The weak morning sun was streaming through the cracks in the shed, when Saitou decided that Yahiko had slept enough.  "Wake up, lazy-ass," Saitou growled, tapping the softly snoring boy on the forehead with the toe of his zori sandal, "unless you want to get caught by the Daimyo's guards."  The boy waved his foot off sleepily.  Saitou knelt down and liberated his sword from the boy's sleep-addled grasp, marveling that he hadn't rolled upon it in the night killing himself.  He looked around the shed one last time to see if there was anything else he had forgotten to pack up; but waking Yahiko seemed to be his last task.

            "Huh? Wha- ...I wasn't asleep…" the boy claimed with a yawn, wiping sleep from his eyes and hay from his hair.  Saitou smirked down at him.

            "Hn.  I'd hate to be around when you really are asleep, then, if you snore like that when you are awake.  I bet even the farmers heard you."  Yahiko gasped and sat straight up.

            "The farmers!  Saitou!  Are they all right?  I dreamt that they were killed by a wolf and…"

            "We don't have time for this right now.  I've obscured our trail, and the coming snow storm should help us even more, but even someone as incompetent as Usui will find us if we stay here much longer," Saitou said as he left the shed, and mounted his horse.  He watched as Yahiko stumbled out after him, adjusting his stolen coat.  The swordsman reached down from the horse to help him up.  Yahiko froze, his foot in the air reaching for the stirrup, as his eyes landed on the axe and the gory body of the farmer. 

"But, it was only a dream, wasn't it?" he murmured.  Saitou gripped his forearm hard, and yanked him into the saddle.  The eagle swooped down to perch on the saddle horn.

"Sometimes, dreams come true," Saitou stated quietly, silently hoping the boy would stay calm.  "You can tell me of your dreams as we ride.  We really want to be well away from here when Shibumi's guards, and the snow, arrive," he said as he heeled the big black horse into ground eating, bone jouncing motion.  The forest quickly swallowed up the ill-fated farm from Yahiko's sight.

"It was all real," Yahiko whispered as he turned away from the direction of the farm, "that forest spirit lied to me."  Saitou looked over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow at the boy.

"Forest spirit?"

"I know it sounds crazy, but there was this crazy guy dressed in white, and there was this big black wolf with him.  He had to be a forest spirit.  I mean no one would travel with a wolf, right?  You have to believe me."

"Start at the beginning, leave nothing out," Saitou said, in a tone that sounded suspiciously like he was humoring the boy.  Yahiko pouted, but did as he was told.  They rode through the forest for a couple of hours with Yahiko recounting his adventures of the night before with a breathless 'and then…and then…and then…' style.

"You know, you shouldn't have flash that purse at those farmers yesterday," Saitou interrupted.  "They were honor-bound to help us, we didn't really have to offer to pay them."

"Excuse me for trying to be nice!"  Yahiko growled.  "They were poor, and you were being a complete bastard."

"Hn.  Go on with your story," Saitou said, ignoring the bastard remark.

"Anyway, they heard me, and the farmer ran after me with the axe.  He nearly caught me too, except this HUGE black demon wolf jumped him and tore his throat out!  I ran to the shed and got your sword, while the wolf ran after the farmer's wife."  Yahiko shuddered slightly.  "And then this idiot dressed in white came out of the forest into the clearing, just blithely ignoring the screams.  I tried to get him into the shed but it was too late; the wolf pounced him."  Yahiko stopped talking again.

"I didn't see a body dressed in white," Saitou said, urging the boy to continue.

"That's because the wolf didn't kill him.  They rolled around for a bit, playing, I guess, and then the wolf led the guy right to the shed!  They came right in!  I've never been so scared.  Anyway the guy completely ignored the fact that I was holding your sword, and went straight for your saddlebag, like he knew exactly what he was looking for… Hey wait a minute!  He said you had lied about the rabbit!  You lied to a forest spirit, and now he and his wolf are following you around trying to get revenge, right?"  Saitou actually chuckled.

"Did this forest spirit and his 'demon wolf' do anything that you would say was harmful?"

"Well, the wolf did kill the farmers, but they were going to rob and kill us…" Yahiko said thoughtfully.

"I don't think you were in any danger from them.  Besides, if you are right, it's me they were after."  Yahiko could almost swear that Saitou was laughing at him.  The swordsman slowed Horse, and stood in the stirrups, sniffing the wind like some sort of animal.

"I think we should stop soon.  It's going to start snowing shortly.  We should be far enough ahead of Usui's fools by now."

"Snow?" Yahiko asked looking at through the branches of the trees at the blue sky.  The western wind was warm.  However, Saitou had predicted last night's cold snap… along with wolves and spirits…Yahiko's mind quickly skirted away from where his thoughts were taking him.  Think of safe things, he told himself.  "You really hate Usui, don't you?"  Saitou snorted, as he slid off the horse and began leading it into a dense clump of trees.

"Uonuma Usui is not worth my hatred, boy.  He is a waste of potential, and a bully.  However, if he gets in the way of my mission, I will not hesitate to cut him down."

"Exactly what is your mission?" Yahiko asked, sliding out of the saddle as Saitou tied Horse to a tree.

"Justice," was Saitou's terse reply.  He gestured for Yahiko to pick up sticks for kindling, as he began unpacking the horse.

"Justice?  Ha!  There's no such thing!"

"Why do you say that?"

"If there was Justice, then I wouldn't've had to become a thief."

"Explain."

"My father was a great warrior, a samurai in the Daimyo's army," Yahiko said quietly.  "Whenever the Daimyo called for his troops, my father was always one of the first to go.  However, it costs money to maintain a samurai, and my family was not rich.  My father borrowed money from the yakuza, with the intent of paying them off when he returned from service.  He was killed in battle."  Yahiko sighed and picked up a few more likely sticks.  Saitou said nothing, waiting patiently for the boy to continue.  "So the yakuza began to harass my mother, but she obviously didn't have the money.  She went to the Daimyo to ask for my father's pay, for what was owed to us, and she was refused.  Shibumi's guards threw her out into the street.  The yakuza then offered her a job as a night woman, but she was the wife of a samurai, daughter of samurai, and the shame that such work would bring to our family would have been unbearable.  When the harassment became too much, she took her own life.  In order to restore my family's honor, to pay off our debts, I became a thief for the yakuza."

"I remember your father," Saitou said gravely.  "Shibumi has a lot to answer for.  In the last two years, I've been all over Japan, and everywhere I went, the Daimyo took care of his people.  Shibumi has only used his position to make himself rich.  He makes his people into beggars, thieves and murderers.  He deserves the Justice of Aku. Soku. Zan.  And it is my mission to see that he receives it."

"You're going to kill Shibumi?  Are you nuts?" Yahiko squeaked.  "You and what army?"  Saitou smirked at the boy.

"I don't need an army.  I have you."  Yahiko actually dropped the kindling in shock.

"Me?  You are nuts!  There's no way in hell I'm going back to Aizu!"

"You are the only one who has escaped from the city.  You will be my guide into it," Saitou said as if it were a given.  "Don't you want to see justice served?"

"Of course I do, and I wish you all the luck in the world, sir.  However, I want to keep breathing too.  And I get the feeling that I won't be doing it much longer if I go back to Aizu with you," Yahiko said indignantly.  Saitou raised an eyebrow at him.

"It's your destiny to help me, you know," Saitou said as if he were discussing the weather.  Yahiko felt a shiver creep down his spine at the man's words, and thoughts of wolves and spirits returned full force.

"You have given me my life, my Lord, and the truth is I will never be able to repay you for that.  However," Yahiko said as he turned to escape into the forest, "you would have to kill me to get me to go back to the city, and being the honorable man that you are…" Saitou's katana thunked into the trunk of the tree that Yahiko was passing.  Yahiko looked at the gently swaying sword that had missed his head by inches, and then back at its owner who was still smirking at him.  "I'll just go get some wood," he finished weakly.

"That's a good idea," Saitou said quietly as he sent his eagle on some unfathomable errand.  "It's going to snow."

***

Night had fallen.  A soft dusting of autumnal snow gleamed dimly in the weak moonlight that filtered through the trees.  Off in the distance, the wolf howled.  Sanosuke ran through the forest, reveling in his speed, hoping to catch the rabbit that he was chasing down.  "Got'cha," he murmured to himself as he pounced on his prey.  Just then, a plaintive voice floated down from above him, startling him, and making him miss his catch.

"Excuse me?  Um, Forest Spirit?"  Sano, startled and sitting helplessly in the snow, watched as his rabbit escaped through the woods before he turned his brown eyes up to the trees.  "Could you get me down from here?"   He began to laugh at the sight of Yahiko tied to an upper branch.

"Let me guess, Saitou really must have wanted your company," Sanosuke said, still laughing.  Yahiko let out and indignant squeak.

"It's not funny!  My arms are going numb here," Yahiko pouted, and Sano nodded, wiping away the laughing tears from the corners of his eyes.  He quickly climbed the tree. 

"I really shouldn't do this, you know.  How did Saitou get you up here, anyway?" he asked, as he began loosening the knots that bound the boy.

"How do you know it was Saitou?" Yahiko asked just to be contrary.  "The Daimyo's men could have done it."  Sanosuke chuckled, his breath coming out as clouds of steam in the cold night air.  He untied the last knot, and the boy dropped from the tree like a stone.  Yahiko rolled to his feet.

"Saitou's hojojutsu demands a very precise style of knot; Shibumi's men would have just killed you; and Horse is tied right there," he said, pointing to the big black stallion. "Besides only Saitou would be bastard enough to do something like this," Sano answered, looking around the forest from his perch in the tree.  "Listen, kid…" he said, looking down to the boy, only to find that Yahiko was no where to be found.  "Ah shit," he groaned as he knocked his head against the tree trunk.  "He's going to kill me."

***

Shibumi paced around the lavishly decorated room where he held his audiences.  The hunter, Arundo Akamatsu knelt face down on a bearskin that he himself had provided as a gift to Shibumi when he ascended to the position of Daimyo of Aizu.  "No.  None of these will do, Akamatsu," he growled.  He watched as the hunter's shoulders tensed.

"My traps are full of wolves, my Lord.  I can't kill every damned wolf in the forests around Aizu," the hunter growled in return.  The Daimyo glared down at the hunter for his audacity, but he reminded himself that he needed the scar-faced man.

"I don't want every 'damned wolf' in the forest, hunter," his voice grated with barely kept control.  "There is a young man, tall, strong of body, beautiful of face, with hair and eyes as brown as the earth.  He travels by night; his sun is the moon.  And his name is Sagara Sanosuke.  Find him, and you find the wolf that I want…a black wolf:  the wolf that loves him.  Bring me the hide of that wolf, and your reward will be beyond your imagination."