Disclaimer: I don't own YYH and this wasn't made for profit.

I hadn't meant for it to be this in depth about fox groups but it just kind of went that way.
Unbeta'd please forgive any mistakes.

PS: A group of foxes is called a Leash (or a skulk but I don't see Kurama referring to it as a skulk).

"What on earth are you two doing here?" Kurama said staring openly at Shizuru and Keiko. The latter was not doing so good. Her skin was a sickly green and she was sweating profusely.

"Oh you know, seeing the sights, chasing blue Yusuke like flying penguins, the usual," Shizuru replied, as her heart rate started returning to a normal level. Kurama was here and he would keep them safe.

Before the kitsune could reply, twenty more bugs flew towards them. Shizuru's grip on her jacket tightened in perpetration to defend Keiko but Kurama disposed of them with a quick flick of his wrist.

"I can't say I approve," Kurama said giving her a look. He couldn't fathom how such a smart psychic could run into a place like this. Then he watched as she moved Keiko into a more comfortable position. The tenderness of the action brought thoughts of his mother to his mind.

"Look Kurama, I don't know about you but I wasn't going to let Sweetheart here go running off into danger alone," Shizuru said her voice hard with determination.

"I see where Kuwabara-kun gets his moral fiber," Kurama muttered as he, once again, cut down more than a dozen insects. The smell of illness was slowly filling his senses.

"Ah!"

Kurama turned stunned as a bug with its wings cut off bite Shizuru's ankle where her jeans road up. With a smack she killed it before succumbing to the illness. The kitsune rushed to catch her as she fell.

Arms around her, he looked into her brown eyes. They were filled with fear and pain but deeper than that was a something else. Her brother was and the friendships she made during the dark tournament, where all that she had, and meant more to her than he could have dreamed. With all that she was still lonely he realized with a start.

She was the strong one; always leading the females of their group out of danger and protecting them when she couldn't. She viewed it as her duty. She had been taking care of her brother so long that being the mother bear to all of them just came naturally.

Kurama swept her hair away from her sweaty forehead. Her usually sweet,smoke laced scent was tainted with illness. The kitsune's nose wrinkled at the sour scent of death started to seep past the bitterness of sick and his eyes narrowed. This was something that he never wanted to smell on her again.

He placed her gently beside Keiko and covered them both in the discarded jacket. Before turning back to the disease carrying insects with a growl. He never realized what was right under his nose. He always tried to be the level headed caregiver of the group but he miscalculated. He had overlooked a key part of what kept the group together. Females were essential for any leash to survive and here he was completely ignoring their needs and protection.

Some how, in the his absence of care, the females had gained a self appointed protector. A beta female that looked after them in lieu of a protecting beta male. This would not do, Kurama decided then, as he sliced insects with a renewed vigor. He was the beta of his leash, the one that keeps everything running smoothly even when it was something as simple as helping with homework.

Even if Shizuru was beta female he was beta male, despite Yusuke's, and as a result Keiko's, alpha status, it was his job to protect her so that she could in turn protect the other females.

Soon the bugs dispersed, either looking for easier prey or to regroup Kurama was not certain. He took the time to approach the two most important females in his leash. For although Genkai was female she was an Elder, respected and loved, unable to bear kits and the kitsune couldn't fight the instincts that told him that she was in less need of coveting.

He looked over Keiko and watched as Pu cooed to her in concern. Yusuke was with her in spirit, literally, so he moved to Shizuru and sat next to her. She looked so frail and it bothered Kurama more than he thought it would to see her like this. She whimpered and he soothed her with a low purr type growl, usually meant to comfort kits, instinctively . She looked at him with wide eyes and he stopped. Being in this leash had brought a lot of his baser urges to the forefront.

"Don't..." Shizuru muttered weakly, "don't stop. I liked it."

Kurama blinked down at her and saw the sincerity in her dark eyes. She had only been startled by the noise not afraid or distressed. He started again and she sighed with relief. So odd to see a human female react as a vixen would, he thought.

The swell of reiki drew his eyes away from the beta female and towards its source. Yusuke would take care of outside threats like a proper alpha. Kurama would take his new knowledge and work to rectify his mistake while he carried out the orders of his alpha and life would return to normal. As normal as it could ever be within a leash that consisted of two human males, two youkai males, three human females, a youkai female, and a ferry girl.

Koenma was not part of the leash, as far as Kurama was concerned he had yet to prove loyalty over the fear of his father. He had potential to be part of it if he fully defected from his born-leash, until than, he was a warily trusted outsider. The kitsune bristled when ever the demi-God bossed the members of his leash around. Not alpha, his instincts screamed.

Kurama looked down as the scent of illness and death slowly faded from both females and his heart lifted to see the green seep from their skin. They all stood slowly and the kitsune watched as Shizuru fussed over her alpha female.

"I'm fine Shizuru, really," Keiko said overwhelmed with the attention, "let's go find Yusuke."

They followed the alpha female's instructions and Kurama lead them to Yusuke. If he had his Youko ears they would be twitching back and forth between the surroundings and the females behind him. All was right in the world, at that moment, and if he started to pay special attention to Shizuru in the future no one commented about it.

AN: My head cannon is that Kurama is Youko just in a human body and so he doesn't "talk" to Youko in his head. I feel that during the Dark Tournament was a special circumstance in which past Youko was speaking to present Kurama. Thus, I feel that Kurama would have baser fox like tendencies always coming up in his thinking. 15 years is not long enough to override thousands of years of instinctual and conditioned behaviors but it is long enough to change outward habits and what is acceptable human behaviors (at least, for a however thousands of years old kitsune).