The bike moved along at a very decent clip, faster than even the average racing cycle could manage. Naomi had created it with his glove with speed in mind, so it worked like a souped-up e-bike with its speed limiter removed.
A motorcycle or car might’ve been faster choices, but just because he could make one of those didn’t mean he knew how to drive them. The last thing he needed was to get them in an accident. The bike was the best option he could think of on the spur of the moment.
He guessed they were going about forty kilometers per hour, much faster than anyone, or anything, on foot could normally keep up with.
Unfortunately, their pursuers were far from normal.
Naomi shot a quick look over his shoulder. He could see a great mass of the fox-masks chasing after them, but they were pretty far behind. He was at least a little faster than them on this thing, so the gap was growing steadily.
A moment later, though, more masked things appeared out of nowhere just behind the bicycle. They lunged, and Naomi yanked the handlebars sharply to one side, heading for a side road—but a new group of fox-masks appeared there and lunged for them again.
They were starting to appear out of thin air now. That was new.
“The AllTale’s region of influence is steadily expanding,” explained his glove calmly. “In any region under its direct control, they can spawn at any coordinates.”
“That’s just cheating!” Naomi shouted, weaving his way around the newest group of enemies. Who ever heard of a game of tag where you were allowed to teleport on top of people?
Pedaling fiercely down the city’s narrow side streets, he turned at every intersection he came to, avoiding the fox-masks as best he could. He’d been heading steadily down Karasuma Street at first, but they seemed to be herding him away from it at an angle.
Eventually, he found himself barreling toward a wide-open area—Horikawa-Gojo, a great swath of asphalt surrounded by a square pedestrian bridge.
Two major thoroughfares met here, one five lanes wide, the other six. This was one of Kyoto’s single biggest intersections. On an ordinary afternoon, there should be dozens of cars crossing it constantly, but right now there wasn’t a single one on the road.
There were, however, a truly massive number of fox-masks standing on the far side.
Naomi squeezed his handbrake with all his might, and the bicycle slid to a halt in the very center of the intersection. Turning in his seat, he looked around. The west, east, and south roads were all packed solid with walls of masked bodies. When he turned back to the north, he saw that the group pursuing him was closing in quickly.
There was nowhere left to run.
Naomi swallowed nervously and looked at the palm of his glove, hoping for some kind of hint. Was there any chance he could win this fight? He just didn’t know.
Given his current capabilities, dispatching ten or twenty of these things wasn’t much of a challenge. He felt confident he could take fifty at once, or even a hundred. But fifty thousand? A hundred thousand? He wasn’t so sure about that.
He needed to keep Ruri safe no matter what. That made the situation considerably more dangerous. Even if he destroyed 99,999 of them, if a single one got through, that might be all it took. There was just no guarantee he’d catch every trick they pulled and wipe them out completely.
That was why he’d hoped to outrun the fox-masks and escape. Stopping to fight just meant more risk.
Naomi could feel his stomach clenching.
Ruri sat quietly behind him on the bicycle, her arms still wrapped around his chest. He didn’t need to see her face to know that she was terrified.
Naomi squeezed his gloved hand into a fist. He had to do this. He’d destroy all 100,000 if he had to.
Just as he prepared to make his first attack, he heard a series of dull thumps in the distance. He turned toward the north side of the intersection as the sound grew louder.
Within the massive crowd of bodies, Naomi saw a bunch of them suddenly thrown into the air. Something was cutting directly through the fox-mask army, sending them flying as it went.
It broke free from the phalanx of fox-masks, and Naomi saw what it was—a car. The tires screeched loudly as it entered the intersection, and it came to a skidding halt just in front of Naomi’s bicycle.
The driver’s-side window slid open.
“Get in!”
Naomi froze just for a moment.
“Hurry up, damn it!”
Snapping out of his daze, Naomi quickly hopped down, took Ruri in his arms, and jumped into the back seat with her. The car accelerated fast, pressing them both against the leather.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
A series of dull impacts rocked the car, and dozens of fox-masks went flying by the windows. It was honestly a horrific sight. This wasn’t something anyone could do if they thought those things were human.
Lucky for them, the driver knew they weren’t.
“Sensei?” Naomi called tentatively from the back seat. He had so many questions on the tip of his tongue, but somehow they all fit inside one word.
Why?
Why was he here? Why was he helping them? Why should they trust him after what he’d done?
Why, Sensei?
“We’ll take her back to the world where she belongs.”
Naomi’s eyes went wide. He wished he could see the look on Sensei’s face. He tried to see in the rearview mirror, but the angle was all wrong.
“It’s my fault things turned out this way, you know?” Sensei continued, without any of the usual confidence in his voice. “This isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to put her through this. I just…” He paused, then spit out all at once, “I just wanted to see her smile again.”
It was the same reason he’d given Naomi right after they’d met, up on the rooftop. The very same.
“I just want one smile.”
“Just once, I want to see her really, truly happy.”
He’d been telling the truth.
When he’d first said it, Naomi could only understand the surface meaning of his words. But now, he knew everything. He knew how desperately Sensei wanted to see that smile, and how much of himself he’d give up for a chance; he’d worked and plotted for ten whole years, burned his body and paralyzed his leg. And he’d never regretted it for a moment. There was nothing more precious to him in the entire world. Nothing. And he was going to give it back.