SO I'M GOING TO FINISH THIS.

Just to get out of the way so I don't have to feel guilty about it anymore.

Only now I feel bad because I haven't updated Coming Back or Amor Sacrificium Amice Familia et Mortem in nearly a year. I'm a horrible person. But I'm updating. With the final chapter. Yup, last one. It's the [epic] conclusion to Predators.

. . .

He knew he'd never see his tail again, or be able to run along rooftops without losing his footing once. He wouldn't be able to hear whispers from across a stadium, or land on his feet every time he fell. He'd be reduced to using his fists when he fought, rather than his claws. His instinct to flee or fight would be demoted to that of any other humans'.

Ikuto had lost his cat DNA.

And there was no way Tadase could have survived. As if to prove this point correct, a broken howl sounded from the stairway behind Ikuto.

But Amu was worth it.

. . .

The last challenge. Ikuto could tell by the fact there was no exit or method of escape. This was the last room, and he had a feeling there was no backing down, either. It was all or nothing, and Ikuto was ready to give it all. For Amu. Because he loved her. Because his worst enemy, who loved her just as much, was willing to sacrifice himself for her.

And if that wasn't saying something, Ikuto didn't know what was.

Ikuto stood near the entrance of the room, wary. He heard voices around him, constantly shifting, changing pitch and dancing away from his ears so that he could never quite understand what was being said. He longed for his cat hearing to be returned, but he knew it would be a miracle if it did. He was human now, and he'd had a hard enough time accepting the cat DNA when he was young. His body probably wouldn't be able to take it a second time.

"Ikuto . . . "

The voice was soft, and cracked half-way through his name. Ikuto spun around, looking for the source of the noise.

"It . . ." The voicce trailed off and broke into a series of snarls and growls. Even without his cat instincts, Ikuto jumped at the sound. Years of listing for the sound of wolves attacking didn't leave you that quickly, even if you were completely human.

"Iku . . . to."

The voice said his name again, and this time, he realized it was female. Well, it was a start.

"Hurts . . ."

This time, instead of growls, the voice broke off into hisses, followed by hacking coughs that sounded like the voice, if she had lungs, was trying to get rid of them via her throat.

"Help. . . me. . ."

Ikuto's eyes widened. He hadn't recognized the voice before because of how feral and broken it had sounded, but where there was skepticism before was now confidence. That was Amu's voice. Broken, shattered, and tormented, but definitely her voice.

"Amu?" Ikuto called out softly, then louder, "Amu!"

Next came the sobbing, and the choking, hacking coughs that made Ikuto's chest hurt just by hearing them. And, at the same time, great sobs as if the one crying wished to drown in the salt water from their own eyes. It was terrifying.

"Amu, where are you?" Ikuto called out. No answer. "Please!" he tried again. "I can help you."

This time there was a response. "He. . . lp?"

"I can help you, Amu," Ikuto restated. "Just let me."

"Help?" The voice was stronger now. "Save me . . ." Amu whispered, the sound coming from everywhere and yet nowhere at the same time. A perfect paradox that couldn't exist, but did anyway.

A figure appeared before Ikuto. It was Amu, her body beaten and broken. Bruises and deep lacerations laced their way around her in an intricate design of a dress made of wounds.

But that wasn't what shocked Ikuto.

It was the fur.

Instead of clothes, Amu wore a thick layer of black fur, the exact same shade as Tadase's. And upon her head, drawn back close to her scalp in fear or aggression, were Ikuto's cat ears. There was a flicker of movement behind Amu, and there danced Ikuto's tail. He felt his own DNA calling him forward, screaming, Take me back, we belong. Take me back.

But the clawed tips of Amu's fingers prevented him from doing so.

"Help?" Amu said again, this time sounding infuriated and incredulous. "You want to help? When you did this to me in the first place?"

"I didn't mean for that to happen. Neither did Tadase. You know that. We love—loved you Amu."

"You don't love me. You never did," came the growl of the response. Amu's teeth clicked together repeatedly. Ikuto recognized the sound a wolf's warning.

"I do love you!" Ikuto cried.

"Lies."

"It's not a lie. I'm not a particularly good liar." It wasn't entirely true. Ikuto could get by, but he couldn't lie to Amu.

"Yet you lied to the world? Let them believe you were normal? When you were actually a monster?" This time a hiss emanated from Amu's throat.

"Amu, listen to me. This isn't you—"

She cut him off. "Of course this isn't me! This is what you turned me into!" Amu lunged forward, aiming to claw at Ikuto's chest, but he caught her arms. The force of weight thrown against him made them both fall backwards onto the ground.

"Look at me, Ikuto! Do you know what's like? To have your body constantly fighting with itself? I'm two different creatures that never should have met! I'm hardly even human, anymore. And it's all because you and that pretty boy wanted to come save me when I was doing just fine on my own, thank you very much!" Amu yelled while they struggled on the ground.

"You don't know what it's like, do you?" she continued, screaming at him. "I'm dying here, Ikuto! Dying! It hurts, so, so much."

"You're already dead," Ikuto said softly.

"What?" Amu stopped struggling.

"You're dead, Amu. You got in between myself and Tadase. We killed you."

"No," the broken girl whispered. She leaped off Ikuto like he was the black plague personified. With a horrified expression, she looked down at her hands, covered in scars that healed only to inflict themselves upon her again, and at her fingers, clawed at the tips, once so delicate and beautiful and now a tool of pain, as if she wanted to make sure they were real. Amu looked up at Ikuto, lip quivering. "I can't . . . You . . . You made me this . . . How can I . . . ?"

Ikuto stood as a single tear slipped down Amu's scarred cheek. She fell to her knees, and the fur on her body slowly faded away. The fight she'd had moment ago was gone completely.

Instead of a beast, before Ikuto, kneeling on the ground, was Amu, naked and broken. And she was never going to be the same, he knew, even if he managed to get her out of here. He approached her slowly and crouched down. Her body was trembling, but aside from the one earlier, no tears fell.

Feeling as though he was the one trapped in pain forever, Ikuto sat next to Amu and hugged her to him. Her fingers, no longer clawed, dug into his shirt, and she leaned on him, her body shaking and shuddering as if all warmth had left her and all that was left was a shivering shell of a girl.

"Amu, you're going to be okay," Ikuto whispered soothingly into her hair. "I'm going to save you, alright?"

Amu didn't respond, but the fact she didn't start trying to kill Ikuto this time was encouraging. For a moment.

Then he felt her claws. They were back, and digging into his arms, icy pain slicing through his shoulders. Amu's teeth grazed Ikuto's shoulder, and then his neck, gently at first, before she bit down with wolf canines into the place where Ikuto's neck met his shoulders. He knew she drew blood, and, more importantly, he knew she was drinking it.

Had it been a trick, the trembling and tears? To get close to him? It didn't matter. Ikuto needed to stop Amu. Not for his own sake, but for hers. God knows what was happening to her mind if she thought human flesh was tasty.

Ikuto could already feel his strength beginning to ebb away as Amu's teeth dug harder into his skin. He pulled her face upwards, the pain of her teeth tearing his skin almost enough to make him gasp out loud. Instead he ignored the sensation of his shoulder being on fire and kissed Amu.

He tasted his own blood on her lips, but he didn't care. He needed her to see. He needed her to understand that whatever she was going through, he knew what it was like because he loved her. Every time she hurt, he hurt, too. He needed this delusional fool of a girl that he loved to understand what loving her actually meant.

And, like a person waking from a dream, Amu's eyes widened, golden orbs illuminating as she recognized the feel of his lips moving against hers. And, like the idiot she was, she kissed him back, and her hand came up to cup his cheek, then slid down to his shoulders.

And then the pain of Amu's hand hitting Ikuto's open wound made him black out. Sad—for someone who once took worse and kept fighting—but Ikuto didn't have anything special anymore to help him push forward. It was just him, completely human, missing a part of himself, but still having it in the form of Amu.

Amu gasped and let Ikuto's body slide to the floor. For a moment, she was scared that he had died, that she had killed him, but then she noticed the faint rise and fall of his chest. She didn't exactly know what she was doing when she forced her own claws to rake across her forearm and draw blood. She did know, however, that she had Ikuto's DNA within her, and, if anything, she should give some of it back. So she pressed the open wounds on her arm to Iktuo's shoulder. It probably didn't help, but it was at least enough to make her feel like she was doing something.

And then something—she didn't know what, but perhaps the loss of blood—made her black out.

. . .

Amu awoke to the sound of soft voices. She was lying in a bed—not her own, she assumed—and she actually felt decent. She kept her eyes squeezed shut for a moment, in fear that the light about her would burn her eyes with its brightness, but when she finally blinked her eyelids open, she found she felt nothing.

And then came the shifting, the need for her body to be two different things at the same time. Amu screamed at the pain that felt like her mind and physical being wanted to tear itself apart. She wasn't particularly wrong, either.

"Amu. Amu." Ikuto's voice calmed the pink-haired girl some and he made soft shushing noises towards her. Sitting on the edge of her bed, he stroked her hair until the pain subsided and her body returned to normal. She looked at him and hugged the blanket that lay over her closer to her chest.

"What's wrong with me?" Her voice came out like a whimper and a Ikuto looked down.

"First, how much do you remember?"

"Remember? Remember what? Didn't I just black out? I had the craziest dream while I was unconscious, though."

Ikuto shook his head softly. When he turned back to meet her eyes, he looked sad.

"What is it? What happened?"

"You died, Amu."

"I'm dead?" This wasn't what Amu expected heaven to be like, but at least Ikuto . . . Wait, did that mean Ikuto was dead, too? A flurry of questions rose to the surface of Amu's mind, but before she could find the right words to voice them, Ikuto continued.

"Past tense, Amu. You died. You're not dead. You were, but Tadase and I brought you back." Ikuto looked away at the mention of the Wolves' leader's name. Amu, though sometimes dense, knew something was up.

"Where's Tadase?" Amu sat up. The blanket fell off her and she was grateful to find she was in one of her old t-shirts.

"Gone," Ikuto replied simply, not meeting her eyes.

"'Gone'? What do you mean, 'gone'? He left?"

"He died, Amu."

"How?"

"You wouldn't like the details. You wouldn't believe them. You'd say I was lying just because I didn't like him."

"Tell me."

"You don't want to know."

"I do!" Amu's voice came out like more of a growl than human speech.

Ikuto blinked at her. "Your soul. Whatever little creatures and shadows are in there, they killed him."

Amu opened her mouth to retort that something like that would never happen. She'd loved Tadase, she wouldn't kill him. But then she realized that Ikuto had warned her this would happen. He knew her, and he knew how she would react. Her mouth closed shut and she looked away, tears brimming in her eyes.

Ikuto sat closer to her on her bed and hugged her to his side. She sat there for a while, trying to cry, but eventually gave up. They stayed together like that for what could have been hours, with Amu simply drawing on Ikuto's warmth for comfort. After a while, Ikuto shifted his position and grunted in pain.

"Sorry, am I—" Amu broke off. "Ikuto! What happened to your shoulder?" Ikuto's shoulder was covered in layers upon layers of gauze and bandages.

"We'll get there, eventually," Ikuto said. "First of all . . ." And then Ikuto proceed to explain to Amu what she'd missed while she was dead. He told her everything, from start to finish. From the poisonous lights, to the dancing shadows that took Tadase, and the wall that stole Ikuto's cat abilities. Then the fight with the crazy cat/wolf hybrid Amu, including the part about the shoulder.

When he'd finished, Ikuto asked, "Have you ever heard of a chimera?"

"A 'kai-meer-ya?'" Amu asked, confused by the sudden topic change. "Isn't that a type of flower or something?"

"A [i]chimera[/i]," Ikuto continued, "Is a mythical creature that's usually said to be a lion with a goat's head sticking out of his back and a serpent's head for a tail. Or something similar to that. You get the picture."

"Sounds weird."

"Not the point."

"Then what is?"

"Getting there," Ikuto said, successfully shushing Amu. "Because a chimera is composed of animals that all would, if in separate bodies, fight with each other, the chimera itself is constantly arguing with, well, itself. It's body cannot exist in peace. A lion and a goat? They can't exist together without having the instinct to hunt or flee, but the goat can't get away without the lion following, and the lion can't catch the goat without killing itself. There's a similar relationship with the snake. The chimera is miserable because of that."

"Does this have anything to do with everything that just happened?"

Ikuto turned to Amu and watched her face for her reaction. "When Tadase and I lost our DNA, your body picked it up and stole it. Wolf and cat? That doesn't go together. Do you realize what's happening to you now, Amu?"

Amu's mouth formed a little 'o' as things clicked in her mind. "So that means. . . that earlier? It'll happen again?"

"More often than not."

The prospect brought tears to Amu's eyes. "I'm going to constantly be fighting with myself? That sounds horrid. And selfish, I know, but it hurts so much . . . I thought I was dying earlier, like by body was just going to rip in half."

"That's what you said before. When you bit me."

"Sorry again," she whispered, before going back to the previous topic. "Does that mean I'm going to be miserable my whole life?

"No," Ikuto said immediately, his voice strong enough to make Amu start. He hugged her. "You are not going to be miserable. You might be a beast, or a predator at some point. You might be a monster, and I'm not saying its going to be easy. I'm saying its going to be tough, and there times you'll feel like you're suffering immensely. But I swear to you, Amu." Ikuto paused to kissed her on the lips before continuing in a whisper, "I swear I'm never going to leave your side, and I swear I'm going to make your life the opposite of miserable. Even if you don't love me, and even you leave me, I won't care. I'll follow you, to make your life better in any way I can."

"You're a horrible liar."

"What?"

"You told me that, didn't you? In my soul, or wherever that was?"

Ikuto nodded slowly. "It was technically a lie. I'm horrible at lying to you. I can pull it off elsewhere. What does that have anything to do with we were just discussing?"

"You really are a horrible liar. You said I leave you that you wouldn't care. That's a lie. You'd hate yourself for it. You'd wonder for the rest of your life what you did wrong. And why is this important? Because since I know what you sound like when you're lying, I also know what you sound like when you're telling the truth."

"And?"

"Because of your lie, I can tell the rest is true."

"Thank you," Ikuto said after a heartbeat of silence.

"For what?"

"For everything."

"What do you mean?"

"For letting me stay here, with you. Among other things. Thank you for letting me help you. Because being one predator was hard enough, and I can barely imagine two."

"I know," Amu said, "I remember."

Because there had been dreams—dreams that were haunted by the black wolf with the bright crimson eyes. And then there were dreams of the creature with the golden eyes, covered in thin silver scars and glinted in the moonlight—a black wolf with blue cat ears and a cat's tail. Because deep, deep inside, Amu had always known.

And, like predators do, she'd waited patiently.

. . .

Wow. It's been so long since I started this, and, aside from my one-shots, I think this is pretty much only the second story I've finished. If Darkened Reality, which is 20k words counts as a story, even though it's a one-shot counts, then, this would be my third.

Anyway. So thank you for reading through Predators. It's not the best, but it's a story, and an Amuto. Leave a review, while you're at it. It always makes my day. Thank you for getting this far and not getting so fed up with my inability to write that you wanted to punch your computer or throw your device on which you read fanfiction across the room.

And, most of all, thank you for being you.

Okay, that was super cheesy.

But seriously, thanks for reading. c;