His Other Half (KiriBaku)

Chapter 4

September 26, XX84
--Dian Forest--

        Rat awoke too early for his liking, and he knew something was wrong. Of course, early was nearly noon, but he preferred to be awake in the afternoons, when the carts were more frequent, and during the night.

        He rose cautiously from his sleeping hollow, checking his surroundings carefully. Something was off. Different. Bad. Wrong. His senses were screaming at him. A warning growl left his throat on instinct as if it alone could fend off trouble.

        The gladiator blinked when the forest seemed to let out a breath, and the birds began chirping again. That's what must have been wrong: the birds had been too silent.

        Rat relaxed, glancing again around the hollow and clearing. He pulled a bone out of the nearby pile, putting it into his mouth to suck on. The chicken was long gone, but some of the flavor still remained on the bones, and it had been a delicious chicken.

        Stretching, he moved to crawl out of his hollow--

        A twig snapped.

        Rat froze on the spot, taking only a second to assure it hadn't been him to make the noise. But no, it had been too far off, and he hadn't stepped on any sticks. He surely would have felt that with his bare feet.

        Letting loose another low warning growl, the gladiator shifted out of his hiding place and pushed into the low shrubbery beside the path, but not before grabbing his muzzle and fastening it to his head. It could merely be an early cart or men on horses, or another passing animal or something, but Rat was too curious, and the nagging feeling had returned full force. Peeking his head out into the path, he saw they were indeed horses, a brown mare and a white stallion, but...

        Was that a bush? Riding an animal?

        No, it was a man with bushy green hair, so similar from afar to the foliage that Rat had become accustomed to. There was another man on the stallion beside him, with equally funny hair split right down the middle. Rat wrinkled his nose. This land kept getting stranger and stranger.

        As they drew closer at a snail's pace, their conversation reached Rat's ears, and he cocked his head, curious.

        "--roki, you heard Jiro," the green man sighed. "It can't be a myth if half the town has seen it."

        "You think too much, Izuku," the other shot back with a defeated groan. "We've been searching for hours. The townspeople pointed us in a direction and we've found nothing. Can we go home now? I'm tired."

        "Shoto, we're only just now reaching the spot where most of the sightings have happened. Look," he pointed, "there's the creek they described."

        Rat twisted to glance at the running water. What did they want with his creek? Did they plan to take it from him? They'd have to fight him for it, he liked that creek. It was a nice creek.

        "Oh, good," the other man deadpanned. "The horses can get a good drink before we go home."

        "Shoto--"

        "Midoriya," Shoto mimicked. "What if--and hear me out, for once--this red-haired demon thing is all a very complex myth started by the villagers to keep bandits away and scare off the kingdom forces."

        Rat froze as a lock of vermillion hair slipped in front of his eyes. These men didn't want his creek. They wanted him.

        "And now we're right back to square one."