The monstrous screeches and yells faded behind me as I ran deeper into the snowy woods, the sunlight beating down on the white snow underneath my feet. The cold air hurt to breathe but I pressed on as far as I could run, following the tracks that Jyushimatsu had left.

Stumbling over a fallen tree limb, I righted myself before leaning against a gnarled tree for support, catching my breath in the cold.

This was insane.

Here I was, chasing a yokai in the forest while my fiancé was being held off by one of his brothers. My hand trembled as it slowly reached back towards the bow of my sash, my fingertips pressing against the once soft material as they felt out the slim wooden shaft of the fude brush. Shaking my head to some unspoken thought, I pulled my hand away from the pouch tucked inside the sash and kept running along the tracks that had been left recently.

"Jyushimatsu!" I called out into the quiet forest, rounding a larger tree before seeing the man from the cave standing still in the middle of some kind of clearing, his vivid blue eyes locked onto me as I slowed down to catch my breath, "It's...Ichimatsu. He's not himself..."

I tried to raise an arm to point towards where I had come from, but couldn't muster the strength as my lungs cried out in pain from sucking in the cold air. The only sound came from me within the clearing, prompting me to look up at where Jyushimatsu stood.

He hadn't even moved from the spot, his eyes still on me.

"You wish for me to interfere?"

"I--" Cutting myself off, I took a deep breath as Choromatsu's words came to mind, "I need your help, Jyushimatsu."

The inugami stayed silent as he stood tall, his hues never leaving mine.

"I need you to help Choromatsu calm Ichimatsu down," The large swath of cloth over his lower face made looking at the brother unnerving, but I pressed on, "He said that you were my inugami, and doing this favor would make me happy."

Jyushimatsu quietly closed the distance between us in just a few strides, his intense gaze focused on my own hues. The hunting bow that was clutched in his left hand had been slung over his shoulder while he moved, leaving both of his hands free as he held them out to me with his palms facing the sky.

I cautiously lay my hands in his before he gently closed his fingers over them.

"I will do this for my master."

Without warning, Jyushimatsu pulled me close as his form shifted into something larger, some kind of fur spreading from his gloves to his arms and shoulders. I kept my eyes closed as my hands clung to the fur, feeling him move me onto his back before the wind immediately picked up speed, its chill winter fingers tugging at my hair and clothes.

The movement underneath me mimicked an animal running at full speed, curiosity urging me to open my eyes and look.

I hesitantly obliged, seeing whitish fur along Jyushimatsu's back as he had shifted to run on all four limbs. My fingers tightened their grip as I lifted my head, seeing a large pair of dog ears pinned back as a heavy exhale accompanied a large waft of hot air as the creature underneath me ran. The fur extended from the ears down past me to end in a long length of tail that seemed to be ethereal in appearance, the latter part of it trailing off into dark smoke.

There were shreds of clothing still clinging to the creature, drawing my attention that despite the physical change in appearance, Jyushimatsu was still the same size as he normally was. A large twisted rope clung to his waist as the end trailed down by his tail and disappeared with the same ghostly trait.

"Jyushimatsu...?"

One of the ears flicked back towards me, the only indication that he had heard my quiet question.

"I'm so sorry for doing this to you--" I buried my face into his off-white fur, wanting to stop the tears before they even started forming, "--I should've listened to Totoko."

"It's true that our lives would've been a lot easier if you did listen," Jyushimatsu's voice was gentle despite the exertion he was clearly making, "But no one is holding it against you, (y/n). If anyone else had found those brushes, they would probably be in this same situation."

I stayed quiet as his words sunk in, knowing that he was right. My fingers dug in deeper into his fur, brushing against his skin for a moment as the winter wind howled around us.

"Thank you for saving me from Karamatsu before..." I lifted my face from his back, watching the forest rush by, "You know...before I lost everything."

"If it's your purity you're worried about, you still have it."

I raised my head up to look towards Jyushimatsu's head, one of his ears still pointed back to me, "...what?"

"When I found you underneath him last night, he had made it clear that it wasn't his intention to take that from you just yet," The inugami bolted to his right, jumping around some fallen trees before righting his course, "Am I correct in guessing that you can't tell me what happened?"

I closed my eyes as a blast of wind forced me to duck back down against his furred back, barely shaking my head.

"Then I won't ask how you found yourself in that position alone."

I heard some screeches and yelps echo through the forest, growing closer with each bound. The forest itself had begun to thin out as we made our way towards the edge where the rock cave was, the crisp white snow like a large blanket on the entire area before we burst through the edge of a clearing. I bit my tongue to keep myself from shouting out at the gruesome scene.

The pure snow was splattered with crimson blood, thick strands of it arching from the fight blossoming in the middle of the clearing. Black feathers and white fur had been scattered over the battlefield as swaths of fabric had been torn away from the fighters' garments.

"Drop!" Jyushimatsu shouted at me, my fingers releasing his fur on their own as I slid off his back and onto the reddening snow. The inugami only picked up speed as he careened into the fight between the daitengu and kitsune, bodyslamming into Ichimatsu's monstrous form and rushing him onto the other side of the clearing.

Fox and dog fought tooth and claw as Choromatsu collapsed onto the ground, barely holding onto the staff.

"Choromatsu!" I shouted in worry as I clambered up to my feet, not even bothering to brush off the snow from my clothes as I staggered over towards him. The third oldest sextuplet barely glanced over at me as he used the staff as a way to try and stand back up, grunting in effort as he fell back to the ground.

"I thought...I told you to run," His tone wasn't completely admonishing, but the implication was there.

"You did, but I couldn't let both of you fight to the death," I knelt by him and fully took in his condition.

The large tengu mask sat askew on his head, the string keeping it on coming loose while the black cloak rested in tatters on his back. His robes were extremely cut up, barely covering his shoulders and chest anymore as long scratches mimicked the cuts on his skin. The geta straps were coming loose as he adjusted his feet underneath him, the dark talons sprouting from his toes pushing aside some of the bloodied snow.

"(Y/n), you shouldn't have come back," Choromatsu's harsh blue eyes locked onto my own hues, his pointed frown sharpening into a look of disappointment, "You know how much time we all have left."

"I do know, Choromatsu," I nodded as I helped him sit in a more comfortable position, "But I'm more worried about Ichimatsu killing his brothers in an uncontrolled rage. He'd hate himself for it afterwards."

"Then what do you propose we do?" He gave a quick glance over to the fight on the other side of the clearing, seeing that Jyushimatsu was starting to wear down Ichimatsu, the snarling kitsune trying to bite at the large inugami pinning the fox to the ground. Choromatsu's hand began to tremble on the staff as he tried to stand back up again.

"Tire him out," I briefly closed my eyes and turned away from the sight of my fiancé fighting to get back up from underneath Jyushimatsu, "I'll scavenge for food and make him eat when he wakes up."

"But there's no guarantee that it'll work," The daitengu grunted as he stood up straight, his gaze focused on the fight.

"There's no other option, Choromatsu. I don't have any flexibility on using my brush, and my fiancé is my responsibility," My eyes met his as I stood up from the bloodied snow, brushing off what I could as I adjusted my clothing, "He didn't tell me that he was hungry and never ate in front of me while we were traveling together."

There was no response from Choromatsu before he started making his way towards the struggling pair of yokai, leaving me alone as I looked towards the cave where I had woken up. I knew there was a fire pit already made, but couldn't recall if there were tools to cook with -- meaning that whatever I made would have to be easily created by hand.

I refused to look back as I carefully made my way towards the forest once more, hearing the kitsune yelp loudly before silence took over the clearing.