The Fangs didn't even acknowledge them and just kept moving.
We headed toward the stairs, and the formation shifted. Yoichi got on my right. Kaoru went to my left. Rin and Satoshi remained behind me.
The five additional men fanned out further back.
As we moved through the hallway, I caught Yoichi lifting the silver fang charm to his lips. He kissed it once, and then let it drop back against his chest.
I smiled. "Is the wolf fang a lucky charm?"
Yoichi glanced at me. "It is lucky, among other things, but more important. . .it isn't a wolf fang."
"Then what is it?"
"A fox fang."
I blinked. "A fox's fang can be that big?"
"Well. . ." He adjusted the rifle case on his shoulder. "This isn't an ordinary fox."
"What sort of fox is it?"
"A kitsune."
The word triggered fun memories, and suddenly I was twelve years old again, curled up on the couch with my laptop, falling down a rabbit hole of Japanese mythology after watching some anime I was way too young for.
Kitsune.
Fox spirits.
Shapeshifters that could take human form and lived for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years.
The older the kitsune, the more tails it grew, up to nine, and the more powerful it became.
Some were tricksters who loved chaos and mischief.
Others were guardians, protectors of families and sacred places.
They could create illusions so real you'd swear you were living in a different world, manipulate fire, bend perception, and make you see things that were never there.
The celestial ones, thezenko, served the god Inari and were divine.
The wild ones, theyako, were dangerous and unpredictable, the kind that showed up in your life, turned everything upsidedown, and left you wondering what was ever real in the first place.
And in every story, they were impossibly beautiful in human form. The kind of beauty that felt like a trap because it usually was.
I looked at Yoichi. Bald head. Sharp jaw. The calm, patient stillness of a man who never seemed rushed by anything.
Huh.
I smiled. "How were you able to get a kitsune fang?"
He winked. "It's a family heirloom."
Interesting.
We continued on and I couldn’t get the idea of kitsunes out of my head.
Meanwhile, I could hear Satoshi scratching as we moved down the hallway. The sound was constant. A soft scraping that made my skin crawl in sympathy.
