CHAPTER ONE: KIRA

I own none of the original characters from Wolf's Rain. They © BONES

I do own Kira and the plotline

I coughed as the haze from the town entered my lungs. "There you go, kid." A man said unenthusiastically from behind a food counter. He handed me a tiny, poorly wrapped burger and waved me along. I nodded in thanks, then quickly walked off to find a suitable place to eat.

I wrinkled my nose in disgust as I saw dirty fingerprints on the wrapping. Yuck! I thought. Sitting down at a public park table, I took the burger out and began eating. I cringed as the foul taste hit my tongue. Oh well… I suppose it beats digging through dumpsters. Man, what I wouldn't give for a real meal! Unhappily, I continued eating, nearly throwing up from every bite. Once it was gone, I groaned and laid my head down on the old wooden table and rested for a bit.

My ears perked up, however, when I heard two humans nearby talking. "Did you hear they plucked the last Lunar Flower a few months ago? It's hard to believe it's been twenty years since we've reclaimed every piece of this planet from those filthy dogs."

I lifted my head up, eyes getting wide. I glanced down at my hand, which was shaking as I squeezed the burger wrapper tight.

The other man smacked his friend's arm. "Shut up, you idiot!" He looked around with narrowed eyes. "You never know who – or what – might be listening." His gaze rested on my startled face, and I looked away as soon as his fierce blue eyes rested on my brown eyes. The two men walked away, and I stared after them until they were completely out of sight.

"Crap!" I said aloud, not caring who heard. I let go of the wrapper and darted into another part of the city, trying to find a way out.

The humans I passed gave me funny looks as I ran by; some even screamed in surprise. They obviously hadn't seen a large brown dog race through town before. I knew it was stupid to go around the place letting humans see my wolf form, but this was an emergency. The way that man looked at me… Well, let's just say I'm pretty sure he called the city's Wolf Detection Squad, or the dreaded WDS for short.

I skidded into a black alleyway, hiding behind an old, smelly dumpster. Hearing the screeching of cars outside and the shouts of humans, I whined and ducked down lower to the ground. "What did this wolf look like to you?" The WDS man asked.

"White shirt, khaki pants, brown hair, and brown eyes. You can't miss her." Said the man from before.

"And you're sure she's one of them?"

"Yeah." He shot a glare to the man that was with him. "When we were talking about Lunar Flowers, the expression on her face gave her away instantly."

Some other citizens came from everywhere to see what all the buzz was about. "What happened? Has a wolf been spotted? Where is it? What's going on?" Constant questions, and more and more people kept coming.

"Yes, there was a wolf sighting, but we don't know where it went. Do you have any information?" One of the WDS men asked.

"Well…" Said a woman. "I did see a rather large dog run past me a few minutes ago."

"What did it look like, and where was it going?"

"I think it was brown with a belly of the same color, only tinted orange. And it had black ears…" She said, then pointed towards the alley I was hiding in. "And it went that way."

"Thank you, ma'am." Said the officer. "Get your guns!" He shouted to his men, who nodded and ran to their trucks.

I nearly flew out of my fur when a voice came from behind me. "Hey, what are you doing?" It said.

Flipping around, I saw a teenage human boy, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old. I revealed my fangs and growled angrily. But he just stood there, wide eyed and watching me. It took a few more seconds for me to realize that this was no boy, but a wolf! I blinked, and the next time I looked at him, he was a light brown wolf with a darker brown pattern on his back from his nose to his tail. He was also wearing a silver bracelet with four rings.

"What do you think you're doing here? Are you insane? They'll kill you!" I hissed.

"I could say the same thing to you!" The pup whimpered. "What did you do?"

"Hey, what was that?" Said one of the men from outside the alley.

Both wolves' heads shot upwards as the humans loaded their guns. "Keep quiet." One said.

I grunted in annoyance and searched frantically for an escape route. "Ah, damn it!" I saw that if I leapt onto the garbage dumpster and onto a windowsill, I could make it to the roof of a tall building next to me. "I hate heights!" I leapt onto the dumpster and looked at the brown wolf. "You might want to hide!"

The wolf whined and looked around, and when he didn't see any other option, he followed me up the wall. I looked down and growled, "Don't follow me!" But the wolf didn't listen. He continued scaling the wall, right on my tail.

I reached the peak of the building a few moments later, the young wolf behind. The shouts of angry men could be heard from below. The wolf stranger climbed up, and once he gained his balance on the roof, he just stared at me. Getting irritated, I snapped, "What are you staring at?"

"B-black ears!" He said.

My jaw opened in confusion, and I cocked my head to the side, giving him a confused glare. "Um… Not to be rude, but your point being…? If you don't have anything important to say, I'm going to leave!" I started running towards the opposite end of the building, ready to jump to the next roof.

"Wait!" The wolf shouted.

I stopped and snarled, "Spit it out, pup! In case you haven't noticed, I'm being chased by those crazy humans!"

"You could be the one!" He yelped.

"Excuse me?" I grumbled, lashing my tail.

"The wolf from the prophecy!"

My eyes went wide, and all the noise from around me vanished. "What… You mean…?"

"Hey, there's two of them!" A man broke the silence, bursting open the door that came from inside the building.

I snarled and backed up. Turning around, I saw that more men were arriving like ants at a picnic; they were even on the building I was planning on jumping to. They came from the ladders on the side of the building, through the door leading to inside, and there were trucks surrounding the place.

A vicious snarl suddenly came from the inside of the building. All of the men grew quiet and watched the door as silent screaming came from indoors. After a few minutes, a large, muscular gray wolf burst through the doorway, snapping and biting at anyone that got in its way. It stopped in front of the pup. He had a lighter gray chest, with an 'x' shaped battle scar below his neck. He stared hard at the brown wolf, then sighed. "Leave it to a runt to screw things up."

Then, three more wolves came from the building, knocking any human out of the way. One was a deep shade of bluish-gray, another was chubby, and had a light brown face with a darker body and a brown collar, and the last was a pure white wolf.

The chubby wolf ran up to me and grabbed my scruff. "And now, we take our leave." He said through a mouthful of my fur.

"Hey!" I yowled, thrashing. "Let go of me!" But it was useless. I hung like a pup from the wolf's mouth. The large gray wolf grabbed the wolf that followed me, and, with both of us, jumped across the roof to the next building.

They let us go and shouted, "Run!" Without even thinking, I jumped to my feet and dashed across the metal roof, my claws making a clanging noise as they struck the place. The humans started shooting; their bullets flying in every possible direction. But we managed to get far away enough, and soon were able to find a way down.

The men's shouting was distant now, but it was obvious they were starting up their trucks to come after us. The dark blue wolf looked at me with her icy eyes. "Do you know a way out of here?"

"Y-yeah, follow me!" I made a wide turn and darted towards the opposite end of town, the rest of the wolves right behind me. After a few minutes of listening to humans scream as we flew past, we reached the other end of the city, where a gate was the only thing that stood between us and freedom.

I ran up to the side of the gate to its control panel, and slammed my fist down on a red button. The gate made a cracking noise, then slowly swung open. As soon as it was wide enough for us to get through, we didn't hesitate to move as fast as we could away from that wretched human town.

We ran for what seemed like hours, but eventually, the smog of the town vanished, and I was able to breathe easily for the first time in years. We came to a halt, panting heavily from the long run.

Once I caught my breath, I walked over to the brown pup, who gulped and flattened his ears. "Now…" I wheezed. "What did you mean by calling me the prophecy wolf?"

"What?" Said the other brown canine. He studied me, then let his tongue loll out the side of his mouth. "Hey, good going, Toboe! You found one!"

The gray wolf scoffed. "This is the youngest wolf we've found yet! What's next, a newborn?"

"Give her a chance, Tsume! She could be the one, after all." Said the dark blue wolf.

"She's nothing but a pup!" The wolf called Tsume retorted. "How could she bring us to Paradise?

"What is going on?" I screamed. The wolves all turned to stare at me, their eyes wide. "You dragged me from my home and tell me I'm the prophecy wolf? If I don't get some sort of explanation in the next ten seconds, I swear-!"

"From what I saw, if we hadn't come along, those humans would have put so many bullets in you, there wouldn't have been a scrap of fur left from your hide." Tsume snapped.

"Hush, Tsume." Said the white wolf. "She does deserve to know why she's here." He walked up to me and pierced me with his stunning yellow eyes. "I don't know if I'm really feeling Paradise coming from you, or if it's just that I'm getting excited and hoping that you are the one." He lowered his head to my level of vision. "What is your name?"

My eyes widened and I stuttered. "K-Kira…" I managed to say.

He stood up tall and looked down at me. "Well then, Kira." He said. "You are going to help get Paradise back into the hands of the wolves."