<div class="floatright">(http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l37/Narume13/Anime%20Guys/normal_happyboy.jpg)</div><em>”There he is, down the alley!”</em><br/><br/>“Oh shit!”  The kittyboy’s reply was entirely reflexive as four guys continued their pursuit.<em>So what if the yakitori wasn’t technically paid for?  If they were so careless to leave it unguarded at their table, then it’s their own fault if a dashing kittyboy happened to take it while passing by.</em>With the chase renewed, Manaki had no other choice than to flee further down the side alleyway looking for any place do dive into.<br/><br/><em>”We’re gonna kick your ass, thief!”</em><br/><br/>“You gotta catch me first!”  Manaki let out an excited laugh as he turned a sharp corner into another back alley and looked desperately around for a place to make good on his escape while he was out of sight.  It was there that he spotted an overgrown, abandoned lot and made a mad dash into the foliage.  While the overgrowth looked thick from the outside, but he was surprised by how quickly the resistance let up and was thrown off balance by it.  As he staggered forward, his foot caught the edge of a cobblestone step along a narrow walkway and it took all the concentration he had not to cry out in distress as he continued to stumble for several more paces only to crash through a row of wooden posts head first.<br/><br/>Manaki’s head swam for several moments before he had regained enough of his wits to notice his surroundings.  The iconography and décor had revealed that he was now lying in a small shrine, but the layers of dust and decay made it equally apparent that it had been a long time since anybody had stepped inside.  A low groan escaped his lips as he sat up, rubbing his throbbing head as he looked at the large stone bolder embedded in the back wall and was completely baffled by its writing.  As he started to move some more, he noticed the pieces of splintered wood scattered all around him; each having some sort of writing on it, but no longer legible without spending some time to put the pieces together.  Following the simple line of thought, his gaze turned back towards the entryway and the devastation he had wrought upon the wooden posts that sealed off the entrance.<br/><br/>There was no way he could have known that those boards had been erected hundreds of years ago and the once powerful wards had become delicate from centuries of neglect.  The secret of the shrine resided in the etched bolder before the thief, which was actually a sarcophagus used to entomb and seal away a powerful kitsune.  The destruction of the exterior wards caused a chain reaction that, while invisible to those who lack the talent for magic, caused all the other magical seals to fail.  For the first time in hundreds of years, the kitsune within the stone prison would awaken from her magical stasis and the material would be as brittle as chalk without the divine energies fortifying them.