The blood drained from Aiko's face. Fumi Kageyama's cold, knowing smile was a declaration of war. It was a predator's smile, a look that said, I have you exactly where I want you.
"Kaito," Aiko's voice was a choked whisper into the comms. "She knows. She's looking right at the camera. It's a trap."
Kaito's voice in her ear was instant and sharp as ice. There was no panic, only pure command. "Ryo. Abort. Leave everything. Get out. Now."
But it was too late.
On Aiko's monitor, the entire cafe moved at once. The two laughing tourists by the door suddenly stood up, their smiles gone, their bodies blocking the exit. The quiet man who had been reading a book looked up, and the object he pulled from his jacket wasn't a wallet. It was a knife. The friendly baristas behind the counter turned, their faces hard and empty. The entire cafe, the patrons, the staff—they were all Kageyama soldiers.
Aiko watched in horror as her operative, Ryo, realized he was surrounded. He stood up slowly, his hand moving cautiously inside his jacket.
"The exits are blocked," Ryo's tense voice reported through Aiko's earpiece.
And then, the cats began to move. All of them. The fluffy calico in the window, the sleek black cat that had been sleeping on a chair, the half-dozen others that had been roaming the room. They all stopped what they were doing and turned to face Ryo. They moved in perfect, unnatural unison, their eyes glowing with a faint, malevolent green light. They formed a silent, purring circle around him.
"What's happening?" Aiko breathed.
"It's the Bakeneko's power," Kaito's voice was a low growl. "It controls the lesser spirits. The cats are its eyes. He can't move without it knowing."
On the screen, Ryo was trapped. Fumi Kageyama slowly stood up from her table, her cold smile never leaving her face. She raised one wrinkled finger and pointed at him.
The camera feed from inside the cafe suddenly dissolved into a screen of pure static.
"Ryo? Ryo, report!" Kaito commanded.
There was a sharp cry of pain over the comms, a sickening crunch, and then… absolute silence. The connection was dead.
Aiko stared at the dead screen, her heart a block of ice in her chest. "Kaito?" she whispered. "What happened? What do we do?"
She could hear Kaito breathing on the other end of the line, a steady, controlled sound that did nothing to hide the cold fury she knew he was feeling.
"They've taken him," Kaito said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "The entire operation was a trade. They let us take the backpack. They knew we would. The contents are meaningless." He paused, and Aiko could feel the rage building in his voice. "They traded a bag for one of my men."
As if on cue, the laptop screen in front of her flickered back to life. The static was gone, replaced by a black screen and a single line of white text.
A knight for a pawn. Your move, Ishikawa.
The message was a spike of ice through Aiko's heart. They had sacrificed their own treasurer's reputation and a fortune just to capture one of Kaito's operatives. It was a personal, brutal message.
Aiko looked at the door, expecting Kaito to return, defeated and angry. But the voice in her ear was not the voice of a beaten man. It was the voice of a king whose castle had been breached. It was the voice of a man about to unleash a storm.
She heard him speak, not to her, but to Kenji, his voice a low, vicious command that made her shiver.
"Kenji. The backpack we just acquired. I want its contents broadcast. Every news station, every blog, every screen in Shibuya Crossing. In one hour."
Aiko could faintly hear Kenji's shocked protest through Kaito's mic. "But, sama… the contents… the chaos it will cause… the treaty with the other clans..."
Kaito's reply was the scariest thing she had ever heard.
"Burn the treaty."