Subject to Study (Naga!Brothers x Reader)

Chapter 44

Oso took in a staggered breath as Choro re-emerged from the dense jungle, watching his younger brother carefully and focusing on the small wound plainly seen on Choro's left shoulder. Choro wiped the pad of his thumb across his bottom lip, removing a small bit of blood that remained after the bite as his eyes glanced down at Oso's upper tail, easily spotting the knife still embedded in the oldest's side.

Neither commented about the other's injuries, focusing instead on the empty area that the female hunter used to be located.

"Have a guess at where she went?" Choro raised his dark green eyes to meet Oso's black-and-red dual hues.

The oldest let his forked tongue hang out in the air before quickly pulling it back in, flinching and coughing as a foul odor clung to his scent organ, "Augh, what the--?!"

"Scent canceller of some kind?" Choro looked around the ground to try and find footprints. If she had rubbed some kind of strong smell in the area, their tongues would be useless until they were out of range of this place.

"Guh, it tastes like rotten flesh..." Oso spat, "Damned human..."

"If we can't smell, then we don't know what the others are saying."

"Let's move towards the overlook," The red-headed naga began moving towards the mountain range, the younger brother following his trail out of the foul-smelling area, "The longer we stay here, the less useful we'll be to the others."

"Did you want to keep the knife in, Oso?" Choro questioned after a moment of silence, "If (y/n) sees you with it still in you, she'll probably have a panic attack..."

"Leave it for now...I don't know how much blood I'll lose when I take it out," Oso groaned as he tried to keep the wounded area immobile, "When the female is taken care of, I'll tend to it."

The trees started to thin in size as the incline grew more steep, the sunlight passing through the canopy overhead as the two nagas forged forward up the mountainside. An eerie silence had followed them since they had left their prey suffering, the silence slowly shifting into an uncomfortable feeling that made them feel that they had forgotten something.

Breaking through the treeline first, Oso was hit with the scent of absolute panic.

'Two hunters!' Ichi would've been screaming if the words were verbal.

'Where?' Oso returned as quickly as he could, pushing past the foul taste still clinging to his tongue.

'Cliff!'

Oso looked back at Choro, both of them wearing confused expressions on their faces. It should've taken the hunters at least another hour or so to move to that side of the island from where the helicopter was, let alone come close enough to Ichi's hiding spot. The eldest glanced over his shoulder to look at where the clearing was, estimating that a trek straight to the cliffs should've taken the humans another hour or two.

Something was clearly wrong.

'Hide. Help is on the way,' Kara's scent was the closest to the cliffs, closely followed by Jyushi's affirmative response.

There was no response from their brother.

----

Ichi's hisses were loud in the nearly closed-off cave, his tail tightly wound around me as I fought to stay awake from the tranquilizer racing through my system.

The attack had happened too suddenly, giving Ichi and I barely any time to react to the rifle that poked its barrel underneath the boulder. I had shoved Ichi down to the ground when I realized that it was aimed right at him, confused at the blind firing but more worried that the rifle contained a bullet.