Ninetieth Spell: Reluctant Hostage
"So the legends are true," Hikari said, trying not to look away from Kokkuri-san's fox face in disgust. "You really are a mix between a Kitsune, a Tanuki, and Inu Dog Yokai."
"Only a few people have seen my true form," Kokkuri responded. "And they don't often live for very long."
Not liking Kokkuri's threat, Haru pointed his plum tree wand at her. "If you harm Hikari—
Before Haru could finish his sentence, Kokkuri flicked her finger at Haru as an invisible force sent him flying into the wall behind him. Though Hikari wanted to get up, she was unable to move.
"As long as Hikari stays connected to me through the board, I control everything that happens in this room," Kokkuri stated firmly. "Now let us play Tenbutsu, Hikari, which I hear you're good at."
"I'm not sure how you heard that, but there's one problem," Hikari said. "I need one finger to stay on the coin for us to stay connected, but I can't look through my deck and cover it up with the other."
"You bring up a good point," Kokkuri admitted. She then looked back at Haru, who was just getting up. "I think I have a solution."
Waving her hand toward Haru, she levitated him off the ground. A third chair popped out of thin air, which Haru was forced to sit in. Then his index finger moved on its own and was placed on the Sei coin in place of Hikari's finger while his other hand placed the paper lantern back on the table.
"This boy will serve as my hostage and medium to keep us connected while we play our game," Kokkuri declared. "But if he thinks about taking his finger off the coin to break our connection, he will die."
Unable to speak, Haru gulped nervously.
"I don't care what happens to him," Hikari claimed, though her worried eyes almost betrayed her. "But I appreciate your consideration for keeping this game fair, Kokkuri-san."
"And to make things more interesting, I've enchanted our cards to cause physical harm to the loser at the end of each round."
"So you're thinking of playing more than one round?"
"Of course! I wouldn't want this game to end so soon. But I know you and the boy are in a hurry to find the Jinsei Stone, so how does three rounds sound?"
"Reasonable," Hikari replied, trying to hide her inner fear.
From Kokkuri's hand was produced another deck of Tenbutsu cards, which she then mixed with Hikari's forming their draw pile. After Kokkuri drew eight cards for herself and Hikari, she placed six cards face-up between them to represent the board. To the right of the table appeared images of the six face-up cards that consisted of: a rat with a sunflower in its mouth, a Shiba Inu dog with muddy paws, a monkey with snow on its fur, a rabbit munching on an orange leaf, a goat eating green grass, and a panting pig.
"Looks like we have a summer rat, a spring dog, a winter monkey, an autumn rabbit, a spring goat, and a summer pig on the board," Kokkuri remarked. "Now since I initiated the game, I'm the dealer and therefore get to go first. I shall take the autumn rabbit, spring goat, and summer pig from the board to form a Fourth Palace combo for six points."
As Kokkuri took the three cards from the board, the summer pig, autumn rabbit, and spring goat images came together on Kokkuri's side with the number '4' hanging over them along with a cluster of stars.
"You know your celestial palaces well, Kokkuri-san," Hikari complemented. "I will take the winter monkey, the spring dog, and combine it with my summer rooster to create the Momotaro combo for six points."
Hikari then grabbed the winter monkey and spring dog from the board, leaving only the summer rat card left. And after putting down a card from her hand of a rooster with the sun shining over it, the winter monkey and spring dog images moved to Hikari's side with the added image of a rooster with a halo of light behind it and a boy with a peach emblem on his kimono.
"Momotaro?" Haru recognized. "As in…the legendary hero that was born from a peach?"
"Exactly," Hikari stated. "He was a real wizard that had a bunch of animal familiars. Though the part about him being born out of a peach hasn't been proven as fact."
"It's good to see you're taking this game seriously, Hikari," Kokkuri said sarcastically. "Now I will take the summer rat from the board and combine it with my own autumn pig for a Water Combo of four points, giving me a total of ten points."
The summer rat image then moved to Kokkuri's side, where a pig with an apple in its mouth appeared, followed by a splash of water at their feet. Kokkuri then put six more cards face-up on the board.
"Okay," Hikari said. "I'm going to combine my winter tiger and spring rabbit for a Wood Combo of four points, and then use Ten-Ten to double those points to eight, giving me 14 points in total!"
Remembering what happened to Seita when he used Ten-Ten, Haru feared that Kokkuri might decide to end the round thus gaining the points Hikari got from her current combos. But to Haru's surprise, Kokkuri decided to keep going.
"I will now combine the summer tiger from the board with my winter rat, spring dragon, summer horse, autumn monkey, and winter dog for a Yang Combo of six points, which gets doubled to 12 points, giving me 22 points in total!" Kokkuri declared and held up her two remaining cards in her hand. "Should I use these cards in a combination when it's my turn again, the first round will be over!"
Behind Kokkuri, a large black Yang symbol appeared and hovered over Hikari like a guillotine waiting to strike downward.
To be continued…