It's been slightly over a month since Rai came to the dojo. Kondo and Gen help to take care of her while Toshizo is away. Toshizo would complain to Kondo that he is spoiling the pup. Kondo then began to slightly tease Rai by adding "sama" at the end of her name. Kondo was occupying Rai while Toshizo was sparring; noticing how big she was that she now took up his whole lap and began to look lanky. He grabbed a hold of her front paws and looked at them.

"Toshi! Just look at the size of her paws! She's going to be a big one when she gets older! I'd say 50 kilos easy. I wonder what type of dog you are." Kondo happily pointed out to Toshizo when he took a break from sparring. Kondo held Rai's paws up to show Toshizo, however, Rai decided to bite Kondo's hands that were holding her paws captive. "Yeow!" Kondo quickly let go of the poor pup's paws.

Rai jumped out of Kondo's lap and scampered after Toshizo through the flurry of hakamas and feet. She danced and weaved effortlessly around the moving students as they sparred with one another until she came up to Toshizo. She stood there watching Toshizo spar his opponent; she would move ever so slightly, either to get out of the way of others or to watch from a slightly different angle.

Suddenly, Toshizo stopped and snatched Rai up from the ground. He walked back over to Kondo and put her down. "Stay out of the way. We don't want you to get hurt during our practice." He scolded at her before he turned back and started to spar with his opponent again.

Rai whimpered slightly, but obeyed and watched Toshizo from where she was sitting.

The months went on and Rai kept growing. She entered the awkward puppy phase of long legs, big paws, and big ears. Her baby fur started to shed out and become more of a beautiful grey color rather than the puppy dog brown grey.

Kondo and the others couldn't help but laugh sometimes at Rai's expressions.

Rai couldn't help that one of her ears would tip to the inside slightly, the cartilage was building up. However, in the meantime, it made her look silly when she tilted her head to the side.

Fall was drawing to a close and winter was slowly setting in as time continued its never ending quest.

Toshizo started to stay at the dojo more and wound up taking room in one of the empty chambers for the winter.

"Awe, Toshi, don't be so cruel." Kondo stated to Toshizo outside the screen door, which he closed to keep a certain pup out.

Rai had made it a habit to stay near Toshizo's door and would curl up at night against the screens.

One night, it got especially cold. Toshizo was in a light doze under two thick futon blankets in his room. His violet eyes opened slightly as the wind rattle the screens. He turned to look at the door, knowing full well that Rai was still outside, probably curled up against one of the panels for warmth. He sighed and let his head fall back onto his pillow. He closed his eyes to try and drift off back to sleep. However, he couldn't shake the guilty feeling he had, leaving the poor pup outside on such a cold night. Finally, the wind blew hard enough for him to sit up and toss his blankets off him. He went to the screen door and slid it open and looked down.

Sure enough, there was the fuzz ball, back to Toshizo, with a light dusting of snow coating her. She opened her eyes and looked up at Toshizo with a blank expression.

Toshizo sighed, "Alright, you can come on in." Rai stood up and walked into the room. "But you better not pee anywhere." Toshizo told her before closing the screen door. Toshizo climbed back into his futon.

Rai shook trying to dry herself from the snow. She found a nice little warm spot by the door and curled up. She was about to fall asleep when Toshizo's voice caused her to look at him.

"What are you doing?" Toshizo questioned the pup. "Do you want to catch your death?" Toshizo sighed, before he patted the space on his futon next to him. "Come here."

Rai stood up but hesitantly walked over to where Toshizo patted. Before Rai knew what was happening, two blankets were thrown over her and an arm wrapped around her, pulling her.

"Geez, you're cold. How could you stand being out there for that long?" Toshizo's voice muttered to Rai as she squirmed to get comfortable and to be able to poke her head out from under the blankets. Toshizo's eyes were already closed. "Just don't get used to this, pup." He muttered as he drifted off to sleep.

Rai managed to find a comfortable spot and close her eyes to fall asleep.

It was after that day, Rai would never sleep outside again. It weighed too much on Toshizo's mind to let her sleep outside again. The room was officially known as Toshizo's room; therefore it was Rai's room as well.

Nothing really came together until the last month of the year when Kondo and Toshizo were sitting on the porch, drinking tea and watching Rai bound around in the snow and bite at the fresh falling snowflakes.

"She sure has energy," Kondo noted of Rai as she buried her way under the snow only to pop up with a snow covered head.

Toshizo just smiled slightly.

"Hey, Toshi," Kondo looked over to Toshizo, "have you been training her? If you haven't maybe you should start." Kondo stated. He looked back at the spritely pup.

Toshizo whistled.

Rai turned around from playing with the local birds and made a bee line for Toshizo. She came up and plopped her butt down in front of him and Kondo, tongue lolling out to the right side of her mouth.

"Wow, good girl." Kondo stated in slight amazement.

Toshizo smiled slightly, "Yeah, good girl, Rai."

Rai's tail was going so fast that her entire body was moving with it and making a hole in the snow.

Kondo looked at Toshizo slack jawed. Did he just hear that right? Did Toshizo just call Rai by her name? For the first time!? Kondo smiled before closing his eyes and facing the garden.