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I broke into a run. Yuki and Shun’s footsteps thudded behind me then they overtook me. Great. They’d outrun me and I’d be the one caught and painfully tortured. I tried to force myself to go faster but some old man eating a fish on a stick got in front of me. Damn that man. While I tried to get around him, hands clamped down on my shoulder. I screamed as pain shot through my body. He’d hit the same spot already bruised raw by the mikoshi.
Then I got dragged away.
I struggled and yelled. Surely, in this crowd of people, someone would come to my rescue but everyone around me acted like nothing happened. They ate their barbecued corn and drank their beer without a second glance.
Come on, people, do your civic duty.
I screamed again and a hand clamped over my mouth. That meant he only had one hand to hold me. I squirmed to get away but even with one hand, that goon was way too strong for me.
Where the hell were my crows? They’d be really welcome right now.
The goon stopped, bringing me face to face with Yamaguchi. He took his hand off my mouth but still held me so I couldn’t flee.
“You talk to the kami?” Yamaguchi said.
Shun had been right. The old guy spoke perfect English when it suited him. His gaze seemed to cut right through me.
“Don’t be silly. I don’t even speak Japanese.”
Yamaguchi gave a chuckle even though his cold eyes never changed.
“Very funny.”
“She talks to him. I heard her,” Jin said.
When had he heard me? He bluffed. I’d call his bluff and get out of this situation. Wait. Damn. When they’d tried to steal the box, that’s when. Damn it. I should’ve kept my mouth shut but then he’d have stolen the kami back then. There was no way I could deny, when the kami had responded to me.
Yuki wasn’t wrong, Jin was a total dick.
Before I could say any more, the other goons returned with Shun and Yuki. I’d hoped the old man would be happy with me and let them go but it seemed he wanted all of us.
“Jin, you bastard son of a pig dog,” Yuki screamed followed by a heap of cussing in Japanese.
I thought the flash of light that followed was Jin’s doing until one of the goons screamed. I could smell his singed hair. Yuki got him with a fire ball.
“Tie the kitsune’s hands,” Yamaguchi said. “Then take them to the van.”
A van didn’t sound good. Tied and thrown in the back of a van was exactly the type of situation I wanted to avoid.
I screamed again but my screams blended into the sound of the crowd and the chants from the parade.
“No one will rescue you,” Yamaguchi said. “It’s not the Japanese way.”
That didn’t stop me from trying. You couldn’t drag three people off in broad daylight and throw them in a van without people noticing.
Yuki’s screams joined mine. She squirmed as they tried to tie her. The rope turned to snakes but that didn’t deter the goons.
“Your kitsune tricks won’t work on us,” the goon said.
Then Yamaguchi threw something at Yuki. It exploded at her feet in a cloud of orange smoke. She gasped then slumped. If the goon hadn’t been holding on to her, she’d have fallen to the ground.
Even when she regained her feet, she didn’t seem like her usual self. Her normally rigid posture had gone all slack as though her bones weren’t strong enough to support her.
Shun struggled to get free. I wasn’t sure what he could do. He’d said he could eat dreams but that wouldn’t work here. Yet, at the host club he’d been convinced Hokuto had told the truth. Not in a trusting way but in the way like he had some method of determining the truth. I wondered if he had other powers. Now would be a good time to reveal them.
Yamaguchi laughed and I shuddered from the sheer cruelty of the sound.
“You want to run? You want to fight? But you work for me. Don’t be a fool.”
Shun kept his gaze on the ground as he nodded.
Of course, Yamaguchi didn’t need strength or magical powers to subdue him. He had a hold over Shun and Yuki that forced them to work for him. Even if they got free of the goons, Yamaguchi knew where to find them. He had us in a stranglehold. From the way Shun’s body drooped, he knew it too.
But Yuki? What kind of hold did he have over her? Jin had said kitsune had to keep their promises. Was that it?
Yamaguchi shouted orders in Japanese.
“What’s going on?” I asked Shun.
The goon jerked me. Pain shot from my shoulder again. I stomped on his foot. It might not have done any damage to him but it made me feel better.
The look of horror on Shun’s face made me stop fighting.
“To punish us, they’re removing Yuki’s life force,” he said. “She has a thing, a star ball that holds all her power. Yamaguchi took it from her when she started working for him, and she’s been enslaved to him ever since. Now he’s going to destroy it and he’s taking us along to watch.”
“But she can fight him, right?”
Of course she could fight him. She was Yuki, fierce and fearless. There’s no way she’d let Yamaguchi overpower her just because he held a stupid ball.
“It’s her life force,” Shun said. “It’s her essence. Without it, she has nothing.”
And Yamaguchi planned to destroy it? That seemed awfully merciless. I was about to explain to Yamaguchi all about agency and individual rights when Yuki let out a piercing shriek. Not a scream, not anything that human but a sound that almost shattered my heart.
I pulled harder to get away from the goon. As I twisted, I saw Yuki’s face. I’d known, in theory, that she was a fox or some kind of fox spirit or whatever a kitsune was but I’d never connected that to her being an actual animal.
As the goon dragged her though, that animal side started to unfurl.
Her nose became pointier and her face sharper, more fox-like. The whole time she whimpered like a beaten dog, trying to free herself.
People began to gather to watch. How could they watch this and take no action? Ring the cops at least. But would the cops help us?
“Will she die?” I asked Shun.
“She’ll live but she’ll become nothing, worse than nothing. A shadow.”
My stomach clenched and my body became heavy.
I might not like Yuki. She might’ve been a total bitch to me ever since I arrived and we’d never be friends but there was no way someone could just remove her life force. I wouldn’t let them.
“You can’t do this,” I screamed. “Let me go. Let Yuki go.”
I twisted harder now, trying to tear myself out of the goon’s arms. People around us looked over but pretended they didn’t see a thing. Gutless. But I had to do something, I needed help. I was the descendant of a god, that must count for something.
Then I saw them, a cloud of black in the sky. My friends had come to help.