When Nothing is Right [closed]
[One-shot follow up to Blood Will Make it Right. Happens later in the day, at the same time as Hit the Bell Curve.]

Tsume was half asleep when the door opened and Tori poked her head in.

"Hey," she murmured. "How is he?"

One hand drifted over greasy black fur, barely tickling the tips of long hairs. "All right. Where's Kiiroko?" Her gaze slipped down, to where the medium sized familiar--only barely thigh-high--normally slunk behind Tori's legs.

"Home. Yasuo suggested all the canines stay home."

Because he'd seen. Because he'd watched Kuromaru panic and lunge and be weak. Because he knew that an unstable alpha was asking for an attack. She ran her hand over his fur again. "Tori," she whispered in a broken voice. "Do canines have flashbacks?"

"You know they don't."

She nodded. But if it wasn't a flashback, then--

Then what?

"Hey, sweetie-girl." Her sister lowered herself into the chair, sitting as close to Tsume's spot on the bed as she could. One hand smoothed across Tsume's shoulders. "Come here, baby-girl. He'll be all right." Tori tugged gently.

She didn't have to add pressure. Tsume leaned over, coming to rest on her older sister's shoulder. Her eyes burned. "I don't know what happened. He was asking about Ryouma. We'd told him everything he didn't remember. He's been sleeping well. I brought Ryouma over and--and he was okay, and then he wasn't okay. He smelled him and he--"

Submission peed and showed his belly and attacked.

"He looked like those puppies we saw. You remember? We were hunting the Nara deer and there was that man with that dog. And her teats were hanging and her ribs were showing and she had those three puppies following along, but when he yelled they all cowered and scattered." It had been a bright summer day up until that moment. Then twenty-year-old Tori had told ten-year-old Tsume to stay put, and sent Kiiroko after the man. In that moment, Tori had been her hero.

"I remember." Soft hands threaded through Tsume's hair, brushing it away from her face. "They'd probably been hit. Not like our canines. Ours... They know why they're in a battle. They know their place in the pack, and that a fight has nothing to do with that. Those puppies only knew their alpha wasn't predictable. They were acting the best they knew how."

Tsume closed her eyes, ignoring the way they stung, and let her sister soothe her as only older sisters could. She missed her mother. Her mother would know what to do. "You think I... I need to be more alpha? You think he's reacting badly to being in a fight? But he did understand. He's not confused about that."

Beside her, his ribs lowered and fell rhythmically. Drugs kept him sleepy, even as they spoke about him.

Tori paused for a long moment. "Tell me what happened," she said at last.

Tsume did. She started with the mission. With the lust and the bloodlust. With the battle that wasn't and the battle that went wrong. With the other ninja using Ryouma's jutsu against them. With Kuromaru catching her, with him screaming, writhing. Yelling at him to run. Hiding in the cave. Losing her pursuer. Sending a clone back as the rot spread down their pathways and lodged in her face. Going after Ryouma, finding him tortured, calling the Wolf. Being unable to stop the jutsu that was eating away at them. Taking Kuromaru's ear. His eye. Listening to him scream, and the blessed silence of unconsciousness.

Running. And being found by Kakashi. The Hyuuga arriving, healing Ryouma, severing their links. Coming home, and learning they were all alive, but knowing Kuromaru still held a death sentence. The surgeries, his waking, her fear. His knowledge and acceptance of what had happened. Nights with Ryouma, and holding onto a body because it was the closest she could get to reassurance. To knowing that, for now, they all lived.

Kuromaru asking about his mission partner. Bringing Ryouma. Kuromaru's panic.

She told everything, and no matter what people said about confession, her soul didn't feel any less bleak.

Tori petted and held her, listening in silence. "Maybe," she said when Tsume fell quiet, "he's just afraid. Maybe something about Ryouma's scent..."

That wasn't it. "Maybe."

"Are you sure he understands that it was an accident?"

"I know it was an accident." The gravel-deep voice was rough with drugs and sleep. His one eye blinked up at them. "I know. I'm not upset."

"But you were upset before, Kuromaru. Do you know why?" Tori asked.

He crawled closer, forelegs and head on Tsume's lap. "No. But maybe he was going to attack me." The doubt in his voice made that a lie.

Tsume petted him as her sister petted her, one leaning on the other. "Ryouma's not going to attack you. He's not even Inuzuka." He wasn't that kind of man. I wouldn't-- I'm not like that. I'm sorry.

Already, Kuromaru's eye was falling closed again. "He could, though. He did. It was an accident, but he still did." The lid drooped.

Tsume leaned against Tori's shoulder. There was a crick developing in her back. She didn't care. "But you know it was an accident."

Kuromaru didn't answer. His breathing evened out again.

"He knows it was an accident," she repeated quietly.

"Does he?"

Tsume waited.

"He says he knows. And I think he does. But he's not a person. Not really. Those puppies knew they hadn't done anything wrong, but they cringed anyway because their alpha was unstable."

"I'm not unstable," Tsume growled.

Tori petted her. "Not you, baby-girl."

"He doesn't have another alpha."

"No." But Tori sounded thoughtful. "But if he did, it would be someone stronger than him."

That went without saying. Tsume didn't know why Tori was saying it, then, but she held her silence.

"Ryouma took him down pretty easily, didn't he?"

Tsume frowned. "Ryouma's not his alpha."

"Right." Tori sounded disappointed. "Because it wasn't a pack challenge."

Tsume said nothing.

"But it was still serious. And Ryouma's part of his pack, right? All of ANBU is, now. And however we've bred them, our canines are still canines."

Maybe it was the stress of the last weeks, but none of this was making sense to Tsume. It was all right just to sit and listen, though, to lean against her older sister and absorb the unstated sense of family and support.

"So Ryouma is part of his pack. And in a serious fight he easily defeated Kuromaru. But he hasn't challenged Kuromaru. Which... is good." Tori didn't sound sure. "Except the strongest is the alpha. And Kuromaru knows Ryouma is stronger than he is..."

Tsume laughed weakly. "He remembers," she had told Ryouma. "But canines don't... they don't think like people. Not much other than his pack status being questioned would upset him."

She was a fool.

Her eyes stopped stinging. Liquid spilled down her face. "He's upset because his too-smart brain knows it was an accident. That there will be no pack challenge. That he's still the alpha. But his instincts know he's not the strongest, anymore. He's not up to the job, and the man who beat him isn't taking it. Which isn't natural, to his canine-mind. Which makes the whole pack unstable. He has to question everything, and there are no answers, only more danger."

How broken did they have to be, before they hit rock bottom? Tears kept falling, no matter how much she blinked.

"Oh, baby," Tori sighed, and tightened her arm, pulling Tsume into an awkward hug. Neither of them tried to move out of it. "It will be okay." The words warmed her hair, breathed against her scalp. "He'll get stronger, and he'll reassert control, and it'll be fine. He's just so weak, now. It'll work itself out, though. It will."

When human-logic and canine-instinct crossed, it didn't always work itself out. He knew it was an accident. He had no ill will toward Ryouma. But he didn't know what to do now. Tsume said none of that. Maybe Tori was right. Maybe it would work itself out as he got stronger.

Maybe it wouldn't matter, because he'd never get stronger.

She couldn't stop crying, quiet as it was.

"Why don't you come home?" Tori whispered.

Tsume laughed through her tears, hurt and angry. "Home? Where the other alphas will need to challenge me to keep the pack safe?"

Tori's other hand came around, cradling Tsume's head. "Where your family can look after you and protect you. You can heal there, away from any other alphas, as well as here."

Tsume shook her head, eyes closed. "I'd have to stay hidden in the house, for you to protect me from an entire clan's instincts. I couldn't do that. You couldn't do that. It's not fair to any of us." Not when she had another place to stay.

"I know," Tori murmured. "But I wish you could."

Tsume ran a hand over Kuromaru's back and kept her head on her sister's shoulder. She couldn't see anymore, for the liquid in her eyes. She wished she weren't so high in the ranking, that if she were injured her family and those above her could close in and keep her safe against anyone who might challenge her. But there was no one above her. No one to protect her if she left the house. Too many who would want to challenge.

But for this moment, right here, she didn't have to be the Pack Alpha or the former Clan Head. She could be the baby of the family. She could be a little sister. She could know that no matter how far she fell right here and right now, her big sister would protect her and hold her and help put her back together later. This big sister never wanted to be an alpha. She just wanted a family. Tsume could, for a time, trust human nature to prevail.

And still...

The words were tear-stained. "I wish I could go home, too." And they both heard the truth.