Hellfire

"I bet an Inner Worlder would find it in a jiffy." Liam muttered. "I mean, they navigate the Landscape more easily than us."

"Unless he's dead, but Cayne would probably have made something explode by now if that was the case." Kumori tapped the bridge of her nose, slightly worried.

"Mindlink Linda?" Cole suggested.

"Go ahead, I'll continue looking around here."

"Linda, can you find Korū's door? We're pretty sure he's alive, but we can't find it." Cole said over mindlink.

"What? I'll ask Alina to check." Came the answer.

"Why not do it yourself?"

"Alina can probably identify it faster, and I'm driving." Linda answered before disappearing, most likely to ask Alina to help.

"So?" Liam asked Cole after a moment.

"We're doing this weird message relay." Cole told him. "Alina's—"

"Found it," Alina barged into Cole's mind, making him visibly jump.

Kumori entered as well, but less aggressively, "Where?"

"Come on." And Alina started walking out of Cole's door.

All of them went after her, walking through the hazy landscape of minds, one that was unique to every werewolf. It reflected how they saw the world.

"Here." She said, stopping at Cayne's door. "Oh, pretty."

"This is Cayne's." Liam said as he joined them, having been loitering in the area while waiting for news.

"I know, I'm not dumb." Alina said. "When mates become aligned, in a way that some kind of understanding or some shit passes between them—I mean I wouldn't know how exactly it's like, but I've heard of it—their doors join in a way. It usually happens after the werewolves mark each other, but there are obviously exceptions. Linda's one is always right next to John's. Korū and Cayne, however," she walked to the other side of the door.

"Tada!"

The two doors were back to back, the flames that framed Korū's door burning with hints of blue. Kumori attempted to open it, but failed. "...Wow."

"How does that work? Are their minds like… joined together?" Liam asked, confused.

Alina sighed. "No, duh. This is literally our minds. Our imagination." She floated to prove her point, before setting herself back down, "They are just pretty on par with each other now. It doesn't mean that you open Cayne's door and you can get into Korū's mind. Physics doesn't work here."

Then Korū's door swung open, and Kaguya darted out. A pair of annoyed green eyes gleamed from the shadows of the room. "I swear that's not a figment of my imagination. What the hell is that cat doing in here?"

"Are you sure it's not just your imagination?" Alina asked Korū, also puzzled. "I mean, werewolves have mindlinks because we and our wolves have a very strong self image... at least that's what most people hypothesise."

"I just fucking said it's not my imagination," Korū growled. After a while, Kaguya's image flashed and disappeared, just as Alina took a step towards it. "What the heck?"

"I don't understand." Alina mumbled, looking deep in thought.

"No one does," Cole pointed out.

Korū blinked twice at where Kaguya was a few seconds ago, then disappeared back into the room without another word.

"Eh, sure." Alina said. "Just go back without another word. What's Cayne doing, then?"

"Maybe he's chilling with Korū?" Kumori suggested.

"Hm." Alina grunted. "What are you guys actually doing right now, anyway?"

"Last we saw, Korū hugged Cayne and we—I mean Liam, Cole, Shohei, my uncle, his mate and me—left the room they were in," Kumori told her. "Korū just killed someone a while ago."

"Wow." Alina said. She then paused, "Well… can you help to ask Kaito why he was with Duke and Bethany the day they all… yeah. He keeps using the 'it's better said face to face' excuse."

"He has a 'do not disturb' on his mental door."

"Easy. Break it down." Alina muttered with a roll of her eyes. Something was off.

"It's locked, and I'm not doing that."

"Argh. Anyway, I'm gonna go take a nap now. Ask him the next time you see him." Alina said, before disappearing.

"Kumori!" Hikari crashed into her in the Landscape, giving her a brief hug. "Yo." She turned to see the guys. "Ah, you're here, too."

"Yo." Cole said.

"Ey." Hikari glanced at the flaming door that was Koru's, and the quartz-lined one that was Cayne's. "What happened?"

"Something, apparently. Ask him yourself. We're not too sure either, except for the obvious. Oh, and there was some mirage thing of Kaguya just now." Cole answered, Liam just standing there appreciating the beauty of Cayne's door. It used to look imposing, but now it seemed more elegant.

"Oh, look, it's warm." Hikari stepped closer to Koru's door. "Wow."

"You'd think hellfire would be cold or something." Liam muttered, before adding, "At least I did…"

"His was either hot to the point that even a dragon would burn, or colder than ice," Hikari informed them.

"Wow." Liam said simply.

There was silence for a while.

"What are we doing now?" Cole asked suddenly.

"It's been too quiet," Kumori observed. "I haven't been getting any calls for assistance."

"Scary." Liam answered.

"Mhm. Ah, there it is, gotta go!" Kumori also disappeared, and started walking off in the real world.

"Good luck with whatever's going on, I don't think it's pretty," Hikari laughed.

"Have we really just been seemingly standing around in the middle of your pack for the past few minutes?" Liam wondered, the thought suddenly striking him.

"I don't know, I'm not even there," Hikari said. "But maybe?"

"Oops." Cole glanced around in real life. There were pack members glancing at them weirdly.

"Well, I'm gonna go now, bye. Also, ask my uncle about the thing when he's free." Hikari disappeared.

"Right." Liam replied a moment too late.

"Can we go find physically Kaito?" Cole asked Kumori, walking to her mind himself, Liam following him.

"Sure," came the response. "Give me a sec, I have a fight to break up."

"Okay." Cole said.

She walked back to where they were waiting in Bloodmoon a while later. "I swear, we need more mediators."

"Yeah…" Liam said, "Where's… Shōhei? That's his name right?"

"I'm here." Shohei had a smoothie in his hand.

"Right. Shall we go?" Cole said. "Really wonder what everyone is up to."

"C'mon, this way." Kumori led them away.

A while later, they ended up in front of a house, half carved into the stone walls. She stuck a key into the door and opened it, revealing Kaito and Aiki lying on the couch, Kaito's head resting on Aiki's lap.

"So this is the reason for the sign in the Landscape?" Liam voiced out, having imagined them sitting seriously at a desk, settling pack matters.

"Someone persuaded me to take a break," Kaito responded, closing his eyes. Aiki looked annoyed at the fact that there were random people waltzing into their home without prior notice.

"When does your break end?" Cole asked, "Won't hurt to wait a little."

"Tomorrow. Latest." Kaito cracked open an eye and glanced up at Aiki's face, before closing it again. "Fine, the earliest I'll end this break of mine is tomorrow."

"Meow," Kaguya chipped in, slipping in through the half-open door and leaping up to flop onto Kaito's chest.

"Ah," Cole said, turning to Kumori, "Any idea when Alina and Linda are reaching the airport?"

"Nope."

"How about they head back first while we settle things here?" Liam suggested, shifting his weight from foot to foot as they stood awkwardly at the doorway.

"You can ask her," Kumori said. "Oji-san—"

"If it's about why I was with the Bloodlust Gammas, it was a coincidence," Kaito interrupted, his eyes still closed. "The night when your cousins decided to drink like nobody's business, we got a text from a friend saying he had information on a pack matter that we had been trying to settle for a while." He felt Aiki tense, and he continued, sounding slightly guilty. "I'm sorry for leaving without telling you why," he told Aiki softly.

"Anyway, we rushed out to meet the guy. We were passing through... I don't know where we were passing through when we met the Gammas. A while later, and the... thing happened." He opened his eyes to stare at the stone of the ceiling. "You know the rest."

Cole cleared his throat awkwardly, "You told them it was better said in person? Why?"

"The mask falls off far too easily in mindlink." But Kaito's mouth didn't move, and the voice wasn't his, either. Nor was Aiki's. Kaito shot up into a sitting position, his eyes fixed on the person at the bottom of the stairs.