Legosi snarled as he grappled with the old lion, their battle a swirling chaos of brutal claws, knocking limbs, and hungry fangs. He couldn't imagine how it must look from Haru's perspective - literally speaking. He was present in the ultimate sense of the word; this was a fight to the death where the penalty for losing was far more consequential than the loss of his life. It was a fight to the death where he could not entertain the thought of losing, and so he didn't - for the first time in his life, Legosi was fighting with everything he had. Everything he was, everything he could bring to bear, every ounce of energy he could muster and every fiber of his being were poured into the mortal struggle against the chief of the Shishigumi, and he knew that he would win because there was no alternative.

When he felt the hunting knife enter his side, snagging in his muscle and pinning it in a tight, immobilizing cramp, he knew that he'd been wrong.

Legosi sank to his knees, shock and exhaustion suddenly overpowering his adrenaline as the chief rose above him, the old lion grinning triumphantly as he coarsely wiped a smear of blood from his nose with the back of his paw. "Allow me to teach you a lesson, pup," he said, his voice cold and cruel. "It does not matter how young you are. It does not matter how strong you are. There is not enough fervor in the world to compensate for one simple weapon: experience." Legosi looked up at the lion, whose knife sat comfortably in a reverse grip in his massive paw, the perfect hold for an execution. The Chief smiled back down at him, savoring his victory, and lifted his arm high into the air, mockingly allowing Legosi to savor the moments before his death.

Then three deafening cracks of thunder split the moment, and three blossoming blood roses sprouted from the Shishigumi Chief's chest.

It had been harder than she expected - not shooting the old lion, of course. There was no hesitation in Haru's fingers when she tugged on the trigger, no tremble in her arms, and no panic at the back of her brain that screamed that she was about to take the life of an animal. No - the thing that surprised her in this moment was how the weapon had kicked in her hands when she pulled the trigger. How it jumped as wildly to escape her grasp as she'd wanted to when she and Legosi had first met.

It had been a simple opportunity, really - one moment, the Chief of the Shishigumi was on top of her, about to do who-knows-what before he killed and ate her, not necessarily in that order. The next, Legosi had burst through the door, and the lion's attention had been otherwise occupied. Haru had a good memory - organization and attention to detail were things one learned as a gardener, and perception, naturally, was enhanced by terror - and so, in those brief moments of freedom, she clearly recalled where the Chief had stowed the weapon he'd been cleaning when she was first brought to him.

Top right drawer, second compartment on the left.

It had been an easy thing to hop to the desk while Legosi and the Chief fought - easier than watching her friend spill his blood over the carpet to rescue her, anyways. She hated that word - rescue. It was a word that had defined so many of her interactions with other animals in the past. Pity the dwarf rabbit. Help the dwarf rabbit. Rescue the dwarf rabbit. She felt the weight of the gun in her hands - she'd never used one before, but she'd seen movies; how hard could it be? The safety was already off - no surprise there, safety was a scarce commodity in general and she would be genuinely surprised to find any of any kind here of all places - so all she had to do was point and pull the trigger. She had, for a moment, worried over the decision - what if she hit Legosi by accident? What if she missed, and then the chief ate her and she couldn't help anyways?

Those worries vanished when she heard Legosi's yelp of pain and saw the lion standing above him, wicked and triumphant. Haru was a rabbit - speed was something that she was accustomed to. She was quite certain that she'd never acted so quickly before in her life.

Legosi watched incredulously as the proud, almost regal form of the lion above him twisted and spasmed as blood erupted from his chest, ears twitching in confusion as he heard the ragged sigh of breath leaving a dead man's lungs as the chief of the Shishigumi's knees buckled under the strain of keeping him upright. He was confused - Legosi was no playwright, but he was pretty sure that this was the part of the tragedy where the hero meets his end, not the part where the villain spontaneously and unceremoniously keels over dead with a heavy thud. When the lion's body stopped blocking his view, Legosi couldn't believe his eyes - Haru was standing in front of him, naked and firm save for his coat draped over her shoulders, her two tiny hands clasped tightly enough around the grip of a massive handgun for him to smell the strain in her fingers. Moonlight flooded the room through the open window behind her, shining through her fur and wreathing her in a halo of silver light. Maybe it was the blood loss, but Legosi was certain in that moment that if there were angels, she was what they looked like.

The moment was shattered when he saw tears well at the corners of Haru's eyes and leak down her face as her composure melted with the adrenaline leaving her system. Her arms trembled under the weight of the weapon, and it dropped to the floor with a heavy thud as her fingers gave way before its weight. She took a step toward him - she was in shock, it was obvious. If it weren't for her, he was pretty sure he would be too.

"L-legosi, I…"

It was all she could get out before he had her in his arms letting her shelter under the warmth of his body.

"Haru? Will you… will you come away with me?"

The chief groaned his rage against the floor after he heard them leave, his instincts allowing him to come to once the lapine bitch who had just shot him with his own gun had exited the room. Carefully, he rose onto his knees, blood dripping from the bullet wounds in each of his shoulders and just above his kidney as he rubbed his throat where the wolf had bit him - he was lucky. If he'd been a little slower with the knife, or the rabbit's aim had been a little better, he would not currently be peeling himself off the carpet and going for the gun the couple had been foolish enough to not take with them. He couldn't suppress a chuckle when he stumbled to the window and saw them walking away down his front walk so confident they'd won - the irony was enough to make an old man smile as he chambered a killing round in his weapon. "One last lesson, young pups," he murmured to himself as he steadied himself to get a sight - his only hesitation was deciding which one to pop first. The wolf, he decided - his men would retrieve the rabbit for him later, and he'd have a proper feast. "No act of kindness ever goes unreward-" his voice was cut off by a cry of pain and surprise as a bullet ripped through his hand and knocked his gun to the balcony floor. Before he could say anything else, something truly absurd happened - a teenage deer shoved a gun in his mouth and demanded he beg for his life.

The last thoughts of the boss of the Shishigumi pondered the sheer absurdity of his evening meal that night, before a bullet sprayed his brains like sakura petals across the moonlit sky.

Louis let the body fall to the ground with a cold disdain, wiping his father's pistol off on the dead lion's jacket before the corpse hit the floor and he tucked the elegant weapon into his breast pocket. "Sorry old man," he said more to himself than to the corpse - Louis wasn't stupid, he just liked to gloat. "Just wanted to teach you a lesson." As his eyes grazed over the corpse, he noticed something - there were little white hairs on the handle of the former mob boss' gun. He frowned, and knelt to pick it up, cursing himself slightly as he did - even now, after he, a teenager, had just killed a man, his composure refused to slide. No matter. Louis scooped the gun up into one palm and stood, carefully inspecting it. Some part of his brain registered the sound of footsteps rushing up the stairs to the executive suite he currently occupied, but that was pushed away when he sniffed the hairs, and the scent made his eyes go wide with disbelief.

"... Haru..?"

Legosi groaned in agony as he lay on the park bench, gnawing gently on the ruined portion of his arm where the Shishigumi chief's fangs had tasted his blood. "Ooouhhhhhhwww," he complained around the makeshift chew toy he was sure to regret come morning, but for now all he could focus on was the strange combination of pain and intoxication that came from the ever enthralling little white rabbit who knelt at his side.

"Quit complaining," Haru scolded him gently, almost reflexively, as she fixed what she hoped would be an effective bandage against the hole in his side and began to tightly wrap the gauze from the corner store first aid kit she'd picked up on the way here around his abdomen. Miraculously, the Shishigumi's knife hadn't gone deep - carnivores were just made of tougher stuff, she guessed - but the wound still needed to be sealed or it would make a bloody mess all over the place, and the two of them already looked ragged enough as it was without leaving their own drippy red carpet behind wherever they went. Secretly, though, she was glad to hear his whining - it suited him a lot better than silence. "... you were quiet, and you weren't moving, so… well, even if you did die, it wouldn't do any good for you to bleed all over the bench, now would it?" She winced when he grumbled. The joke wasn't funny.

"No, I… I'm still alive," he reassured her. Her fingers tightened against his bandage.

"I'm sorry, I… this…" she started to apologize, her voice catching from the stress, the adrenaline, the guilt of seeing her… her friend this way because of her. Because she couldn't defend herself. Because she'd needed to be rescued. He cut her off.

"I'm still alive," he explained, "because of you." Haru's body stiffened in surprise, and the memory came flooding back to her. Her standing there with the gun, the weight of it in her hands, the way it felt as it kicked when she fired. Her taking aim, and then the feeling of it tumbling from her fingers and falling to the ground. The way Legosi's face looked when the lion fell aside, and there was nothing standing between them anymore. She shook her head.

"But you could have died!" she protested, tightening the bandage perhaps a little more than was necessary.

"But I didn't." His response was simple, and given Legosi, surprisingly straightforward. Haru decided that it was probably the blood loss. "And right now, I… I…"
"Y-yes?" Haru asked, waiting on bated breath. His stomach answered before he did.

"I could really use something to eat."

Dinner? Dinner had been nice. Legosi felt much better now that he had a full stomach - both because not long ago he'd almost been beaten to death by a horrible old lion, but also because he didn't need to worry as much about his stupid wolf body deciding that Haru made a better lunch than a girlfriend as much.

Though, somehow, that ever present anxiety seemed… lessened right now.

Maybe it was because tonight, he saw the girl whom he was madly in love with kill a predator he couldn't.

Or maybe it was because the two of them, having missed the last train, were now standing at the entrance to a love motel. "Haru," he said nervously, "this… this is a bad idea." His ear twitched when he heard her laugh. This whole night was strange - one moment they're fighting for their lives in the middle of a crime syndicate's lair, and the next he's trying to suppress the sort of thoughts that would surely make themselves known via his inconvenient anatomy, and she was laughing at him for being a teenage boy who was just told, by the girl he loved more than anything, that the two of them would be sharing a bed in a love motel.

This was just weird because of the shock, Legosi said to himself, not believing a word of it. They were just acting like this because of the shock.

"It's cheap, they allow interspecies couples, and they won't check ID," she explained as calmly as she could manage given the circumstances. She wasn't sure her heart would ever stop pounding. She wasn't sure if she liked it or not. "I don't… think we have many other options right now, Legosi." He shook his head.

"N-no, that's. That's not what I mean," he said, swallowing. Their dinner together after… well, after Haru killed a man because Legosi couldn't bring himself to was the closest thing to a date he'd ever been on. There was an energy between them - something he couldn't really describe, and something very different from when she stripped in front of him in the gardening clubhouse. An energy shot through with guilt.

He still hadn't told her.

He came to when he noticed Haru looking up at him in confusion - shit he was doing it again, he needed to be present. Her ears were pricked up, and that meant he should be talking again. "I… I mean, you were just kidnapped by carnivores," he reasoned, still clinging to logic in the face of the chaos of the situation. "Wouldn't you feel unsafe, you know… sleeping next to one?" Haru couldn't help but smirk.

"I dunno, Legosi. I just shot a carnivore. Wouldn't you feel unsafe sleeping next to someone who could do that?" She suppressed a giggle when the big wolf's expression suddenly jumped like he'd been caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Haru gently took his hand, which, of course, only made him stiffen up more. "It's fine. You saved me. I think it would be a little ridiculous for me to be afraid of you after that."

Legosi swallowed. Okay, that bit didn't work. She was right - technically speaking, he wasn't the one who brought down the Chief. That was Haru. He was still sort of processing that particular piece of information. "R-right. There's… well, there's another thing," he confessed. "Tonight's been… a night. I took on the Shishigumi, rescued the girl I love, g-got rescued by the girl I love," experienced severe blood loss that's really messing with his decision making capabilities right now. "Dinner has me all energized, and. Well. Let's just say I'm sort of in, uh, male mode right now, and if we, well… you know…" He paused to swallow, increasingly concerned by Haru's increasingly amused expression while he tried to stammer out the simple admission that he was incredibly horny. "Something might happen, that we regret, is all."

She laughed. "Oh, Legosi. Please. Maybe I helped out, but you're the hero today. If we do anything…" Haru savored his expression as she drew closer to him, surprising even herself with how much she relished this sort of power. "It won't be a mistake."

Legosi sat on the edge of the bed, panting heavily and clutching himself - this was a terrible mistake. He could still taste her sweat on his tongue, and he was pretty sure some of her fur was caught in his throat. But that wasn't the problem. No, not at all. The problem wasn't even that he'd tried to eat her… again.

The problem was that Haru had just tried to feed herself to him.

Haru sat awkwardly next to Legosi, wringing her hands and waiting for the silence to break. She went over the play-by-play in her mind - everything started out fine, though she'd been surprisingly nervous. They'd talked, he'd taken her up on her invitation to touch her, he'd confessed that the predator who almost ate her that night outside the school had been him - normal couple stuff, right? Nothing to be concerned about. Then, she asked if they were going to have sex, or if he was going to eat her - still fine, no uncharted territory there. It was a normal choice to ask your maybe boyfriend to make.

Okay well that was a lie, but compared to what happened immediately afterwards, it felt comparatively normal.

The problem arose when she, on some bizarre reflex, had tried to climb into his mouth. Haru's internal monologue couldn't help but find the humor in it - so much for it being his decision, right? Ultimately, she decided to break the silence. "So... that was weird." Legosi nodded his agreement.

"Yeah. It was."

"I think… I-I must just not be ready for this. That's all it was." Why was she behaving like this? It's not like she was the inexperienced one here - maybe with a carnivore, but still. Stupid instincts. Legosi nodded.

"That makes sense, yeah," he said, and sounded… shockingly defeated. Haru felt awkward - she needed an out.

Oh right! The clothes.

"I'm going to go wash your clothes," she declared. "So the stains don't set in. Blood's hard to get out." He didn't respond, which only made the whole situation tenser. Oh dear.

When she returned, he was still sitting on the bed the same as he'd been when she'd left. He was clearly troubled by something - he had that look he gets when he's stuck in his own mind and doesn't see what's around him anymore, like when they'd med in the garden clubhouse. Haru frowned - that wolf complicated things so much. Why couldn't he just be simple?

Then again, if he was simple, she probably wouldn't be alive. Simple people don't chase down mobs to save one bunny. Especially not simple teenagers.

She decided that the best way to knock him out of it was to tackle him from behind with a smile. "Hey! Don't look so glum. It's fine." He lay there quietly for a long moment. Maybe it wasn't fine.

"Haru?"

"Yeah?"

"... I'm sorry you had to do that. Shoot him, I mean. I shouldn't have made you do that." Haru blinked.

"What?"

Legosi shifted, turning to lie on his side so that she fell off him. "I saw how you looked, after he went down. That couldn't have been easy. I'm sorry you had to do that to someone."

Haru sighed. "That's… not what it was about, Legosi. Shooting him was easy - he was awful. I was just… scared."

"Of what?"

"What would've happened if I didn't do it."

"Oh." Legosi was quiet for a long time. Haru looked at him anxiously, waiting for his response.

"Legosi..?" she asked, and reached out to touch his side. When she did, she was surprised. "He's asleep..?"