Her heart pounded in her ears with terror. "Knife! He's got a knife!" Eshe called to the others.

Knives. A long-buried fear, a blocked memory, awoke deep inside her.

Another hand held the knife. The knife longer, but the edge just as keen. Daylight became night. The reflecting sun, firelight.

She spun and with a burst of speed left Masahiro behind her and passed Ruslan and Leora, leaping bits of detritus as she ran in an adrenaline-fuelled panic.

"Eshe!" Ruslan called, trying to slow her panicked flight. "Eshe!"

Her feet pounded the hot ground. Dirt path blended with concrete. The bins reached out to catch her like tree branches had so long ago.

Leora added her voice and called out, "Eshe! Please, don't leave us behind!"

"Eshe, my love!" Ruslan cried.

Sunlight pierced the dark recesses of Eshe's consciousness. A blink and she saw the concrete wall behind the grasping branches. Another blink and the dark receded.

Her eyes focused on the perpendicular grey walls. Dark blue bins. She dragged in a breath of the mixed scents of grease and refuse from the restaurants and bins instead of sun-baked dirt and foliage.

Her feet slowed and she stood, huffing, until the others caught up to her.

She looked past her friends and saw Joey and Eiji had gained their feet and begun to follow them down the alley.

Eiji raised an arm and flung it forward violently. His index finger ended pointing at them.

"Masahiro!" Eshe screamed, lunging futilely to protect their Japanese friend who was the farthest behind in their ragtag row.

He cried out in pain and stumbled to the ground, reaching up to cradle his upper arm. With shaking fingers he reached back and plucked something out, then brought forward the dagger that Eiji had pointed at Eshe. The point was slick with blood where it had stabbed Masahiro's flesh.

He looked up at them, tears of pain leaking down his face. His fingers tipped forward and the knife dropped to the ground with a clatter. Masahiro sat staring it, transfixed.

Ruslan rushed over to him and knelt down to examine his arm. "We're in luck. It's only a flesh wound. Let me bind it." Ruslan unzipped his costume and pulled out his T-shirt to tear the hem.

The ripping of the fabric and watching it being bound around the innocent arm of her newfound friend filled Eshe with righteous indignation, just as it had so many long years ago.

She would not be a victim. She would not allow anyone to harm her or those she loved.

Keeping an eye on the two men creeping towards them, she leaned the hoverboard against the wall and reached down to grope on the ground for something to throw.

Her hand closed around a can. The cry of rage she gave as she lobbed her metal projectile down the alley came from deep down in the well where she buried her reactions to the injustices she'd witnessed.

Ruslan, Leora and Masahiro ducked as the can flew overhead, turning to watch it's passage.

"Whoa..." Masahiro said when it landed almost at the feet of Joey and Eiji.

"Since I was homeschooled, my mother enrolled me in all sorts of sports teams. I excelled at anything with a ball."

She flipped open the lid of the nearest bin and got another empty can. Drawing her arm back, she let it fly. Eiji jumped backwards to avoid being hit. The thunk of it glancing off the ground followed by its empty rattles as it rolled away echoed down to them.

Eshe flicked her eyes between their pursuers and the bin as she looked for another missile.

Joey gesticulated wildly and Eiji sliced the air with his hand, pointing first at Joey, then down the alley, then at himself. Their heated conversation was too low for them to make out.

"What are they talking about?" Leora asked, leaning heavily on Ruslan's arm. Her skin was turning a more normal pinky colour.

"I imagine we'll find out soon enough." Ruslan turned to Masahiro. "Where do we go from here?"

Masahiro scrubbed at his face. "We be close to Namba station. There are many different roads we can go. It be just luck if they find we. I'm sorry my English. I cannot-" He pointed at his head and spun his finger then pointed at his tongue. "Too fear to make words good."

"We can understand. Don't worry. As for them finding us, we have to take that chance. This alleyway is like a tunnel of death unless one of these restaurant back doors are open."

She nodded at Ruslan who tried the doors near them and shook his head in the negative.

Eshe lobbed another can that hit Joey in the leg. He jumped in surprise and scowled at them.

Joey picked up the can and threw it back, but it fell far short of them which made him scowl deeper. He shouted indecipherably at Eiji.

"My uncle restaurant. He is very unhappy if Eiji go with we there. Eiji be a... I do not know English word." Masahiro paced back and forth rapidly. "He went in and get money. Even when he was disgraced. He attack my uncle's cooks many times. Hurt my uncle. Destroy many things in the kitchen. My uncle hate Eiji."

"Wouldn't he help us then?" Ruslan asked.

Masahiro bit his fingernails. "Yes, if possible to help then he be happy, I think, but it is big scary for him. If Eiji know we go there, then it be very bad for my uncle. Eiji come and do very bad to him. Maybe put fire in his restaurant. My uncle love his izakaya...his restaurant. It be his life. He have no family. Just me. And his cooks."

"We might have no other choice. Eiji isn't following us anymore. He's going back! Whatever we do, we have to do it now!" Eshe pointed.

The rest whipped around in time to see Eiji disappear around the corner at the alley's mouth. Joey continued down towards them, stopping to open a bin and root around until he pulled out a large piece of cardboard he held in front of himself as a shield.

Eshe hurled a takeout container that hit Joey's shield with a splat and left a streak of brown sauce across his head.

"You'll pay for that, Eshe!" Joey hollered. He used his forearm to wipe the sauce off but it just flattened his blond hair even further as if he was using some kind of dyed gel.

"Masahiro, just go and take us... wherever. Just lead and we'll follow. Please!" Eshe picked up the hoverboard then reached out and grabbed his sweaty hand.

"Yeah, because we have no idea where we're going without you!" Leora added wryly.

Masahiro glanced between them, his face etched with concern, sweat running down his face out of fear rather than heat.

Eshe gently squeezed his hand. "We only get what we can handle, Masa. You didn't ask to be with us, but you are. So that means that leading us is something that you can do." She smiled slightly and nodded in encouragement.

It was a belief that had gotten her through so many difficult moments. It was worth the few precious seconds to let him find the truth of it within himself.

"I believe in you," she said.

He searched Eshe's eyes for a moment. Then his shoulders squared off and he smiled back at her.

"We go to my uncle's restaurant. It's the shortest street to the close door we go to the train station. Get out your direction paper. You see it to someone if not with me."

Leora and Ruslan held up the papers they had yet to put away. As they broke into an awkward jog, Eshe unzipped her onesie and dug into the pocket of her jeans to get the paper it felt like Masahiro had given her hours ago. She held it up, clasped tightly between two fingers.

From the second position, Leora asked, "He wasn't serious, was he? About taking me and keeping me? H-h-h-hurting me? He couldn't actually do that? Could he?"

"Of course he must have been joking. We should call the police. He threatened Leora and threw a knife at us," Ruslan said to Masahiro beside him.

Eshe glanced back in time to catch the desolate expression on Masahiro's face when he lifted his head from watching his feet. Eshe almost missed a step and Ruslan clenched his jaw.

She was grateful the alley was clear enough she could glance back and forth to watch her companions behind her without worry of tripping over something.

"No," the Russian said. "He couldn't get away with that. The law-"

Masahiro slowly shook his head and glanced back to check on Joey behind them. "I see many movies with New York gangsters. The Yakuza not same. The law... it be different for Yakuza. I sorry. No words explain. Police not help."

Eshe met Ruslan's eyes, knowing the fear and concern she saw there would be reflected in her own.

She didn't think it would have been possible to make their situation any worse, but a madman intent on enslaving them who was outside the law?

Leora's lower lip was trembling and tears began flowing again.

Eshe dropped back slightly to run beside her assistant. She reached over and squeezed her elbow in encouragement. "I promise I'll do everything possible to get you out of this, Leora. I'm sorry you're scared. I'll take you on an amazing vacation, so just focus on that. Where do you want to go?"

She looked back to see Joey had broken into a jog to match theirs. "Speaking of which, where did Eiji go?" She realised they'd left behind the knife he'd thrown at them.

She caught a flurry of motion in her peripheral vision. "What-"

Before she could finish, Eiji had leapt out from the corner of the building and snatched Leora to him again. This time he held her chin aloft with the edge of another dagger.

"Ahhh!" moaned Leora as he pressed in with the tip and a tiny drop of blood ran down her throat.

"Now where did we leave off?" Eiji said. "I believe we were discussing why you'll do my bidding?"

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