Chapter 2:

Aside from his craving for meat, Hitsugaya had a pretty normal day. He was starting to rethink his dream theory and concluded that it was just in his head. "I'm thinking about it, so I'm making symptoms appear. I'm just psyching myself out."

Thinking about it more, he couldn't really consider his dream as a premonition. There were too many flaws for starters, such as reality taking a turn away from the events in his dream. Even his plausible dreams, like the ones of him doing paperwork, didn't happened exactly the way they did in his waking hours. They weren't premonitions, anyway. He just had paperwork on the brain and was anticipating the next morning and what he had to get done. Nothing to read into.

Hitsugaya got into bed and pulled the blanket over his chest. He turned his head to look out the window at the moon. It was a couple days until the full moon, it seemed. If he didn't turn into a wolf by then, it wasn't going to happen.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

At some point in the night, something woke him. He opened his eyes but found nothing amiss. He started to go back to sleep when he noticed he could not lie flat comfortably. He rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up on all fours. This felt familiar.

"Something's…"

Hitsugaya went to look at his reflection in the glass window. A wolf was staring back at him. He jumped. The wolf did what he did. It was his reflection. He was a wolf again.

"I knew it. I knew it!" He looked down at his four paws and tapped them in place. This felt real. This didn't seem like a dream. Although, his dream did feel pretty real.

He had to show Akon but at this hour, the lab was sure to be locked up tight and everyone in bed. He could easily find him by his scent but he wasn't sure how easy that would be without practice.

He tried to open the window but his paws made things difficult. He finally managed and climbed outside to search for Akon at the Squad 12 barracks. He sniffed but there were too many scents and he wasn't sure which one was Akon's. He had to know his scent before he could track it.

Nevertheless, he ran to the barracks and started hollering. "Akon! Akon, come out here and look! Look at me! Akon!"

Lights remained off and no doors opened. Hitsugaya kept trying but no one bothered to come outside. Hitsugaya sighed and slinked away in defeat. He would have to bring this to Akon's attention tomorrow. Hopefully he could transform himself at will like before.

The next morning, Hitsugaya was back to being a Soul Reaper and hurried to the lab to find Akon. Getting in was easy, becoming a wolf on command was hard. He kept trying as he followed the directions of other Soul Reapers to Akon's location. Finally, Hitsugaya was a wolf again and he tried to get Akon's attention.

This was something he could not ignore.

Hitsugaya went into the lab and saw Akon at a table by himself. He walked right up to him, saying, "Well, Akon, what do you think about this?"

Akon looked down and jumped out of his seat. "What the hell?"

"Still think it's all in my head?"

"How..? What?"

"Exactly." Hitsugaya huffed. "Can we discuss this now as equals or do I have to..?"

"How did a wolf get in here?" Akon reached for something. "Hold still before you contaminate the lab further."

In an instant, Hitsugaya found himself fending off Akon's advances, a cord in his hands. "What are you doing, Akon? It's me!"

Akon was not listening. He kept trying to secure a cord around Hitsugaya's muzzle. "Hold still, you mutt." Akon pointed two fingers in his direction and uttered something which caused a cage of light to surround Hitsugaya.

"Akon! Don't use Kido on me! What are you doing?"

Akon lowered his arm and walked closer to the imprisoned wolf. "Now how the hell did you get in here?"

"Akon! It's me!"

Suddenly, Akon jumped back, startled. "Wha-?! Captain Hitsugaya?! Is that you?"

"It's me, you idiot! Get me out of here!"

"Uh, sorry." Akon undid the Kido.

Hitsugaya stepped to the side as a Soul Reaper. "Did you really need to see me like this to get the message? I thought seeing my wolf form would convince you, but…"

Akon looked shocked. "You… You're a werewolf?"

"Hello!" Hitsugaya shouted. "That's what I've been trying to tell you! That's why I showed up in my wolf form. I thought it would convince you of what I had been saying. Instead, you use Kido on me?"

"Sorry, sir, but I didn't know it was you. I was staring at a wolf."

"Didn't my voice give it away?" Hitsugaya asked. "I was talking right to you."

Akon shook his head, staring at him. "I couldn't understand you. You were barking."

This took Hitsugaya by surprise. He stared back at Akon in disbelief. "Barking? But I was talking to you."

"All I heard was barking, sir. I guess, as a wolf, we don't share the same language."

This was different from his dream. "But… In my dream, I could talk to you just fine as a wolf and you understood me."

"Well, this isn't a dream."

Hitsugaya didn't know what to say. "If I can't speak in my wolf form, then communicating will be very diff-"

"Marvelously fascinating!"

Hitsugaya felt a pair of hands clasp his face and was turned sideways to look at Mayuri's bulging eyes. He could count every one of his yellow teeth.

"Nemu! Take notes!"

Hitsugaya struggled against him. "Mayuri, stop! Unhand me!"

"This is most unprecedented. To think, those stories were based on something factual. And here we have organic proof. An actual werewolf!"

"You're squeezing me too tight!" Hitsugaya kicked his legs and tried to pry Mayuri's hands away.

"Tell me, can you transform willingly? Demonstrate!"

"Let me go!"

"Is there a trigger for this? Perhaps pain induces the transformation. I can work with that."

Hitsugaya brought both legs up to kick Mayuri in the chest, forcing himself backwards and away from the taller man, landing on all fours as a wolf again. "I told you to stop!"

"He can control it! Wonderful! Say now, are you barking at me or speaking? Bark once for 'yes', twice for 'no'. Come now."

"Mayuri!" Hitsugaya spat angrily. "Knock it off!"

"Hm. That was four barks. Just what are you saying..?"

Hitsugaya changed back. "Stop manhandling me! Now that I've become a werewolf, there may be a more serious situation on our hands."

"Oh? How so?"

"Some dream he had," said Akon.

"What sort of dream?"

"One where he becomes a werewolf because of the contents in the box so he's worried about a repetition of history."

"Ah."

Hitsugaya huffed again. "This is serious. In my dream, I wasn't the only one to be transformed. Yumichika became a harpy in my dream."

"A harpy?" repeated Mayuri with great amusement. "That's strangely fitting for him, I must say."

"And unlikely," said Akon. "I never went anywhere near him with the box. I was too busy making my rounds and he was running around with Ikkaku to locate their Lieutenant."

"Well, in my dream, he became a harpy somehow."

"Well, it couldn't have had anything to do with me and the box the other day because I didn't go near him. Sorry, but you wanted to alter your dream and now I think you may be getting your wish. Aren't you happy?"

If it was true and Yumichika never crossed paths with the box and its contents, then there was a very good chance Yumichika would not be transformed, diverting from his dream.

He had mixed feelings about it, actually. Yumichika had become a valuable asset to him in the dream, even if Yumichika never realized it. Knowing that Akon had already visited Byakuya meant that he could become a vampire again, and Yumichika played a valuable role in the events that followed.

"Where's the box now?" asked Hitsugaya.

Akon gestured to a wall. "In a different lab. Captain Kurotsuchi stashed it away."

"Good. As long as it isn't anywhere people can get their hands on it."

Little did any of them realize, shortly after the fang stuck Hitsugaya's hand, the very person who caused the contents of the box to spill spotted something curved on the ground and picked it up. Yachiru carried the claw in her hand until Ikkaku and Yumichika found her and she playfully used it to poke Yumichika as she dashed away. The claw was later returned to the box after she was done playing with it and found Akon putting the box down to rotate some items in his arms.

Since everything was accounted for, the box went into storage and no one suspected one of the items had gone missing for almost an hour before returning to its proper place.

"That girl drives me nuts," Yumichika complained as he scratched the side of his leg where Yachiru had poked him. "Going on day three and it still itches."

"Quit complaining," muttered Ikkaku. "It was just your leg. If it had been your face, you wouldn't have let her slip through your grip."

"Whatever she stabbed me with was sharp! Did you see what it was? A stick or a rock or something?"

"Who cares? It's been two days now."

"Going on three if you count the day it happened. Today makes three."

"Whatever."

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