Canine Instincts

Chapter Five

A/N: Sorry this chapter took longer then I told you all. For one thing, FFN was down so I couldn't post it. Second was I got stuck a bit because I wasn't sure what I wanted Heero and Wufei to do. I've cleared this all up now though and I want you all to know there is only going to be a few more chapters of this until it ends. This wasn't going to be a big story because I have a habit of growing tired of writing the plot and end up abandoning it for months on end and I didn't want to do that for CI.

Anyway! I hope you all enjoy the story! Happy Reading! ^.^

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Pack Mates

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Duo licked his claws for the last traces of remaining blood. The hunt was fun for the most part because a good chase always got his blood boiling. The deer was fast, he gave the creature some credit. He loved chasing prey especially fast prey for that made the hunt far more interesting. The chase took him deep into the woods where finally cornered the creature against an ancient tree. Using his claw slashing technique, he easily sliced off the head--instant death.

Before the blood could cool he was already ripping away pieces of flesh and eating the cooling meat. The blood was thick and just what he needed to calm his raging bloodlust for the moment. When he finished the meat, he stared at the carcass trying to figure out what to do. If he left it to rot one of the pilots could find it by the stench, on the other hand there were wolves in the area. He needed to just call for them and they would come, they would have to since he was an alpha dog youkai and a higher being.

Sniffing the air, he detected the telltale signs of a coming storm, burning ozone and moisture. He snarled at his misfortune, the last thing he wanted was to be caught in the rain. He howled to the sky, calling the wolves to him although he rather not.

As the sky cracked open, pouring down torrents of rain, a pack of wolves howled to answer him and in moments they arrived. The alpha of the back came up to him and sniffed him in greetings. Bending so that he was resting on the back of his heels, InuYasha sniffed back. He raised his palm and the wolf touched the outstretched palm with his nose in obedience.

'What do you need, dog youkai?' The alpha growled softly.

'I have hunted and killed a deer. However I did not finish it all. I have humans living near here and if they come to investigate the smell they will find it. I offer the remains to you as a gift for allowing me to enter your territory even if I did not come to greet you properly.' InuYasha growled back, too low for human ears to hear. 'There is also another deer nearby that I injured while on my hunt, you should be able to find it easily.'

'We shall do as asked as long as you do not kill here again without asking. The pups in training were trying to find the deer for a session in hunting.'

'Ah, I see.' Duo nodded and gave the wolf a scratch behind the ear in a place that the wolf liked very much. 'I will not kill again. I will be leaving soon, no need to worry.'

The alpha wolf growled to the other wolves and two went off to the direction of the other deer while another two started to drag away the carcass of the remains of InuYasha's hunt. Giving the alpha wolf one last scratch, Duo got up and bent his legs to prepare to jump up into a high tree branch.

'Wait, what do we call you, dog youkai?' The alpha wolf growled out to him.

Duo paused in the tree, should he tell them the name he took for now or the name that he was born with. He reached up and scratched his ears. 'InuYasha.' He growled to them and bounded away on the branches leaving the pack alone.

**

Heero tilted his head a few degrees and looked puzzled at the sound of howling wolves in the woods that could be heard in the distance. Wufei looked up from his book, with his reading glasses on and raised an eyebrow at his lover. "It's just the local wolves, Heero."

"Hn." Heero replied as he gazed out the window. He wasn't as sure about that as his lover was, but he wouldn't speak his thoughts out loud to his partner. Not until he knew the truth.

**

Duo arrived at the safe house in a half hour. He was soaked to the bone and his pants were no longer puffy and stuck to his legs in akward places. Running a clawed hand through his wet hair, he winced at the feelings of knots being tugged by his claws. He hated brushing his hair when it was full of knots. He was going to have to take another shower just so he could use the cream rinse and not worry about all the knots.

He walked around the perimeter of the house and stopped when he was directly below his window. He noticed someone closed it and scowled. "Now how the hell am I supposed to get into the house?"

He growled in annoyance and jumped up landing on the window sill, cringing when he heard it crack under his weight. With his claws he dug under the window and when he felt his claws were fully under it, he pushed up and grinned when the window easily slid open without making any noise.

Stepping inside, he gazed around the room with narrowed eyes as he sniffed the air. Something isn't right, he thought. Sniffing at the air wasn't giving him any answers so he got down on all fours and sniffed at the floor. He sniffed around like a dog for a few minutes until he reached his door. Giving it one last sniff, he growled low in his throat, his golden eyes glinted dangerously in the artificial light as he sorted through the information he gathered.

Duo stood up, flexing his claws and turned away from the door to head to his bathroom. On the way he stripped himself from his old clothes, not even bothering to hang them up even though they soaked through the carpet. He walked over to the shower and turned it on to the hottest temperature it could go and stepped inside. For a few seconds it was freezing cold but the water slowly started to warm up.

As he took another shower, he growled to himself, muttering curse words under his breath as he thought about why he didn't notice after all this time. It was obvious, it should have rubbed him the wrong way the first time he saw something abnormal. But no, he ignored it because his human senses were totally blind and numb to the scents and he had no idea.

He was angry at himself for not noticing sooner. He wanted to kick himself for thinking that it wasn't possible and that humans could do what that did and—InuYasha shook his head under the beating of the hot water. It wouldn't do to think about what he should have noticed. Now he had to deal with the consequences. He knew that he would have to come out in the open now. It was impossible for him not to now that he knew what he did.

Watching the water going down the drain, his eyes widened when he spotted that the water was browning. Grabbing a lock of his hair, he cursed again as he saw that it was silvery white again. "Damn it! Why the hell—Grrr. When I find out why—" He snorted and finished washing his hair.

Getting out of the shower, he turned off the water. Grabbing the towel he had already used, he quickly dried out his hair and his body. As he walked out into his room, he glanced around then smacked himself. "I forgot I washed the clothes today! What the hell am I going to wear?"

He glanced at his old clothes and saw that they were no where near as dry as they should be and if he wore them he would smell like wet fire rat on top of smelling like a wet dog. This was not good.

Frantically, he dug into his dressers looking for ANYTHING to wear, just something so he could walk out and confront his fellow pilots. He knew Quatre and Trowa were back now, he could smell them through his door. He jus didn't know how he was going to go about telling them all. Although he had his suspicions one of them already knew but he would get to that bridge and cross it when the time comes.

Finally he saw in the closet some clothes that a college student left here. Taking it out, he wrinkled his nose. It was a pair of tight leather pants that would ride low on his hips. The shirt was a white button down long sleeve shirt. Duo had no choice, he would _have_ to wear something so revealing. He hated wearing something like that because he didn't want anyone to see the faded scars of old battles but he supposed he must.

After dressing, he found out that the shirt was too small to be buttoned around his chest because his muscles were larger in his demon form then in human form. He scowled but left the shirt unbuttoned to his immense displeasure.

Walking over to his dresser he quickly brushed through his hair but didn't braid it. If he going to show the pilots his true self, he might as well not braid his hair because this was what he really looked like. The only reason why he braided his hair in the first place after he left L2 was to hide lock picks and small knives inside but seeing as how he wasn't on a mission, he shouldn't have any problems with that at the moment.

Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself for what was about to come. Then he started having second thoughts. What if the others don't recognize me? It wasn't like they could tell who he was anymore and he didn't really have any proof that he was Duo unless the others questioned him. He knew that it would be shoot first, ask later type thing. He needed something to prove that he was Duo. Looking around the room his eyes lit up when he found one thing to prove he was Duo.

InuYasha walked over to the dresser by his bed and picked up the silver chain that held his cross. It was the cross that Sister Helen gave him right before she died. She had told him that Father Maxwell would have wanted him to have it because he knew that Duo would survive.

//Flash Back//

The colony rocked as an explosion happened a few blocks away. Cursing, InuYasha pulled the swaying truck carrying the mobile suit to a halt and got out of the truck. He stared at the smoke rising up to the sky. "What the hell was that?"

His eyes widened as he pinpointed just what was located by the explosion. "The church! My pack!" A string of curses in both Japanese and English rang out as he hopped back into the truck and pulled the door closed. Gunning the engine he pushed the truck as fast as it could go as he headed towards the church.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY YOU FILTHY HUMANS!" InuYasha yelled as he ran the truck through the market place towards the church. Several people jumped out of the way, just inches of getting run over by the huge carrier truck.

The tired screeched so loud that his ears flattened to his head as he cringed at the noise. He pulled to a stop in front of the burning down church and ripped the door off its hinges in his panic as he ran out of the truck. His eyes widened when he spotted members of his pack littering the ground in pieces and some of them in the fires burning, he could smell their scents burning in the fire.

His heart constricted at the sight and smell, he stood there staring at the destruction, reminded of all the villages he burned as he tried to get the Shikon Jewel. Shaking himself out of the vision, he ran over to the fires and pulled the rubble away with his bare hands. The fire and heat he ignored as he ripped away pieces of the church trying to find someone-anyone alive in the fires. As he lifted one of the pieces of rubble, he saw her lying there. Her face was dirtied by soot and ash, her eyes full of pain.

"Duo," she whispered. Sister Helen turned her pained eyes to him and gave him a small smile. "Father Maxwell tried to stop them, he was so brave. He held out until the end that there was to be no more fighting. He knew you would survive, Duo," she took a painful breath and continued.

"He loved you like a father, he would want you to have this," she whispered as she put her hand over his clawed palm and something dropped into it.

"I'm going with the angels now, I'll always watch over you little one."

And she died in front of him.

Drops of water fell onto her face as he stared on at her sightless eyes. His vision was blurred as he looked at one of the few people that truly cared about him. She didn't even know his real name, none of them save his pack. But they died, they all died.

More drops of water fell until he could no longer look into her face and he wiped his eyes. The golden gems hardened as he spoke the last words he would say until he was found by Docter G as a stowaway, it was the words of his favorite human in the pack, the little girl.

"Boys don't cry."

He fled, leaving the burning church as his ears picked up the whispers of the people gathering by the fire, the words that would haunt him for nights and nights, to this day even. "There goes Maxwell's Demon," they would say.

//End FlashBack//

He stared at the silver cross, watching it glitter in the light. Sighting, he put it on and ran one last hand through his hair. He walked over to the door and out of his room.

His feather light footsteps could scarcely be heard by any of the pilots as he walked into the living room where the four of them were gathered. They looked up from there discussion and stared at the new figure in their room. In less than a second, they all had there guns trained on him.

He raised his arms in a silent surrender and gave them a half grin, showing a bit of his fangs. Here we go, he thought with a mental growl as Heero stood up, glaring at him and walked over to him, holding him at gunpoint. His eyes glinted as he picked up the scent again and he growled as Heero came closer.

"I never did realize it until now, Heero. I mean I should have expected with your amazing healing ability, the way you can get blown up, thrown off cliffs, and come out of it all alive. I never would have suspected it, you know." The other pilots besides Heero looked at the two with puzzlement as they tried to figure out what was going on. Heero however, kept glaring at Duo.

"You put up a near perfect act. If I didn't revert back to my old form, I would have never suspected it. It's all over your scent though. I can tell you ain't what you seem. But that's to be expected from a master of illusions, isn't it, kitsune?" InuYasha growled out to Heero.

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This is the end of another wonderful chapter! Stay tuned for the next chapter of Canine Instincts. I hope you all liked the little twist that I added at the end and let me warn you, the twist is even bigger than it seems and you will find that all out in the next chapter of CANINE INSTINCTS!

-AlantisB


LOVE & PEACE!!!