As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape. – John Lancaster Spalding
Kisho woke up in a cold sweat.
His eyes darted back and forth, his muddied and strained mind frantically wanting to understand where he was. It took a moment for his sight to properly be restored, as if his eyes had been closed for a long time.
He saw the back of a seat in front of him, with a pocket filled with advertisements and pamphlets. It did not take long for him to realize he was sitting down. There were seats to his left and right as well, in rows that ran in front and behind him. One seat away to his right was an aisle, lit up with lights emanating from the floor.
His surroundings looked like the interior of a plane.
The floor, walls, and even the seats were covered in an annoyingly bright blue fabric. There was a faint, flowery smell that Kisho recognized as lavender.
He groaned as his pounding headache distracted him from the pleasant smell. It was only after he gazed downwards that he realized he had been holding a clenched fist up to his chest. He carefully brought his left hand down and opened it, feeling a cold object inside.
His unclenched fist revealed a golden key resting in his palm.
He did not recognize it.
Kisho's attention turned to the airplane window to his left, small and round. Frantically leaning towards it, he looked outside to see what was below him. However, all he could see was the airplane's wing and a thick cloud of fog coating it. A fog so thick that nothing past it was visible. It was dark as well, as though it were night.
The confused boy decided he had to get up.
He unbuckled his seatbelt and got to his feet, shuffling out of his seat row and into the aisle. He stared at the rows of seats running through the plane, six of them in total. They were all empty. Considering he could see the plane's wing outside, he believed he had to be around the middle of the aircraft.
Though his mouth felt dry, he opened it to speak.
"Hello…?" he whispered.
He noticed how weak his voice sounded. Even his throat felt dry.
Trying again, Kisho raised his voice and shouted loud enough for anyone onboard to hear.
"Hello?!"
He waited patiently for a moment for any response from anyone inside. Nothing but silence continued to plague the aircraft.
Kisho turned on his heel and began walking to the front of the plane. He realized he did not know if there was anyone even piloting this thing.
He made his way past several rows of empty seats and through a small, velvet curtain and found himself in another section of the plane. To his right, he saw an unoccupied bathroom with the door hanging open. To his left, a large hatch door with a bright red word above it reading "EXIT".
There was no telling what would happen if he tried to open the door while the plane was still in the air. Kisho knew better than to do something so reckless.
But as he looked directly in front of him, he saw the cockpit door. It did not look much like what Kisho expected a cockpit door to be.
Much like the rest of the aircraft's interior, the door was coloured in blue velvet, and outlined in a bright, golden pattern. In the middle, the door had silver-coloured text engraved into it. Peering through the darkness in front of him, Kisho managed to read the door's engravings.
"Omnes una manet nox." it read.
Kisho did not recognize the language.
He placed one hand onto the door and gave a gentle push, expecting it to be locked.
It was not. With a strained creak, the door opened slightly.
Surprised, he took another step forward and placed his other hand on the door. For reasons unknown, he was experiencing a horrible feeling of dread, as if a pit had formed in his stomach. His instincts were telling him not to take another step forward, as if to warn him of an impending doom.
Kisho took a deep breath. He had no choice but to keep moving.
He gave the door a hard push and stepped inside the cockpit.
The room he had entered was bright, too bright. It was illuminated much better than the rest of the aircraft. Kisho flinched and rubbed his eyes until they adjusted.
As he got a good look of the room, he realized it was not a cockpit he had entered.
The room was expansive, spanning far in each direction, its size did not seem to make sense considering the plane's interior. In the middle of the room was a desk made of mahogany, with an elegant chandelier hanging just above it. Despite the subtle swaying of the plane, the chandelier remained completely still, shimmering and glowing seemingly by itself.
Kisho felt his heart drop as he looked down and saw someone sitting behind the desk.
A bizarrely-shaped old man was resting in his seat, staring directly at Kisho with disgustingly engorged and bloodshot eyes. A grotesquely long nose dangled from his face. The man was wearing a smart and slick suit, along with an unsettlingly wide smile.
Out of the darkness clouding the corner of the room, another figure stepped out and revealed itself, standing by the old man's desk.
It was a woman, tall and lean, with glowing, yellow eyes. Much like the old man, she was smartly dressed with a suit similar to his, though it was coloured in an eye-catching shade of blue. She had long, silver hair that ran down to her hip, held together neatly with a golden headband. Her arms were folded, with a gloved hand holding a half empty glass of wine in it. Her glare was piercingly sharp.
A high-pitched chuckle escaped the old man.
"Ah, a guest once again graces us with their presence." he croaked. "An unfortunate prisoner of fate, chained down by monachopsis and liberosis. Fate is a most cruel mistress."
"Who are you…?" Kisho gasped. "Where am I?"
The old man's grin only grew wider.
"Oh, forgive me! Where are my manners? My name is Igor, I am most delighted to make your acquaintance." he answered.
The old man raised his left hand and motioned towards the lady next to him.
"Please," he whispered. "Introduce yourself to our new guest, would you?"
The lady in the suit looked unhappy. Her gaze turned to her right as her glare became directed at Igor instead.
"Must we really perform this charade again?" she hissed.
After a moment of silence and with no answer from the old man, the woman conceded and closed her eyes.
"I am Elsa, assistant to Igor and a resident of this Velvet Room." she told Kisho without looking at him.
"Velvet…room…?" Kisho echoed.
"This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter." Igor explained. "Interesting that it has manifested as an aircraft this time. Is it to signify your preconceived superiority over others, that you may soar far above them? Or…to signify your inevitable descent into oblivion?"
Kisho did not appreciate the old man's cryptic words. He was already confused and frightened, this conversation was doing him no favours.
"Whatever the reason may be," he continued. "Seeing that you already possess a key, you are now our guest. That means we will do all that we can to help you avoid your imminent destruction."
The boy looked back at his hand and remembered he was still clutching onto the golden key he woke up with.
"If you accept our help, you also have to accept our contract." Elsa chimed in, her voice filled with an unknown emotion. "Try as we may, we cannot guarantee the avoidance of destruction. Should you fail in your task, the only one who may bear that burden is you."
Kisho was far too distracted for any of their words to sink in.
"I don't get it!" he cried. "Where are the controls? Where's the pilot? How is this thing flying?!"
Igor chuckled again, clearly amused by the petrified boy's reaction. He shook his head, then lowered it.
"Fate controls this aircraft. Your fate. Will it crash and burn? Or will it soar up into the heavens? That is something only you can decide."
Kisho took a small step back. He had not noticed that his fear had caused a tear to roll down his cheek.
"Do not fret, for you are special." Igor grinned. "A most unique power is set to awaken within you soon. You must focus on nurturing that power by building unbreakable bonds with those you can trust. Like so many before you…"
Almost as if to interrupt Igor, the entire room began to glimmer and gradually grow transparent. Pieces of the floor beneath their feet started to break off and fade into small shards of glass.
Igor nodded.
"It looks like it is time. When next we meet, you will have awoken to that special power. We will be waiting eagerly for your return." he said.
Kisho did not have a chance to respond before his consciousness faded to black.
Everything within the Velvet Room dissipated into nothing.
The contract was complete.
"Akiyama! Akiyama!"
Kisho woke up, confused and scared, for a second time.
He had the side of his face resting on his school desk, his textbook sitting next to his face lying open and unread. Clearly, he had dozed off in the middle of the lesson.
A girl designated to the seat to his right was staring daggers and whispering for him to get up.
Kisho raised his head and sat up properly, stretching his stiff back. A sense of relief filled him as he realized he had just had a nightmare. An extremely strange one, and one unlike any he had before, but a harmless dream nonetheless.
He turned and looked at the irritated girl next to him, wondering why she had bothered to wake up him.
"Seriously? Sleeping on the first day of school? Who even does that?" she whispered angrily.
Still somewhat drowsy, Kisho inspected the girl's face.
She had a bit of a round face, one that would have been cute if it was not being covered up by a scowl, and she had short, brown hair accessorized with a red hair clip.
Kisho looked down and saw her notebook, brimming with notes she had diligently written down, along with a black and red polka dot pencil case that had an emblem of a strange top hat attached to it.
He decided not to explain himself.
"Thanks for waking me up, uh…" he started, fumbling when he remembered he did not know her name.
"Call me Hasegawa." she said dismissively. "And don't expect me to do it again."
She finally stopped staring at him and turned her attention back to the teacher.
Kisho gazed at the whiteboard, watching his teacher fill it with English phrases to memorize and learn. Some of the students around him were listening carefully, others paid it little attention just like him. He noticed the boy sitting to his left was frantically texting, never once looking up from his phone from behind his desk.
The first day of school was something Kisho had been dreading and for a good reason. He knew he was going to be miserable, Tokyo was his home. Being stranded in Kyoto, boring lessons had become even more unbearable without any friends to talk to in order to make time pass faster. Instead, time felt painfully slow. It was as though Kisho could feel every single second gradually scrap by.
Thankfully, however, he had slept for a majority of the lesson and soon the school bell chimed throughout the building, indicating the end of the day.
A hefty and bearded man, Kisho's English teacher, put down his pen marker and tried to speak through the echoing sounds of students leaping out of their seats and rummaging through their school bags.
"Okay, remember to answer the questions from pages thirteen to twenty-four in your textbook for next week. Have a great day!" he announced.
Kisho reached down and closed his textbook. He glanced to his right and saw the girl next to him as she slowly placed her pen and pencil back in her pencil case. Unlike the rest of the class, she was in no hurry to leave.
There was a strange look in her eyes as another girl approached her desk with a phone in her hands.
"Oh my god, Akane." she giggled. "I can't believe you had so many 'did you know' facts about the Phantom Thieves! Where did you even get these?"
"Oh," the girl smiled weakly. "I do my research and collect them myself. I hate how people are trying to make it 'cool' to hate them now, so I'm doing my part."
"Well, I guess I can send these around to some other people and see what their reactions are!"
The energetic girl continued to talk as she casually sat on the Hasegawa's girl's desk as if she owned it.
Kisho raised an eyebrow as he went back to packing his school bag. He found it strange that even in this school, people his age were still talking about some terrorist group from years ago.
As students of the classroom began to huddle together into their social groups, some smaller and some larger, Kisho made sure to keep his head down and avoid eye contact. The more he tried to make it look like he was disinterested, the less awkward the fact would be that he was the only person in the class that was not socializing.
That was the logic that he had convinced himself of, at least.
Feeling a subtle sense of frustration, Kisho did not notice the Hasegawa girl stealing glances at him as he left school alone.
A flood of students poured out of the school building through the main entrance.
Students were leaving in the same social circles they had formed inside the building. It was apparent to Kisho that almost everyone was already acquainted with each other. He was not certain, but it was possible he was the only new student in his grade.
His school was tiny and looked decrepit, with a relatively small student body. To him, it felt less like a school with a possible fresh start and more like an exclusive club that he was not invited to.
He had only been in Kyoto for two weeks and he was already vying for any excuse to return to Tokyo.
As he passed through the school gates, a gentle breeze brushed past his face, carrying leaves that swayed in a dance through the air. Kisho could admit to himself it was not all bad, he could at least enjoy how fresh and pure the air seemed.
He slowly placed his hands into his pockets and stared down the street. Despite being happy about school ending, the truth was there was not much to do back home either. A part of him wanted to continue standing by the gates to sort through his thoughts.
"Hey, you." a voice behind him muttered. "You're blocking the way."
Kisho recognized the voice.
He turned around to see the same girl from his class that had woken him up. She was wearing a pink backpack and the same moody scowl as before.
It was only now that they were standing up and not sitting at their desks that he realized how short she was compared to him, along with most people their age.
"Sorry, Hasegawa." he answered.
"Oh," she said. "You remembered my name."
"Yeah, I-"
Kisho paused, failing to finish his sentence.
He recalled Hasegawa waking up him by whispering his name. With him being half-asleep at the time, he did not even notice that she did that.
"Wait…you called me 'Akiyama' earlier." he mumbled. "How do you know my last name?"
The girl looked surprised and a little sheepish, she looked down at the ground and gently kicked a small pebble in front of her right foot.
"I, uh, looked at your notebook when you were sleeping. I saw the label with your name on it." she answered.
Kisho did not know why she was acting embarrassed.
"Well, cool." he said. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."
"Are you going to walk home?" she asked.
"Yeah, it's a bit of a walk. About thirty minutes."
"Well," Hasegawa said, slightly averting her gaze. "How about grabbing some food before that, then?"
Kisho stared at the girl, trying to read her face.
He did not expect a proposal to hang out from someone that was wearing such an annoyed expression.
"What's this about…?" he asked.
"Look," she sighed. "You obviously didn't make any friends today. At this rate, it's only going to get harder and harder to approach and talk to someone. Trust me, it's going to suck."
She took one step closer to him and put her hands on her hips.
"So, I'm going to help you start. We're gonna have lunch at my favourite place, it's a five minute walk from here." she continued.
Kisho was not quite sure how to react. He was under the impression that people would not bother sticking their necks out for people they did not know. The truth was that he had already resigned himself to missing out on a social life at his new school.
Hasegawa took a few steps to walk in front of him, then turned her head to see if he would follow her through the school gates.
"Do you always help random people for no reason?" he asked, taking his hands out of his pockets and trailing behind her.
"Nope." she said dismissively. "But one time can't hurt. Now hurry up, we're going to McDonald's."
Out of everything that had happened, that was what caught Kisho off guard the most. A bewildered look made its way onto his face as he stopped walking.
"McDonald's…?"
A groan escaped Kisho's lips as he tried readjusting himself in his seat for the fifth time.
He hated this place's chairs. His seat was rickety and swayed back and forth as one of its legs was clearly shorter than the others. Frustration only grew as he saw Hasegawa stare as she sat opposite from him.
"Could you stop fidgeting?" she asked.
Kisho stopped moving and tried to ignore his accursed chair. He reached down to his burger and took another large bite out of it, enjoying the familiar taste of a chewy patty, tomatoes and his favourite; pickles.
The McDonald's was busy. Much like back at home in Tokyo, it looked like the afternoon was the prime time for fast food restaurants.
He preferred fast food over more traditional dishes, it was what he had become accustomed to since childhood. Still, he could not help but feel a bit confused.
"Weird." he commented, still chewing on his burger.
"What is?"
"I didn't think there would be a McDonald's in a place like this."
"And by 'place like this' you mean…?" Hasegawa trailed off, raising her eyebrow.
"Kyoto. I didn't think there would be fast food in Kyoto."
"Oh," she smirked. "I bet you're one of those people who think everything in Kyoto is old fashioned and ancient."
"Well, yeah." Kisho admitted.
"I guess it's a bit more historic than some of the other cities, but it's still a modern city." she said as she took a French fry and ate it.
Kisho looked down at her tray and noticed that she had not ordered an actual meal. Instead, the smallest option for a packet of French fries was all she had in her tray.
"Are you sure that's going to be enough for you?" he asked, pointing to her food.
"I'm not hungry." she answered.
"Then why are we here?"
"To get you a friend, dummy." she sighed. "So, come on, introduction time."
"Huh?"
"Just a tl;dr. Nothing special."
Kisho put down his half-eaten burger.
He felt conflicted. His hate for having to live in a new city made him want to deny making new friends mostly out of spite. And yet, he was not a loner. It was true that he was likely to keep feeling miserable if he did not have someone to talk to.
Besides, seeing this stranger making an afford to help him, despite not having an incentive to do so, made him feel guilty for hesitating. She seemed like a good person that simply wanted to do a good deed.
"I'm Kisho Akiyama, but you know that." he muttered, leaning back in his seat. "I lived in Tokyo all my life. I like music and…cycling, I guess."
A gentle smile reached Hasegawa's lips, and for the first time, she eased her scowl completely.
"Nice."
"Now your turn." Kisho demanded.
The girl paused.
She finished her last French fry, carefully used a tissue to wipe the edges of her mouth, and put her hands on her lap.
"Okay. My full name is Akane Hasegawa." she said. "I was born and raised in Shibuya. I moved here almost four years ago with my Dad after some…stuff happened. And…I like streaming."
"Streaming?"
"You know, live streaming." she explained. "I actually have a bit of an audience at this point."
Kisho remembered that he watched streamers in the past, mostly the ones that had distinctive personalities that he could find comedic, though only for a brief time.
"What do you stream?" he asked with genuine curiosity. "Games?"
"Oh, uh…" Akane hesitated. "I, uh, talk about these guys. They were kinda popular with some people a while ago. It was a group called the 'Phantom Thieves of Hearts', you probably haven't heard of them."
Kisho frowned as he watched Akane look down at the ground, the topic was causing her to grow a little red around her cheeks.
"Of course I know them." Kisho said.
"Wait…really?"
"Yeah." he said as he looked away and scratched his chin. "They were a terrorist group, right? I remember seeing them on the news. They claimed they had the superpower to change a person's heart or something."
"That's right!" Akane smiled and her eyes lit up. "They're heroes of justice, stealing the hearts of corrupted adults and fixing society!"
Kisho looked back at Akane, surprised.
Just talking about the group had caused her to become noticeably giddy. Kisho did not mind, but did not understand her excitement.
As far as he knew, the Phantom Thieves were closer to a myth popularized in Japan rather than anything substantial. He remembered seeing reports of rumours based on them on the news, about two or so years ago. Further rumours then saw a resurgence last year as a new influx of supposed changes of hearts occurred.
Back in his old school, Kisho and his friends would mention new rumours about the group in passing. A majority of the public made the strange group their new obsession for a while, but with the passage of time it seemed that their popularity had mostly waned and fizzled out.
"So, you use your stream to discuss them?" Kisho asked.
"Yeah, pretty much." Akane nodded. "I even put on a bit of a show sometimes, pretending to be one of them. I know it's a little lame but people seem to like it."
"Sounds like you're a fan."
"Well, yeah. I remember the very first time they changed the heart of some rotten adult, they made him confess all of his crimes on TV!"
"Oh, really?" Kisho mumbled.
"Yep. I think it was some artist guy stealing his pupil's work or something. I can't really remember the details right now."
Kisho nodded. It sounded familiar but he could not properly recall what Akane was talking about either.
Yawning as he slowly pushed his tray away, Kisho stood up and picked his backpack off the floor. He did not have a watch but could tell it was starting to get late.
Akane began to stand up almost immediately after him.
"Well, I think I should head back." he said. "Thanks for hanging out with me."
The girl nodded. "No problem. Just try to be a bit more sociable tomorrow at school, 'kay?"
"Yeah, sure."
Kisho left the restaurant first, looking back through the window to see Akane still sorting out her backpack inside.
He took a few steps forward and looked up, catching peeks of the gentle, orange sun slowly descend through the gaps in the buildings in front of him. The wind was starting to get chilly.
That was the first real conversation Kisho had in over two weeks. He enjoyed it, despite the topic being mostly about some urban myth that he was not too interested in. Now he was not dreading his return to school tomorrow as much as he thought he would be.
Kisho pulled his phone out of his pocket and used his data to open a map, using it to see the route he would need to take to get from the McDonald's to his house.
Once he had confirmed which way to go, he took off.
As Kisho used his key to open the front door, a powerful whiff of the smell of alcohol hit him like a freight truck.
He grimaced as he quickly took off his shoes and brushed them to the side with his feet. Kicking off his socks by the time he had reached the living room, he was greeted by a familiar face sitting on the couch.
"Ichika, I'm home." he announced with a grumble.
The woman on the couch giggled and put down her bottle of beer on a table, surrounded by several others that had already been emptied. She unleashed her red hair from her ponytail and let it fall to her sides, looking at Kisho with glazed eyes.
"Welcome home!" she said with a hiccup. "How was your first day at school, huh…?"
Kisho looked at his cousin with slight contempt. He hated when she would drink too much.
Her clothes were a mess, with her crumpled blue vest having several orange stains on it, likely from the sauce of whatever she had eaten earlier. Her yoga pants had similar stains, along with some breadcrumbs clinging on.
"It was fine." he answered.
"Did you make any friends?"
Kisho paused.
"Something like that." he said eventually. "She was nice. Nicer than I thought people here would be, I guess."
"Oh…'she', huh?" his cousin grinned as she reached for her bottle and took another swig.
"Stop."
Kisho moved from the living room to the hallway as he untied his tie and stuffed it into his bag.
Ichika was a cheeky person, but mostly meant well. Kisho did not know her well since they had not seen much of each other before. She was seven years older than him and held a successful position in the fashion industry, and she often described the difficulties that came with being a designer.
Kisho was thankful that she had agreed to take him in once he had to move to Kyoto, but he wished that she would not drink so heavily. He found even the faint scent of alcohol to be repulsive, not to mention how awkward it felt to try and talk to Ichika after she had become tipsy.
"Dinner's ready in the fridge." she said as she watched him leave the living room.
"No, thanks." he answered. "I ate out. I'm gonna go to bed."
"Isn't it early?"
"Yeah, but I'm really tired. Goodnight."
Kisho rubbed his eyes as he moved further down the hallway. He turned left once he reached the end, and opened the door to his bedroom.
He stared at his room. Empty, except for the several boxes lying on the carpeted floor, containing some of his belongings. He had not fully unpacked yet, only daring to take out the essentials when he moved in, as if he was still holding on to a sliver of hope that this move was not permanent for him. The room was devoid of history or personality, with plain white walls and an unremarkable bed and desk pushed into the corner.
It was akin to a foreign land to Kisho, a place he did not recognize or see as his own.
He tossed his backpack aimlessly in the centre of the room and motioned towards his bed. It was strange how tired he felt, he hardly exerted himself today. It was as though something powerful was pulling him down, pushing weight onto his back, shoulders, even his eyelids. There had not been many instances before of him experiencing this level of exhaustion.
Kisho collapsed into his bed, welcoming its warm embrace with a faint smile.
It did not take long for him to fall asleep. In fact, it took no time at all. Once his head had hit the pillow, he drifted off into nothingness. It felt like his entire body was sinking, as if he had been consumed by a blanket of darkness, falling deeper into the realm of unconsciousness.
Yet still, a part of him was still awake. Still aware.
He could feel his body's or rather his spirit's descent into something unknown. Stopping it felt impossible too, not a single fibre of his body could move or react.
This was not sleep. This was something else.
When Kisho hit the ground, he hit it hard.
With a crash, his back met the ground and Kisho screamed. The pain was sudden and unbearable. He groaned and immediately sat up, rubbing his aching back, his eyes still completely shut.
He pried his eyes open once the pain had partially subsided.
However, what he noticed first was not what he saw, but rather what he heard.
It was a song. A gentle, slow tune played by a piano. It sounded muffled, as if the sound were coming out through some old speakers above him, but when Kisho looked up he saw nothing of the sort.
Above him was a tiled, white ceiling with a series of built-in lights running down the middle. In front of him was a long corridor with shops and restaurants positioned to both his left and right. Pillars ran through the corridor, attached from floor to ceiling, along with a small panel attached to one of them.
The panel had text written in white that simply read "1F".
Kisho stood up.
Was he in a mall? It was what he recognized it as first.
He took a few steps forward, first passing by a shop called 'Chiba Trade Centre'. Glancing inside, he saw that the lights were still on. Products like sweets and sake were resting on untouched shelves, and souvenir items stacked into a large corner. No one was attending the shop, neither shop attendants nor customers.
In fact, there did not seem to be a single soul in sight. Kisho had not walked far, but an unshakeable feeling that he was the only person in the building had settled in.
He walked a bit further and saw a bright, illuminated sign to his right. Upon approaching it, he could see both text and an image accompanying it.
"Narita Airport Soba Sale! Now for only ¥1,200!" it said.
Kisho's heart sank.
His breathing grew heavier and strained. The eerily slow music plaguing the building seemed to become more audible as his confusion caused his heart to race.
Airport? Why was he at an airport?
And the Narita Airport was in Tokyo. He was supposed to be in Kyoto. The situation he had found himself in was purely nonsensical.
Kisho looked down at his hands, realizing that his right hand had been closed the entire time, squeezing down onto something. Dreading what he would see inside, he carefully opened his hand and stared in shock at his palm.
A golden key. He had been holding a golden key.
"No, no, no." he murmured.
This otherworldly predicament was beginning to feel familiar and Kisho could feel his sense of dread growing.
The nightmare he had this morning had not been a nightmare. He had returned to this strange world, though something was horribly different about it this time. From an airplane to an airport, Kisho could not make sense of anything that was happening to him.
A loud crash erupted behind him.
Kisho turned his head. He saw one of the shops in the distance exploding into shards of glass as a figure was thrown out of it. An agitated growl escaped the creature as it cut itself on the glass. It scrambled back to its feet and shook its head, picking up a weapon that it had dropped to the ground.
Its head suddenly snapped, looking at Kisho.
A sigh escaped it as the figure slowly began to walk towards him with a strange spring in its step. As it got closer, Kisho realized the object in its hands was a katana. The flickering lights of the building revealed a humanoid creature dressed in a blue. Its outfit was bizarre, looking like a combination of a traditional yukata and a thick fur coat.
Another few steps and the light illuminated its face. It was covered by a mask, one in the shape of a rabbit, with black stripes running across its cheeks. Two orange eyes were visible behind the mask, locked in his direction.
Its pace accelerated from a walk to a sprint.
"Wait…" Kisho whispered.
Raising its katana above its head, the creature prepared to strike.
"Wait!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.
But like a flash of lightning, the blade tore through its target.