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"That may have been a bit reckless my impatient beauty," said the ninja fox. He and the wolfess Captain stood in a darkened alley, while the rain pelted down. In the streets of the area around the wrecked tavern the city Guard was finishing rounding up the pirates involved in the brawl. Many were unconscious or unable to walk so they were carried on stretchers and most had injuries ranging from bruises to broken bones. Kyra even had a few scratches and a bruise on her forehead.

"Where do you come off saying something like that?" the wolf asked angrily. "You don't think taking on Brunin's best assassins was reckless?"

Hiroto shook his head, "No, it was dangerous, but we may have a bit of a problem now." He pointed at the street where the pirates and sailors were being loaded into wagons and calmly asked, "What do you think will happen to these rogues? They will spend the night in prison but come the morning there will be a reckoning. The citizens will be up in arms shouting for the upstart Guard to be leashed and collared. Brunin will take this advantage to discredit those that oppose him."

Kyra growled and looked away. The ninja was right of course. He acted so calm and confident, filled with arrogance, thought Kyra. Still something about him...

When he was sure that the Captain of the Guard got his point Hiroto let up and changed the subject. "I hear you carried the day in there what with taking out a few pirate Captain's and their bodyguards to break the pirates' spirits at the end. That's quite a feat and not one to be taken lightly."

Kyra looked back to the fox's masked face puzzled. Was he mocking her? Sincerely praising her skills? Or perhaps he didn't think she could fight? She scowled at the fox.

Hiroto correctly guessed the reason behind the face she made and Kyra could tell by his eyes that he was smiling behind his mask. "Relax, you didn't get to be Captain by sitting back and watching others do your work for you. It was merely a compliment."

The wolfess grinned mischievously, she could play the cool cat too. "Oh does the mysterious ninja have a weakness for worrying about the damsel in distress?"

Hiroto was caught off guard by the out of character comment. He scratched the back of his head while he stumbled over his words. "What? Oh no it's just, uh, well you see... I, uh..."

"Uh huh, I see how it is. Not so easy to keep your cool when you are the one in the spotlight is it?" She folded her arms under her breasts and let him sweat a little bit more. Kyra would have sworn she saw him blush under his mask. "You'd better watch out ninja, I know your weakness now."

Hiroto coughed and straightened getting a measure of his composure back. "Weakness? Nah, I learn from such things, they only work on me once and never again. You watch my pretty antagonist I will not falter from that again."

Despite her will Kyra couldn't keep something from stirring inside her heart. This strange male was bringing out another side of herself she had thought gone forever. She was changing back to the adventure loving young girl filled with laughter she had been when she had started with the Guard. As she stood in front of this black furred fox she felt the scowling quick tempered wolf she was melt away.

"Well then my soft hearted ninja I will just have to try harder won't I?" Kyra said with a smirk

The ninja's eyes sparkled. This lighter side of the wolfess was much different than her usual self, she still held all of her willpower and determination yet she carried herself with a more contented attitude. All of a sudden she seemed really close to him looking into his green eyes with her intense brown ones. They both sat there losing themselves in the stare with smiles on their faces, with rainwater dripping down their wet fur.

Kyra reached up slowly and touched the ninja's covered cheek and whispered, "Tell me something ninja."

"Anything," he replied.

"What are you like under the mask?" she asked dreamily

The light in his eyes suddenly diminished, replaced by a deep sadness. He reached up and took her hand off his face and looked away. The moment was broken. Hiroto's past flashed through his memory and painful thoughts raced through his mind. It wasn't Kyra's fault he thought so why did he mistreat her by letting his past take control of him?

"What is it?" the wolfess asked her voice filled with concern.

"A problem from the past. Something I must resolve alone, don't worry about it." Hiroto turned away, tears in his eyes, and looked further down the alley but didn't move away just yet.

The wolf felt bad for bringing such sadness to the ninja. "Tell me. I can help you. Please... let me in," she pleaded.

His head hung the fox replied, "I... can't. Some things must be worked out alone."

"No one can do everything by themselves; sometimes it is best to seek outside help." Kyra couldn't understand his feelings but she wanted to make it up to him for the way she made him feel and because she had to finally admit to herself that she cared for him.

That thought cut to her core and she froze. Was that how she really felt? Somehow against her will the wolf's heart had found someone to care for, someone that she could even... love. So caught up with these newfound realizations that Kyra almost missed what he said next.

"Outside help cannot quench inner turmoil," he whispered. Then Hiroto did what he had been doing most of his life, he ran. He ran from his feelings, he ran from Kyra, he ran from the way she made him feel, he ran from his past, but mostly he just ran. He slipped into a state of pure instinct, unthinking and uncaring. This wolfess brought a heavy sadness to him so he tried to escape.

Kyra watched him run away for a moment before she set her jaw. "Not this time."

Through alleys and streets, over rooftops and through underground passages the ninja fled. The only thing in his mind was escape he was unaware of his pursuer and the world around him. Instinct guided him across Karyd searching for a place to be alone where he might be safe from the pitiless world. The very sight of the city brought pain to his mind so he fled, slipping over the city walls and into the fields of the surrounding country side. Still he ran, the rain letting up as if to allow him passage, past farmhouses and fields until he entered a forest.

He darted through the trees that further darkened the night until he came upon a small glade with a spring that fed a tiny stream. The ninja collapsed and lay on the soft rain soaked grass. Water dripped from the leaves all around him but he didn't hear, his wet fur matted and clung to his body but he didn't feel. His attention was focused inwardly.

No matter how far he ran Hiroto could not escape his past mistakes. They always came back to haunt him. He couldn't put the blame on Kyra, she didn't know, couldn't have known. No this outburst of negative emotion was his fault. Such a simple and innocent question yet to the ninja his mask hid sorrow and shame.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Kyra's voice startled the fox visibly. Normally he wouldn't have been surprised by someone's approach or even let the fact that he was surprised show. He looked up and saw her leaning against a nearby tree.

Slowly she walked forward and knelt beside Hiroto. "Sometimes just telling someone about your problems will make a person feel better."

The ninja looked back to the grass, "Some problems are too painful and are best left alone."

The wolfess put a paw on his shoulder. "Pain can be replaced and forgotten."

"Dishonor complicates the pain and multiplies it."

Kyra cupped his chin with her paw and lifted so he looked into her eyes. "A disgraced person still has duty and through duty can regain the honor lost."

He sat there a moment looking into her eyes until his tear filled eyes couldn't take it anymore and he looked away. "Please," he started, "please leave me. Find another, I only bring suffering."

The wolfess would not relent however. "You can change that. Tell me what happened and I will tell you why the future can overshadow the past."

The ninja found his resistance slipping underneath Kyra's stubbornness. She silenced his protests and said, "Show me why you hurt so I can better understand you. You are the one I... the one I love."

Hiroto turned back to look at the sincere wolf. "Please don't say that," he whispered his voice racked with grief.

"Tell me," Kyra she said firmly.

The ninja looked to the spring and paused a long moment before he began his tale.

"I was raised in a village far from here where many trained to become ninjas. Assassins, spies, bodyguards, we are all these things and more. In my village we are taught that nothing is more important than duty, than honor. We are trained since early childhood that it is our duty to finish our job and return by any means necessary. Only by returning, our lives in tact, can we further serve our masters. Death is an enemy and an ally at once. We learn ways to delay our own deaths while we bring it upon our enemies.

"One day when I was coming of age I was chosen for an important mission to a neighboring village. I was to observe the master there and learn of his plans for battle. Their village and ours were hostile towards each other and battles and raids were fought on a low scale. They had many samurai and despised our ways. I hid amongst a meeting room he and his closest warriors gathered. They plotted a grand battle to eliminate my village. My orders included the assassination of the master if the village was threatened.

"When the meeting ended all departed and as I left my hiding spot a young lady entered the room and found me. She was so innocent and naïve. She did not fear me because I was a ninja in her master's home. She asked me questions as if I were a new friend. She was so enamored by me that I fell in love. We talked most of the night and I forgot the mission, I forgot my duty for love."

Hiroto stopped and sighed longingly.

"I learned that she was the daughter of the master of the village, the very person I was charged to murder. I let me feelings interrupt my duty. I could not kill the father of the lady I had fallen for. I did not return to my village, instead I stayed close to my love's home. I slept in the swamps and forests and visited my love every night.

"But it soon grew more complicated. Because I had not returned to my village another ninja was sent to discover my delay. He observed me and the master's daughter and had thought I had defected. He fled back with this news to the village. Then I was found out by her father who, with his samurai, chased me away and pursued me as I ran.

"I was ambushed and captured by my clan. They wanted to know what I had told the samurai. We were taken unprepared for the assault. My clan barely had time to organize before the samurai fell upon them. Our numbers were few and the samurai did not fear death and even embraced it. My kin left alive fled and I was left to the samurai.

"I was to be put to death there but my love delayed it. She had run after her father to save the man she loved from death. Her father was furious he would not have his daughter love an 'honor less dog.' They argued and shouted while my clan came back secretly and launched their own attack. I was the first target. Someone threw a shuriken, or throwing star, at me. My love was the one that saved me. She threw herself in front of it and took it in her throat. With her dying breath in my arms she confessed her love for me and told me to find happiness.

"My master and her father fought and both died as a result, both sides suffered great losses and retreated. I buried my love and erected a shrine to honor her at a small waterfall nearby. I had at first planned to take my own life but I could not. So I returned to my village and found myself shunned. They blamed me for the deaths and so I was exiled. I left miserable and filled with sorrow. I had lost my sense of duty in favor of love and it cost many lives yet still I could take my own."

The ninja reached up behind him and began untying his mask.

"When the samurai attacked my clan I received a mark, a cut, trying to stop the killing." Hiroto let the soft mask fall from his face. On his right cheek there was a long scar running down his muzzle to the end of his nose. It was bereft of fur and a lighter color from the nearby skin. "I am marked as a coward, a deserter, and a failure one that love has thrown to the winds. No future could lighten my past," he finished softly.

Kyra reached up, tears in her eyes for his pain. She felt his face and the scar on it. "Your past is not your fault." She put a paw on his lips to silence him. "You and your love both are victims of a misunderstanding and blind hatred. Misfortune was set upon the love you shared a tore it apart. There was nothing you could do to stop it. To fall in love is not a curse, not a burden, but a gift, you must follow your heart and listen to what it tells you." Feeling the scar again the wolf said, "You should bear this mark with pride, you earned it courageously trying to stop the sides from warring with each other. It is a mark of the power of love, to turn you to peace rather than violence."

The ninja was taken aback. To hear her talk of his shameful scar in such light was astonishing. Doubts still clouded his mind and shown on his face. "You turned away from assassination because he was your love father. You did not know him or what kind of person he was. You only knew you loved his daughter and so refused to kill him. And later when your clan fought his you tried to halt the slaughter because you did not want to see your family and hers at war. To feel love, even for a short time, and have it taken is still better than going through life devoid of it. Remember the happiness of your time with her and forget your woes. Do her spirit honor and remember the way she lived instead of how she died."

Something she said made him realize his folly. He had spent so much time brooding over her death that he had forgotten the blissful nights they spent together, of the long conversations they had. She would not have wanted him to think of her this way. She had wanted him to be happy with the life she had given him. Her love and his life, the two greatest gifts he could have received and he had soiled them with regret.

"Honor her last request; find happiness in the past and the future."

The ninja smiled at last and hugged Kyra, "You have settled a great conflict within me. For that I am grateful. You've shown me so much. I have just one more request."

"Anything."

"Show me how to love again. Let us fall asleep in each others arms and forget our worries until morning."

The two settled into the soft grass still holding close and let the warm foggy night envelope them.

The wolf held the ninja tightly and said one thing before sleep closed her eyes, "I love you, Hiroto."

"Kyra."