The rays of the morning sun beamed in through the leafy roof of the forest, casting directly on Sakura’s sleeping face. The natural alarm call woke her up in seconds, although she was still a little bit drowsy. Sakura put a hand to her temple. What a scary dream she had last night, a VERY scary dream…the princess became a vicious bloodthirsty monster, and tried to kill something. Someone…
The colour in her face draining away and nearly slapping herself for thinking that she would ever do such an evil thing, even if she ever did change into an animal. Suddenly Sakura felt something poke and stroke her arm and shoulder, scratching them ticklishly. Her eyes, though struggling a little, opened wider and tried to focus on the pair of dark eyes staring down at her. Her drowsy jade eyes met the curious amber ones, but she was too tired to understand why they were staring at her with such a questioning manner. “Good morning…” Sakura yawned instinctively, believing that it was probably Syaoran’s eyes she was staring into. They were the same colour as his, after all. His eyes always looked like a wolf’s eyes.

“Morning, Syaoran-kun.”
The owner of the amber eyes answered her with a bark.
“Huh?” She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes and yawning. “…S-Syaoran-kun?” Sakura looked again at the furry figures looming over and saw that they were not her friends, they weren’t even human. They were a pack of wolves, pawing at her and sniffing her curiously.
The morning light provided a much better picture of her surroundings. A little confused at first, she observed everything…and gasped.
This wasn’t her tent, it wasn’t even the campsite; it was the middle of the forest. Sakura’s ear-piercing shriek made the wolves yelp in surprise and back away from her a little. Still cautiously watching her. “W-w-w-w-w-w-w-why am I s-sleeping h-h-here?!” The startled princess couldn’t understand what was going on…until she remembered the ‘dream’ she had last night.

Oh dear…

She timidly looked down at herself. Her entire body instantly turned pink and all the muscles in her body stiffened in embarrassment. The princess was as naked as a jaybird! Her night-clothes were gone but only her under-garments remained. Well, whatever was left of them; her bra-straps still hung over her shoulders and one half of her ripped panties were twisted halfway down the calf of her right leg, exposing every part of her slim body to the world.
She tried to get up…only to feel that something soft and deathly cold was pressed against the whole of her left side.

Oh God…

Her eyes widened in panic when she realised that what she was laying next to was a savaged, severed human arm in a puddle of cold blood, pressed against her waist.
Sakura looked absolutely terrified, unable to move or even say anything as she looked back at the mutilated limb.  She had dreamt of herself…doing this; tearing off this arm from someone’s body, and actually eating this detached piece of flesh…but here it was….it was real. As real as the indescribable fear she felt at the realisation of what she had done.
This meant that Sakura hadn’t changed into a werewolf in her dreams; she really HAD transformed into a werewolf last night, and had attacked a very real person that night…
Sakura tucked up her legs and wrapped her arms around herself as she huddled up into a ball on the ground, crying hysterically. Some of the wolves left while a few stayed with her, licking and nuzzling her in attempt to calm her, but nothing could ease the pain she was feeling from realising the truth: the monster that had been attacking the farms was her.
She wasn’t dreaming. Not the night before, not any of the nights before that, and not right now.


Meanwhile, the rest of the gang were searching all day for their missing princess. As they were passing through the village, a paper boy was throwing out the latest newspapers and crying: “EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! WEREWOLF STRIKES AGAIN!” Syaoran picked up a newspaper for himself and read it aloud to the others. “Mysterious werewolf attacks two thieves at Walton farm, the victims have yet to be named.”
“Ha, sounds like the wolf was doing that farmer a favour if you ask me.” Kurogane sneers. “This is getting stranger and stranger; first the wolf kills a farm’s livestock, then it saves it from two petty thieves. Now why would the wolf go from committing a crime, to stopping a crime?” Fai pondered. Syaoran merely shrugged, he was still too busy worrying about his princess. “Not only that; why would a werewolf visit our camp, attack only the princess but do nothing to us?” Syaoran asked. Fai scratched his chin. “Hmmm…maybe there is more to this than meets the eye, for example; Sakura went missing at the exact same time as this latest attack, and all of this business with the werewolf started right after she killed the first werewolf. This mysterious werewolf could actually be connected to Sakura’s strange behaviour somehow.” Fai concluded. “If that’s the case, then we should try to find that werewolf too. Let’s split up; you look around the village, me and Kurogane will go back to the forest, and Mokona you go back to the lodge just in case Sakura returns.” They nodded at Syaoran and split up to search the entire area.   

Sakura didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t just go running around with no clothes! Especially when there was people around (men in particular). Not to mention how cold it was, she was absolutely freezing! Sakura was almost out of the forest when suddenly she jumped into the bushes when she heard someone coming. A little boy and his mother were walking down the forest path towards her. The mother then stopped to talk to another woman who was just passing by at the same time, leaving the boy to do as he pleased while she was busy talking to her friend. Sakura saw that the boy had a bunch of balloons in his hand, a bunch of rather big balloons too. Perfect! “Psst! Hey, little boy!” She whispered loudly. The boy spun around to face the bush where the voice had come from. “Come here!” She whispered softly. The boy shook his head at the talking bush. “If you come over here, I’ll give you a penny.” The boy refused again. “Two pennies.” She offered again a bit more urgently. The boy thought the bush’s offer over for a quick moment, then reluctantly took a couple of steps closer to the suspicious shrub. “That’s it…just come a little closer.” Sakura beckoned as quietly and as calmly as she could. “Who are you?” The boy asked the strange talking plant. Sakura was stumped for a second, what could she say to this kid? “Umm…I’m the…err…yes, the f-f-famous my-mysterious balloon thief!” Sakura finally said. The boy cocked his head to one side at the shrub. “Why would a thief want to steal my balloons?”
“Well, allow me to explain…” With that, Sakura quickly stepped out of the bushes, revealing her naked body and timidly using her hands to hide her chest and crotch from view, then took the balloons from the boy’s hand. Using them to now cover her naked self up the best she could. “Thank you!” She squeaked shyly, and then ran away as fast as her legs could go. Leaving behind a very confused little boy staring on after her. After the mother had said goodbye to her friend, she came up to her son only to see that his lovely bunch of balloons had gone. “Aww…sweetie, what happened to your balloons?” She cooed. The little boy looked up at his concerned mother, and said “A pretty lady with no clothes on came out of the bushes and stole my balloons, mommy.”


“It happened again! A werewolf got us both, boss! It took my arm off like a wing off a fly!” Tony wailed like a baby while clutching the bandaged bloody stump where his arm used to be. The ‘boss’ puffed into his cigar and sighed. “Was this lycan really as dangerous as you describe it to be?” Tony stared at his boss in disbelief. How could he think that it WASN’T dangerous, after seeing what it had done to his arm? “You wouldn’t ask, if you saw what it did to Rick. It almost killed him!” Tony babbled, still distraught after what had happened the night before. The large, hulking figure that sat in the crimson leather chair rose to his feet. His shadow dwarfed the shabby room they were in, he smoked his cigar some more then snorted the smoke out through his nose like an angry bull. “So…Big Bobby and Fat Joe were right. There IS a new mutt moving in on my turf, and I’d better put it to sleep before it moves any further…” The man known as their boss snarled. “Tony; take two of our best bruisers with you and go raid the lodge-house where those four strangers are staying.”
“Huh? Why, boss? What’s so special about them?” Tony asked hesitantly. “They are travelling foreigners, my friend. They will be carrying many items from both their own countries as well as the countries they have already visited. Exotic items, quite possibly very RARE items. Items that collectors and historians will be incredibly willing to pay quite a high price for each and every one. Think of the amount of money those strangers’ belongings would be worth in a small isolated place like this.” The mysterious man explained to his lackey. Tony was almost drooling at the thought of having so much money piled up in front of him at the bidding table. “Also…an even more important job: kill the strangers.”

Tony snapped out of his dreamy state and looked at his boss with uncertainty. Out of all the crimes they had ever committed, they had never killed anyone except as a last resort. “Reason for this request is not just so that they don’t get in our way, but because the werewolf attacks started up again right after they killed the first one, and each of these attacks have occurred whenever at least one of the foreigners left the lodge. I believe that one of them if not all of them are responsible for this new howler’s appearance. If so, then we would become this village’s new heroes if we caught the howler and we would be famous!” Tony applauded his boss’ words then cracked his knuckles with sadistic delight. However just before Tony could leave, his boss plopped a large strong hand on his shoulder to stop him from taking another step. “And another thing: kill the strangers, but bring me back the girl. Alive.” The boss chuckled evilly in the back of his throat. Tony licked his lips hungrily, it had been almost three years since he and the boss’ other men dealt with women. “Yes sir.” Tony giggled like a little schoolboy. Once again his boss stopped him from leaving. “Oh, and Tony…try to bring her back unspoilt. Sex-slaves with black eyes, broken noses, busted lips and or teeth missing are near impossible to sell on the black-market these days.” Tony only responded with a confused “Huh?” Normally the boss didn’t give a shit about who his men hurt to get what he would send them for. The boss only chuckled at his lackey’s response. “The brothels in the city 12 miles away are looking for some new slaves to purchase. The slutty prostitutes they already have there have gotten too old for any customers to ever want, so now they’re open for any new stock.” The boss took one last smoke on his cigar then discarded it in the ashtray before continuing with a perverted twinkle in his eyes. “I hear that the city’s brothels pay handsomely for pretty young girls from exotic foreign lands…especially virgins.”