The Undesired Second Chance

Chapter 33: Taken

Something was wrong.

Dach glanced over toward the hole in the crumbling wall that led outside, opposite from where some of his pack were pawing through the gathered food. Of course, it wasn't really his pack anymore, as he had long since handed over the reins to one of the younger pups.

That didn't stop them from looking to him for guidance, though, and it certainly didn't keep him from looking out for them. He worried about them, sometimes. A lot of the time, actually.

But he had a home to look out for now, too.

Standing, he trotted over to the opening and peered at the scraggly training ground across from their hideout. Everything was quiet. Peaceful.

Then he heard a dull thock, kunai hitting wood.

There was a flash of silver hair as more knives were thrown at one of the target posts that hadn't been blown up at some point; Kakashi, he recognized, though he wasn't sure why the young shinobi had chosen to come all the way to the abandoned district just to practice.

The foreboding feeling still itched at him.

Miho, lying in a patch of sun just on the other side of the wall, quirked an ear his way. "What's the matter, Boss?"

"I'm not the boss anymore, haven't been for a while..." He sighed, shaking his head. "Whatever. How long's he been over there?"

She shrugged, sitting up and stretching. "A while now. He's been pacing a lot, too—think he's got somethin' on his mind."

Dach jumped over a stray brick, settling beside her to watch the boy practice. Two more kunai found their marks, chased swiftly by a third. The boy's accuracy was very impressive for his age, he noted distantly.

"...I think you got somethin' on your mind, too, Boss."

"I suppose." He was quiet for another long moment. "Something's wrong."

She huffed, but, after scenting the air a few times, didn't deny it. "I don't like it. It's like..." a pause, hesitant, and she finished, "like that night, but not as sharp."

That was not what he wanted to hear, even if he had been thinking basically the same thing.

Abruptly standing back up, Dach shook himself. "I can't just keep sitting around here, not when I don't know... What if..."

Miho joined him, and, after barking a farewell to the rest of the pack, they both walked back to the smithy—to his home. He had been away for only a few days, Dach tried to reassure himself. It was nothing he hadn't done before, to check up on the pack. Nothing unusual.

His human... Axel would be fine. He was just being paranoid.

The streets back were almost hushed, too still, but he couldn't quite tell if he was just imagining things. The unsettling smell—more like a feeling, really—seemed to get stronger as they got closer.

Please, no.

But Dach had already known the painful truth long before he nosed his way in through the back door. The wrongness hung in the air, like dust or shed hair, and it seemed to tickle his nose with warnings.

His home should never smell empty.

Or... emptied.

Breath catching as he was once more forcibly reminded of another building, months ago, with the same shivery bad-smell of wrong and loss and taken: the smell that was almost more instinctive foreboding than actual scent.

Heart feeling like it was torn between stopping or pounding a million times faster, Dach darted through the building.

"Wha— Boss!"