Chapter 25: A Fox!

When Gu returned, his eyes stared straight at the manager as he set a metal box on the table. Wu's eyes widen in surprise as he stared at the box with wide eyes before turning to the manager with a scowl that surprised everyone. This was the first Willow had seen him angry as well. It looks like his anger is more of a quiet one than a loud one.

"If you shake the box," Mister Gu stated with a scowl of his own, "You can hear shuffling inside as well."

"But, how did the money got inside?" Qi glanced over to willow in bewilderment.

Willow shrugged, "Ask the person we saw last night?"

"The person..." The manager stared at her with deep confusion, "That wasn't a person. You said it wasn't a person!"

"But you saw him too, mister manager." Willow said with a wide smile and pointed to the door with her thumb offhandedly, "If you want someone to prove my alibi, you should ask him."

There was a moment of silence when there was laughter erupting from the door. Shocked senselessly, Si turned to the manager with a glare, "What did you see last night?! Hurry and tell us!"

"I-I-"

Hearing the man's laughter, the manager couldn't find his words as his mind blanked out with fear of the unknown. However, Si didn't wait for his words and grabbed the man's collar, "What did you see?!"

Finally snapped out of his stupor, the manager shouted, "A-A fox!"

It was then that the wooden door flew open. What stood before them was a tall man in casual k-pop shirt and jeans standing before the doorway with his hands in his pocket. With a smirk, the man with the long black ponytail walked in.

People probably wouldn't have noticed him with his head lowered. However, the man stared at them with startling blue eyes and two fluffy black tails spread out from behind as a pair of fluffy black ears flicked on top of his head of neatly brushed hair. Seeing him smirk, Willow sighed as she muttered quietly under her breath in English, "Show off..."

Rather the man heard her or not, the fox man didn't show. However, his eyes were glued on the manager and the people as he smirked wider and said in English, "Nighty night."

Suddenly, all six people around her fell to the ground around them. Seeing this, Willow sighed, "You didn't hurt them as promised, right?"

The fox man turned to her with a shrug, "Of course not. I kept my word. But, for your favor..."

As he stepped forward in his sneakers, Willow held out her palm faced at him making him stop while she rested her chin on her other knuckle with the elbow rested on the small side table. She smirked, "I wouldn't come closer if I were you."

The fox man raised a brow and stared at her with a trace of amusement from the glint of his eyes. She smiled wider, "I strongly recommend not coming over."

This time, the man's eyes widen upon realization. He laughed and said shaking his head, "The stupid old man picked the wrong person to be his victim. To think he came upon someone of the other side."

"Now, now." Willow sighed, "Let's just leave that to the old man. Now for my favor..."

Hearing her words, the fox man watched her curiously. She took out her wallet and placed a few bucks on the table next to the wallet. She continued, "Take this and buy the appropriate medication for the child in the photo. They need to be herbal medicine and the child must take it. It'd be a shame should the child throw it up simply because he can't keep the medicine down."

She glanced down on the people and asked in English, "So what did you do to the humans?"

"They'll be fine." The fox waved his hand in disgust as he waved a hand. A cold gust of wind flew in and, in a blink, the six people vanished before her. The fox man continued as he took out the photo from the manager's wallet, "I just twisted their memories a little bit. Anyway, why show consideration for those humans? I understand the child, but the old man as well?"

Willow sighed with a shrug, "Who knows? The manager's movements and work were so sloppy that I couldn't stand it. He'll have to fix that later on. It's just too bad that living beings can't understand sufferings enough and trapped themselves into a cycle of hate and grief. Had it not been for the Nanking incident nearly a century from now, he probably wouldn't have been influenced this way."

"Not just him." Willow added, "Even if the surface were to be calm, there will be occasional ripples on the water. What happened in the past will forever haunt the living and lure them into the neverending cycle. In our current time, there has never been more ripples than there were throughout history. It's only that the ripples are too much for them to bear to become waves. Even now, there are still those ripples in the people who lived through those times. Forever maintaining silence till it becomes too much to bear."

"Wounds that would need many years to heal." She sighed and continued, "For those from the coast and that country. Even now, the dominoes are still continuing to fall. I wonder how long it will be before a human or demigod chooses to step in to catch it?"

"It'll be interesting to see how they go about catching it, though." The fox smirked as he heard her words, "So, how would you know if I'll do as you say?"

"I think if it's you, it'll be all right." Willow replied with a small smile, "If you want, I'll get you another fruit sandwich? Or do you prefer fried tofu, Mister Kitsune?"

The kitsune hummed casually before he chuckled, "I got a better idea. The name's Akira. What about you?"

Willow raised a brow but responded curiously, "I'm Willow."

She thought for a bit before continuing with a shrug, "I'm a former member of the Li family."

The fox man smiled, "You did say you've cut yourself away from the family line."

As he smiled a bright flash of light shined between them catching Willow by surprise as she stared at the man the moment the light died away.

"What did you do?" Willow raised a brow.

"You'll see." The man smirked and a sudden breeze flew by blowing her ponytail into her face much to her irritation.

When she could see again, the man was gone and so was the money and the photo. Instead, the wallet was left behind and the door left open. Seeing this and the set of concrete stairs outside, she raised a brow. Just what did the man-

No. Just what did Akira do?

She stared at the entrance for a bit more before she shrugged and got up. She went back to the women's room and grabbed her duffel bag and belongings before leaving the place. In the end, she still lost quite a bit of her allowance...

Willow was sitting at the wooden bench with a meat bun in her hand as she munched away at it. Though they had spent nearly an hour in the hostel, she was surprised to discover that that little fox had separated the entire room from reality and time.

When she left, she saw that it hadn't even neared the afternoon when she came out. On the other hand, she smiled seeing that she didn't end up using more precious items for her little barrier in that room.

She felt that something would be off when she came across sight of the black fox, so she used a marker she had replaced the ink with concentrated liquid extracted from various herbs that took her over the course of two weeks to gather and concentrated.

She then had to replace the ink with the liquid once the liquid cooled and she had to learn that the hard way mixed with pain on the shin.

It was a good thing that everything worked out and the knowledge she attained from her teacher's book came in handy. Not just that, she may also need another book on magic after the next couple of weeks. So far, she's learned a bit on the uses of herbs in magic and formations to draw. Yet...

She sighed as she stared hard the words on the blue book in her hands. Thankfully, she's gotten used to her teacher's handwriting, but that didn't help when it came to this type of magic.

Willow shook her head with a small grumble under her breath till she felt some static current behind her and glanced back only to find a small black bundle curled up on the dirt ground. She raised a brow the moment it looked up at her, "After what I told you, I thought you'd keep your guard up."

"What's that suppose to mean?!" The small black bundle glanced up at her with a low growl.

"If anyone could casually touch me, I'd be dead already." Willow responded with a sigh, "You don't get that? That's why you should keep an eye on your surroundings, Akira."

With that, she got off the bench and grabbed a hold of the fox in her arms before stuffing it into her duffel bag.

"Hey! What are you-?!"

Willow stuffed a fruit sandwich she mashed together into his mouth and shrugged, "We shared our names, right? Which means you know follow me now. If the driver saw you, none of us are getting on that bus."

"So, you do know the rite between a spirit creature and magicians." The fox grumbled as he stuffed his mouth with another mouthful of the sandwich.

"I looked it up." Willow answered having already read one of the books her teacher lent her, "That and you now don't have the ability to take control of my movements, but that's not what you were making the contract for, right? Guess these many years of life have been boring for you?"

Hearing this, the fox looked up to her with a mischievous glint in his eyes and almost a smirk across his face, "Ha! You know me so well and we've only known each other for a few days!"

Willow shrugged and partially closed the duffel bag as she got up from the bench the moment she noticed the large bus driving up to the bench of the bus stop. Willow then poured hot water from her thermal onto the place where she drew the pattern of the magic circle. She tightened up the mask around her face and got on the bus.

After inserting the money in the machine, she glanced at the driver, who was busy reviewing their next destination, and made her way to the back. The bus was fairly empty and slightly warmer than that had been outside.

It was only after they had taken a seat and she placed her bag next to her feet that the fox stuck out his head and said in a hushed voice, "So, where are we going?"

"You'll see." She responded casually.

"You do know that you're being followed, right?" Akira asked stuffing the last of his sandwich in his jaws.

"Of course." Willow said with a sigh, "Don't I always?"

"Know you get followed? Attract trouble?"

She smirked as she glanced down at the fox now cleaning his paws, "What do you mean attract trouble? They just have too much time on their hands."

"So, what?" Akira looked up at her with a curious glint in his eyes, "You gonna take their lives?"