| [Oct. 22nd, 2017|09:25 pm] |
"I didn't think they were real," Ryouma said numbly. "The myth thing, not the animal. I thought people just— made them up. Like gods. Just stories."
He thought of the torchlight procession in Hiraizumi, the laughing villagers pelting a stone tanuki with buns. That sense of something watching them from the shadows, the sharp foxy smell Kakashi had given them as genjutsu-memory, the strange chakra trail that broke off in the direction of Tanigawa.
Raidou-as-Rie, throwing a bun directly at the testicles of a statue identical to the one that had almost crushed him just now…
Genma, dropping chocolate at a moss-covered crossroad statue's feet.
"They stole the lieutenant? He was kind."
Kakashi dragged a hand over his face. "After the captain hit him. Nomiya beat his wife."
"I sparred with him," Raidou protested.
"Tanuki do show up in some stories as protective guardian spirits, as well as tricksters," Kurenai said. "Usually they're protectors of children. It could be why they were paired with the Jizo at the crossroads."
"You knocked him out," Kakashi told Raidou.
"Down," Raidou said, horrified. "I knocked him down. I— How do we get him back?"
His muscles were steel-hard against Ryouma's supportive arm. That tension had to be murder on his ribs; it was probably the only reason he wasn't already on his feet, hurling himself at the world.
Ryouma'd be there with him, if he could.
Genma was the steady anchor of their team, the linchpin they all orbited. Calm and certain and capable, warm hands, easy voice. He'd held Ryouma together on that first awful night in the ANBU Trials, and on almost every day since then.
Team Six without him was—
Unthinkable.
Tsuyoshi and her littermate slunk back out of the trees, hackles raised, lips curled back in edgy snarls. They circled around Kakashi's feet, radiating anxious threat. He sank a hand into Tsuyoshi's ruff, and she leaned hard against his legs.
Kurenai said slowly, "You called them 'dimension-hopping little bastards.' I assume you meant that literally. Do they come from the summoning dimension? Could they have taken Genma and the Nomiya family there?"
"Sure," Pakkun said. "If they didn't drop 'em off a thousand miles away, or get bored and toss 'em in the ocean. Not much attention span on a tanuki. Less after sake."
Kurenai's lips tightened into a narrow gash. The cut leaf crushed between her thumb and fingers.
Ryouma said, "You come from the summoning dimension. Can you take us after him?"
Pakkun looked away. "We could take you to our dimension. Tanuki Dimension is a whole other place. You'd be better off—"
Kakashi reached down, grabbed the loose skin at Pakkun's scruff, and lifted the pug up to eye-level. Pakkun's paws dangled helplessly.
"You know a way," Kakashi said, flat as a sword's blade.
Pakkun's ears pinned back. "It's dangerous, kid. You'd have to talk to the old ones, and they don't like to help."
"We're dangerous, too," Ryouma said.
Pakkun looked down at him with something like pity. "Not like this, kid."
"Well, so we'll convince them! We'll ask nicely. Hell, we'll do a strip-tease, or— or whatever else your old ones want." There had to be something. There always was. These old ones might be big or cruel or remote from human concerns, but they came from the same place as Pakkun and Kin, and Pakkun and Kin knew loyalty and sympathy and kindness.
They were wolves, at heart. They'd understand pack.
"Or," Pakkun suggested, twisting slightly as he dangled, "I'm just saying, you could try an offering at the shrine."
"Would that work?" Kakashi demanded.
Pakkun's lips curled back in an unconvincing attempt at a smile. "It might?" |
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