“My father set fire to it. He’s trying to kill my friends. We have to save them!”
Masaru let out a disgusted sound. “Well, that just sucks, doesn’t it?” He retrieved Haruki’s unconscious body from the ground, where he’d placed her during the fight.
“Why were you carrying her?” Koichi asked.
“I don’t know. Stupidity, probably. In my defense, it seemed like a good idea when I knocked her out not to leave her behind to tattle on me. I figure when she wakes up, she might have information about our enemy. If not, we can throw her at them and use her for demon fodder.”
Koichi scoffed. “Sure. Why not? Nothing else has worked out for us. Why wouldn’t this blow up in our faces too? By all means, kidnap the hag and bring her. I can’t imagine how this could work out badly. Her being our enemy, and all.”
Keiko held up her hand. “For the record, I can imagine an infinite number of possibilities where this can end badly for us.”
“Well, at least one of us has a working brain.” Koichi ducked a blow from one of the demons that came out of nowhere to assault him. “Shall we leave the fight unfinished? ’Cause really, we’re just getting slaughtered here.”
Masaru slung the unconscious Haruki over his shoulder. “Yes. Let’s go get slaughtered elsewhere.” He turned to Ryuichi. “Now that you have your shadow... seal the gate behind us.”
“Um... sure.” He loved how they all thought he knew what he was doing.
Granted, he’d opened it for his father, but Ryuichi still wasn’t quite sure how he’d managed to do that.
And yet... now he managed to do it again. The gate opened as if it knew he was its master.
Or so he thought.
As his friends went through, back to the school, he saw the faintest image of his mother smiling at him through the flames. Was that really her, or was Haruki playing a trick?
Unsure if it was really her helping him, he reached out for her.
Ryuichi!
She shimmered into the flames and was gone.
A tear slid down his cheek as he realized that somehow, some way, she really was the one who had controlled the gate.
“Domo, Mama.”
He felt something against his cheek. Some might have called it a breeze, but to him, it was a caress. Deep in his soul, he knew his mother had touched him. He didn’t know how.
Only that she’d managed to do it.
Wishing he could hold her and really feel her mother’s touch, he sighed. At least this way he knew she cared. That even though she couldn’t be with him physically, she was here in spirit.
It helped.
With a smile, he called out to the shadows of his friends so that they’d follow, and he stepped through the portal to return to the academy.
Yet the image he’d seen through the fire was nothing like the reality they now faced. The heat was searing. The sounds, thunderous.
Chaos and disorder surrounded them.
“Look out!” Keiko cried.
He turned to see that the dragon was trying to follow them from the shadow realm.
Half of it was already through the portal.
Worse, it lunged for Mikito-kage as he was trying to put out the fires. The dragon grabbed his foot and started pulling him back to the nether realm.
Mikito’s shadow cried out for help.
