutely appalled and in any other situation, I'd probably laugh at the face he was making, but I was right there with him. Robbing an armored car? That was guarded by law enforcement? And stealing federal evidence? It had to be the most illegal thing we'd done yet, including breaking into the Sheriff's Station and deleting what might be considered evidence. Pretty sure that would only constitute as breaking and entering and tampering with evidence. This would be tampering with evidence, theft, and interfering in a federal investigation. Oh, and assault if we have to attack and/or knock anyone out.

What fun.

"Well," Lydia dragged out, "we're going to try."

Our group piled into Chris's office and listened to Lydia's brief overview of the plan of causing a distraction as the car left town, breaking into the back of the car, taking what we needed, and hightailing it out of there. It felt weird to be in Chris's office without him and coming up with an illegal plan without Stiles, but considering they were both out for the count, we had to deal with it ourselves.

"This is a really bad plan," Scott said after the SparkNotes version and looking over the road map laid out on the desk.

"It's not that bad," Lydia tried to salvage.

Ethan walked around Lydia's side, staring at the map too. "It's not that good." Aiden rubbed his head from his seat, likely silently agreeing with his brother.

I sighed and said, "Stiles is the only one in this group who can possibly come up with a good plan." Scott's brows furrowed, probably taking offense to my assessment, but what could I say? It's true! They might not have been perfect, but Stiles and his detective brain were better at plans than the rest of us. "This is as good as we're going to get. It'll be impossible to know what route they're going to take, so a good plan is difficult to come up with regardless."

Lydia eyed me carefully from across the desk as she leaned forward on her hands. "I don't know if I should thank you or be annoyed."

"¿Por qué no los dos?" I joked, ending it with a grin.

She grumbled quietly, "You make it really difficult sometimes."

"I do, I really do."

Rolling her eyes, she got back to the matter at hand. "Anyway, if Sara can get one of the Argent's GPS trackers on the armored car, then we can follow it."

Allison leaned toward the map and pointed at the Roosevelt Bridge that led out of town across the river, the only viable option for leaving town for San Francisco, the closest town with an FBI office and where Agent McCall was typically stationed when not conducting cases for impeachment. Speaking of, I wonder what happened with that considering he now knew about the supernatural.

"So, when it gets here-" Allison started.

Aiden cut her off. "We attack them."

We all turned to Aiden sitting in the chair. "Were you paying any attention?" I couldn't help but ask. Even I was paying attention, and all I really needed to know was what I needed to do, and I had the easiest damn job as the fastest one: put the GPS on the car when no one was looking.

He shrugged. "Not really. I spaced out after 'rob an armored car'." Aiden dropped his hands after his sassy quotations. "Just tell me who to hit."

"Your bikes will be in the middle of the road, looking like you guys got into an accident," Lydia explained like she was talking to a five-year-old. She might as well have been given how much Aiden seemed to want to break things, just like a child who had not been taught proper manners. Or how I had been with my childhood temper tantrums.

"I can set something on fire if you want it to look more realistic," I offered, and Boyd snorted from behind me. "Maybe some burns or scorch marks."

"Please don't," Ethan said.

Lydia, visibly annoyed, continued her explanation for the twin who hadn't paid attention. "And when the driver gets out to help-"

"We attack them!" Aiden said again more enthusiastically.

Both Lydia and Allison chorused, "No!" I glanced back at Boyd who was trying not to laugh, same as me. Getting on Lydia's nerves was a fun pass time and just as entertaining as getting on Stiles's nerves.

"You'll distract him," Lydia said and gestured to Boyd. "And Boyd will break open the back door."

"Does anyone have gloves I can borrow?" Boyd asked. "I'd rather not have my fingerprints on what'll be a crime scene." While a good question and genuine concern, it was bad timing for Lydia's patience.

Lydia ignored Boyd's question and concern as her jaw twitched in frustration. She then gestured to Scott next to me. "And Scott will get Katashi's finger."

"It's not his actual finger, is it?" Ethan asked.

Lydia sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "I am so done with all of you." I sniggered and she picked her head up to glare at me. Lifting my hands, I turned away, trying not to make another sound lest she bite my head off.

Ethan then had a different question. "Why aren't we just going to Stilinski for help?"

"Because if he gets caught then it's the Sheriff tampering with federal evidence," Scott answered.

"Guys, this is going to work," Allison reassured with a nod of her head, but she seemed more desperate than hopeful. It made sense though. Her dad was in jail for crying out loud. She was trying to convince herself just as much as the rest of us. "We can do this. We're losing Stiles, Isaac is in a coma, my dad is in jail for murder. . . We need to do this."

Well, that wasn't sobering at all, buzzkill. Wouldn't kill anyone to have a sense of humor in a dire situation though. It made everything go a lot smoother. I mean, there's a reason why play is on the list of survival steps. It's probably like why some people make jokes when around death. Without fun or something positive to occupy the mind, people go insane, wallow in grief, or drown in their own misery. Some may see it as insensitive or redundant, but coping mechanisms are always important.

The last thing anyone wanted for supernatural creatures was to succumb to negative emotions like anger, grief, or sadness. That always led to disaster. Even a pessimist could recognize that.

We all split to get what we needed, planning to meet up at the station no later than an hour. After changing into something more comfortable and darker to hide in the shadows, along with gloves to keep from leaving fingerprints, and braiding my hair to get it out of the way, I put my chain dart in my jacket pocket and left my room I needed to pick up Boyd from his house first before continuing to our true destination. For the heist.

A heist.

It sounded ridiculous.

Stepping out of the house, I stopped in my tracks to see Kira walking up my driveway. She donned a sheepish smile at the sight of me. Eyeing her and the red bag slung over her shoulder, I met her halfway and immediately asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm coming with you," she said. I raised a brow and she sighed. "I invited Boyd over to study and he said he couldn't since you all were robbing a car. At first, I thought he was joking, but uh. . . yeah." Her face pinched. "Unless he really was joking and I'm just terrible at reading when he's being sarcastic."

Raising my hand with my fingers about an inch apart, I said, "A bit of both. His resting face makes it really hard to tell, but yeah, we are. Katashi, the dead Yakuza that Allison's dad and Derek are in jail for, had a prosthetic finger that Allison thinks has an expensive scroll hiding inside." I tilted my head with a quiet hum. "It's more plausible than it sounds. Anyway, all the stuff for the case is being moved, so unless we want to break into a federal building in a completely different city, we need to do this first."

"Oh, right." Her voice was small for a moment then she perked up. "I still want to help."

"Your parents will kill me if I let you."

"They don't have to know," she said, desperation seeping in as she shook her head. She wiggled the bag on her shoulder. "I've been picking this up fast. Crazy fast. Let me show you."

I jumped back as she whipped out a katana, slicing it through the air a tad closer to my body than I would have comfortably liked. My eyes were wide at the sight of Kira holding a sword. "Where the hell did you get a damn katana?"

Kira shrugged, partially grinning. "My dad has a collection of weapons."

"I know that. They decorate your house for crying out loud." I glanced around to see if anyone was on the street, but thankfully, I didn't see anyone around. "Won't he notice if one's missing? People who collect weapons are usually pretty anal about them."

Her nose scrunched up, and she shook her head again. "No, this one's one of the extras from the garage that he recently finished making but isn't pretty enough for display. But let me show you what I can do."

I barely had time to register the part where she insinuated her dad forged the sword as well as a whole bunch of other weapons that lined their walls. If I remembered correctly, most of the weapons they had were swords: engraved ōdachi, katana with decorated hilts and sheaths, a few painted tantō. I did recall one set of fancy war fans though which would be interesting to learn how to wield, but the ones specifically mounted on the wall in the Yukimura home were far too pretty to wield and potentially damage.

With more durable, less decorative ones, however, I could be like Kitana. Now, that'd be cool. Or with regular fans, not war fans, I could be like Mai Shiranui.

Regardless, I hadn't known Ken was the one who made them all.

Kira spun the sword in her hand a few times then swung it, but while I admit she showed natural promise, most of her movements were showy and flowy. They weren't sharp enough and she kind of swung it like a bat, without knowing anything about how to swing a bat either. I'd seen enough baseball games on TV with my dad when I was a kid to know what over-swinging looked like and recognized the same concept when watching Isaac's lacrosse games. Not to mention, she was using a two-handed weapon almost solely as a one-handed weapon, when not swinging it like a baseball bat.

All things considered; she wasn't terrible for her first time. Most of it was likely due to shows, movies, and instinct.

As one of her twirls came to an end, I quickly hit her wrist, causing her to yelp and drop the sword. I caught it before it hit the ground. Kira looked at me in shock as I held it up, testing the weight, and the sharpness. Ken did a pretty good job with forging it. Of course, the History teacher would be the one making authentic weaponry.

"Not bad," I muttered, running my hand along the blade. "I prefer something with a little more fluidity, but to each their own." I looked up from the sword. "What drew you to a katana? There were many other weapons you could've tried."

Kira shrugged and took the sword as I handed it back to her. "When we were fighting the Oni outside the vet clinic, I picked up a pipe and hit one that was going for Boyd, and it, I don't know, it felt right. It was just instinct, I guess."

"It's not just instinct," I told her. "Kitsune are good with weapons naturally but we still have to learn and train properly just like everyone else."

"Instinct? That's all it is?" She sounded a little put-out. I probably would be too.

"Kitsune aren't technically creatures. It's our fox spirit that gives us our abilities. It's our spirit that knows weapons, not us, and we can't just ride off instinct all the time. That's how we stay out of balance and let the spirit take over." I shook my head and gestured to my car. "Look, I can tell you more later, but if you're coming, we have to go now."

A glance at the horizon showed the sun setting soon, another fifteen or twenty minutes maybe.

"I'm coming," Kira reaffirmed. She sheathed the sword and started toward my car.

Well, got to get her used to doing illegal stuff sooner or later. And as long as everything went to plan, she wouldn't get in trouble.

But since when did anything go according to plan for us?

Kira and I picked up Boyd then headed to the station, parking a short way down the street so my car wouldn't be on any of the security cameras outside the station. And Boyd was wearing gloves which made me want to laugh, but with his leather jacket and hulking figure, they just made him look a tad more badass regardless of the good thinking on his part.

Considering how often shows and movies always forget about not wearing gloves at crime scenes, we could stand to learn from that before we got into some serious trouble.

Kira and Boyd followed me down the street to the station to help in case something went wrong, both worried about the success rate of the plan, which I understood, but Boyd seemed to show more concern and worry for the plan when it was simply us three. Darting eyes, twitching ears, wiggling fingers. It was like he could smell trouble in the air if that was a thing. Or maybe he was simply more sensitive to things going wrong ever since he and Erica had been kidnapped by the Alpha Pack and she had died. That also made sense.

Once in the parking lot, we hid behind cars as we went around the back of the building and came upon Allison and Scott who were waiting in silence with a clear view of the back door and the armored car. Scott gave us a quick grin and nod when we joined them, and he didn't seem surprised to see Kira with me and Boyd.

I knelt in the space between Allison and Scott as she looked through the scope of her crossbow. Allison pulled something small out of her jacket pocket and handed it to me. The GPS was smaller than I expected it to be. Then she hoisted her crossbow again to look through the scope once more.

Propping up on the balls of my feet, I prepared for her signal, fiddling with the small GPS in my hand. We can do this. We can do this.

Allison scanned the surrounding area, and upon not seeing anyone, she lowered it and whispered, "Go."

I hopped up and ran for the vehicle, silent on my feet as my heart pumped in my chest. Reaching the back of the car, I knelt and attached the GPS to the bottom side of the bumper, but before I could stand and run back before anyone could catch me, the door of the station creaked open.

My breath hitched and I inched around the side of the car to distance myself from whoever exited the building, hiding by the back wheel. The heavy footsteps reached the car, and they opened the passenger side door while saying, "Okay, let's get out of here."

While hearing that someone was in the driver's seat would have freaked me out, my ears caught the sound of a gun being drawn, but I knew I hadn't been seen. Something was wrong with the driver. Something that happened prior to Allison and Scott arriving shortly before Kira, Boyd, and me.

The back doors of the armored car swung open, and I heard grunting and a struggle, only to see a deputy fall to the ground in front of me. Taking in a slow breath, I waited to see the deputy's chest rise and fall before quietly backing away and glancing up at the car, particularly at the roof of it. I turned back to see my friends standing up, prepared for a fight.

Scott ran forward from his hiding spot with Allison, Boyd, and Kira, and said, "We need that finger." Allison brandished her crossbow, ready to fire at a moment's notice, and Kira held out her katana.

With them occupied I started to climb, quickly and quietly hoisting myself up and using the wheel to perch myself on top of the car.

"Why should I give it to you?" the stranger said. Peering over the side, I saw a hulking man who could rival Boyd for sheer size. Whether he was taller or not, I couldn't tell from above. If I had to guess who he was based on his size and how he knew about Katashi's things, he must've been Kincaid, Katashi's former werewolf bodyguard.

"There's a briefcase in there with $150,000 in it," Allison told him, eyeing him through the scope.

Kincaid held up the prosthetic. "The scroll inside this prosthetic finger is worth three million." Huh, maybe we should sell it then. On a scroll so small, it can only have so much information. He slid the prosthetic into the chest pocket of his leather jacket. What was up with werewolves and leather?

"Give me the finger," Scott demanded then closed his eyes with a sigh at his own wording. "You know what I mean."

After a beat, I knew Kincaid wouldn't give up a three million dollar scroll for a briefcase filled with money not even close to a quarter of the amount, so I pulled out my chain dart, the ringing noise reaching his ears as the chain unfurled and I gripped the kunai in one hand and weight in the other.

He tilted his head, hearing the sound. I threw the kunai at Kincaid and he turned to catch it mid-air. Uh oh. "I guess the negotiations are over," he said and yanked on the knife.

My body jerked forward starting with my arm and hand that was holding tight to the chain, and I sailed through the air toward the ground, but I collided with Scott and groaned as we both hit the solid pavement. One bad landing was all it took for my body to start aching. Standing as fast as we could, I had just enough time to see Kincaid knock the sword from Kira's hand and slap her away and toss Allison toward the brick wall. I went and picked Kira up as she bled from a cut on her lip while Scott joined in on the fight.

Kincaid's blue wolf eyes pierced through the meager lighting as he growled, and Boyd growled back, flicking out his claws as he charged with a swing. Kincaid dodged the slash of Boyd's claws only to get kicked from Scott in the back, though he didn't move or even seem phased at Scott's hit. They were going to need help and Allison seemed in bad shape a few feet away from that hard hit even with Lydia running up to her side to check on her.

"You good?" I asked Kira. She nodded and leaned against the wall.

Collecting my chain with a few pulls, I then yelled, "Scott!" He ducked away from a swipe by Kincaid and turned toward me as I rushed over. "Help me up!" He barely had time to react before having to catch me and throw me up to Kincaid's shoulders. I climbed up the rest of the way with Kincaid struggling as I wrapped my chain and a leg around his neck.

Boyd and Scott grabbed both of his arms, holding them out so he couldn't take a swing at either of them or pull me off with my tightening grip on the chain. I made sure not to pull too tightly since I wasn't trying to kill him.

"We just want the scroll," Scott tried again, his voice strained. A few beads of sweat popped up on his forehead as he held on tight to Kincaid's hand. Boyd, on the other hand, seemed to handle Kincaid's strength just fine, matching it well.

"No." Kincaid used all of his strength to pull Scott with his fist toward Boyd, throwing Boyd off who caught Scott. Then Kincaid grabbed my sleeve and tossed me to the ground again.

Pain exploded in my arm with a snap as I landed, and I whimpered after taking the weight off it.

Behind me, I heard Kincaid say, "You have the eyes of an alpha, but where's the strength?"

"Up here!" another voice called.

I rolled over and watched Ethan and Aiden bare their teeth and jumped from a balcony above us. They immediately attacked Kincaid once they landed, landed punch after punch before Kincaid rolled over the side of the brick half-wall, and Scott scrambled to his feet.

"Ethan, Aiden, stop," he told them.

"Stop!" Lydia exclaimed when the twins didn't listen, taking steps toward Kincaid.

"You want him to come after us?" Aiden asked incredulously, gesturing to Kincaid who was kneeling on the ground.

Kira helped me up, careful not to touch my left arm since I was clutching it, as Ethan said, "Scott, we've seen guys like this. Trust us, he's dangerous."

"So are we," Scott said, straightening his back. Kincaid wiped the blood away from his mouth. "And he looks smart enough to remember that." He reached forward and dug into the chest pocket of Kincaid's jacket to pull out the prosthetic. Scott hit the open end into his hand and a small bound scroll popped out. A small smile graced his features.

We'd gotten the scroll, despite the planning being completely unnecessary. Now we just needed to see if it was useful.

Scott looked up at the twins. "We're here to save a life." His eyes drifted down to Kincaid. "Not end one." The prosthetic pinky finger hit the ground as he let it go. "Let's go before more deputies come out."

Scott noticed me clutching my arm as we left the parking lot of the Sheriff's Station, so he held out his hand to get me to stop, letting the others continue walking toward each of their vehicles, or in Kira and Boyd's case, my car. He looked at me with his concerned eyes, as usual.

"You okay?" he asked quietly.

"I think it broke," I said, gesturing to my arm with my head. "It can't heal unless it's aligned."

He nodded and reached out, gently setting his hands on my upper arm on either side of where it was misshaped. "You ready?"

I gritted my teeth and nodded, then winced as he pushed both sides of the broken bone back into place. He immediately reached down to my hand and started taking away the pain, black veins flowing across his own hand.

"You don't have to—" I started to say, trying to pull away.

"I want to," he interrupted, keeping his hand in place on mine as my healing ability did its job.

While not the strongest werewolf physically, Scott McCall was certainly something else, that was for sure.

My arm healed on the drive to the vet clinic where Deaton was waiting for us. Well, some of us. Lydia helped Allison get home, the latter of whom seemed to have a concussion from being thrown against a wall and having no healing ability to fix her right back up. The twins also didn't join us at the clinic, probably with their tails between their legs after Scott was very adamant against killing Kincaid. But Boyd wanted to know what the scroll said just as much as Scott, and Kira, I assumed, wanted to avoid going home as much as she could, so both went with me. We met up with Scott outside of the clinic and followed him inside.

Deaton stopped mopping the exam room when we walked in and set the mop aside. "Were you successful?" he asked.

Scott pulled the small scroll out of his pocket and held it up. "Yep," he answered. "It's smaller than I thought it'd be." It was hardly half the size of my pinky finger.

"It's kind of hard to imagine how big an ancient scroll hiding in a prosthetic finger will be without seeing it," Boyd said, leaning on the counter with Kira next to him.

"I just hope it's everything we need," Deaton said then gestured to me. "Sara, your Japanese is better than mine."

Scott handed the scroll to me. The tiny thing was dwarfed by my hand, and the tightly rolled paper had yellowed with age. I glanced around at the others and took a deep breath before carefully unraveling the scroll. There was a lot riding on the tiny thing. I felt everyone's eyes on me as I unrolled the small, old scroll.

I was expecting a lot more from such an expensive, hard-to-get object, but it took all of ten seconds to fully read it. Fully unraveled, it didn't even reach more than six inches.

I looked up from the scroll with a frown. "There's barely anything on this thing."

"Does it say anything useful?" Boyd asked.

"That one method of expelling a nogitsune is to change the body of the host." Rather cryptic if you ask me.

"Change the body?" Kira repeated, her face contorting in confusion. "Please tell me that's something easy to do."

Deaton donned a pained expression as though the answer had already come to him. Unsurprising, since druids tended to be like that. "Which begs the question, how do we change Stiles' body?"

Scott looked up from the floor. "By turning him into a werewolf."

I sighed and rolled the scroll back up. "Well, that's incredibly easy," I said, sarcasm dripping into my voice.

"Really?" Kira asked.

"No." I shook my head at her. "Becoming a werewolf isn't as simple as getting bit by an alpha, and poof you're a werewolf. Whoever gets bit always has the potential to die, no matter how healthy they are, no matter what age."

"Sara's right," Deaton said, crossing his arms over his chest. "It might kill Stiles, and—" He looked at me. "You specifically said 'expel', right? Not kill?"

I nodded. "Akumabarai. Exorcise."

"Then it only gets the nogitsune out of Stiles," Deaton continued. "It doesn't kill it and it doesn't trap it. And the bite would either kill Stiles, or he'd be a werewolf forever, and we'd still have a nogitsune running around wreaking havoc but in a different body."

And it'd be another hunt all over again.

Shugendō- literally means 'the path of training and testing' or 'the way to spiritual power through discipline' otherwise it's a religion stemming from a fusion of Buddhism, Taoism, and shamanistic and folk religions that became Shinto

¿Por qué no los dos? - "Why not both?" in Spanish, a meme that I would hope y'all know

Akumabarai – literally 'pay the devil', exorcise, purify, expel