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Kanezaka was supposed to be safe during daylight hours, but that much was only true for tourists and well-behaving residents. The Yōkai were safe under the disguise of the night sky. Though nightfall was right around the corner, it was not yet present, and they truly should have known to be more careful. Their mission for the night had needed unnecessarily much setting up.
“Shit, they’re all around us,” Ryōta hissed on her left.
Kiriko’s eyes darted around, counting the number of ambushers pointing guns to her head. They were in every alley around them, many on the wider street they stood on, some up in the windows of buildings. Nobuto was on her right side, Mizuki and Sakura behind. They didn’t lift their hands to surrender but didn’t dare to pull out any weapons, either.
“Seven,” she finally deduced.
“Ten behind,” Mizuki added. “I can shield us. Let’s take them out and make a run for it.”
She steadied herself with a deep breath, hand hovering over the kunai strapped to her thigh. “All right. Go all out, everyone.”
“Protect us, kekkai!”
A few hits to their legs got some the agents to fall to the ground, leaving them unable to take aim properly, but more were arriving by the second. Mizuki’s sanctuary protected them from all harm, and one glance at him told Kiriko that he had struck down several agents himself. He was still relatively new to their group, but he had managed to make himself extremely valuable extremely fast.
“There!” Ryōta shouted suddenly, pointing to a side street with only two agents on it, both of them on the ground. “There’s a gap, let’s escape!”
Kiriko threw one more kunai, then ran toward the street. “Go, go!”
The shots rang immediately louder when they exited the sanctuary, but they made it into the cover of the buildings without trouble. Some agents followed them, but they were easily shot down by Mizuki and his ricocheting blades.
“Was that the last of them?” Nobuto asked once they had reached a quieter area.
“I think so.”
Kiriko caught movement in her peripheral vision, by Ryōta. She threw a kunai by instinct and yelled, “Watch out!”
The agent didn’t get a chance to fire their pistol before the kunai struck them in their stomach. They fell over and hit their head on the concrete. She stopped dead in her tracks, watching with her eyes wide in horror as they did not get up or move at all.
Her heart dropped to her stomach. The wound had possibly hit vital organs. They were bleeding rapidly and could die if they hadn’t already to the hit to their head.
Ryōta glanced between them and Kiriko. “Th-Thanks,” he stammered. “Is—”
She rushed to their side, scrambling to get their pulse. It wasn’t gone yet. “Shit,” she hissed. “Will they live?”
Their white shirt around the kunai was turning red. She checked their head. They weren’t bleeding there.
“We need to get moving,” Mizuki reminded. “Back-up will be here any moment.”
“No! I can’t let—What if they die!? I-I have to—” She lost her words.
Ryōta put his hand on her shoulder. “Kiriko, just heal him real quick, then we leave. The Hashimoto can handle the rest.”
She took some ofuda out with her shaking hands, placing two near the wound.
Mizuki’s voice was laced with urgency. “Guys, now!”
A prayer replayed in her mind, one she could say to fasten the healing process, but the words got tangled in her throat. Her tongue was heavy against the bottom of her mouth, the weight of her fear on it too strong. She couldn’t utter anything.
Sakura, who was farther away from the others, peeked behind a corner. “They’re coming,” she warned.
Mizuki marched over and tried to pull Kiriko and Ryōta back. “Just leave them there, it’s a Hashimoto goon, anyway!”
She swatted his hand away in desperation. “Hashimoto or not, I am not killing anyone! Let me focus!”
Ryōta, too, looked at Mizuki with disbelief. “We can’t let someone die!”
He grit his teeth, glancing at Sakura, who shook her head. Growling in annoyance, he pushed the other two much more forcefully, effectively getting them away from the Hashimoto. “Let me handle it, then,” he retorted.
“What—”
“I’ll join you later.” He took his hat off, placed it by the wound, and glared at the rest of the Yōkai. “You all just run already!”
The others nodded, starting to leave, but Kiriko stood still. “We can’t leave you behind! It’s my mistake, I should be—”
“Kiriko, leave!” he demanded. “If you actually want this person to survive, leave!”
She swallowed down the dread in her throat. “But—”
“I left a katashiro nearby, I can return to it if I need to. Trust me, I won’t let them or myself die. Just go!”
His eyes held gravity in them. For a split second, she thought it was hypocritical of him to ask her to trust him, but she had no time to dwell on it. She ran after the others.
…
They regrouped at Ryōta’s apartment before their heist that night. Chikasa read through the plan over and over again, double-checked all the info at least thrice, and asked Kiriko to make sure all of their equipment was in order. She promised to do so.
Ryōta approached her while she was sorting through lock picks to tell her that Mizuki was on the small balcony, having returned later than the others and somehow slipped past her.
“Shouldn’t you talk to him?” he asked. “Not that it’s anything deathly serious, but…Nobuto was a bit uneasy, too.”
She nodded curtly. “Yeah, I will. Thanks for the reminder.”
When she headed to the balcony, she noticed that the curtains in front of the glass doors were closed. She slipped past them, opened the door, and closed them all again.
Mizuki sat on the floor of the balcony, right in front of the railing, leaving some space behind him. His hat was on the floor by his side, and he held a good luck charm in his hand. He threw one glance at Kiriko when she came before going back to staring at the silhouette of the temple in the distance.
Kiriko leant on the door. “We should talk,” she said.
“Guess so,” he mumbled. He waited for a moment before adding, “The bastard should be fine, though. I did promise to heal them.”
“Thanks for that.” She crossed her arms. “I…panicked a bit too much.”
“Mm.”
“It’s just that—that we’ve vowed to be better than the Hashimoto. They don’t think twice about the lives of people who are no longer useful to them, so we should consider every human life equal. No matter how much I want to call them scum of the earth.” She sighed. She knew what to say, yet something made it all difficult to get out. “And the others agree with me. Killing is a harsh border we can’t cross. I’m sure you know where I’m going with this.”
“Yeah.” He cocked his head to the side, lifting his brow. “I was a bit too ready to leave that guy there, right? Can I defend myself?”
“Go for it.”
“I didn’t realise the wound was so deep. Since our pursuers were right on our tail, I thought they could handle it just fine. I should’ve known your throws are never half-assed.”
Kiriko looked at her hands—her spotless, clean hands. The only thing they were adorned by were some calluses and scars. She couldn’t even imagine blood coating them. In contrast, Mizuki talked about the possibility of death like it was the weather. It could have been simply his usual nonchalance, but she had to make sure.
“You don’t seem convinced,” he commented.
“No. Let me ask you a hypothetical.”
“Shoot.”
“Could you ever kill someone?”
He looked at her with curiosity. “No, I don’t think I could. I agree with the beliefs of this group.”
Her facial muscles were tense, frozen into a coldness she didn’t recognise in herself. “What if,” she started, “a Hashimoto was holding me hostage with a gun to my head?”
Mizuki’s eyes widened.
“Assume that I’m weak or tired, just completely unable to save myself. No one else is around but you. You could kill the Hashimoto and save me. If you don’t, I will die. Would you kill them?” she asked, crossing her arms again.
“…I didn’t think of that,” he said, and Kiriko huffed.
“You should. Is our cause one worth dying for or killing for?”
He didn’t reply and instead stared down at the floor by his feet.
His silence unnerved her, although it was entirely understandable. In Kiriko’s mind, the answer was crystal clear, but she had thought about it before. She was sure the others would have had to think about it, as well. However, unlike with the others, she had no way of guessing Mizuki’s immediate response.
Chin dropping down to his chest, he admitted, “I’m selfish, Kiriko.”
She narrowed her eyes, gripping her upper arms tightly. “Explain,” she demanded coldly. Her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else.
He sat perfectly still for multiple seconds, but when he spoke, he was quieter than usual.
“For most of my life, I haven’t been able to choose between equal options,” he started. “For what I have or do or say—for what I want. The path I’ve followed was laid out to me by fate.”
Kiriko stayed silent in her surprise at his story. She couldn’t believe he was telling it willingly.
He had always been the most paranoid of all the Yōkai. They had never seen his face, because even in their presence he always wore a mask. He didn’t speak of his past, never explained why he was familiar with the Hashimoto’s modus operandi or how they had hurt him badly enough for him to join the group. He must have been hurt, nothing else explained his demeanour.
They had an unspoken promise not to ask about any member’s personal affairs, but none of them were too afraid to share their histories, especially not if they concerned the Hashimoto. Mizuki’s reticence had nearly become a joke; they had bet on the fact that he would be the one they had to break that promise for to get him to say anything.
Watching him mull over his words, Kiriko couldn’t bring herself to tell him to hurry up despite their oncoming plans and those checks she had to run. It wasn’t the most important mission of their lives, but it was significant enough that she shouldn’t have ignored it. She had already messed up once that day, Ryōta would have chewed her ears out if she didn’t step up.
Due to her conflicting emotions, the Fox Spirit emerged by her side. When it set its eyes on Mizuki, it told her to be patient, and so she was. She wanted to honour whatever he confided to her.
He finally continued, “Before I came to Kanezaka, I spoke to a man. I was lost and asked him for guidance. He told me…” Mizuki trailed off, glancing once at Kiriko before looking at his feet again. He took a deep breath. “He told me he had faith in me—that I could build my own destiny.”
The presence of the spirit was strange. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but she knew she was missing something. She wondered if it knew, or if the presence was caused by its own confusion.
“Since I joined the Yōkai, I’ve been able to choose what I want in many things. It’s made me rather selfish.”
The Fox Spirit disappeared, leaving her without its guidance. Kiriko bit her lower lip, anticipating what he was about to say.
There were creases in the corners of Mizuki’s eyes when he closed them. She was sure he was smiling under his mask.
“So, if I were given the choice between saving someone that has become dear to me or losing them to uphold ideals—no matter how important those ideals are—I would kill a Hashimoto.”
Her voice cracked when she tried to say, “Mizuki—”
“You could kick me out afterwards, but I wouldn’t regret what I did. Not even if I knew it wasn’t what you’d wanted.” He laughed dryly, unfamiliarly. There was no humour to his voice, no sadness, just exhaustion. “I’d hesitate, though. I don’t want to end a life. But I would do it.”
Kiriko sniffled, wiping her eye with the palm of her hand. “Damn it,” she muttered. “This was supposed to be an easy question with only one right answer.”
Mizuki’s eyes creased even more. She hoped she could see him smile and laugh along with the others. “I enjoy being difficult”
“I can’t agree with your answer, but I can’t judge you for it, either.”
“The world would be much easier if everything was black and white.”
Something about his words made her smile, too. Perhaps it was the naïveté of the observation—one she knew they both disliked. They themselves belonged in the grey area, after all.
She walked behind him and sat down to the floor, leaning her back against his. To the glass door in front of her and the faint blue spirit which shone on its other side, she said, “And a whole lot less interesting.”
He shifted his position slightly, allowing her more comfort. “You’re right.”
Time was ticking. She needed to get going in just a few moments. Mizuki was aware of this, and though he was usually quite a stickler, he sat still.
Kiriko felt his back move as he breathed. It hit her with a strange thought. Despite their dangerous ambitions, despite Mizuki’s still unclear past, he was alive and present by her side. Despite the fact that he had yet to solidify his place in her everyday life, she couldn’t imagine a mission without him anymore. She couldn’t imagine sitting on Ryōta’s balcony in that moment with anyone else.
She pulled her knees up and hugged them lightly, whispering, “I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through.”
“It’s fine. I’m sorry, too.”
“…What for?” she asked, glancing at the sliver of him she could see in the corner of her eye.
Mizuki was quiet again. He lifted his head so that it was against Kiriko’s and leant some of his weight on her, too. “For being so selfish,” he whispered.
“I don’t think you need to apologise for that after that story.”
“If only you knew.”