Page 115 of Dragon 7

Rin raced up the center. He moved through the gap between us so fast his white clothing blurred. His two hooked-braids whipped behind him.

As soon as he got close to the top, one man grabbed his arm and screamed in pain, falling back into the plane.

Rin's right braid caught the second soldier across the jaw. The hooked blade tore through skin and the poison followed. The man’s hands flew to his face, he screamed, and his skin began to bubble before he hit the step.

Rin's left braid whipped sideways and took a third man across the throat. The man dropped his weapon, and grabbed his own neck and the blistering started immediately—swollen welts rising across his skin, green pus breaking through the surface.

Rin moved higher.

Each step was a kill.

Each braid whipped left or right and every man it touched fell gasping, clawing at their own flesh, tumbling down the shaking staircase and off the edge into empty air.

Thank you, Rin.

A man lunged at Rin with a knife. Rin sidestepped on the shaking metal, grabbed the man's wrist with his bare hand, and held it. The man's skin began to blacken at the contact point. Rin pushed him off the railing and the body spun into the dark below.

And thank you, Deja.

The entire staircase cleared in seconds. Bodies fell in the air like fruit from a shaken tree—blistered, screaming, grabbing at wounds that swelled and split. Rin stood near the top of the ramp with both braids swinging at his back.

Reo was two steps below him, reloading his guns and doing his best to hold on.

The plane trudged forward as the staircase cranked and vibrated.

The forest canopy spread beneath us like a dark ocean. We were too high. The trees looked small. The ground had become a death sentence.

Yoichi stood three steps below Reo. He had kept his gold kitsune mask on, and his body was angled toward the hatch with a calm that made the wind and the shaking metal and the screaming engines feel like background noise in someone else's war.

The seven of us were all that remained on the stairs—Rin, Reo, Yoichi, the twins, Hiro, and me.

No one else was jumping tonight.

"Go!" I screamed over the wind.

We ran up the remaining steps. The ramp shook so violently that each step was a gamble. The metal shrieked at the bolts. Wind tore at our masks and our clothes and tried to rip us off the stairs.

Rin reached the hatch first. He was two steps ahead of the twins and Reo, three ahead of Hiro, four ahead of me. The white of his clothing blazed against the dark interior of the plane. His braids swung behind him as he planted one foot on the hatch’s threshold.

The shot came from inside.

A bullet punched through Rin's chest and left his back.

And then more bullets slammed into Rin.

“No!” I ran up.

One.

Two.

Three dark bloodied-flowers opened across the white fabric of his back.

His feet left the threshold. His arms opened wide. His head tilted toward the sky as his spine curved away from the hatch.

His braids trailed behind him like two dark ribbons. The red flush on his cheeks caught the landing lights.

And then gravity took Rin.