Motoko tossed and turned in her futon, but she could not shake away the unrelenting feeling that something was wrong with Kiba. Finally, she decided to get up and go see if he

was still alright. Grabbing her bamboo sword, she walked down the hallway and came to the door to Kiba's room. She tried knocking but realized he was probably already asleep.

"Kiba," she said as she opened the door. The window was open, but there was no one inside. She immediately began to worry. What if something really was wrong with him?

She began to look all inside the house, but she could not even find a trace of him. Finally, she stepped out onto the balcony where everyone hung their laundry. She used the spot to

survey the outside of the house, but he wasn't there either. It was around December at the time, and the weather had become quite chilly lately. It made Motoko wonder if he had

gone out somewhere and froze to death. Suddenly, she turned around and saw that on top the roof stood a figure staring away from her. She quickly took the figure as some sort of

bandit there to steal from the house, or perhaps the figure had done something to Kiba. She quietly approached the perpetrator from behind and readied her sword. The figure

twitched, and two silhouettes rose up around its head. It turned slightly, but only enough to reveal its eyes which were glowing red and had a shape similar to a cat's eyes. The

moonlight shimmered off of its long, thick silver hair that reached down past its waist. Motoko could also see that its hands had long pointed finger nails. What was this creature?

Despite all this, Motoko was fearless and confronted the beast.

"Hey," she yelled at it, "what are you doing there, and what have you done with Kiba?"

The creature closed its eyes and turned to face Motoko.

"Kiba is fine," it said in a low growl.

"If you've done anything to hurt him I swear!" she screamed at it.

"Motoko, please, just calm down," it tried to say in a somewhat calm voice, but Motoko had already begun to lunge forward for the beast. In a swift movement the creature

grabbed Motoko by the hands and held her up in the air.

"Let go of me you monster!" Motoko yelled out as she tried to kick against the creature's body. Her writhing desperation never seemed to phase the creature. It just silently looked

on as she struggled to free herself. Finally, Motoko ran out of steam and looked down at the creature's face. She was now close enough to see that, with the exception of the eyes,

the creature's face was human. In fact, its face was very similar to Kiba's. It also wore the same clothes Motoko had last seen Kiba wearing.

"Kiba?" she said to it.

It slowly lowered her down and released her of its iron grip.

"I was hoping no one would see me like this," said Kiba sadly.

"What happened to you?" Motoko asked worriedly.

"Well…" started Kiba, "as you can guess I'm kind of different from most people. I guess you could call me a werewolf."

Motoko looked on amazed at the transformation Kiba had undergone. On top of all the other changes she had noticed so far, she noticed that Kiba now had large, sharp canine

teeth and pointed, cat-like ears. She also took notice of how the muscles of Kiba's body had grown proportionally. So much so that the clothes he wore could just barely contain

them. Kiba saw that she was staring at him and turned away from her.

"Every full moon I turn into this hideous monster," Kiba explained, "I thought I could keep it a secret from you, but I guess that was just wishful thinking. I understand if you want

me to leave now. No one wants a monster living with them."

Suddenly, Motoko's arms found their way around Kiba. Kiba gasped with surprise as Motoko pressed her forehead against Kiba's back.

"I thought you weren't the type to just give up," Motoko scolded.

Kiba looked down, smiled, and said, "Yeah, I guess I did give you that impression when we first met."

A cold winter breeze cascaded over them and gave Motoko a chill. She pulled herself closer to Kiba and noticed he was very warm when he was like this. However, Kiba only

continued to stand where he was with his hands at his side as if the weather never even phased him. The two were silent for a moment, but Motoko was quick to break the silence.

"If you ever leave here, I swear I'll hunt you down and drag you back here. Dead or alive," she threatened.

"Heh heh, fair enough," said Kiba nonchalantly………….

To be continued………in pt.8