Hi^^ I'm sorry I didn't upload over the weekend, so I'm giving you an extra long chapter today! Remember to review^^

Fai grabbed a basket of the berries just as a soldier rounded the corner at the end of their street. Fai's eyes flew to Mangetsu's tell-tale hair that was exposed, drifting around her and shimmering with magic. Without thinking to put down the berries, Fai quickly joined Mangetsu.

"Mang-mang, cover your hair, there's a guard…"

Mangetsu blinked, and then turned to him, pupils dilating as she tried to focus on him, breaking the connection with the grocer.

"Soldier…"

She repeated him, sounding confused. Then something clicked in her head and she reached up, pulling her hood over her head just before they caught the soldiers gaze. Fai held his breath as the man glanced over before looking away, oblivious.

Releasing his breath, Fai turned his attention to the grocer.

He was shaking his head as if clearing sleep and Fai reassured himself that the victims of manipulations and charms rarely remembered what had happened. Most likely, he would ignore them and they could walk away, no harm done. When he was completely aware once more, the man's eyes locked on the basket Fai had forgotten he was holding. Fai shot Mangetsu a panicked look and, in the time it took the confused grocer to figure out what was happening, she whispered.

"Don't run he'll call for soldiers. Act like you're just looking and then put them back."

When he turned back, the man's eyes were boring into his.

"Brat… are you stealing from me?"

"N-No! I was just looking…"

"Is there a problem?"

Fai's head whipped around and saw that the soldier had doubled back to see what was going on. He was completely frozen, but Mangetsu spoke for them.

"No."

She smiled sweetly, but the steady twitch under her eye gave her away.

"Yes, actually, these little urchins are trying to steal from me."

The soldier looked down at Fai, giving him a stern, but not unkind look that one would give a child.

"Is that true?"

"No, I swear!"

Fai winced; he was so desperate, the lie had slipped out without his having to think. He saw the soldier scrutinizing his face, so he bowed his head, hiding his expression. Later, Mangetsu would chew him out and tell him that that had only made him appear even guiltier. At the time though, the soldier just seemed confused be his sudden behavior, he could hear it in his voice.

"Well… I'm sorry sir, but there's no way to prove they were trying to steal from you…"

He was nervously fingering a ring with a large purple stone on his left hand. As Fai looked at it, he realized it looked a lot like the ring Sylvia had worn. He realized what was happening a split second after Mangetsu did. She shot forward and put herself between Fai and the soldier.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

He looked nervous. Out of the corner of his eye, Fai saw soldiers collecting at the other end of the street. His stomach bottomed out.

"C'mon sweetie," Mangetsu grabbed his arm and started to inch around the guard. Suddenly, he gained an air of authority that he hadn't had before. He put his arm out to block them and leveled a serious tone at Mangetsu.

"I apologize, Mademoiselle Seether, but you need to stay right here."

"Seether…" Their grocer echoed. "You mean she's..?"

"Yes sir, she is-"

Mangetsu gave his arm a squeeze to get his attention and started to back away. Three seconds later, the guard lounged forward.

"Hold it!"

Mangetsu's hand shot out faster than should have been possible and suddenly there was blood, lots of blood. He saw her tuck the knife he hadn't known she was carrying back up her sleeve even as she shouted for him to run. She shoved him ahead of her toward the allies across the street and Fai saw the soldiers who had been called take off after them. It was a group of ten and none of them looked like they could believe what had just happened. He stumbled into the alley and was immediately confused.

"Which way?"

He called over his shoulder and Mangetsu panted back to him.

"Doesn't matter! Try to go deep and take a lot of turns. Just don't go in a circle!"

He was sprinting now, Mangetsu easily matching his pace. The soldiers were close behind, shouting back and forth to each other. Beside him, Fai heard Mangetsu working things out in her head.

"We can't run forever, we can't lose them…"

Mangetsu snatched his wrist and pulled him down the next twist in the alley. Even though it wasn't quite dark yet, the tall close set buildings made it considerably darker. Fai could see the light from the apartments the buildings housed glittering in patches of ice on the ground. He glanced up to see that they had run into a dead end and looked at Mangetsu frantically. She was shaking her head as she backed them up against the wall.

"I did it on purpose. Trust me; I'm better with something at my back."

The soldiers caught up and quickly and formed a half-circle around them, inching in. Mangetsu whispered in his ear.

"I can take most of them, but you need to protect yourself."

She raised her hand and after a few seconds, sparks sprayed down and his staff appeared. The guards jumped as she handed it to him before drawing her own swords.

"Well? You spent all that time chasing us, don't tell me you forgot why!"

They all stared. These weren't the guards they knew from the palace and Fai could only assume that they didn't know what Mangetsu was capable of.

Slowly, one of the soldiers stepped forward and leveled his sword at her.

"Honey," The man spoke gently, like he was trying not to scare her, "Put those down; we don't want to hurt you."

While his words sounded condescending, his face was sincere and Fai could tell he didn't really want to fight a sixteen-year-old girl. That's why Fai winced when Mangetsu lounged forward and plunged both of her swords through his stomach. She ripped them out and there was a gut-wrenching sucking sound before the man dropped, first to his knees, then face down on the ground, dead. The rest stared.

Then, all at once, they attacked. Everything was a blur of motion; Mangetsu spun out ahead of him, twirling her swords over her head and taking out two soldiers in one elegant twirl. Fai suddenly remembered he was part of the fight as well. He blocked a soldier's sword with his staff before leveling the tip at him and quickly conjuring an attack spell, letting it smash into him and throw him back into the wall, dead. His second kill in his short life was followed by two more; both requiring just as little thought. He was mentally alert as to what he was doing, but almost like he was watching himself. He didn't believe how effortless it felt. He wasn't quite as comfortable of efficient as Mangetsu, but he was almost as fast and he certainly wasn't losing, which, he supposed, he had her to thank for.

Mangetsu had taken out three soldiers herself and now they stood, back to back, each of them facing two of the remaining four.

The four who were left were also the strongest, and Fai suspected one of them of being a werewolf. He'd been watching him the entire time, and he kept crouching like he was going to shift before straitening with an irritable growl.

They're probably under orders not to kill us…

One of the soldiers facing Fai moved first with a strike that Fai easily flipped out of the way of, sailing over Mangetsu's head and getting an upside-down view of her turning and dragging her sword through his stomach, where Fai had been standing seconds before.

As he landed facing the soldiers that Mangetsu had been facing originally, he heard his friend go after his other attacker. He tuned them out and focused on his new opponent.

Block block, strike strike and a quick charge attack was all it should have taken, but unlike the rest of the soldiers, this one had no qualms about using magic. He raised his hand and absorbed Fai's attack before redirecting it and sending it back at him.

Fai was too stunned to block the attack or even avoid it, and he took it full on, crashing back into the wall. He jumped up right away though, ignoring the pain with a skill that only adrenalin can grant. Then he made a rune chain to keep his next attack from being redirected and tried another charge, this time putting his entire aura behind it and shoving it strait at him.

This time the man couldn't redirect it, but he could meet it with his own attack, and that's exactly what he did. Their auras slammed together and Fai almost fell right then. But he kept his attack going, constantly reminding himself of one thing: The soldier was larger than him, but he was also a level five at least. Fai simply out-classed him as far as magic was concerned, and as long as he stayed on his feet, he would win eventually.

Thirty seconds the soldier's aura gave out and he collapsed momentarily before he lost consciousness and his spell dissolved, letting Fai's throw him back.

Fai also hit the ground, but he wasn't dead. He was exhausted though, his energy sapped not just from the fight but from the last few days. He panted heavily as he tried to stand, his entire body aching as he heard a strangled yell behind him before Mangetsu came to help him up. When he got to his feet she gave a slap on the back which would have sent him back down if she hadn't caught him. She chuckled slightly, but her eyes shared none of her supposed humor.

"I watched the last part, you did well. Except…"

She paced a couple feet away and looked around.

"I thought there was another… Weren't there ten?"

"There were…" Fai whispered, suddenly uneasy. His werewolf was missing from the bodies.

Fai heard the slightest, most hesitant noise from the shadows directly in front of him. He gripped his staff as the soldier stepped forward, grinning with teeth that were just slightly too sharp to be human.

"I just can't contain it any longer…"

"Huh?"

Fai spoke in tandem with Mangetsu who had turned, thinking Fai had spoken.

Then the man jumped and, during his arc through the air, morphed into a muscular grey-white wolf, teeth bared and on a perfect trajectory to meet Fai's throat.

Though it's cliché to say it happened in slow motion that was exactly what it felt like. Because his body was completely paralyzed, Fai had all the time he needed to analyze every aspect of his impending demise.

The wolf's yellow eyes were narrowed just two feet from his face; his glittering white teeth were bared slightly closer. Mangetsu shrieked 'no' from somewhere beside him as the outstretched fore-legs ending in huge paws tipped with white claws inched forward in a space beyond time. Actually, when Mangetsu screamed was about the time started up again.

There was a blur of motion out of the corner of his eye and suddenly a huge, white tiger was sailing side-ways through the air in front of him, it's front end coming to meet the wolf's just in time.

Fai watching as Natalia's jaw locked with the wolf's and they crashed to the ground, twisting and tumbling, hissing and growling and scratching and biting until both creatures were soaked with red. They rolled over each other a couple more times before the tiger finally crouched over the bloodied wolf and sank its teeth into its throat before raising its head and giving it a toss, whipping the wolf into the wall. Fai stared in amazement before turning to Mangetsu…

…who wasn't beside him anymore. He turned back to where the tiger had just been and found Mangetsu instead, crouched on all fours with blood streaming out of her mouth, and down her chin; caked in her hair. Fai put two-and-two together as she spat a clump of fur and blood out of her mouth before speaking, her back to him.

"Told'ya I could morph."

Thanks for reading and once again I'm going to shamelessly beg for reviews *puppydog eyes*lol...

ありがとう

ShingetsuXMangetsu