Author's Note: This is where the real action of the story begins. Please review, I'd like to know what people think so far.

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Musashi scanned the landscape, looking carefully for any signs of their targets amongst the trees. Nothing. The tosa snorted derisively and looked over at the group of dogs who were gathering behind him. Jaguar, the son of his friend Moss, who had been dead for a few years now, was at the center of them and helping the leader of the police dogs in the area tell the others who they were looking for. Most of the dogs there were local pet dogs who had come to help make their families safe, but a few were there for the simple sake of justice, and Musashi felt a greater respect for them than any of the others.

It had been two weeks since they had started the search for the escaped dogs from Musashi's own island of Shikoku, and thus far they had killed or captured 8 of the 12 that had escaped. Jaguar had come down with Musashi from Ohu around a month ago just to revisit the former fight dog's home and had almost been ready to return when the escape had happened. They had immediately offered to help, as Musashi had once been something like the boss dog of the large island and still thought of it as his territory somewhere deep inside him. He turned and walked back to the group, standing next to Hoshi, the female leader of the police dogs.

"…but Takeshi is smart." She was saying. "He has ninja dog training and will try and evade us. That's not to say that he's a coward, though, he's very adept at ambushes, so watch your backs."

"And we also should be careful just in case he, Ronin and the other 2 dogs have teamed up and plan to attack us." Musashi added and the dogs around him nodded.

"These are very dangerous dogs." Hoshi said gravely. "And they need to be put back in their cages. Failure is not an option."

"You heard her!" Jaguar growled. "Let's go!"

At that, the dogs formed into groups and spread out in random directions, each determined to find the escapees before the other groups. Only Musashi, Jaguar, and Hoshi grasped the true gravity of the situation, and they turned back to each other.

"Hoshi," Musashi said. "We should send for Ohu's help."

"No." she said firmly. "We can handle these bastards ourselves."

"But their not behaving as they should be." Jaguar said, taking Musashi's side. "They have no reason to stay in Shikoku, they have a much better chance of escaping if they make it to the mainland."

"You're assuming they are intelligent enough to know that." Hoshi said in return. "If they were blessed with that kind of intelligence then they wouldn't have been caught to begin with."

"Takeshi at least knows better and you know I'm right about that." Musashi growled. "Something feels wrong about this. We should call for help to be safe."

"No!" the police dog barked. "Those sons-of-bitches escaped on my watch, and I'm going to prove that we don't need help from your blessed Ohu army to get them back!"

Musashi was annoyed at the sarcastic tone in her voice when she said these last words, but he bit his tongue. He didn't want to get into an argument right now. Suddenly, a dog burst through the trees. It was another police dog.

"Leader!" he shouted urgently to Hoshi. "We've got one of them! He's on the run!"

"Where?!" she immediately leapt to his side. "Which one?!"

"It's Riku, boss. We found him hiding in the river."

"Lead the way!" Musashi interrupted and the dog nodded and darted away through the trees, the three of them following.

Riku was one of the more unusual of the dogs they sought, having not been quite as brutal or violent as the others, but that didn't make him any less dangerous. He had killed 10 dogs, all of them sons of high-ranking dogs in random packs, and had avoided detection by somehow masquerading as his own victims until someone got suspicious. Then he would move onto another. They had never quite figured out how he had fooled the families into thinking he was their own flesh and blood, but he had pulled it off somehow, and once he had escaped he had immediately tried to make a break for the coastline of Shikoku, and had thus far evaded capture. That is, until now. Musashi suspected that he simply had run out of places to run.

They kept following the police dog for nearly 6 miles, weaving through the trees and exiting onto the grasslands that surrounded the banks of the river. Once they reached its banks, they turned and began to follow it North, occasionally having to leap over small offshoots of it. Then, suddenly, as they were going over a high rise, they nearly ran right into a dog coming the other way. Musashi leapt aside at the last second, narrowly missing a rock in the process, and skidded to a halt. The police dog in front wasn't so lucky. He had run right into the dog and fallen back stunned, shaking his head to clear it. Looking up, they all quickly saw that it was a Labrador mix and that it was glaring back in defiant fear. Riku had arrived.

"SHIT!" Riku swore and tried to leap into the river to escape.

The police dog on the ground grabbed him by the hind leg before he could, though, and he fell to the ground. Growling, he turned and grabbed him by the neck with his teeth. Then he jerked his head to the side hard. A jet of blood shot into the air and the police dog let out a whine of pain and then lay still. Musashi snapped out of his reverie and used a distraction from Jaguar to charge Riku. The dog slashed at him with his claws, but Musashi dodged and then kicked him to the ground. Once he was down, the former fight dog stomped on his front leg and broke it with a sickening snap, incapacitating him. Riku howled in pain and then Hoshi grabbed him by the neck.

"You just murdered one of my comrades!" she snarled angrily. "Give me one good reason not to kill you now!"

"Y-You don't understand!" Riku choked, looking simultaneously angry and terrified. "We have to get out of here now!"

"Don't try and fool us!" Hoshi hissed. "You'll get everything you deserve!"

"I'm telling you, he's here! He's gonna kill us all if we don't run now!"

Musashi looked down at him unimpressed. He couldn't care less what happened to the dog now, but the insistence in Riku's eyes suggested that he wasn't lying, and that made him wary. Stalking up to him, Musashi glared down angrily.

"I was one of the dogs who fought the demon bear Akakabuto more than 12 years ago in Ohu!" he growled. "I was Shikoku's fight dog champion for three years running, you and your pathetic comrades don't scare me! Now your only chance to keep your life is to tell us where Ronin and Takeshi are."

Riku choked under Hoshi's grip.

"He's…here!"

"What does that mean?!" Jaguar pressed, standing at Musashi's right.

"He means me." said a soft, cold voice from right behind them.

Musashi whirled in surprise and immediately was hit across the face with such force that he went flying backwards and hit a rock on the banks of the river. Head spinning, he forced himself to his feet and lunged at the figure that had spoken, but the dog, who he couldn't see well through his blurry vision, moved like lightning and he felt immense pain in his ribs from below. Then teeth were around his front leg and he was slammed into the ground hard, knocking the wind out of him.

'Christ.' The tosa thought, 'This guy's as good as Gin back in the day! I thought he was just a hooligan!'

But then he heard a horrible shriek and looking over, saw Ronin on top of Hoshi, the malamute's paw on her chest, and a foot long tree spike driven through her eye socket, blood spurting out from the wound. Musashi was horrified but confused. If Ronin wasn't the one who had attacked him, then who had…? Takeshi? No, he was standing over the motionless Jaguar, who had fallen where he'd been standing. Musashi looked up, his vision still not quite 100% in his one good eye. He saw a figure standing over him, his features obscured by the glare from the sun behind him.

"Who the hell are you?!" Musashi growled, trying to force his tired old body to move and failing.

The figure just stared down at him for a minute, not making a move. Then he leaned in just enough for Musashi to see his eyes. They were an eerie shade of ice blue and seemed piercing enough to cut into him by themselves. For the first time in years, Musashi of Shikoku found himself nervous, but defiantly refused to let it show on his face. He met the gaze of his attacker.

"Who are you?!" he repeated fiercely.

The figure seemed to smile.

"I'm the devil." it said, and the last thing that crossed Musashi's mind as the figure raised its front leg and stomped down on his neck was a bet he had made with Moss and Kurotura years before as a joke at the end of the battle against Akakabuto, a bet on which of them would live the longest.

'What do you know?' he thought. 'I lost…'

Then Musashi the fight dog knew no more.

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Jaguar let out a groan and a growl as his eyes opened. The world was out of focus and his head was throbbing from where something had hit him as he had turned to see who the voice had been behind them as they stood over Riku. If that bastard had gotten away, Jaguar thought angrily, then I'll never be able to face my father in the other world. Raising his head, he tried to stand, and found to his surprise that he could not move his legs. As his eyes focused, he looked down and saw that he had chains wrapped around them, one for his front legs and one for his hind.

"What the…?" he growled in confusion.

"You'll have to forgive the restraints." came a voice, and Jaguar recognized it as the same one as before. "I have certain trust issues that I never quite learned to work out."

Jaguar looked up and saw a wolf sitting in front of him. He had black fur, but his mane was a slightly lighter grey, almost like the color of ash with a hint of blue in it. His eyes were a piercing icy blue and his left one had two scars through it, one straight up and one straight across it length-wise, and they intersected right below it to form a sort of upside-down cross. He seemed to resonate power, but also a distinct malevolence, and Jaguar felt very uneasy as the wolf smiled at him calmly. Then another dog walked into the small cave where they were and this one Jaguar recognized instantly.

"Ronin!" he snarled. "Release me and fight like a real male!"

Ronin smirked and nodded at the chains.

"Got those from the facility where we escaped from." he said. "They got caught on Riku's collar when we broke out. Not very fun are they?"

Jaguar growled and glared at him angrily.

"I suppose you let that bastard go." he said.

"Sorry, but Riku won't be joining us tonight." the wolf responded.

"Or anyone else for that matter." Ronin added with a grin, leaning his side against the cave wall.

Jaguar silently wondered what the Labrador mix had been subjected to, but didn't focus on it for long as Takeshi entered from the same entrance as Ronin had. He stalked up to the wolf.

"Sir, the remaining police dogs are dead and the rest of the pet dogs have run off." he said in an almost uninterested voice. "What should we do with the prisoners?"

"What prisoners?" the wolf said without taking his eyes off Jaguar, and it took the mastiff a minute to realize that he hadn't meant it as a real question.

Takeshi nodded and turned, walking back outside calmly. Then the wolf looked at Ronin and nodded in the direction that the ninja dog had gone. Ronin turned and left as well, and almost the second he had vanished from view, Jaguar began to hear screams from outside the cave entrance. Then the sound died away as a large rock was pushed in front of it, blocking them off and killing most of the light that they had. Jaguar could still see clearly though, and the wolf's eyes almost seemed to glow as he stood and walked around the mastiff in a circle, testing the chains with his paw occasionally.

"You're probably confused right now as to what exactly is going on." he said in the same calm voice, his tone not giving away his mood or intentions. "But I'm afraid that you won't be getting many answers to your questions."

Jaguar looked at him defiantly and the wolf faced him once again.

"But it's not your questions that we're here to answer." he said. "It's mine. And one way or another you will tell me what I want to know. The only question is how much pain do you want to experience before that happens."

Jaguar felt a lump rise in his throat at those words and tried to move his legs again, finding to his dismay that the chains were wrapped too tightly. He glared at the wolf.

"You'll get nothing out of me."

"We'll see. Let's start with something simple. What's your name?"

Jaguar didn't respond.

"Please tell me your name."

Still no answer and the wolf nodded.

"Okay, it doesn't matter." he smiled. "You'll tell me eventually. There are other things I want to know about more anyway."

Jaguar looked hard at the cave floor, ready for a blow to hit him at any moment and getting more and more surprised when none did.

"Aren't you curious as to what those things are?" the wolf said, leaning down so that the mastiff was forced to look at him again.

When his prisoner still refused answer him, he stood and began circling again.

"Well, I'll tell you anyway." he said. "I just spent the last few weeks traveling down here all the way from Hokkaido and I heard some things that fascinated me from the dogs along the way. So to be frank my doomed friend, I want to know about the layout of this country of yours, I want to know who the most powerful dogs in this area are, and I want to know the name of your friend I killed earlier, but first…"

He turned and picked something up from the stone floor behind him, and when he looked back at Jaguar, he was holding a scythe in his mouth, much like the one a dog named Kurojaki had used long ago in a different conflict.

"…let's talk about a place called Ohu." he finished, a smile creeping over his muzzle as Jaguar paled beneath his fur. "And what you might know about a dog named…Weed."

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