Ginga Densetsu Weed: Dark Legend Chapter 5: The Siege Of Oroshi, a ginga series fanfic

Author's Note: This is one of the more violent early chapters and was one of the hardest to write convincingly. Please review! Thanks!

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Hook stumbled to a halt, tongue lolling out of his mouth, showing his intense fatigue. It had taken him the better part of a week to get back down to the Shikoku area, and even more time to gather dogs to fight with Ohu once he had gotten there. None of them wanted to confront Ronin, Takeshi and their group after what had happened last time they'd tried to help recapture them. Apparently, over 15 local dogs had been killed at the same time as Musashi and Jaguar, and the ones who had escaped had been too terrified to go back. Hook had gotten less than half of what he'd hoped for, and he silently wondered if there was something more going on. Some of the dogs he had talked to had said that Ronin didn't seem to be in charge of his group, and that confused Hook greatly. If not Ronin, then who? He shook the thought from his head. The dogs' accounts could have been wrong, and he had other thoughts to dwell on at the moment, specifically what he was going to say to get this new group to join Ohu's fight.

He was on the outskirts of the small village of Oroshi, which was about 15 miles or so from the city of Kyoto, where Weed had instructed him to recruit around. Oroshi was somewhat isolated, despite being relatively close to the larger city, and was situated at the bottom of a valley, with natural hilltop walls surrounding it and the buildings below. Hook was standing on top of one of those hilltops now and was looking down at the village below, looking for any dogs. It was later in the day, and the light was just starting to dim, so Hook had a little trouble seeing movement among the human structures. Catching his breath, he started forward at a quick pace down the grassy hillside, slowing when he approached the border of the town. Suddenly, three dogs jumped out at him and blocked his path, and by the time he had stopped, two more were behind him. The one directly in front of him, a medium sized mix breed of some kind wearing a red hunting dog's collar, took a step forward.

"Who are you, stranger?" he asked. "And what do you want here?"

"Forgive my intrusion," Hook said, bowing his head respectfully. "I'm Hook of Ohu. I need to speak to your boss if that's all right."

The dog cocked his head interestedly.

"I'm the boss here." he said, "I'm Ichiro. What does Ohu want with us?"

"Is there someplace we could talk?" Hook asked, glancing around and noticing a few other dogs milling around.

Ichiro took note of them too and nodded back over his shoulder, turning as he did so.

"Follow me." he said.

Hook did what he said, sensing Ichiro's subordinates following him closely, on their guard just in case. Ichiro led him into a good-sized building that resembled a vacant barn inside, hay on the ground and human equipment in the corner. Hook felt uneasy about entering a human structure if he didn't know what kind of humans it belonged to, but Ichiro seemed relatively at ease so he decided to trust him.

As he reached the far side, he turned and looked at Ichiro as the dog turned to face him again.

"Now," the mix breed said. "What is it that you want?"

"Did you hear about the situation over in Shikoku?" Hook asked.

"Of course." Ichiro answered. "Word on the street is that those dogs brought Weed's wrath down on them, and that Ohu's going to war. Is that true?"

"Unfortunately." Hook answered. "Which is why I'm here now."

"To recruit us to fight with you." Ichiro said, looking at Hook knowingly.

"Yes." Hook said. "We could really use your help."

Ichiro took a few steps to the left, looking at the wall.

"Gin and Weed have been good to us." he said, "So of course they have our loyalty, but right now, we have some problems of our own we need to attend to."

"Such as?" Hook inquired.

"There's a group of wild dogs in the area that want the territory around our town for their own." Ichiro answered. "We've managed to drive them off thus far, but…their leader, Damien, has threatened to attack our families if we don't let them have it. If we leave, they may take it by force and our families would be in danger."

Hook let out a mild growl.

"It takes a real coward to threaten an opponent's family instead of facing them." he said.

"Indeed." Ichiro agreed, nodding his head.

"What if I make you a deal?" Hook asked slyly.

Ichiro glanced at his subordinates in surprise, then looked back at Hook.

"What kind of deal?" he asked, sounding slightly suspicious.

"If you and your pack help us deal with the situation in Shikoku," Hook said. "Then the Ohu army will come and drive off these hooligans that are giving you and your pack trouble. Do we have a deal?"

Ichiro looked at him hard for a moment, as if trying to gauge if he was really trustworthy, then looked at his subordinates.

"It's a good deal, boss." one of them to Hook's right said. "We could use Ohu's help."

Ichiro nodded at him in agreement, then looked at Hook again.

"Very well." he said. "You have a deal. I'll gather all the good males that I can from around here and tomorrow morning, we'll follow you back up to Ohu."

"Actually," Hook said. "I should leave now. Weed will be wanting my report as soon as possible."

"You can't." Ichiro countered, and Hook looked at him in surprise.

"Why?"

"Damien and his pack are most active during the night." he explained. "If you leave now, they'll attack you and most likely kill you."

Hook grimaced in disappointment.

"Then I guess I have no choice but to stay the night." he said. "Thank you for all you're doing."

Ichiro nodded.

"You can sleep in here." he said, walking to the door. "My hunting team and I will probably be in later to join you."

Hook nodded at him and the mix breed acknowledged it with another nod of his own before disappearing out the door with his subordinates. Hook went to a pile of hay by the far wall and lay down, resting his head on his paws. It was frustrating that he was stuck here, but at least he had gained them some allies. Besides, he knew that Weed would absolutely help Ichiro and his pack when Hook explained the deal he had made to him. He closed his eyes slowly, suddenly feeling tired. He'd rejoin his comrades tomorrow, he told himself, but for now he wanted to sleep.

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Hook woke with a start. He had been dreaming about his time with his older brother, who had been killed by an enemy of theirs when they were just pups, when he had heard what had definitely been a scream of pain. Raising his head, he looked over at the door he'd come in through…and saw a dog lunging at him, looking nothing short of bloodthirsty and flanked by two other dogs. Reacting almost instinctively, he pushed up with his legs and jumped aside, making his attacker's jaws snap shut on empty air.

"What the hell are-?!" he started, but then one of the other dogs bit him on the muzzle hard and threw him to the ground.

Grunting at the impact, Hook immediately tried to jump aside again, but was grabbed by the hind leg and pulled down. Growling, he kicked the dog in the eye, which caused him to howl in pain and release his grip. Darting to his feet, Hook dodged another attack and ripped the dog's throat out as fast as he could. He silently thanked Tesshin and Weed for helping to teach him to fight better and was about to attack the other two dogs when they were both tackled from behind and killed with swift bites to the throat. Hook looked at the dogs who had helped him and saw Ichiro standing before him, panting with fatigue.

"Ichiro!" he gasped. "What's happening?!"

"We're under attack!" the other said intensely. "It's Damien and his goons, but this time they have help!"

Hook immediately followed him outside, recognizing the severity of the situation. Once he was out, he looked around in the dark, seeing if he could see what exactly was going on where. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he gasped. Standing on top of the hills overlooking the town were dozens, if not hundreds, of silhouettes, all of which were clearly dogs and were preventing anyone from escaping.

"How many dogs does this Damien have?" Hook growled, running after Ichiro, who was headed for the center of the town.

"Not this many!" Ichiro answered.

"Where are the humans?" Hook said.

"They fled to Kyoto!" Ichiro said. "They should be getting help from other humans. Most of the ones with the guns aren't here right now! Come on! We need to drive these bastards off!"

"I'll do what I can." Hook responded.

They ran towards the Southern end of the village, where there was already fierce fighting going on. Hook watched as groups of dogs bit and ripped each others flesh, and he heard whimpers and yelps of pain from everywhere around him. Ichiro grabbed a dog hurting one of his subordinates and threw him aside roughly, ripping part of his neck out as he did so. Hook was just about to jump into the fight to help when suddenly Ichiro was hit from the side and thrown to the ground. The hunting dog rolled back to his paws quickly and looked up at his attacker.

"Damien!" he snarled.

The other dog snarled back, a smile on his muzzle.

"What's the matter, Ichiro?" he said, sounding very smug and triumphant. "Caught off guard?"

"This time you've gone too far you bastard!" Ichiro said. "You'll pay the price for attacking our home!"

"Not this time!" Damien hissed. "This time we've got help! And now you're going to die!"

They lunged simultaneously and met in mid-air, slashing at each other with their claws. Hook saw blood fly from both of them and they landed facing each other, both looking furious. He knew that he shouldn't interfere with a leaders' battle, so he didn't leap in to help Ichiro. Looking around, he saw that the dogs on the hilltops hadn't moved, and were standing exactly where they had been when he had first come out into the fight.

'Why aren't they attacking?' he thought to himself.

Ronin glanced left at Scimitar, who was glaring down at the fighting below with a strange smile on his muzzle.

"Should we help them?" Ronin asked, interested to see what his boss's reaction to the question would be.

Scimitar cocked his head slightly, not looking at him.

"They seem so angry." he said, "Damien wasn't lying about the history between them it seems."

"Why does it matter?" Ronin scoffed. "If they want to kill each other then I say let them."

"If you're going to start wars and kill others of your own kind you should at least enjoy it." the wolf said in a voice that nearly made the malamute's blood run cold. "They don't seem to be doing that."

"So we stay here?" Takeshi asked from Scimitar's other side.

"No." Scimitar said, and the two followed his gaze to a pair of torches left burning on the side of one of the buildings by the humans. "Let's help these poor dogs 'burn' away this fury that seems to have such a hold on them."

Ronin looked hard at the torches and laughed low in his throat as Takeshi allowed a toothy, bloodthirsty grin to spread over his muzzle, both of them understanding what he meant. Scimitar just smiled.

Hook threw another dog and dodged a second attack from the side as the first dog hit one of the buildings and fell to the ground motionless. He looked around for Ichiro but saw nothing amidst the chaos around him. The hunting dog had still been fighting Damien when Hook had lost track of him and had been bleeding heavily. Hook looked up again at the dogs on the hill. Still motionless.

'What the hell is going on here?' he thought.

During a lull in the fighting, he moved towards another area where it was more intense and nearly tripped over a motionless form. Looking down, he gasped. Ichiro lay dead in a pool of his own blood, his face and throat slashed to ribbons and his eyes staring vacantly ahead, looking almost surprised. Next to him lay Damien, whose tongue lolled out the side of his broken jaw and who also had clearly been dead for a little while.

Hook winced at the sight, and when he opened his eyes he noticed a strange light right at the edge of his vision that hadn't been there before. Whipping his head around on his shoulders, he looked at it and froze dead in his tracks. One of the humans' buildings had caught fire and was now engulfed in flames. To make matters worse, other buildings around it were rapidly becoming raging infernos as well and soon he realized that the entire perimeter of Oroshi was being turned into essentially a wall of fire, keeping all of the dogs that were fighting inside it trapped and making the flames slowly close in on them from all sides. Turning his head towards the fighting dogs near him, he caught a glimpse of something on the hilltop. Looking up, he gasped silently. One of the silhouetted dogs there was clearly holding one of the humans' lit torches in his mouth, flames licking malevolently on the end of it. Hook's eyes widened, looking at the burning buildings and then back to the dog with the torch.

"No…" he said aloud. "You couldn't have…"

But then he remembered a story that he had heard Akame tell Weed once, about when he had set his old ninja-dog stronghold in his former territory of Iga on fire to end a war that his clan had been fighting at the time, and Hook knew that the dogs on the hill were responsible for this. Glaring back, he thought he saw the dog's eyes look directly at him, a suppressed glee evident in them, before it whipped its head to the side and threw the torch down at the mass of fighting dogs below, almost like an afterthought. Hook saw it land on one of the buildings near them and he faintly but clearly heard someone say:

"Kill anyone who gets out."

Panicking, Hook turned and ran, every sense in his body screaming 'Danger'. Suddenly, he felt intense heat on his rump and back and looked up to see the whole side of the building next to him falling right on him, the flames getting stronger as it crumbled. Before his terrified mind could command his body to react further, he was knocked off his paws by a piece of falling debris, and when he hit something hard seconds later, everything went black and Hook knew no more.

Hook groaned as his eyes flickered open, his head killing him. The world was spinning and out of focus and he took a minute to compose himself, panting in pain and exhaustion. Suddenly, he was rolled onto his back and found himself staring up at a group of figures who were standing over him. As they slowly came into focus, he recognized one of them with a rush of fear as Takeshi, the former Koga dog's customary mohawk giving him away instantly. As Hook looked up at them, one of them, a black-furred wolf who was directly in the center of his vision, stared back down at him intensely.

"Welcome back." he said and Hook glared back at him.

"Why did- Why did you-?" he tried to ask, his whole body protesting his attempts to get up.

"Because it served my purpose." came the answer. "And now so will you."

Hook growled but remained on the ground, finding that he was not only surrounded, but still too stunned to make any moves to get away. He met the wolf's gaze angrily.

"You killed them!" he growled. "All those dogs! Your own dogs! For no reason!"

"I had a reason!" the wolf hissed, no longer wearing a smug expression on his face. "You just aren't smart enough to see what it is."

"Who are you?" Hook asked furiously, his teeth bared as the wolf lowered his head so that he was at eye level with him.

"My name is Scimitar," he answered to Hook's surprise. "And the only reason you get to know is because that's also part of my plan."

"What plan?"

Scimitar smiled.

"So many questions." he said. "Well here's one of mine. You're from Ohu aren't you?"

Hook was caught off guard.

"And if I am?" he asked defiantly.

"Then you're about to wish you weren't." was the response.

"If you're going to kill me then get on with it." Hook growled. "Don't stand there talking."

Scimitar snorted.

"I'm not going to kill you, friend," he said. "I need you to deliver a message to your leader, Weed."

Hook froze.

"You know Weed?"

"But unfortunately for you." Scimitar said, apparently ignoring him. "Delivering this particular message doesn't require that I send you back in one piece."

Hook felt fear grip him as the other dogs there suddenly held him down and Scimitar leaned in so his face was only inches away.

"Now," he said. "Listen closely…"

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