Chapter Three

Several Ways

Time passed and Akame grew stronger by way of the dojo. He learned how to use sai and kama and even the powerful nunchaku. He learned bushido, the Samurai Way of Honor, and how to lighten his body so he could move faster.

He was highly regarded as a model pupil of Yuuta-sensei, one of the official Iga Nīnken instructors, in time. He was fast becoming a renowned apprentice among the Iga, though he barely told them about Kurojaki anymore, but he wanted to be a warrior.

Although Akame was conspiring to be a warrior, he had become quiet and meditative, quite the opposite of most who wanted to have warrior status bestowed among them. For to be a warrior is a sign that you were honorable and loyal, but to be a quiet warrior meant that you were also highly intelligent, cunning, and unfaltering in any mission.

Akame was soon allowed to take a patrol around the borders with several other Nīnken. One of those days, he passed by a Koga Clan member, who shot him a poisonous look and dashed into the undergrowth.

"Why did he run from you, Akame-san?" asked one of his subordinates, a one-year-old Iga named Shiki.

"Well, I fought with his leader once," replied Akame. He was sniffing the undergrowth, trying to figure out if any enemies had trespassed, but his young inquisitor once again piped up and distracted his scan.

"That's really cool! Was he strong?"

"Very. I only barely escaped with my life."

The only older dog in the group snorted while the younger exchanged proud, excited looks. The older dog was named Mashiro, which wasn't very a distinct name (as it meant "pure white" - everybody in the Iga was pure white, for that matter, except for the POWs). He had fought in battles before and was discontent with such an inexperienced dog leading the patrol. In fact, dark plans were beginning to form in Mashiro's mind. He didn't like Akame very much, he was so young, so inexperienced...

"Mashiro-san," said Akame suddenly. Mashiro stopped pondering how he could bar his leader's path to glory before he got any further and looked at the younger dog, his eyes sparkling in adoration.

"Mashiro-san is always thinking," laughed Akame. "He will become a great warrior someday." He turned back to the road after Mashiro gave him a false smile. As soon as Akame had turned about, he scowled again. The younger dogs looked at him worriedly. One of them trotted to the head of the patrol and whispered to Akame.

"That Mashiro-san..."

"Killer aura," said Akame warily; he didn't seem to be the same polite leader he had just been to Mashiro. "Spare me the details."

The young dog stared. So he'd already known. What a great Nīnken indeed! Worthy of praise and unchallengeable, strong and pure, and...

"DUCK!" screamed Shiki as a Koga warrior glided over their heads, wielding a kama. The patrol ducked, well, most of them anyway, but Akame had seen it coming and lunged forward, ripping into the adversary's throat with his great teeth, pulling him down and slamming him down into the earth.

The Koga was so frightened that, as soon as Akame let him go, he ran squealing into the trees with his tail between his legs, leaving behind the kama and a trail of bloody pawprints. Akame sighed in relief and picked it up with his teeth and began digging a hole to bury it.

Mashiro had even more hatred of Akame, then, for he had ducked in cowardice, while Akame had hurt the enemy indeed.

But Akame didn't say much after burying the weapon, even after being showered with praise from the young dogs, and instead suggested that the trail of pawprints should be followed. Mashiro growled and said that he would be leading the way if such a leader would be so ruthless and kill whomever crossed their path. Shiki and his comrades shot Mashiro withering glances, but Mashiro thought he had won. But he hadn't.

Far from it.

Akame stopped his troops just short of the woods' end. "Be careful," he said. "Kurojaki may be about, and he is no easy one to defeat."

Mashiro snorted and some Koga youngsters flicked their ears and looked at the trees nervously. Shiki wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Why do they all look so weird?" he asked, noticing their tall moehawks and spotted fur. "They look like the African wild dogs we saw in the Scroll of Species."

Akame answered, "Their skin is probably mottled because they are cannibals." His juniors stared at hi min horror.

"N-no way," breathed Kaoru, the youngest, who was only nine months old. However, the Iga forces had been pitifully depleted for a couple of moons now, and soldiers were recruited early, though never earlier than seven and a half months.

Mashiro became sick of the sitting in the bushes and watching, but he was surprised when Akame's ears pricked and his body tensed. The camp fell quiet as well as the patrol before a guard came trotting up to them and Akame bellowed, "RUN!"

And they made a break for it, seven Koga on their tails.

Mashiro snuck out into the night; he had been shamed to death when Akame had told them to run. Mashiro was a proud Iga and as such was not fond of defeat. He could hear Akame's words in his head loudly, blaring.

"A good soldier does not only know when to attack, but also when to run. We were outnumbered."

Who was he to think that he could order an older dog around?

Mashiro found one of the major paths that led to the forest. It was dark, very dark; he wasn't exactly fond of the dark, as his fur was stark against the ebony, ten-fingered trees. There was a sharp whoosh behind him; he turned around. He had been on the path for ten minutes now, contemplating his hatred of Akame. But he blinked in the black, confused but trying to be brave. After all, he was an Iga. A proud Ninja Dog of the Iga. He swiveled and told himself to stop worrying, keeping his eyes ahead of himself. And that was where Mashiro made his one fatal mistake. Because for all his experience, enemies do not just attack from behind and the front.

They have peripherals on their side, too, and in the night a shrill, pained cry woke up the Iga. The pups stirred and yapped, the Nīnken jumped, the bitches whined. And in the morning, when the patrol would set out to investigate, they would see Mashiro's bloody, severed head on the ground, pecked at by scavengers, his eyes out of their sockets and his tongue lolling out of his mouth. And there would have been a message on a scroll there, too, a scroll that said:

"Take this warning into account - beware the Koga. We can find you."

Shortly after Mashiro's unsightly decapitated head, the Iga restricted any dog to leave safe boundaries without being escorted by a Nīnken or an adult male. The pups, however, played with this new rule, stretching it as far as it would go - wandering to the edge of the forest and maybe to the tree stump a little beyond, until their mother or father, voice shaking with trepidation and anger, called tem back and gave them sound punishment.

Akame, whose instincts made him tense, nervous and incontinent, paced frequently about the borders, pouncing on any bush that moved, every leaf that fell to the ground. He was restless; this feeling had never come to him before, and of course it wouldn't have. For now, it was the Iga females' rutting period and Akame had no slight idea how to mind that. He had been vaguely taught by Arrow about it, but she refused to have any other word on the matter.

It was then that he noticed spring green eyes peering at him through the bushes. He sniffed. "Come out of there."

Carefully, one paw, then the other, pulled the rest of a sleek black body out of the bushes. Akame looked at the result in disgust.

It was a big, black cat who stared at him. The cat gave a most bored yawn and looked at Akame furtively. Yet Akame could tell, with one look at the cat as a whole, that it was a superlative specimen and probably dangerous.

"Who might you be?" asked Akame.

The cat stared, then spoke. "My name is Kumo of the Nekomata." He laughed, flicking his long tail, and Akame saw that in the middle it had branched in two. "Everybody's tails get cut when they become a Nekomata," he added as he caught Akame's frightened expression. "You're a Neko first, then through Initiation you'll become a Bakeneko, and with age and skill, like me - a Nekomata."

"It's ugly," stated Akame, feeling like a child. How could he be so narrow minded, not knowing anything that hadn't to do with Iga and Koga matters?

"Never mind if it's ugly." Kumo nodded toward the camp. "Your females are having their rutting periods, I see. Won't you fight?"

"I have no knowledge of it whatsoever and I'm not interested," replied Akame haughtily.

"That really is a shame!" exclaimed Kumo, his eyes flickering in delight. "The pups that are born, passing down your generation! You do not want that?"

"Fodder!" scoffed Akame. "Who needs pups? What we really need is strength and unity, not some stupid 'rutting period!'"

"Your thoughts will change."

"Not now, they won't. I'm a warrior." Inside the camp, he would never be so boastful. But to a cat? Let him be.

"In time, they will. I don't expect them to in the near future. You are a pup, after all." Kumo started licking and grooming himself, continuing to when Akame retaliated.

"I am not a pup! I am as much a pup as you are ... as you are a part of the Koga clan! I'm a warrior! I'll prove it! Fight me!" Akame crouched low, tensing his muscles. Kumo, however, didn't move form his position, instead keeping one lazy, green eye on the white dog. Growling in frustration, Akame pounced, springing onto his hind legs, and Kumo immediately ducked.

Akame went flying into the bushes directly above where Kumo had been a moment before and into the edge of the forest. He started spitting out leaves, heaving, and watched in humiliation as the black cat drew himself back up into a dignified position.

"You overshot. It seems you are a close-range fighter ... possibly middle-range. You are not able to attack from far, that much is clear. If you were a real warrior, you would have been able to launch yourself in front of me, react accordingly to my movements, actually pose a threat. You are a pup."

Despite being stung by Kumo's words, Akame was forced to accept them. He hadn't been very wise - he should have known that merely jumping on an enemy would be of no effect. "What should I do to get better at long-range fighting, then? Is Ninjutsu enough?"

"Not at all, it is not enough. Not for a Nīnken. Come and train with me. I'll come out of camp and teach you something, pup." Kumo once again began to groom himself.

"Is that all right?"

"I am a highly respected Nekomata. You appear to be a highly respected Nīnken. We are well off enough so that no one wants to ask questions, I hope. Our first meeting will be tomorrow. Are we made clear?"

Akame nodded, eager to have his first lesson, and Kumo gave a slight incline of his sleek, shiny black head, darting back into the forest like a dab of black paint.

Note: I'm back, everyone! Sorry for the longer-than-usual wait and thank you to all of the people who reviewed - Dark Scimitar, Fangsire, and LanturtheMarlfox (I wholeheartedly agree!) From now on, I'll try to update as fast as I can. Hopefully you'll all stick around to the end. It's been too long, everyone!