𝐃𝐈𝐋𝐅 || 𝐉𝐮𝐣𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐮 𝐊𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐧

Chapter 4

This realization comes hand in hand with the quick reminder email he gets cc'd on about Career Day next week.

That realization further means he has to see Y/N- Y/N, who has starred in a number of increasingly graphic dreams since kiss and ride- in a week.

Toji is quietly becoming more and more panicked about the whole idea. He's certain that he's going to walk in the room and Y/N will just know, which is probably the stupidest thing he's ever thought. Rationally, he knows he's just going to run into work, get some of their brochures for kids to take home and things they use when they do fundraising; big glossy blown up shots of the woods and the wolves mounted on board. He'll go to the school, talk for about five minutes and answer any questions the kids have. It's nothing he hasn't done before, more or less, for other promotional things for the reserve. Megumi still makes him "promise, you have to promise, Dad, that you're going to come in."

The room just doesn't usually include his son and the woman he has a ridiculous... thing for.

He does plan on wearing his good work clothes- which is to say, the one shirt that has neither holes, blood or dirt on it- and everything does go according to plan, dropping off Megumi and Tsumiki, heading back to work, until Anna runs into his office.

"Toji, I think there's- there's something wrong," she says, voice catching on her words. "It's Alisa."

Toji's blood runs cold, because he can't not go right back four years, when he got a call, slow and apologetic asking if he was Alisa Fushiguro's husband, there had been a car accident- but it only lasts a second before he remembers he has another Alisa.

He'd had the kids for two months- Megumi prone to crying fits and Tsumiki quiet and sad- when Hera had delivered her second litter. She'd been the smallest of the pups and when she'd been rejected, Toji had taken her home.

"I'm going to need your help, Tsumiki," Toji had said, hoping someone to take care of might bring Tsumiki around. "She's little and sick, she needs you."

Tsumiki had looked down at the little bundle of dark fur in his lap and nodded at Toji so seriously. "Can we call her Alisa? Like Mom?" Tsumiki had asked, timid.

Toji had swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Yeah, we can call her Alisa."

Alisa had grown up, mostly in the Fushiguro home, into a strong beta- Toji has no idea what he'll do if anything's happened to her.

"What?" he demands.

Anna shakes her head. "Her collar has been in the same position for six hours. It triggered the no-motion, and I cross-referenced her position on the map- she's in the canyon." Anna explains.

Toji grabs the tranq blow gun. The canyon is a rocky death trap in the northeast corner of the reserve. He'll never get there fast enough on the access roads, he'll have to take a horse; easier to maneuver on the trails. He barely takes a moment to verify her exact location before heading out to the stables, when he abruptly remembers about Megumi and Career Day.

"Shit, Anna, I'll radio and let you know when I find her. I need you to call the school and let them know I'm going to try to make it, but I'm supposed to go in for Career Day, you need to let Y/N know there's been an emergency. Then drive a jeep out to the closest point on the access road." Toji says. He doesn't wait for her to agree.

The closer he gets to the canyon, the rockier and looser the terrain gets. Toji tries to remind himself that there's no sense in urging the horse faster because that'll probably just lead to both him and the horse in the bottom of the canyon too. It seems like an eternity until the trees clear- the canyon is close enough now that he tethers the horse to a tree and starts the awkward descent into the canyon. By the time he gets to the bottom, he can see the weird rock formations that are between him and Alisa, if her tracking collar is reading accurately. He winds his way through, and there's Alisa, lying so still, one of her legs trapped under a rock that's between big rock and boulder in size.