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pearlsephoni · 1 year

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At the End of the Sun, Chapter 1

Can also be read on AO3!

Rating: This Chapter: T; Whole Work: E

Fandom: Haikyuu!!

Pairing: Kagehina (Kageyama/Hinata)

Characters: Shoyo Hinata, Tobio Kageyama, Natsu Hinata, Mama Hinata, Ittetsu Takeda, brief cameos from Yamaguchi and Tsukishima

Word Count: 5.2k

Summary: It‘s an easy trade for Shoyo Hinata, if a little strange: a year living with a talking wolf in exchange for the plants that would save his sister’s life. He expects a new home and friend. What he finds is a cursed heir, a vengeful sorcerer, an act of betrayal, and a dangerous quest. But the most surprising discovery of all? The love of his life.

A/N: Written for the @kagehinabigbang! Special thanks to my beta, Lin, and my artist, Fish!! Further author’s notes can be read on AO3.

He was in the woods of his childhood, surrounded by papery birch trees with thin moss creeping over their roots. The dirt beneath his feet smelled and felt familiar, as did his father’s old hunting bow; the flexible bamboo was smooth in his hands as he crept along the forest floor.

He couldn’t remember why he was there. He never could. But then, like always, he saw a familiar silhouette flitting between the trees ahead of him, dashing across the path like a ghost, with a swiftness that contrasted the sound of sturdy steps. Shoyo didn’t focus on that. The relief he felt at recognizing those steps overwhelmed anything else he noticed.

“Dad?” he whispered, never yelled—that was the single best way to cut a hunting trip short, and if he was holding his father’s bow, then surely he was hunting. They were both hunting. “Dad, wait up!”

His body instinctively fell into a stance that allowed him to move through the underbrush in silence, chasing the black form like a shadow. “Dad!” His father didn’t stop. Why wouldn’t he stop?

The sturdy steps eventually fell quiet, and he approached the shape from behind, straightening out of his hunting stance to hold out the bow. “Dad, you forgot this! Why’d you—?”

In a flash of motion, the silhouette turned and pinned him under a dark, piercing gaze, freezing him in place. In a flash of clarity, he realized the figure he’d been chasing wasn’t his father. It was some sort of creature, hazy in form except for those sharp eyes. Suddenly, he was the hunted, not the hunter, unable to move as those eyes got closer…and closer…

“Hinata!”

Shoyo jolted awake just in time to receive a faceful of his yukata. “Spirits, what?” he grouched, pushing himself upright and blinking blearily.

“Wake up already! Takeda-sensei’s gonna be here soon.”

Shoyo finally found the speaker—his assailant, his mind supplied grumpily—and frowned at Yamaguchi as he dragged his fingers through his mussed ginger hair. “How are you up before me?”

“Dunno.” The effect of Yamaguchi’s casual shrug was ruined by his smug smile, though it quickly melted into a worried frown. “Were you having that dream again? You kept twitching around in your sleep.”

“I dunno how, but you made that sound perverted.” Oh, perfect, Tsukishima was already awake, too. Why were they both awake before sunrise?

“Gross, Tsukki! Don’t project your dirty mind onto me!”

“Oh? Thought you liked my ‘dirty mind’—”

“Okay!” Shoyo cried out, scrambling out of his blankets in a burst of panicked energy. “Okay, I’m up! Stop talking, Tsukishima!”

“Works like a charm,” Tsukishima sniffed with a satisfied grin, a sharp contrast to Yamaguchi’s beet-red face.

There was a certain routine to returning to the Kageyama clan’s domain after escorting the daimyo from his year-long pilgrimage in Edo. Usually the samurai were given a few days to get settled back in, filling their time with cleaning, unpacking, spoiling their horses, and, in Yamaguchi’s case, recultivating gardens. In between chores were the usual training, Shoyo’s favorite part, and studying, his least favorite part.

But this time, he didn’t have a few days. He only had two, and those days felt like they’d gone in a blink, leaving him a little frantic as he finished packing the last few things. He’d just finished saddling up his horse when he heard a hesitant, “Pardon the intrusion.”

“Oh! Morning, sensei!” Shoyo bent into a deep bow as the healer of the daimyo, Ittetsu Takeda, carefully brought his horse to stand next to Shoyo’s.

Takeda took one look at his face before bursting into laughter. “Oh no, Shoyo-kun,” he laughed, “did the homecoming chores take all your time?”

“Yeah,” Shoyo sighed, swinging himself into his saddle. “I only got to spar a little with Yamaguchi.”

“Well, we’ll just have to make sure this visit is worth you missing out on training.”

The glint in Takeda’s eye made Shoyo straighten with a small grin and a determined set to his brows. “It’ll be worth it. It always is.”

The healer shot him a knowing, fond grin, before nudging his horse and riding off.

The sky was still a gauzy purple as they left the palace grounds. The journey to the outskirts of the domain’s capital could take an entire day on an efficient trip, with an overnight stop sometimes being required partway through. If Shoyo had been riding with anyone else, anyone on their first journey, he was sure the trip would’ve taken well over a day.

But he was traveling with Takeda, who had made the same trip back and forth countless times. With their combined experience, they arrived at their destination as the late afternoon sun fell lower in the sky.

They dismounted at the opening in a barrier of wood surrounding a sprawling yard with a house at the center. It looked large, though it served as a healer’s clinic as much as a home. Only a few yards separated the property from the thick cluster of trees that was the forest nearby. The shadowy branches and hidden paths looked intimidating, but it was also a perfect place to hunt and a prime hiding spot for a game of hide and seek.

“Hinata-kun?”

Shoyo jolted and looked over at Takeda, who was watching him with a gentle smile. It was only then that he realized his eyes had started stinging with tears. “Ah…sorry,” he murmured, rubbing a firm hand over his eyes. “It’s just…”

“It’s your home. Anyone would be excited to return, especially after a year.”

Gratitude warmed Shoyo’s chest and spread into a smile. “Yeah…I am.”

Home. He was home.

The familiarity of tying his horse just inside the barrier, making sure it had some food and water, and walking up the path to the house helped ease the nostalgic lump in Shoyo’s throat, and by the time he and Takeda were standing on the engawa, he had an eager grin tugging at his lips.

“Hinata-chan!” Takeda called, gently knocking at the wooden frame. “It’s Takeda!”

Shoyo could hear familiar footsteps hurrying through the house, before the front shoji screen slid open. “Ah, welcome Take— Shoyo!”

Takeda was momentarily forgotten as Shoyo’s mother wrapped her son in a warm hug. Shoyo could only laugh and move with her rocks back and forth. “Hi, Mom.”

“How are you here? When did you return from Edo? And Take-kun, you sneak! You didn’t tell me you’d be bringing Shoyo!”

“I’m sorry!” Takeda laughed, raising his hands in a gesture of innocence. “I wasn’t sure he’d be able to come, so I didn’t want to get your hopes up. But here he is!”

“Here he is,” Shoyo’s mother echoed softly, gazing at her son with adoration. Her dark hair was swept back in a bun, with a few strands falling loose around her ears and face. Even though he was used to seeing her a bit weary—it was practically a requirement of being a healer, especially the best healer in the domain’s capital—and even though she was glowing with happy surprise, Shoyo noticed the dark circles around her warm eyes and the sharper lines of her face. But before he could ask her anything, she was pulling away with a kiss to his forehead. “Well, come in, come in, you need to eat after your long journey.”

“Ah, I thought we might discuss the patient you’d written to me about—”

“Nonsense, Take-kun. A year in Edo hasn’t changed what Shoyo looks like when he’s hungry.”

Shoyo flushed to the sound of both mother and family friend laughing. “Well, then…thank you, Hinata-chan.”

Shoyo waited to follow Takeda into the house, falling back on his training despite being at his childhood home. But no amount of protocol could keep him from relaxing with a smile as he breathed in the familiar scent and took in the familiar view of his home.

By far the worst part of the mandated year-long stays in Edo was the distance from his family. He didn’t live with them, and his duties as a samurai kept him from visiting more than a few times a month. But his mother was stubborn about living at the outskirts of the capital, where she would be more accessible to the general populace, instead of in the fancier properties offered to the families of samurai.

Shoyo didn’t mind—he was as proud of his mother’s work as a healer as he was of his late father’s work as a samurai, and the fact she was able to live where she wanted spoke volumes to both her skill as a healer and the respect and love in her marriage.

There was just one thing missing, something that pricked at Shoyo through lunch and distracted him from Takeda and his mother catching up. It didn’t take long for his mother to notice his distraction. “Shoyo? Is everything alright?”

“Ah! Yeah, sorry, just…where’s Natsu?” Usually his little sister would’ve leapt into his arms the moment she heard their mother say his name, clinging to him like a monkey to a tree. It was how she always greeted him, even as a teenager, a routine so familiar that their mother had started calling her “little monkey.” It felt wrong, stepping into the house without having to wrestle her back to the ground.

Shoyo wasn’t sure what he expected his mother’s answer to be. Maybe Natsu was still out hunting, or was gathering some herbs, or back in town to pick up some supplies. Whatever Shoyo expected, it certainly wasn’t the sight of his mother’s face growing pale. “…Mom?”

“Natsu is…” She set her chopsticks down with a care that made Shoyo’s begin to shake in his hand. “She’s sleeping. She…she hasn’t been well.”

Dread spread cold through Shoyo. “Natsu hates naps.”

“She does. But lately, she hasn’t been able to get through the day without the extra rest, and when she is up, she can barely make it out of the house.” As Shoyo’s mother spoke, her focus moved from Shoyo to Takeda, turning his dread to ice as understanding began to set in. “She’s always out of breath and she tells me that it feels like her chest is stretched too tight and won’t let her fill it with enough air. Any time she tries—”

“—she ends up coughing so hard and for so long, you worry she might draw blood,” Takeda finished with a grave look, confirming Shoyo’s nervous suspicions. “She’s the patient you wrote to me about.”

Her lips quivered around a choked-back sob as she nodded. It took a deep, steadying breath for her to speak again. “Nothing I’ve tried has worked. I was…I was hoping you may have heard something in Edo that could help. I know it’s a long shot, and I’m sorry you had to make the trip, but—”

“Nonsense, don’t apologize,” Takeda gently interrupted. “The trip is nothing, especially if it’s to help your family.”

This time, she couldn’t stop a sob from escaping her as she clutched at one of Takeda’s hands with both of hers. “Thank you, Takeda. Thank you so much.”

“Of course. After lunch, may I see her? Checking her condition in person would help greatly, and, well…” A small, rueful smile curved Takeda’s lips. “I’d like to say hello.”

Shoyo’s mother offered a wavering smile, before spooning more meat into Takeda and Shoyo’s bowls.

The rest of lunch passed in a blur for Shoyo, lost in the news as his mother and Takeda’s quiet exchange of ideas faded into the background for him. Natsu—bright, happy, restless Natsu—being bedridden from sheer exhaustion…it didn’t feel real. It would probably continue to not feel real until he saw her for himself, but that just made him feel a sense of foreboding that weighed heavier and heavier as their bowls emptied and were eventually cleared from the table.

It was strange, seeing his mother leave the dirty dishes in the kitchen wash basin instead of cleaning them immediately. It added another detail to the picture of suppressed anxiety that was becoming clearer to him now that he knew Natsu was sick. He didn’t say anything when he saw her pause to lean on the basin with a white-knuckled grip, just hooked his arm through hers and rested his head on her shoulder.

The close proximity let him feel the shuddering breath she took before pressing a kiss to his hair and patting his cheek. “C’mon,” she whispered, untangling their arms and giving his hand a squeeze, “let me take you to her. She’ll be so excited to see you.”

The familiar walk to the room he and Natsu used to share felt off-center, thrown off-balance by the rock of dread settled in his stomach. He had to take a moment to steady his own breath before he slid the shoji screen open and let himself and Takeda inside.

There, curled up in a futon under a worn scrap of fabric he recognized as her old safety blanket, was Natsu. Her bright hair was the only part of her that was visible, peeking out from under her blanket. The sight brought a smile to Shoyo’s lips—she could argue endlessly that she wasn’t “little” anymore, but that would never stop her from being his baby sister.

“Go ahead,” Takeda murmured behind him with a pat on the shoulder. “Say hi.”

“Thanks, sensei.” Shoyo crept carefully across the tatami mats until he could crouch by the futon and lean over the shock of ginger hair. “Hey, Natchan.”

“Mm…” Natsu turned away, her face poking out from the blanket to better burrow into her pillow, as if she could physically block out Shoyo’s voice.

“Natsuuuuuu.”

“Hnnng, whaaaat?” she whined, finally turning back towards him and slowly blinking open her eyes. Annoyance was etched across her sleepy features, probably out of muscle memory more than anything—Shoyo had always had the unique displeasure of waking up Natsu when he still lived at home.

He waited patiently for her mind to catch up with her eyes. Sure enough, after an extra few beats, her eyes widened and she shot upright with a gasped, “Nii-chan!”

She lunged forward and wrapped her arms right around his shoulders, which were shaking from his laughter. “Hey, woah, careful,” he warned her, bracing himself on one hand to keep them from tumbling to the floor.

“What’re you doing here?” Shoyo could already hear the threat of a cough under her words, and he smoothed his hand up and down her back in a silent reminder to calm down. It worked, but not without a few choked-back coughs.

He shoved aside the worry pricking at him to focus on the joy of their reunion. “Oh, I’m here to arrest you.”

“No, you’re not!”

“I am, for the crime of not writing enough letters.”

“Nii-chaaaaan,” Natsu whined, burying her face in his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I really did try to write more this time.”

“Uh-huh, sure you did.”

“Don’t be mean to me!” she grouched, pulling away to pout at him, “I’m—!”

Her words choked off as panic fell over her face, before her eyes fell on Takeda hovering behind Shoyo and dread replaced her panic. “Oh. Hi, Takeda-sensei.”

“Hey, don’t sound so sad to see him,” Shoyo scolded quietly.

“It’s alright,” Takeda said with a soft laugh, “I think she knows why I’m here. I’d ask you how you’ve been, Natsu-chan, but your mother already told us.”

“Yeah…” Natsu’s eyes flickered from Takeda to Shoyo and back again. “Is…is that why you’re here, Nii-chan?”

“I’m here because sensei said he was visiting, and I wanted to come see you and mom. That’s all.”

Natsu stared hard at him, clearly looking for something in his expression, and he stared back, letting his face be as open and honest as he could without betraying his worry. Eventually she sighed and nodded, wilting in his arms to rest her head on his shoulder. It reminded Shoyo so much of the times she fell asleep on his shoulder in the middle of housework when they were much younger.

That, more than hearing the news from their mother nor seeing how pale and weak she looked now, made her illness fully sink in for him. His eyes stung as he hugged her close, noting the sharper lines of her bones bumping his fingers even through her yukata.

“Shoyo-kun.”

The soft call of his name jerked him out of his growing despair. “Yes, sensei?”

“I’m sorry to cut your greetings short, but may I have a moment to check over Natsu? The sooner I do so, the sooner I’ll have answers for all of you.”

“Oh! Yeah, of course.” He gently peeled Natsu away, his heart squeezing at the realization that she really had nearly nodded off on him. “Is that okay, Natchan?”

There was no mistaking the reluctance in her eyes, but she still nodded. Shoyo offered her a reassuring smile, waiting for her to return it with a weak smile of her own, before he pinched her nose and stood up. “Cheer up, monkey. Sensei and Mom will figure out what’s going on, and then we’ll get you good as new.”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Stop trying to climb me like a tree.”

“There’s not much for me to climb anymore.”

Shoyo gaped at Natsu in mock-offense, relief spreading warm through him at the sight of her teasing smile. His relief didn’t stop him from giving her a little shove, sending her sprawling back against her futon with an indignant squawk. “You jerk!!”

“Begoodforsenseibyyyyye!” He slid the door shut behind him to the sound of Natsu shouting, “Mooooom!!” and Takeda laughing, and was met by their exasperated mother.

“Your sister is bedridden from illness, and you still can’t stop tormenting her?”

“Nah. She wouldn’t want me to.”

The bemused exasperation on his mother’s face melted into understanding and fondness as she wrapped a warm arm around his shoulders and tucked him into her side. “…We really have missed you, Shoyo.”

“I missed you guys, too.” His arm settled around her waist, and he bent enough to rest his head on her shoulder. It was still comforting, even with the larger height difference between them. “Can I help you with anything while sensei works?”

“Yes, actually.” His mother sounded exhausted, yet another sign of the physical toll Natsu’s illness had on her. “There’s some cleaning that I could use an extra set of hands for.”

Worry pricked at Shoyo again, but he hid it with a comforting smile. “Just tell me what to do.”

He’d been eager to help because he knew his mother needed it, of course, but he would’ve been lying to himself if he pretended he didn’t also crave the distraction and familiarity of his old chores. So when he helped with washing the dishes and sweeping the floors and sorting through the medicine stores, and still found his mind wandering back to the quiet bedroom, irritation began prickling through him along with his worry.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he finally burst out, accidentally startling his mother from where she was hanging bed sheets further down the line. “About Natsu?”

His mother watched him for a moment, before focusing back on securing the rest of the sheets. Only then did she turn back to him with a solemn, carefully blank expression that Shoyo recognized from all the times she needed to have a difficult conversation. “What could you have done, Shoyo? You were all the way in Edo. You couldn’t have left for something like this.”

“Soldiers have gone home for ill family members before! The daimyo himself has given permission!” Never mind that those permissions were typically given to soldiers with ill children or parents to take care of.

“Don’t. You know Natsu would never want you to neglect your work on her behalf.”

“But Mom—”

“Ah, excuse me.”

Mother and son whirled towards the house to see Takeda standing on the engawa with an embarrassed grimace. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but ah…I’m done with the examination.”

“Oh! Oh, wonderful.” Their conversation was forgotten in their urgency to get back inside and gather around the small table.

Takeda was a brilliant healer, and an incredibly kind-hearted one as well. But Shoyo had grown up learning, from his many visits to the family, that he was terrible at hiding his true feelings. Good news was preceded by a badly-suppressed smile, bad news was preceded by a crease in his brows, and news that he was nervous to deliver was preceded by restless hands.

His hands were restless now.

Shoyo noticed his mother’s eyes flickering down to those fiddling fingers before she asked, “Well…what are your thoughts?”

“Ah, yes, um…I had my suspicions from the symptoms you’d written to me about, but seeing her in person has confirmed them.” He took a slow, deep breath before he continued. “I couldn’t find much information on it, even in Edo. They call it the Crimson Breath, because the coughs it causes sometimes draws blood. It’s a very rare disease; that’s why not much is known about it, apart from the symptoms and a treatment that seems to have been able to consistently cure the few recorded patients who have had it.”

Shoyo’s heart leapt in his chest, and hope kept it pumping quickly as Takeda went on, “The treatment comes from the yamakumo flower. She’ll need a special tea from the flowers, and the leaves need to be burned for her to breathe in their vapor. Recovery will be long and slow, but in time she should be back in good health.”

Hope and relief shone from Shoyo’s mother’s eyes. “She…she can recover from this? Truly?”

“Well…yes…”

Her smile faded the longer she looked at Takeda. “You don’t…sound like you’re giving us good news.”

“Hinata-chan, I’m sorry…I’m so sorry, but the yamakumo flower is almost impossible to harvest, much less in the quantities Natsu would need. I could see how much is in the palace’s stores, but I fear not even the daimyo has enough.”

With that, Shoyo’s mother’s face crumpled back into despair. The sight of her hope being snatched away so quickly made desperation spark through Shoyo. “Why is it impossible to harvest?” he asked, struggling to keep his tone respectful instead of demanding. “Where does it grow?”

“It’s not just ‘where‘…it’s ‘when’ as well. The yamakumo flower grows at the tops of the hills and mountains surrounding the province, and blooms in the coldest winter months. The trek would already be perilous for a human, but with the snow…well, there are only two people who are known to have survived the journey. The rest…they never returned.”

“‘For a human’?” Shoyo repeated.

“Well, I imagine wolves and mountain goats and the like could make the journey, since they are built for that environment. But they wouldn’t be much help in harvesting.”

“No…no, they wouldn’t.” Shoyo fell silent as he thought over the information. There must be something, anything… Nothing came to him, except trying to become the third person to survive the journey. Even as he thought it, Shoyo knew it was impossible. But the alternative was to just…do nothing, and that felt even more impossible for him.

He fell silent as he turned this information over, not realizing how suspicious his silence was until his mother murmured, “Shoyo…Shoyo, don’t even think about it.”

Her low voice jolted him out of his thoughts, leaving him wide-eyed as he stared at her. “What?”

“I know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not— I wasn’t—” He floundered under her unimpressed stare, unable to string together proper sentences.

His stammering made her heave a sigh, before she got to her feet and made her way outside. “Come with me.”

Shoyo’s instinct was to resist, to insist that they stay in the house to have this conversation, just to push back somehow. But it was useless when he knew why she wanted to talk outside. Natsu was already going to be feeling needlessly guilty over Shoyo coming home and seeing her this sick. He couldn’t imagine what it would do to her, to hear him and their mother argue over whether or not he should be allowed to risk his life for her.

So he shoved himself to his feet and marched outside, brushing past his mother to stand with his back to the house.

“Shoyo, there’s no way in all the heavens that I’m letting you attempt that trek. You heard what Takeda said. All but two people have died trying to get yamakumo flowers. I refuse to let you join those numbers.”

His nails bit into his palms. “Dad would’ve wanted to go.”

“Then I would’ve lost him to the mountains instead of the sea, and Natsu would be no closer to recovering!” Firm hands fell on his shoulders, and he let them turn him around to face his mother. His heart twisted at the sight of tears filling her eyes. “If you want to do something more directly, then you can visit home a little more often and help me take care of her and the house. Just…just not this. Anything but this.”

“Mom—”

“I will not trade one child for another.” Her firm voice made Shoyo’s words freeze in his throat. “You cannot ask that of me. I will do everything I can to help her, but I will not offer you up in exchange.”

“I didn’t…Mom, I would never ask you to…”

Her gaze softened at his wide eyes and guilty words, and she brought a gentle hand up to his cheek, her thumb tracing soft curves into his skin. “I know, love. I know. You want to take care of us, just like your father did. But he couldn’t make miracles happen, and neither can you. No one can.” A small, shaky smile pulled at her lips, and the sight made Shoyo wilt even more into her gentle hand. “You already do so much, and you’ve made us so proud. You don’t need to risk your life to prove something we already know.”

They stood there for a moment in a tense, solemn silence, before she sighed, “Well…we shouldn’t leave Takeda by himself for too long.” She began to move towards the house, not realizing that Shoyo wasn’t following her until she’d already reached the porch. “...Sweetheart?”

“I, um…I was thinking I could stay out here…maybe go hunting? Do you need any meat or skins?”

His mother’s concern softened into understanding. “Not ‘need,’ no. But why don’t you go see what you can find and surprise us?”

Relief nearly overwhelmed Shoyo—he was dreading going back inside and having to pin back his anger and grief into something gentler, softer, less likely to be caught by Natsu. At least now, he could use hunting as a way to work his anxieties into something softer, instead of holding them back at full force.

Even just the familiar act of finding his father’s bow and quiver, replacing the bow’s string and getting the old bamboo and wood to bend smoothly again, let his racing heart slow. By the time he left the yard and ventured into the woods, he had relaxed completely into his well-worn hunting state of mind.

It had been a while since he’d last hunted, especially with his father’s old bow, but he found himself falling back into old patterns. His muscles instinctively worked to let him be silent as he moved through the underbrush, and his ears only needed a few minutes to sharpen and hear every rustle, every chitter in this part of the forest.

What he heard now were the light steps of a deer, most likely a male judging by its weight. Perfect.

As he moved, he could see the faint moving outline of the deer, serving as a guide as he waited for the perfect opportunity to shoot it. He could have shot it while it was moving but he always preferred waiting for it to drink or eat. If it stood still, he would be able to land a perfect shot, killing it quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Then he heard something else, something that made his skin prickle: an extra set of footsteps, seemingly tracking the deer. They were heavy, assured, and measured, unlike any steps he’d heard before. Was there a new predator in the forest? After just a year away? That shouldn’t have been possible, but it was more possible than his ears fooling him.

Relax. Focus. He could aim and shoot quickly, if his mysterious pursuer decided to spring on him. For now, he just wanted to shoot this deer and get it home.

He got his chance soon. There was a small clearing between trees where the deer was able to reach some soft grass and underbrush. Shoyo slowed his breathing as he carefully, painstakingly drew and aimed an arrow at what he knew would be the weakest point in the deer’s skull. Death would be instant, painless, as easy as he could make it.

Breathe in, 2, 3…breathe out, 2, 3…now.

The arrow zipped through the bushes, giving the deer barely enough time to flinch at the moving air before Shoyo’s target was struck, followed quickly by another arrow through the neck for good measure. Perfect.

He slung the bow back in favor of a small dagger, ready to carve the arrows out if they were lodged too firmly. But when he kneeled by the body and grasped each arrow, proud relief filled him from how easily they slid out.

He tried to work quickly, cleaning and putting away the arrows before tying the deer up for him to carry home. And then, just as he finished tying the last knot, he became aware of those unfamiliar steps again, this time coming closer…and closer…

By the time his pursuer emerged from the underbrush, Shoyo was already on his feet with an arrow nocked. But no amount of preparation would have stopped the stab of fear in his chest: it was a wolf. A large, black wolf, with deep blue eyes, thick fur, huge paws, and sharp teeth…teeth that were currently bared at him.

If he were facing any other animal, something that he’d ever seen before, he would have loosed the arrow the moment he laid eyes on the creature. But this…this massive black shape with a piercing gaze…suddenly Shoyo was flung back to the dream that had been haunting him for months, maybe even more than a year at this point. Fear, confusion, and panic clashed within him, making his muscles freeze up and the arrow shake on the bowstring.

His hesitation should have been the death of him. Instead, something strange happened: the wolf calmed down, even though Shoyo’s arrow was still aimed at it. It sat, fur flattening and ears perking back up, with its tail held close to its sturdy paws. It almost looked…polite. Which was ridiculous, because this was a wild animal, not one of the army’s trained dogs, so why—

“I can help.”

Silence fell over the clearing, man staring down wolf…a wolf who just spoke. If its behavior had been ridiculous before, now it was just wholly impossible. And yet—perhaps because of how utterly dumbfounded he felt—Shoyo numbly asked, “...What?”

The wolf raised its chin, somehow managing to look down its snout at Shoyo despite sitting lower than him, and repeated in a low voice:

“I can help. You need the yamakumo flower. I can get it for you.”

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