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There is only death, as far as the eye can see. The whole world is burning.
He isn’t Wolf yet, but he will be soon. Later, it will feel like something he has always been. From the first moment he opened his eyes; a wolf, starved. An animal at someone’s feet.
Owl towers above him, watching Wolf’s blood trickle over his blade. Small fingers. He’s staring into nothing.
He has nothing. He is nothing.
“Come with me,” Owl says, and Wolf obeys.
-
Wolf can only breathe with a weapon in his hand.
Wolf can only do as he is told.
They crouch together in the shadows, watching a man wheel a cart full of vegetables down a winding path towards a nearby village. Wolf has never seen the man before; he is no one important. He puts the cart down for a moment, wiping the sweat from his brow and taking a drink from his gourd. There is sunlight, and the sound of birdsong.
“Kill him,” Owl says, and Wolf obeys.
-
Wolf is made up of bruises and broken bones. Wolf is a mouth full of bloody teeth and a fistful of ash. Wolf is a knife. Wolf is an axe.
Wolf is an end, again, and again.
He picks himself up out of the dirt and takes hold of the kunai buried in his bicep, gritting his teeth as he pulls it free.
“Too slow, little puppy.” Lady Butterfly shimmers in the darkness, and Wolf starts running.
“Faster,” she says.
Wolf obeys.
-
Hirata is the closest thing to home that Wolf has ever known. Kuro, the closest thing to family. There is Owl, and Wolf, and his young master.
Owl sends him away, and Wolf does as he is bid, even if being away from Kuro sets his skin crawling with the wrongness of it all.
Hirata burns. Everyone burns.
Wolf burns, and then he does not.
Loyal Wolf, take my blood and live again.
Wolf obeys.
-
Owl is dead.
Owl is alive.
Owl is standing over him, forsake your master.
Wolf is his father’s fist, his father’s sword.
Wolf is his father’s will, thrown out into the world.
Wolf obeys, obeys, obeys, until there is nothing in him but violence. Then it isn’t his father he is obeying any longer. There’s a frenzy in Wolf. A hunger that can be fed but never sated. There is blood on his hands; it isn’t enough.
The whole world needs to bleed, and burn, and perhaps then the thirst in him will quiet. Wolf aches and nothing will soothe it but death under his hands.
Isshin had not gone down easily, and Wolf is barely able to keep his feet as he puts Kusabimaru through Owl’s back. He leaves smears of gore in his wake. It soaks into his clothes, slips under his sandals. Shura, Owl says. Wolf doesn’t know what that means anymore; everything human in him is scorched away to leave something animal behind. There’s the weapon in his fist. The sound of a beating heart nearby. Small and fluttering like a little bird; Wolf turns towards it, a beast after prey.
There’s a familiar voice that Wolf can’t quite place, you can’t be shura!
Wolf can’t be anything.
The words don’t matter. There is blood to spill, though, so Wolf moves forward towards the noise. Another voice comes then, along with the crash of thunder, and a flash of lightning.
Get back, my lord.
This will only take a moment.
It’s darkly amused somehow; bitter, and resigned. The man who stands before him is scarred, arms blackened and eyes flaring red. His sword is already filthy, his feet bare on the charred wood floor of the tower. There is strength, and the promise of carnage. Wolf wants him; his flesh, his blood. Wants to end him, or consume him.
Wolf wants, and wants, and wants, until there is nothing else in him.
The fighting comes as naturally as breathing. Wolf lifts his weapon and closes the distance between them. The man— Genichiro. Wolf knows him, somewhere far away, down under the instincts that have swallowed him whole. It isn’t a new feeling. It is well worn, soft with age even in his thoughts.
Wolf has wanted him for a long, long time.
Genichiro rushes forward to meet him, the force of his strikes enough to throw Wolf off balance and have him staggering. It sends euphoria sailing through him as he rolls back into a crouch, teeth bared when he runs forward again. An arrow pierces his chest, another sinking into his thigh. His skin parts under Genichiro’s blade.
Genichiro’s skin parts under Wolf’s. There’s metal ringing against metal. Wolf is snarling. He craves death, craves destruction.
It doesn’t seem to matter if it is his own.
Wolf ends up on his back with Genichiro pinning him to the floor, sinking the shaft of an arrow in between his ribs. Deeper, and deeper, until Wolf is shaking, choking around nothing with blood pouring down his chin.
“It could have been easier, shinobi. You could have served me, instead.” He twists the arrow, and Wolf quakes. Their faces are so close together, Wolf can feel his breath. “I will look after your master.”
There is comfort in the words, even if Wolf doesn’t understand why. Genichiro is warm, pressing Wolf down against the floor, a pool of crimson spreading around them. The scent of rust and sakura is thick in his nose.
Wolf closes his eyes, and falls into it.
Floats, for a moment. Everything is silent.
There is peace, but it doesn’t belong to him.
He comes back with a gasp, wide eyed on the floor with his blood streaked all around him, slick under his fingers as he struggles upright. Genichiro is looking down at him, sword drawn again. He is blood streaked, too. Haloed with lightning.
He is merciless and strong and infinite. Wolf has put his sword in Genichiro and cut him to pieces, and yet here he is, weapon raised and eyes alight. Genichiro is endless, the way Wolf is endless.
Wolf crawls forward and pulls himself onto his knees, running a gory, shaking hand up the back of Genichiro’s calf. He shoves his face into the inside of Genichiro’s thigh, nuzzling into it and looking up at him from underneath his lashes. He wants to tuck his nose into the warm place where Genichiro’s thigh joins his hip, but he isn’t tall enough like this, and being on his knees is more important than anything else. It is where he is meant to be; at the feet of someone powerful. Waiting.
Obedient.
Genichiro fists a hand in his hair and throws him backwards, hissing something profane at him. Wolf lands in an inelegant sprawl. Lands badly. It hurts, but the pain is distant compared to the arrows still in his body. The burns, the cuts, the shattered bones. Still, Wolf has had worse, and always from the ones he loved.
Now, it is no different.
He drags himself forward again until he is kneeling before Genichiro, clutching at his ankle, fingers trembling. It’s hard to breathe with blood in his lungs, but it’s really no thicker than water, if only he was submerged in it. Wolf’s chest heaves as he looks up at Genichiro, temples throbbing.
He tries to think of what he’s done, of what he’s meant to be doing. What will make Genichiro pleased with him. Why Genichiro is unhappy. Ashina castle is burning. They’re surrounded by Genichiro’s enemies. Wolf’s enemies? The past and the present tangle together until it is hard to think at all.
Genichiro kicks him away with a hiss, and Wolf crawls back again, dutifully sitting seiza beneath him. Genichiro backhands him onto the floor. Puts an arrow in his heart.
Genichiro slits his throat, and Wolf comes back to life with the scent of death and flowers in his lungs. He sits on the floor at Genichiro’s feet, trembling and waiting for a command.
Wolf can only breathe with a weapon in his hand.
Wolf can only do as he is told.
-
Isshin is dead. It’s something Genichiro has been preparing himself for, but knowing it was coming hasn’t made it easier. Emma is gone as well, and that cuts deeper. Hurts more than he expects. Owl is dead, though Genichiro barely knew the man and does not mourn for him. Kuro has fled back to the inner rooms in the castle with Genichiro’s guards. He does not know if he can be taken into his oath, now that Wolf is...
Now that Wolf is different.
Now that Wolf is shura.
Now that Wolf is drenched in red with horns that erupt just above his temples; one is stark white, the other impossibly black. The horns ooze blood where they meet his skin, forced through like an open wound. Wolf has irises that glow crimson, bright even as they are surrounded by flames. Wolf has canines that are too long, and nails that look more like claws.
Wolf is broken and on his knees, waiting for Genichiro’s sword. His fist, or his arrows.
Waiting for his word, but Genichiro doesn’t know what to say.
“Some shura you turned out to be,” Genichiro says, the disdain evident in his voice. Wolf looks confused, head cocked to the side, like an animal trying to make sense of a complicated command from its master. He’s seen the same expressions on the dogs some of the troops patrol alongside.
An eagerness to obey, if only they could comprehend.
There is no reason for him to submit this way. He defeated Isshin; if he wanted, if he was whole, he could defeat Genichiro, too. The knowledge rankles, and Genichiro bares his teeth. Shura are supposed to be hatred made flesh, and yet Wolf is here, staring at Genichiro. Entranced.
Enraptured.
As though there is a song playing that only he can hear.
“I don’t have time for this,” Genichiro says, and turns his back on Wolf, striding down the stairs to head towards the castle.
The grounds are still crawling with Ministry troops, and it will be a monumental task to push them back, now. He’s wasted too long on this shattered shinobi as is it.
There are soft footfalls behind him, only audible because Genichiro is listening for them. There are no other guards in the hall, no elites, none of Genichiro’s men. They have scattered, trying to defend the castle as best they can without him.
Without Isshin.
Genichiro tucks the flare of pain away. There will be room for it later.
Wolf had been the biggest threat, so Genichiro had come to face him, but now he is slinking along behind him like an unwelcome pet who can’t fathom why he isn’t allowed indoors. He doesn’t bother finding his armor and putting it back on— his lightning is roiling overhead, and Genichiro isn’t sure he can contain it, now.
When they reach the ground, out in the pathways that twist around the castle, it is chaos. Swords clashing, the boom of canonfire, the sound of screaming. One of his riflemen sprints past, reloading as he seeks higher ground. Wolf snarls and lunges as though he means to go after him; Genichiro grabs him by the throat before he gets more than a few steps and lifts him into the air, teeth bared.
“You’ve taken quite enough from me today, shinobi. If you kill any more of my men I will cut you into pieces and give them to Doujun.” Genichiro throws Wolf onto the stones, reveling in his rough exhale, the way he curls in on himself. It must be agony. Genichiro sneers. “If you don’t have enough dignity to lay down and die, you will put those blades where they belong; in the Ministry agents, or in yourself.”
Another of Genichiro’s men staggers past, bleeding from a wound in his side but with his sword still in hand. A rush of pride swells up in him— they will fight until their last breaths. They will keep standing until they have nothing left to give Ashina.
Nothing left to give Genichiro.
Wolf draws himself up into a crouch, eyes following the soldier hungrily, but he makes no move to give chase. He whines low in his throat like he’s wounded
There is a flash of purple from a nearby rooftop. A nightjar falls to the ground, head twisted at an unnatural angle and body motionless. The Ministry assassin responsible looks down for a moment, making sure his quarry is dead, before running back over the rooftops out of sight.
Wolf’s irises flare, eyes wide like a hound who’s caught the scent of prey. He looks to Genichiro, waiting, breathing hard like it is an effort to keep himself still. Genichiro jerks his chin towards where the assassin disappeared, and Wolf is off like a shot, grappling onto the roof and running full tilt over the tiles. There is a spray of blood, and a muffled scream. The assassin falls to the ground in front of Genichiro, throat slit cleanly. His eyes are open, unseeing.
Wolf is still crouched on the rooftop overhead, panting with that same canine earnesty on his face.
Waiting for Genichiro’s approval.
Genichiro sucks air through his teeth and glares.
“Am I to be impressed? There are dozens more. Make yourself useful.”
Wolf’s head snaps to the side, and Genichiro follows his gaze to a nearby rooftop, where another trio of assassins have gathered. They’re creeping closer to a cluster of nightjar who are battered and worse for wear. It seems as though Wolf’s attention is focused on the Ministry, but Genichiro can’t be sure.
“Remember what I told you about taking things from me, shura. Touch my men and you’ll be resurrecting in pieces in a cage underground.”
Wolf has come back countless times, and has not regrown his arm. There are limits to the power of the dragon’s heritage.
Limits to how far he can push Genichiro before he snaps.
“Go, then,” Genichiro says, and Wolf is soaring through the air, landing on top of one of the assassins and burying a blade in his heart.
The fighting is a blur of gore and steel, and Genichiro can’t follow it all from so far away. He watches Wolf put the Ministry troops down one by one. Watches as his movements become more nimble, his attacks more powerful. He’s not favoring his left side anymore, not staggering when he lands, not keeping his left arm wrapped protectively around his middle. It’s not the water from his gourd, or a fist full of pellets.
Wolf is healing with every life he takes.
Genichiro refuses to dwell on that. He watches long enough to see that Wolf doesn’t attack the nightjar when all the Ministry troops are down; they’re close enough that Genichiro tenses, waiting for a massacre that feels inevitable, but it doesn’t come. Or at least, not for his nightjar. There are a few Ministry soldiers on the ground underneath Wolf, and he leaps down into them instead.
There are so many enemies. Genichiro follows the sound of death, and finds the Ministry scattered and torn apart. There are still people rising against him— soldiers lifting their swords, their rifles, their canons. Dogs snarling at his heels.
Wolf, snarling at everyone. He cuts through the Ministry effortlessly, ranging over the rooftops and picking assassins off one by one, then circling back around to Genichiro to attack anyone who gets too close to him. It isn’t easy, but when the fires have mostly been put out and the dust has cleared, Genichiro is still standing.
Ashina is still standing.
Wolf is still standing, blood-soaked and alive with the slaughter. The horns at his temples seem to have grown some, curling further out of his skin. His teeth are pink with gore and his eyes glow vivid red; he kneels at Genichiro’s feet, again. Sets something on the ground.
It’s a heart, ripped out of someone’s chest, glistening in the fading sunlight.
Genichiro looks down at it. Down at Wolf, who seems energized by the fighting rather than drained by it, all the wounds Genichiro inflicted before nothing but a memory now. Fed by the violence. Nurtured by it. Made strong.
One of his generals moves closer, and Wolf snarls at him, rolling up into a crouch and standing between him and Genichiro as though he poses some kind of threat. The general recoils, brows drawn and mouth pulled into a hard, thin line. He’s not foolish enough to think he could handle Wolf in a fight, but he’s stubborn enough to try all the same. Genichiro lifts a hand to stay him and shakes his head.
They must tend to the wounded. Fortify their ravaged defenses.
Burn their dead. Dozens of soldiers.
Isshin, and Emma.
Genichiro still wants to put his sword in Wolf, but he is willing to fight for Ashina against the Ministry, and pride is a luxury Genichiro can’t afford. He also can’t trust the shura. He needs to keep Wolf close.
“With me, shura.”
It’s spat more than spoken.
Wolf obeys.
-
The sun has long since set when Genichiro finally bathes. Blood, and ash, and grit. The black scars have spread further up his arms— too much lightning, wielded too hastily.
Tomoe did her best, but Genichiro never managed to learn patience.
Wolf crouches nearby, head cocked as he watches Genichiro wash the battle off his skin. He doesn’t bother trying to get himself clean, even though Genichiro has never seen someone come off a battlefield so filthy. There’s blood matted in his hair and caked under his nails and flaking off his skin. Blood soaking through his clothes, and dried across his mouth. Either Wolf doesn’t notice, or he doesn’t care.
He stares with blatant hunger in his eyes as Genichiro scrubs at himself. Once upon a time, Genichiro would have been tempted. Would have indulged. Would have been unable to resist taking such strength and bending it to his will.
Wolf is not who he was, once upon a time.
Wolf is nothing but a beast, now. An animal.
Wolf put his sword through Emma’s heart, and cut off Isshin’s head, and there is no room in Genichiro for forgiveness, today. If it had ever been there, it has burned away, and there is nothing but the faint taste of ash and a quiet, patient fury.
“Pathetic,” Genichiro says.
Whether he means Wolf, or himself, Genichiro isn’t sure.
-
Wolf trails him through the halls, shadows him up the stairs. He growls when they pass Genichiro’s guards, baring his teeth until they back away. The dogs in the kennels are better behaved than this; Genichiro roars at him once, lashing out with a wild fist, and Wolf takes to the ceiling instead. Creeping through the rafters, dropping down into Genichiro’s quarters only after he’s settled into place on his futon.
There’s a single flickering lantern to illuminate the room. Wolf stares from the corner, eyes lit in the darkness. He is a revenant. He is a monster.
He is a weapon, as he has always been. Genichiro’s weapon now, it seems. He isn’t sure he wants him.
He cannot refuse. Not if he wants to protect Ashina.
“Going to kill me in my sleep, shura?” Genichiro asks, but even as he says it, he knows it isn’t true. Wolf has been killing Genichiro’s enemies for hours and hours now. He whines softly, like the thought of hurting Genichiro is physically painful.
Genichiro puts the lantern out and rolls over to face the other direction, to keep himself from staring at those eyes glowing from the black of his room. It should be hard to sleep— his grandfather is gone, along with Emma, and so many of his men that it feels suffocating to think about. The Ministry could attack again at any moment. Everything is volatile. Precarious.
Genichiro’s world is a breath away from collapsing all around him, but he has fought hard, and for a long, long time. Sleep comes easy, and without mercy.
It’s still night when he wakes.
There is someone moving against him— the warm weight of them, pressing in close to his side. Genichiro comes alive all at once with anger soaring through him, and before he is even aware of himself, he has the intruder pinned down to the floor beside his bed. It is Wolf.
Of course it is Wolf. Genichiro has his wrists pressed to the wood above his head, moonlight shining through the window to paint the room in shades of blue. Wolf doesn’t resist; he arches underneath Genichiro, lips parted, teeth glinting white and sharp. He’s pliant. Docile and boneless against him.
He’s hard in his ruined clothes, the scent of sweat and filth and old blood so strong it’s overwhelming.
Genichiro huffs out an annoyed breath and releases him, laying back down on his futon and facing the opposite direction.
“Don’t touch me, shura. My patience with you is wearing thin.”
The silence is thick around them. There is the occasional whistle of a nightjar from outside. Guards moving down the hall. Wolf’s breathing, labored and unsteady.
It’s a long while later when the shuffling comes, along with a hesitant, warm weight at Genichiro’s back. Wolf, curled up behind him and pressing his face between Genichiro’s shoulder blades. He inhales, long and deep, dragging his nose across Genichiro’s skin and then shuddering in something like bliss. Genichiro doesn’t have the energy to shove him off again.
“Gods, why won’t you just die,” Genichiro whispers. Wolf whines again.
It feels like an apology. Genichiro doesn’t want it.
Ashina is still coiling with smoke. Still carrying the scent of rust and gunpowder on the wind.
Genichiro closes his eyes, and doesn’t move when Wolf shifts closer in the dark.
-
When morning comes, Wolf is pressed against Genichiro’s back like a second skin. Their legs are entwined, Wolf’s clothes tacky and foul, sticking in places when Genichiro moves. The smell is worse now that it’s had time to set. Time to rot.
Genichiro sighs and sits up wearily, rubbing his eyes and looking over his shoulder at Wolf, who is still wrapped up in Genichiro’s blankets. He watches Genichiro intently, lifting the edge of the bedding and pressing it to his nose. Wolf breathes in, lashes fluttering like Genichiro’s scent is some drugging thing to be savored.
“You’re disgusting,” Genichiro says. Wolf blinks slowly at him, either uncomprehending or uncaring.
It’s clear Wolf isn’t going anywhere, not unless Genichiro really does cut him into pieces and leave him with Dojun which… would be satisfying, but wasteful in a way that he can’t abide. The Ministry will be back, and if he wants to stand a chance against them, he needs Wolf at his side.
It’s what he wanted to begin with, but not like this; Ashina is already burning. His family is buried in the ground.
The fight is not over, though, and Genichiro will take what he can get.
“Get up, then,” he says wearily as he stands, Wolf following suit. “Get those rags off. I can’t stand the sight of you.”
Wolf cocks his head, brows drawn together in confusion. Genichiro drags a palm down his face and calls for his servants, telling them to fetch Wolf something clean to wear.
The walk through the castle feels longer with Wolf behind him, guards and servants both giving them a wide berth. It would be easier to have his servants do this as well, but Wolf snarls at anyone who comes close, and Genichiro doesn’t trust him not to hurt them. Genichiro leads him down, and Wolf trails after him, silent except for his intermittent growls. Once they reach the baths, water drawn from hot spring under the castle into a shallow pool surrounded by smooth stone floors, he starts undressing him. Genichiro is loathe to touch his clothes, but even more loathe to have Wolf following him around all day in this state.
His weapons need to come off, first. It’s a drawn out, arduous process. Wolf doesn’t flinch as he is disarmed, and it’s more unsettling than the red irises or the horns or the too-sharp teeth.
The way Wolf stands there, meek and compliant, as Genichiro takes away all that he is piece by piece.
His katana comes first— he must have picked Kusabimaru up at some point, because Owl’s larger blade is nowhere to be seen. Wolf doesn’t even tense as Genichiro takes his weapons— shuriken and kunai and firecrackers. A tanto, an axe. Sabimaru, stolen from a chest in the castle. Genichiro could take it back, but it would be worthless in anyone else’s hands. There’s a satchel full of sugars and pellets and Mibu balloons, along with a half dozen gourds.
It gets worse as Genichiro finally starts peeling Wolf out of all his layers of clothing. His haori is unsalvageable, along with his shitagi and most of the other fabrics he’s wearing. His chainmail will be fine after a good cleaning, as will the rest of his armor; his sleeves, his shin guards. His weapons likely need attention too, with how carelessly he’d been fighting with them.
Finally Wolf is in nothing but his fundoshi, skin still streaked in gore where the blood had drenched his clothes. Nothing but his fundoshi and his shinobi prosthetic, which Genichiro eyes warily. He’s seen Wolf swim with it before, but it can’t be good for the mechanisms. He meets Wolf’s eyes and holds them as he reaches out, untying the ropes and bindings that hold the prosthetic in place. They don’t come loose easily.
Wolf does tense when Genichiro finally pulls it free. His bicep ends in a messy, misshapen scar where Genichiro took the rest of his arm. There are more scars from the prosthetic, red lines in the skin from the bindings. Genichiro sets it down with the rest of Wolf’s weapons before looking back at him.
It’s jarring to see him exposed like this— the strangeness of Wolf’s nudity comes more from the lack of weapons than the lack of clothes. No katana, no wakizashi, no prosthetic. It is as helpless as Wolf is capable of being.
The vulnerability reaches into Genichiro’s stomach and twists unpleasantly.
Genichiro guides him over to a low wooden stool and eases him down onto it. A servant cautiously walks over with two buckets of steaming water and a pile of washrags, doing his best not to draw Wolf’s eye. The rumbling starts when the servant sets the buckets down in front of Genichiro, top lip curling back from Wolf’s teeth, his eyes flaring brighter.
“Enough,” Genichiro says sharply, and the growl cuts off, but Wolf is still watching far too intensely as the servant backs out of the room.
There’s a ladle in one of the buckets for scooping out water, but Wolf is well beyond such things. Genichiro lifts a bucket and starts slowly pouring it over his head. Wolf flinches but endures it without protest; the water that sluices towards the drains in the corner is rusty gray.
Bathing Wolf is more effort than Genichiro expects. He has to run his fingers through Wolf’s hair to get out the worst of the gore. Untangling it takes a while. When Genichiro touches his horns to try and clean them Wolf shudders all over and whines, lips parting as his hips twitch. He lets them go quickly, and Wolf makes a mournful noise, titling his head as though in offering.
Genichiro does his best not to touch them again.
Wolf leans into his hands at every turn. Presses into his touch, eyes dropping closed in contentment. He’s growling again, but it sounds more like a purr. The servants have to bring another two buckets of water, and then another. Genichiro scrubs at Wolf with rice bran until his skin is raw, hair matted against his face, then rinses him clean again. His knuckles brush Wolf’s horns from time to time; Wolf’s breath hitches. He quakes.
Genichiro unties his fundoshi, doing his best to ignore how hard Wolf is, leaking precome onto his thigh.
Doing his best to ignore the way Wolf looks at him with half-lidded eyes, full of need even as they glow crimson.
Genichiro turns his back on Wolf, disrobes, and climbs down into the bath, sitting down on the stone ledge that runs around the edge. The water comes up to his chest, warm with steam curling into the air. Wolf follows, sinking down into the water until only his eyes are visible, breathing it in effortlessly; as though it is easy. Like it is air.
Wolf is pristine now, only the barest traces of blood still lingering on his horns. The heat of the water is soothing, or it would be, if Wolf wasn’t staring so hard.
“Try not to make such a mess next time. I’m not going to bathe you every day like a child.”
It is the first of many lies he tells Wolf, but Genichiro doesn’t know that, yet. They soak in the water together for a while, Wolf edging closer when he thinks Genichiro isn’t looking, until he is seated next to him on the ledge with their thighs pressed together. Wolf leans into Genichiro; closes his eyes. Genichiro’s arms are stretched out over the rim of the bath, and Wolf shoves his ear against Genichiro’s chest, and purrs louder.
Genichiro closes his eyes as Wolf slides his hand over his skin under the water, fingers tracing scars on his abdomen.
Isshin touched Genichiro, but rarely outside of training. He was far from tactile, and casual closeness wasn’t something they had between them. Tomoe preferred using the end of her bow, the hilt of her sword. Tomoe spoke to Genichiro with thunder, and lightning.
Tomoe taught him lessons with pain, and Genichiro loved her for it, and learned.
Emma only put her hands on Genichiro when he was wounded. Gyobu only to steady him as he learned to ride his horse, and that had been years and years ago. All the people who touched Genichiro did so rarely, and now all of them are gone.
Wolf’s palm drags over his stomach, then up his chest. He nuzzles his face against Genichiro, shivering when his horn nudges Genichiro’s collarbones. Wolf is warm, and close, and alive. Genichiro wants to sink into it. Wants to sit still, and quiet, and let Wolf’s hands roam over him until it isn’t so devastating. Until Wolf’s skin against his own doesn’t make him want to shudder, the way Wolf shudders with every accidental brush of his horns.
Genichiro tolerates it as long as he can, then climbs out of the water to dress. He doesn’t look back to see if Wolf is following.
He can feel him there. It feels right, like he is meant to be there. Like he was always meant to be there.
Genichiro doesn’t think about it. Ashina is waiting.
-
Genichiro grieves quietly, and quickly.
Genichiro grieves with Wolf at his heels, following him through the castle, never too far away.
He grieves Isshin, and Emma, but he doesn’t grieve Ashina. It is still there.
He and Wolf have held onto it with gritted teeth and red eyes and a fury that only quiets when they are spilling blood. Wolf’s horns grow with every battle, getting larger with each life he takes. It’s not something dramatic, but Genichiro notices afterwards— when he is bathing him, and Wolf is purring and pliant and drowsy under his hands. He won’t do it himself. Genichiro isn’t sure if he doesn’t remember how, or if he simply likes the way it feels to have Genichiro do it for him.
It matters less than it should.
Genichiro should be bothered by it, but he is not.
It’s harder and harder to keep from touching Wolf’s horns. After a while Genichiro gives up trying. He plasters himself against Genichiro in the bath, and eventually being pressed against his side isn’t enough. Wolf straddles Genichiro’s waist, tucks his face into his throat. He weighs almost nothing, especially in the water. That someone so small can be so dangerous is dizzying.
Wolf is the most savage thing Genichiro has ever seen. He’s beautiful, the way Tomoe was beautiful. The way the lightning is beautiful under Genichiro’s skin as it eats him alive.
The way things can only be beautiful if they’re capable of destruction. Wolf wants him, and only him.
Genichiro doesn’t hate it.
Genichiro never hated it.
Wolf comes back to himself more and more, even if he still only speaks in growls. He tends to his own weapons, and dresses himself. Genichiro watches him methodically clean his blades and run a whetstone over them, or scrape dirt out of the crevices in his prosthetic. He doesn’t seem to need food, though he does eat from time to time. It seems to be out of habit than anything else. If he goes too long without bloodshed, Genichiro can see the weariness in him— shadows under his eyes, irises dimming. It isn’t a problem.
The Ministry attacks have tapered off some but they are battering constantly at the edges of Ashina. They move in fits and starts, gaining ground only to lose it again when Genichiro and Wolf storm in to take it back.
Wolf growls at anyone who gets too close to Genichiro, often insistently enough that he has to reach out and run his knuckles over Wolf’s jaw. Cup his cheek, trail a thumb up one of his horns.
Hush, he says softly, and Wolf goes quiet. Nuzzles into his palm. Purrs like a beast. He kneels beside Genichiro any time he sits; sometimes he is tired, or bored, and he puts his head in Genichiro’s lap.
Genichiro doesn’t notice he’s petting him the first time until he stops, and Wolf whines for him to continue. His guards give him looks, but then he catches them staring, and glares, and their eyes fall away. They pore over maps and move around wooden markers and plan their defenses, all with Genichiro sifting long fingers through Wolf’s hair. No one questions him.
No one dares.
Wolf sleeps in Genichiro’s bed each night. At first he waits for Genichiro to drift off before crawling in behind him, but it doesn’t last long. As soon as the candles have been blown out now Wolf is there, armor shed and weapons put away, clinging to Genichiro. Arms around his waist, face shoved into his skin. Sometimes he presses his mouth against Genichiro’s throat and runs the flat of his tongue over his pulse point, letting his teeth scrape, pleased growls rumbling so loudly Genichiro can feel them vibrating through him.
Sometimes, Genichiro can’t sleep, and he slides his hand up Wolf’s spine and listens to the growling get louder. Sometimes he presses his face into Wolf’s hair, and inhales the scent of him, now perfumed with incense and soft with camellia oil.
Sometimes he pulls Wolf closer just to feel him, skin on skin. Wolf is always hard, always thrumming with desire. The more time passes, the more tactile he becomes. Wolf is needier.
Wolf is adoring. He looks at Genichiro with the kind of reverence reserved for gods, and new brides. Lovers who have been away a long, long while, and have only just come home.
He looks at Genichiro like he wants to swallow him whole. Genichiro knows that when he finally gives in and presses his mouth to Wolf’s, it will be an unstoppable thing. That it is already an unstoppable thing.
Still, Wolf waits. It is for Genichiro to decide.
It is better, and it is worse, and Genichiro knows if Wolf were to disappear from his bed he wouldn’t be able to sleep at all.
-
Wolf brings him hearts torn from men’s chests, so fresh it seems like any moment they might start beating again. They are Ministry assassins. Ministry soldiers. Wolf drops them at Genichiro’s feet in the midst of battle like offerings, pupils wide and black with something close to lust. He crouches there, the din of warfare loud around them, looking up at Genichiro like there is no one else in the world.
Genichiro reaches down to touch his face, thumbing gore away from his bottom lip, something in him settling when Wolf presses into his palm.
Good, Genichiro says, and Wolf purrs, and smiles.
More, Genichiro says, and Wolf flits off to obey.
When there is a lull in the fighting Wolf vanishes sometimes, but he’s never gone long, and he never returns empty handed. He brings Genichiro glittering carp scales. Brings him serpent hearts. Brings him teeth, and claws, and bones.
Brings him the heads of monsters, fog still clinging to them, even as their bodies have long since fallen still.
All that a shura has to offer, Genichiro says, more fondly than he intends. Wolf is gorgeous. Fire in his eyes, blood on his hands.
He comes back filthy with the slaughter, and Genichiro takes him to the baths, and scrubs him clean again.
-
Kuro comes to see Wolf, finally. It’s something Genichiro has been hesitant to allow, but the young lord is persistent, and Wolf isn’t as volatile as he’d once been. They are in Genichiro’s quarters, Wolf dozing in his lap as he reads through scrolls sent from his generals in the outer reaches of Ashina. He’s got an arm thrown around Genichiro’s waist, face tucked into his stomach, body sprawled out on the floor. The knock comes loudly, firmly.
The voice, less so.
“Lord Genichiro, might I come in?”
Wolf stirs at the sound, rolling over so he can see the door but not moving from Genichiro’s lap. Genichiro sets down the scroll in his hand and sinks his fingers into Wolf’s hair unthinkingly. He doesn’t like when people come into Genichiro’s rooms, but he’s never attacked anyone unprovoked, and Genichiro doubts he’ll start with Kuro.
“You may,” Genichiro replies.
The door slides open to reveal Kuro, along with the guards Genichiro has assigned to him. Kuro steps forward with his eyes downcast, giving a shallow bow.
“Forgive the intrusion,” he says softly before raising his eyes. “I just…”
Wolf has stopped purring, stopped nuzzling. Stopped breathing. He sits up slowly, the movements more human than Genichiro has seen from him since he’s become shura. Wolf’s lips are parted, his eyes painfully wide. His fingers brush over Kusabimaru’s hilt— an absent, instinctive gesture. He isn’t going to draw.
He’s reaching for something. Reaching for memory.
Reaching for who he was, maybe; Genichiro doesn’t know if that’s something within his grasp or not.
Wolf shifts in place until he is on his knees, breathing again all at once, his chest heaving.
“Wolf,” Kuro says, barely a whisper. It’s something he hasn’t heard in a long time. Genichiro calls him shura.
It lands like a blow. Wolf shudders hard and bows his head, lower and lower, until his horns are touching the wood floor underneath him. He’s got both arms curled around his middle. He’s shivering all over.
Genichiro and Kuro reach out at the same time— Kuro sees Genichiro moving and hesitates, pulling his hand back. Genichiro lays a palm between Wolf’s shoulders, rubbing it in slow circles.
“You’re fine,” he says. He isn’t sure it’s true.
Kuro kneels in front of Wolf, reaching out again, this time with both hands. They’re quaking as they settle on Wolf’s head, still pressed firmly against the floor.
“Wolf,” he says again, and Wolf makes an animal sound. Something that might have been words, if only he hadn’t forgotten how to speak. Kuro leans down and touches his forehead to Wolf’s hair, lingering there for a long moment. “I have missed you,” he says. They sit there kneeling together, both of them shaking.
Then Kuro stands, leaving Genichiro’s room on unsteady legs without another word.
Wolf doesn’t move when he has gone.
“Shura,” Genichiro tries, frowning at the way it tastes in his mouth, now. Wolf flinches at it. Genichiro puts out the candles and crawls into bed. “Come here,” he says.
It takes a while, but Wolf crawls into bed alongside him, still clothed and wearing his weapons. Genichiro pulls Wolf into his arms, burying his face in his hair. Wolf’s horns bump into Genichiro’s jaw on both sides, curled back over his head as they are now, growing, growing, growing.
More of a monster with every press of his blade.
“You’re still in there,” Genichiro says. It’s almost a question. Wolf lets out a hitching little sob that hurts Genichiro’s chest. “Shhhh, it’s alright. What’s done is done.”
He doesn’t know if Wolf sleeps, but he does go quiet, and still.
When Genichiro wakes in the morning, he is gone.
-
Genichiro finds him at Emma’s grave, sleeping curled up on top of it.
Wolf is dirty and covered in gore— some Ministry assassins had found their way into the castle grounds during the night, according to the guards. Wolf had stumbled across them in the early hours of the morning and left them in pieces just outside the gate.
He crouches down next to him, brushing Wolf’s tangled hair out of his eyes, running his hand through it until he wakes. Wolf blinks slowly, brows drawn together as he shakes off the slumber, squinting up at Genichiro against the evening sun that slants brightly all around them.
“Come on,” Genichiro says. Wolf has his right hand sunk deep into the soil. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but all that comes out is a whine. Genichiro sighs. “I know. I miss her, too. Come on, get up.”
Wolf doesn’t, but he also doesn’t protest when Genichiro reaches down and scoops him up into his arms. He curls into Genichiro’s chest; Wolf is a delicate thing when he is not in motion.
A delicate thing when there is no weapon in his hand, and he is hiding in Genichiro’s clothes with trembling fingers.
Bathing him is simple, now. As familiar for Genichiro as stringing his bow, or oiling his katana. He has fought hard to think of Wolf in terms like this— keeping Wolf clean is like maintaining a weapon. Keeping him close is keeping him sharp.
It falls away easily, grief like a wound behind Wolf’s eyes, something that runs too deep for him to fully understand. Wolf is more than a weapon. More than his blades and his fists and his teeth.
Wolf is warmth in his bed and someone strong at his back. Soft hair under his hands. Power that never falters.
Genichiro has Ashina, but Ashina does not reach back, no matter the blood he spills for her.
Genichiro reaches, and Wolf rises up to meet him, time and time again.
When he is clean— mostly clean— Genichiro picks up a wet silk pouch full of rice bran and lifts it to Wolf’s horns. They curl up from his temples and twist back over his head, so much more pronounced than they’d first been. Wolf shudders when he presses the silk against one horn, scrubbing gently at the surface until the dried blood flakes away to leave it shining. He repeats the process with the other horn, carefully cleaning away the dirt and grit. Wolf pants, gripping the wooden stool underneath him so hard that his knuckles are white.
Finally they’re as clean as the rest of him, and Genichiro tosses down the silk pouch and pulls Wolf to his feet. They sink into the bath together.
This time it is Genichiro who draws Wolf onto his lap, water dripping from them both as he cups Wolf’s cheek. He drags his thumb across Wolf’s mouth, eyes roaming over his face.
“Wolf,” Genichiro says, for the very first time. He has always been shinobi, been shura. Been something, instead of someone. Wolf breathes out roughly, leaning harder into Genichiro’s hand. “Wolf,” he says again, watching him shiver.
Genichiro kisses him. Kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him. He’s never wanted anyone the way he wants Wolf.
Wolf surges up to meet him with all that hunger that has lain waiting in him, purring out the same pleased noises he makes when Genichiro is half asleep in their bed and pressing his mouth to Wolf’s hair. He rocks in Genichiro’s lap, right arm thrown around his neck as he grinds his cock forward against Genichiro’s stomach.
It’s easy to surround Wolf. To hold him close and lick into his mouth, feel Wolf’s sharp teeth scraping against his tongue. He whimpers into their kisses, writhing like he can’t get close enough. They are already pressed together, skin on skin; Genichiro can’t get any closer without being inside him. It is what Wolf wants, Genichiro is sure.
He runs his hands down Wolf’s back, grabbing his ass with one hand, the other slipping lower. Genichiro rubs a few gentle circles against him before he lets one of his fingertips delve inside. Genichiro presses into him, slowly, slowly; Wolf breaks away from their kiss as his whole body freezes, but only for an instant.
Then he is whining louder and rocking down onto Genichiro’s hand, trying to coax him deeper. His kisses are frantic, suddenly, fingers clawing desperately at Genichiro’s hair.
“Easy,” Genichiro says, letting his free hand circle Wolf’s waist to hold him in place. “Be still, I have you.”
I don’t want to hurt you, he thinks. The notion is absurd; Genichiro has tried to hurt Wolf, and failed more than once. It isn’t that he is afraid of hurting him, really.
He wants to be gentle.
This time, at least.
Genichiro works him open as meticulously as Wolf will allow. They kiss as Genichiro stretches him wide, until Wolf can do nothing but make breathy noises against his mouth. Then Genichiro kisses down his jaw to suck bruises into his throat. He watches them darken, then fade away into nothing, Wolf rutting into him with increased desperation.
Wolf bares his teeth. Nips at Genichiro’s fingers when he touches his mouth. Scratches at Genichiro’s back, and mewls into his throat. Wolf is beautiful like this, unabashedly needy.
Wolf is always beautiful; ending lives. Twisting through the air with his grapple soaring out ahead of him. Drifting to sleep in Genichiro’s lap.
Falling apart in his arms.
Genichiro’s patience wears thin almost as quickly as Wolf’s. It isn’t long before he is pressing his cock against Wolf, pushing in with tortuous slowness. The purring starts up again, loud, almost a snarl. Wolf’s hair is clinging to his face, tangled around his horns, strands caught up in his mouth. He’s flushed all over, twitching as Genichiro sinks in deep. His jaw opens. Closes. Opens again.
“Gen,” he chokes out. Swallows. Whimpers. “Genichiro.”
His voice is raw with disuse.
His voice is pure adoration.
Even if he weren’t already lost, Genichiro wouldn’t be able to resist the sound of it. He is helpless.
He has to take him.
Genichiro wraps his arms around Wolf’s waist, buries his face in Wolf’s throat, and fucks him ragged. The sounds they make echo off the stone walls of the baths, Genichiro calling Wolf’s name, Wolf snarling and whimpering in turn. Wolf meets his every thrust, forcing Genichiro to move faster and faster, until Wolf is riding him with frenzied abandon.
They come together, Wolf shuddering out his orgasm with his face buried in Genichiro’s chest, Genichiro filling him up in bursts of heat. Genichiro tilts his head. Mouths a soft kiss to one of Wolf’s horns, then the other. The sound Wolf makes is broken.
Genichiro feels it all the way down to his bones.
He drags Wolf out of the baths, and they take a moment to pull on some robes before making their way upstairs to bed. Wolf crawls in after him, the way he always does, except this time he pushes Genichiro down on his back and straddles his hips. Genichiro slides in easy this time, Wolf taking what he needs again, and again. After a while his thighs start to shake, and Genichiro rolls them over, and eases him into the blankets.
“Let me,” Genichiro says, and Wolf obeys.
-
Wolf crawls into his lap in the middle of war councils, pressing shameless kisses to Genichiro’s mouth as if they are all alone.
Wolf wakes Genichiro with his lips around his cock, eyes vivid red in the light of dawn. Genichiro closes a fist around one of Wolf’s horns, watches him shake as he holds onto it and fucks his mouth. He’s still docile in the bath. Still vicious on the battlefield.
Wolf finds more of himself every day. He will never be the man he was, but he is Wolf all the same. He goes to Kuro’s rooms in the evenings sometimes. Kneels next to him as he reads. It hurts, at first; hurts Kuro. Hurts Wolf.
Hurts Genichiro.
It gets easier. Things are not stretched so taut between them.
Then the sun goes down, and Wolf is there.
Genichiro can sleep.