Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Red and Blue Makes Purple ❯ Kitsune no Shinigami ( Chapter 4 )

A/N:

“Red and Blue Makes Purple”

Chapter Four

Shinigami no Kitsune

Two hearts were beating hard in Duo’s immediate vicinity. This much he knew as he slowly roused from weird dreams that oddly enough centered on ramen. Not that the heart beats weren’t strange on their own. Since his ‘foxification,’ the local animals had definitely been keeping their distance. Except for other foxes (albeit smaller ones). They seemed to like him. But the creatures in front of him didn’t smell like foxes. In fact, they smelled... human!

His eyes shot open and instantly caught sight of the familiar pair standing at the edge of the path, neither moving. He grinned. Trowa! Quatre!

Quatre mentally cursed Duo for being the reason they were out there as the monster’s eyes opened and the red gaze locked onto them. Lifting its head, it bared its teeth at them. He clung to Trowa’s arm, terrified as his eyes clenched shut. There was no way that they could outrun an animal that big.

Trowa, however, had yet to drop from the unspoken staring contest he and the fox had entered. It had yet to attack them or even growl. It almost seemed to recognize them. “It’s intelligent.”

It was that comment that made Duo realize that they’d have no way of knowing who he really was. No wonder Quatre looked scared out of his wits. Slowly, he worked his legs under him and moved closer to his friends, keeping low to the ground. When it looked like the blond was about to bold, he stopped, sending a meaningful glance to Trowa.

Hoping he’d understood what the creature meant and that it wasn’t trying to trick them, the clown nodded. “Quatre, stay here for a moment. It won’t hurt me.”

“Be careful,” he whispered, barely about to convince his hands to unclench from his partner’s sleeve.

Sending a small smile over his shoulder, Trowa began to approach the fox, keeping his hands in view and his eyes matching red. As he grew closer, it lowered its head until its snout was clearly within Trowa’s reach. He stopped about a foot away from it to give the fox a chance to smell that he wasn’t afraid.

At first, it didn’t look like it was going to do anything. Then, just as he was about to reach out, the creature’s tongue whipped out and licked him across the face before he could respond.

When the fox moved suddenly, Quatre covered his eyes, sure that Trowa was about to be eaten by the giant creature. But when there as neither scream nor crunching of bones, he dared to peak through his fingers.

His partner was still alive and still standing there in front of the fox. In fact, standing was all he was doing, having apparently frozen in shock. His hair, however, was interesting. He couldn’t help it. He started laughing.

Mission accomplished, Duo thought with a toothy grin, very dog-like. When Quatre didn’t freeze up again, he took that as a good sign and stood up to his full height, towering over the both of them. Stepping carefully over Trowa, he bend down to sniff at the no-longer-afraid blond, who gingerly reached up to scratch his fur.

“You are intelligent, aren’t you?” Quatre asked, trying to stamp down his amusement for Trowa’s sake. It wasn’t working too well. The fox nodded slightly, seeming to keep in mind their size differences. “Then perhaps you’ve seen our friend. He has long brown hair and violet eyes. He was staying at the cabin up on the cliff and didn’t come home.”

Duo was stumped. Of course he knew where he was. But how to tell them that? Then he got an idea.

Tying to return his hair to order, Trowa stepped out from between the massive front paws as their owner went to sit, dragging two claws through the dirt in front of it, creating parallel lines. One set, two... four lines in total.

“The roman numeral for two?” Quatre questioned, starting at it. “Do you mean Duo?”

The fox nodded again before completing its drawing with an arrow pointing toward itself. Both humanoid pilots stared at the scratches, then the fox, and then the scratches again before Trowa spoke. “You’re Duo?”

Wishing he could just talk, Duo nodded once again, glad that he’d been gifted with intelligent friends and that it’d been them that’d come to look for him. However, their kind of smart also meant paranoid, so he was ready for some test type questions when Quatre pulled out something shiny from his pocket. Squinting, he recognized his pocket watch and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been afraid that it’d gone the same way as his clothes.

“Who gave you this?” Quatre asked, holding up with watch. He seemed satisfied when Duo scratched out a one, signifying Heero. “Which of us is a widower?” This time he answered with a roman numeral five. “Which one of us pilots Sandrock?” When the pilot-turned-fox butted him in the chest, Quatre laughed in relief that his missing friend was safe. “What in the world happened to you?”

Duo shrugged, unable to explain even if he could speak.

Trowa walked up to stand next to his partner, looking up at the-fox-that-was-Duo. “Your rampaging seems to have blocked the road up to the cabin. Would you mind giving us a ride?”

Their comrade stared at them for a moment before a slightly wicked gleam entered the red eyes. One after the other in a quick flash of teeth, Trowa and Quatre were thrown into the air, landing on a wide expanse of fur. Grinning, Duo glanced over his shoulder to make sure they’d landed safely on his back.

Quatre wasn’t sure how a giant fox managed to look innocent, but Duo somehow pulled it off in response to his glare. “Warn us next time, you great hairball.”

The amusement rolling off their shinigami was so strong that Quatre didn’t need his empathy to feel it.