know with the spooky ambiance and the monsters chasing us, it's actually a pretty good Halloween setup.

The stranger still dragged me across the street. Only a few people scattered around the place. So far, the fox hadn't object to my new friend,

"Speaking of which," I whispered as quietly as I could. "why aren't you freaking out by this?"

"I find no reason. You are a trouble magnet, anyway."

"You doing okay, Hopps?" The stranger questioned, not even breaking a sweat.

"I could ask the same for you," I took breaths between. "you're running like some sort of athlete. You have any family members who puts triathlon in their everyday life?"

He laughed, a deep, rich one. "You could say that. It benefits when you're running for your life."

Somehow with that sentence, a short, haunting sound rang almost everywhere. And by the kami did it smell horrible,

Gachi gachi.

"Damn. Not that...!" He muttered, letting go of my hand momentarily to rummage through his messenger bag. "Where's that charm when you need it..."

"Shouldn't we hide?" I panted.

Gachi gachi.

"Oh wait, terrible idea. We should keep running."

He didn't made a remark. He was multitasking right now: running, digging inside his bag, and glancing nervously around us.

"Should we stay and fight then?" I asked. "I'm already losing my legs from all the running."

He shook his head, still digging inside his bag. Out of fear, I willed my hands to light up with blue fire.

"It's behind us! Keep running!" The fox barked inside my head.

"And how nice of you to join in on the conversation!" I said sarcastically. I picked up the pace, silently swearing that if anything were to obstruct our path-

A police siren rang.

Damn.

A police officer stepped out of the car, flashlight in hand. The stranger made a not-so wise choice to stop. I followed, praying that the Mist was hiding the flames. The officer shone his flashlight at both me and the stranger, his expression clearly shows irritation,

"And what brings you kids to loiter around in the middle of the night." He said, more of a statement than a question.

"Evening, officer." Stranger said, still digging inside his bag. "What brings you to call us in?"

The officer looked impassively at us, then pocketed the flashlight only to bring out a notepad and a pen. "Didn't your parents' say young kids like you shouldn't loiter around at night?"

I opened my mouth to say something but Stranger gave me a look. He then smiled politely, making the choice to stop rummaging. "Oh, but I'm her legal guardian. We were simply on our way back home from a party."

The officer raised a brow. "A party this late?"

Stranger shrugged his shoulders. "You know how rambunctious kids are."

Gachi gachi.

The empowering smell was getting more noticeable, even Stranger can sense it. Trying to get in the act, I clutched Stranger's arm with both hands and bent my knees. "I want to go home now... My stomach doesn't feel so good." I moaned out.

The officer was unconvinced. He placed the notepad and pen back inside his pocket and ushered us to the police car. From there, I could see another man waiting for his partner.

"I've heard way better acting than yours. Come with us and tell your parents to-"

He didn't finish what he was saying. The police car's middle was crushed effortlessly by some sort of invisible force. The officer that was inside screamed and struggled, smacking the inside of what was left of the car. He continued to struggle even more when the passenger seat door snapped open. His panicked body floated from the car, which dropped on the ground carelessly. He must have not worn a seat belt, then. Before I could comprehend, Stranger ran forward, a slip of paper in his hands and planted it on an invisible wall.

He muttered something under his breath and backed off. The paper was a small, rectangular-shaped, slip that had some sort of Japanese symbols written in red ink. Then from thin air, patches of bones and decaying bodies started to appear. Those patches were outlining themselves to form a skeletal bottom half, then ribs, then-

"Holy-" I gasped. "It's a skeleton giant."

It knelt at 10-feet tall, with abnormally long limbs to add to that height. Its skull was brimming with rotten corpses anyone can smell from afar. A good thing Stranger placed that tag, the helpless officer was eaten whole by the thing. And I did not want to see that with the giant invisible.

Stranger took my hand and I didn't need that to run away from that thing. I felt sorry for the other policeman who had to stay back, assuming the gunshots I'm hearing were out of revenge or something.

"Don't bother," Stranger interrupted my thinking. "We can't beat a gashadokuro. Only thing we can do is go back to Camp Shinto."

"Finally," I heard the fox. "I've been waiting all my life for this."

"You aren't even helping!"

"So I'm afraid we never really introduced ourselves. I'm Rudo Afolayan, nice to meet you, dragon child."

I decided to rip out the mask. It was scratching my face anyway. "Kasumi Fujiwara, no introductions needed."

Rudo glanced back to make sure. When he did, he broke into a huge grin. "Aw dang! Kasumi Fujiwara in the flesh! Can I get your autograph later?"

"Camp Shinto! Now! Before giant skeleton gets us!" I screamed at him. He laughed once more and pulled out a metal object. He pressed his thumb against it and threw it on the ground. From that tiny piece of metal came out more metal parts, assembling and disassembling to form an entire rickshaw. Complete with silk cushions and an automaton driver. The entirety of it was metal, or Inari inggot as I recall, especially the wheels. The red collapsible hood covered the body with red seats to boot. The driver looked like a mannequin: no face, body parts connected to spherical joints and lanky body. But it was running just as fast as us.

I yelped when Rudo picked me up and tossed me on the seat. He followed suite, vaulting himself over the side only to whisper something on a metal piece. The driver began to run faster than before, making my entire body lean back. What was outside was nothing but a blur.

"This is it, Kasumi," Rudo smiled at me, eyes crinkling. "we're heading home!"