Chapter 5, everybody! Progress is being made, I swear….

Obake quotes Kakashi from Naruto at one point—Kakashi is notoriously late for meeting with his team and that one particular excuse just stuck with me. XD

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

How To Train Your Dragon © 2010 DreamWorks

Obake did eventually have to go back to the village, if only because he needed to sleep in a real bed. On his to-do list, bring a sleeping roll next time.

Also on his to-do list: figure out what to do about a clingy dragon.

Said dragon had gone from completely skittish to biting on the hem of his coat and digging its heels in to keep him from leaving—he had eventually had to slough his coat off and flip it over the dragon, which had distracted it enough for him to get to the crevasse leading out.

"You. Stay. Put," he told it, pointing—consider it to see if his point had gone across. "Here," he clarified. "I'll be back tomorrow." Hopefully—it depended on if Callaghan was in a fine mood, which was always dicey anymore.

The dragon whimpered before burrowing under his coat. Well! At least he was fairly certain it'd stay still. Pull the bark back into place, and begin the fun task of finding his way through the woods in early evening.

Also probably ought to think about finding the crossbow and knife he had left in the woods, he reflected as he picked his way through the undergrowth. Also, pick up the pace because the woods in the evening at this time of year were cold—pull the sleeves he had rolled up out of habit back down, rub at his arms…ugh, just get home, collapse into bed. He was bone-tired—a sleepless night two days ago and then uncomfortable sleep last night saw him as the walking dead tonight; he had plans to collapse face-first into his bed and not get up until something happened, like a Gronkle falling through the roof.

Stars were hanging in the sky before he finally stumbled out of the woods—he paused on the incline, looking over the faintly glittering outline of Yokai. Half the population leaving and then never building back up, losing more to battles—maybe a third of the village was actually populated and lit, and that was pushing it. A smattering here, a smattering there, biggest cluster around the hall where Callaghan lived—

And then Obake's house.

His house was the closest to the forest, up on a hill, away from the village proper by a good fifty feet, if one were measuring and counting the slope. It was a better target for dragons, sure, but he was relatively assured of spotting any unwanted visitors and ducking out the back before they arrived—as he was usually wont to do.

Unfortunately, consistently staying in one house (whose previous occupants he didn't remember) instead of crashing wherever like some of the others preferred meant that he was easy to find—so he really shouldn't have been surprised to see that he had company.

That didn't stop him from jerking in surprise at the sight of Momakase sitting at his table—mostly out of reflex, in case she decided a knife through him was a good idea.

Currently, Momakase seemed more inclined to toy with said knife, with the tip buried in the table, idly turning it as she glanced up.

"Well," she said finally. "It's about time you showed up."

"I'm sorry?" he tried. He was really too exhausted to be dealing with her right now.

"You should be. And after I made you dinner, too."

"What do you want?" he sighed.

"What? Can't I do something nice?"

He very dearly hoped his glower was repressive enough—Momakase never did something out of the goodness of her heart: she either wanted something or had been bribed.

She shrugged, acquiescing the unspoken point. "It was Carl's idea. I just went along with it because I, like everyone else, want to know where you've been."

"Wandering on the path of life. Not that it's any of your business."

"Oh, I'd love to hear you tell that to Callaghan when he gets back."

He tipped his head at her comment, interest piqued despite himself. "Back?"

"Oh yeah, left to go try and find one of those dragon nests again, maybe raid a few settlements on the way there and back—he was going to bring you along, too. Except, you know, you were nowhere to be found. Boy was he not happy with you—you'd better hope raiding puts him in a finer mood."

Raiding never put him in a finer mood. "Do I dare ask who he left in charge?" he asked, resting a hand on the table to brace himself.

"Yama."

He dropped his head, teeth gritted to keep his muted curse silent. Yama was a good attack dog, he'd give him that—Yama was also an idiot when it came to something nuanced or with more than one moving part, like running a village.

"Yeah, it's like that," she said, nudging the plate of sushi over to him—some of his favorites, not that he thought she noticed things like that. That sort of fine detail was more Carl's line of work.

Felony Carl—now there's the guy he personally would have left in charge, had it been up to him.

"Didn't get a decent answer, by the way," she continued.

"And you're probably not going to," he told her, lifting his head—and then lifting it a bit more to avoid the knife tip pointing at his neck. "No, scratch that—definitely not going to now."

"You owe me."

"Oh I'd love to hear this explained."

"Let's start with the number of times I've saved your skinny little life, move on to how many times you'd probably starve to death in that forge of yours."

"I'm sure you're more interested in your kill count than saving anyone, and how many times did you do that without Carl telling you to?"

He had straightened up, she had stood to follow and keep the knife on him. "Details. Now seriously, where have you been?"

Maybe a partial truth. "I thought I saw a dragon go down off Akatori Point. I wanted to make sure."

"Seriously? That's what you risk angering Callaghan for?"

"Excuse me for thinking that I didn't rate high enough on his consideration. Now if you don't mind—"

"And your coat is where?"

On a dragon right now. "My door is right over there."

She finally took the knife away from his throat, fortunately, expression scowling. "Fine, but this isn't over."

"I can't wait," he said, watching her go out of the corner of his eye. Wait a few minutes to make sure she was gone…look at the food she had left….

Take it over to the fire and toss it inside.

Not that he didn't appreciate the gesture, but Momakase had a habit of purposefully including the poisonous parts of the fish, leaving a person paralyzed while she robbed them blind. Him, he was sure, would get to be pestered until he gave up what he was really doing—probably with knives.

And he didn't want to risk leaving the dragon alone for too long—there was a very real chance it could escape, wander off somewhere—and wouldn't that just be great, someone finding a dragon with a very obviously human-made bandage on it. No, for his plan to work, that dragon had to be trained, and it had to be trained to answer to him and him only.

But he'd worry about that later—right now he had a bed that was missing him dearly, and a body that was desperately wanting to get in it, even if his mind refused to stop buzzing. It was a curse, he decided, dragging himself up the steps and to the loft. That, and the decision to have the bed upstairs instead of right by the door so he could just flop direct into it.

But reach it he did, finally, not even bothering to take his boots off—just collapse into it, bone-tired, exhaustion finally silencing his active mind.

Tomorrow…he had much too much to do tomorrow.


Older-Brother was not pleased with his progress so far.

"You've got to stop," Honeysuckle said, putting her paws on his chest when he reared up to roar in frustration. "You're not going to get this in one night. It works all right for me because that's my species—we have to be able to hide quickly. Night Furies are a little different—you can already hide all right, you have extra firepower—you just need to be patient."

"Honeysuckle, I don't have time to be patient," Older-Brother said, disentangling himself and pacing away. "Right now, Little-Brother is out there and he's alone and he's scared and he needs me. I can't just—nngh—I need to be able to do this—I need to be able to get to him with no one seeing."

She came up to him, layered a wing over him, leaned against him. "I know. But he needs you at full strength. You have to breathe—breathe with me."

He took a deep breath, in time with her, let it out in a controlled hiss.

"I have to save him, Honeysuckle," he told her, emotion choking him.

"I know," she said, resting her head against his. "But you don't have to do it alone."

"Not while you still have friends."

They looked over to see Swift-Strike striding over, shaking out her spikes as the others followed her onto the beach. Greenscales and Healing-Talons came over and rested against him, Blue-Firescales running around them until he skidded to a halt, sending sand everywhere.

"I. LOVE. This plan," he told them, wriggling in his excitement.

"I figured out what you were doing a couple of hours ago," Swift-Strike told them. "So I went and got the others. Now how are we going to do this?"

Older-Brother blinked at them, not quite processing what she was saying. "What do you mean?"

"We're obviously going and getting Little-Brother back—now how are we going to do this?"

Older-Brother exchanged glances with Honeysuckle, his confusion meeting her overwhelming hope.

"We can do this," she told him. "Together."

"Yeah—but not to be the negative one, just how?" Greenscales asked. "I mean, Mountain-King is still saying no, and it's not like we can go against that."

"We can if we want to badly enough," Older-Brother told him. "And he can't keep it up forever."

"Three days is his average minimum," Healing-Talons announced.

"So there. We can do this—in three days, we're getting Little-Brother."

No matter what it takes, he assured himself.