“Hey!” He shoved the irritable yokai back. “What are you doing?”
Masaru eyed him suspiciously. “We’d lost you for a minute.”
Keiko let out a deep breath. “Your mind had wandered into the shadows, and they were wreaking havoc with you. I could see it in your eyes.”
Ryuichi laughed from inside the bag.
Thatbrought him back to reality even faster than Masaru’s slap.
Koichi burned as he suddenly understood what had caused his thoughts to shift. What had taken control of him. “You little snipe. How dare you play with my head.”
“Let me go. Or I’ll make it worse.”
Masaru slapped at the bag. “Not until we fix my mistake.”
Ryuichi began struggling so wildly that he freed his head from the sack. “You already fixed it. This is how Ishouldbe.”
Masaru snorted rudely. “Everyone needs balance, little man. You’re missing yours.”
He scoffed at him. “Where’s yours? You’re all evil. Everyone knows that.”
Koichi watched as Masaru flinched.
“That’s the rub, isn’t it? I lost mine too.” Masaru covered Ryuichi’s head, then met Keiko’s gaze. “I think we’re here.”
She nodded. “I think you’re right.” Removing her helmet, she sniffed the air. “Everything is still. Quiet.”
And it was.
They’d crossed over to Ryukage’s domain.
* * *
Here, in kage-tenchi, time blurred together, without day or night. There was no heat. No cold. Only the ever-present and all-consuming darkness.
It felt suffocating. Terrifying.
All they could hear was the beating of their own hearts. Koichi couldn’t even feel the boy’s body heat through the sack now. It was as if something drank it up.
He felt eyes on him.
It felt as if they were touching him somehow.
Glancing at his skin, he was relieved to find it bare except for nervous sweat and goose bumps.
“Bet if I saidbooyou’d jump ten feet.”
Unamused by that comment, he slid his gaze to Masaru. “Bet if you saidbooI’d gut you where you stand.”
“Why am I always separating you two?” Keiko stepped between them, then gestured forward. “And how could you miss the most important part?”
It took Koichi a second to realize what she meant.
There, in the darkness, he couldjustmake out a twisted version of Hanzo’s Maho-jo. The castle was a sick mockery of all the brave students and teachers who’d dedicated their lives to keeping evil creatures like the Ryukage at bay.
In this realm, it rose up in the distance like a phantom against the black background, sinister and spooky. A chilling warning to anyone who saw it.
Are you kidding me?
