Fight training, an attack, punishment

At the training ground, a lot of young people are fighting against each other in pairs. They were practicing on either dodging or attacking first before they swap their role. They are mostly training to be next-in-line warriors. As a Beta, they need to sharpen their skills and talent as a werewolf. They don't want to fall too far behind their peers and must keep advancing to maintain their dignity. That's why they need to practice.

A certain silver hair girl silently creeps in among the crowd, looking around before running to a certain pair she knew. She stops some distance away to watch Kenji and Takao fighting against each other as Takao tries to attack Kenji.

Kenji easily throws him down on the ground and steps away in case Kenji tries to attack him again. Instead, Kenji stands on his feet back and grumbles. They are only a year apart but Kenji has more skills than Takao.

"What's up? Tired?" Kenji snickers at him.

"As if!" Takao charges ahead to bring down the big guy.

Using his momentum to bring down Kenji, he fails when Kenji easily stops him and keeps standing still in his spot, unaffected by Takao's force. Takao struggles and uses his foot to trips Kenji down. Instead, Kenji pushes him aside and throws him to the ground once again.

"Ugh, how did you become too strong?" Takao gets up on his knee glaring at the taller boy.

"You ditched training before, remember? Just see what happens next if you ditch our training again."

"That was just once!"

"Once does matter. See? This is your tenth loss today."

A pair of red eyes belonging to Akari suddenly appear behind Kenji, startling Takao a little when he still not getting up from his kneeling position. He points at her and signals Kenji to look behind. Kenji turns around to see Akari standing behind him.

"Akari? What are you doing here?" Kenji says, nonchalantly.

"What... You aren't surprised to see me sneaking behind your back?" Akari pouts after seeing Kenji's reaction. She expected him to have a shocked expression as Takao did.

"Why would I? You didn't surprise me." Kenji furrows his brows.

"You are no fun, Kenji!" Akari crosses her arms, turning her face away.

"Did you learn martial arts, Akari?" Kenji changes the subject.

"No. Why would I?" She uses the exact word Kenji gave to her to use it against him.

"You can use it to protect yourself or someone you care about," Kenji says.

"I can turn into my wolf form and bite my opponent. So I don't need martial arts, right?" She says.

"What if your opponent is stronger than you even in wolf form? What if there are more of them against you alone? If you learn martial arts, you will learn new moves and your instinct will improve more. It's better than not learning anything." Kenji explains.

Akari did not respond to him so he continues, "Get up, Takao. You try to attack Akari from the front."

"Hah? Why me?" Takao shouts.

"I will watch from the sideline. Get ready to attack." Kenji says.

"Come on, Takao! Try attacking me for real!" Akari shouts at him.

"Fine! Here I go!" Takao shouts back.

-----

Takao fell flat on his face.

"Wow..." Kenji's mouth hanging. He continues, "Now, I'm surprised," and smirks watching Akari shakes off the nonexistent dust from her hands.

Takao gets up and shouts, "You said you never learn martial arts!"

"Well... Call it instinct." Akari sticks her tongue out at him.

"Since you lost even against Akari, you are going to do a punishment," Kenji says.

"Ugh... What it is..." Takao whines.

A sudden noise filled the field as other people starts turning into their wolf form one by one starting from the outer field. Either they avoid something in their wolf form or they fall on the ground, still in their human form.

In a few minutes, something finally reached the center where the three of them are standing. It targets Takao first but Takao manages to changes his form and avoids it. As a result, it changes its target towards Akari next.

It happened so fast she couldn't react in that short moment. She just stay still waiting for the impact. It pounds her to the ground making her gasp.

Curious to know what happened, she dares to open her eyes. A pair of glow red stare at her red eyes. It doesn't seem to move so she pushes against the black fur gently knowing it doesn't have a killing intent.

"Who?"

She asks once the black wolf gets off her. She gets up slowly and this time she truly cleans the specks of dust off her body.

"It's me."

The voice sounded familiar to her and the next thing she sees, the wolf changed into Akio in a second. He's half-naked, for your information. He still got his pants on.

"Akio? What are you doing here? Wait, why did you attack us?" Akari asks him.

"Call it a surprise attack. I didn't know you were here either, Akari." He turns to Takao.

"Good job, you reacted fast. Maybe Kenji can take you under his wing as my warrior. What do you think?" Akio smiles.

"He's not half bad," Kenji says.

"Hehe. I'm just following my instinct." Takao giggles. He turns his head to Akari and teases, "Where did your earlier instinct go, Akari?"

Hearing that from Takao, Akari's pride gets shatters. She won against Takao when they fought in human form but she failed to avoid Akio's attack when she could have changed into her wolf form.

"Humph! You just got lucky!" Akari pouts at him.

"Right. Don't forget your punishment, Takao." Kenji suddenly abrupts their talk.

"Ugh... Seriously?" He grumbles.

"Seriously. You lost to Akari remember? Let's see... How about you hunt some food for dinner." Kenji smiles at Takao, creepily.

Takao's mouth is agape. "I can't believe you made me hunt alone!"

"I didn't say you have to go alone but if you insist on going alone then go ahead I will wait for you. Hehe!" Kenji grins.

"No way, you have to accompany me!" Takao grabs his collar.

"How about I go with you?" Akio suddenly speaks up.

"EH?" Both of them speak at the same time.

"No way, I don't want to bother you," Takao says.

"Yeah, you got work to do after all. You must be busy." Kenji says.

"It's okay. I'm free for today." Akio smiles. "Come on, let's go Takao." He grabs him leaving both Kenji and Akari there.