Kanae didn't wait for three.

  She exploded outward. The closet door flew open as she lunged into a stray shopping cart parked in the cleaning aisle. Her pupils were still dilated to the edges of her irises, a lingering side-effect of the demon's marrow and the drugs.

  As she burst into the main floor, her expression was a terrifying mask of joyful, drunken madness. She let out a jagged, manic laugh, her dark hair whipping around her face like a shroud. She looked like a girl who had lost her mind to the "Blue Heaven" haze-a perfect, chaotic cover.

  "Wheee!" she shrieked, her voice high and distorted.

  She kicked off the floor with a desperate strength, the cart rattling violently over the linoleum. She bypassed the stunned cashier and the Agent, who stood with his weapon half-raised, momentarily paralyzed by the sheer absurdity of the sight.

  She hit the sliding glass doors at full speed, the cart bouncing onto the wet asphalt of the parking lot. She didn't stop. She steered the metal cage toward the darkness of the industrial district, her silhouette a blur of manic energy under the flickering streetlights.

  Behind her, the man in the shades didn't waste another second. He ignored the cashier and sprinted to a black, unmarked sedan idling at the curb. The engine roared to life, tires screaming against the pavement as he swung the car around.

  The chase was on.

  Kanae steered the cart into a narrow downhill alley, the wind biting at her face. She reached into her pouch, her fingers closing around the demon fragment.

  The shopping cart screeched, its small plastic wheels melting against the high-speed asphalt of the Kyoto perimeter road. Kanae stood on the rear axle, her jacket whipping behind her like tattered wings. To any onlooker, she was a "Blue Heaven" casualty lost in a manic peak, but her eyes were vibrating with a cold, predatory geometry.

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  The black sedan roared behind her. The Agent didn't just follow; he hunted. He floored the accelerator, the heavy grille of the car slamming into the back of the metal cart.

  Clang!

  The impact sent Kanae jolting forward, nearly throwing her into the road. She reached into her pouch. She didn't take a pill. She pulled out a handful of the heavy coins Sister Sam had given her.

  She twisted, throwing the steel at the car's tires-Miss. The steel sparked off the asphalt. She threw another. Miss. The wind was too high, her hands shaking from the drug's withdrawal.

  "Stop the vehicle!" the man's voice amplified through an external speaker, flat and metallic.

  Kanae didn't stop. She steered.

  With a sudden, violent shift of her weight, she leaned the cart into a hair-pin turn toward the industrial canal. The metal frame groaned, tilted on two wheels, and skidded across the wet pavement in a spray of orange sparks. The sedan swerved to follow, its tires screaming as it fought the momentum of the narrow turn.

  The Agent didn't flinch. He leaned out of the driver's side window, his face a wall of obsidian shades. He didn't aim for the wheels. He leveled a heavy-caliber handgun straight at Kanae's head.

  "Stop," his voice boomed over the wind.

  Kanae stared down the barrel, her heart a frantic drum. Then, the world tilted.

  From a side intersection, a massive delivery truck blew through a red light. It slammed into the side of the black sedan with a bone-crushing roar of twisting metal. The car was swept away like a toy, tumbling into a storm of glass and sparks.

  Kanae watched it happen with a haunting, empty expression-her face remained "normal," a hollow mask of indifference as the hunter was erased in a second.

  She turned her head back to the road, but the reprieve lasted only a heartbeat.

  Another black sedan was already there, idling in the center of the lane directly in front of her. It wasn't moving. It was a wall.

  CRASH.

  The shopping cart hit the bumper at fifty miles per hour. The metal frame disintegrated instantly. Kanae didn't hit the car; she was launched.

  She was propelled upward, the g-force tearing the air from her lungs. Higher. Higher. The streetlights became tiny dots of amber. For a moment, time stopped. She hung in the midnight sky, looking down at the entire sprawl of Kyoto-a sea of neon, ancient temples, and cold glass.

  The realization hit her. "AAAAAAHHHHHH!"

  Her scream was lost in the wind as gravity reclaimed her. She plummeted through the dark, the ground rushing up like a tidal wave. She shut her eyes, bracing for the end.

  THUD.

  It wasn't the bone-shattering slap of concrete. It was the heavy, yielding tension of weather-worn canvas.

  She had fallen directly through the split in the rear tarp of a massive long-haul delivery truck, a heavy- duty model surging down the highway toward the Chubu region. She slammed into a stack of high- grade grain sacks with a dull, muffled impact, a cloud of fine dust rising around her like a ghostly shroud.

  Up in the cab, the driver shifted gears, the deep rumble of the diesel engine vibrating through the floorboards beneath her. Through the gap in the tarp, she could see the glowing green reflection of a dashboard GPS. A digital voice droned over the hum of the heater:

  "Continue straight for one hundred kilometers. Destination: Nagoya-shi, Nakamura-ku, Meieki 1- Chome, 1-4. Estimated arrival: 04:30 AM."

  The truck surged forward, a blind iron chariot carrying a dying secret toward the heart of Nagoya.

  That's a wrap on Chapter 20! and the conclusion of "The Kansai Requiem"! Talk about a massive shift in gears-we went from a claustrophobic standoff in a supply closet to a sixty-mile-per-hour shopping cart chase through the neon-soaked perimeter of Kyoto!

  Just when it looked like the Agent was going to pull the trigger, Kyoto's traffic played the ultimate wild card. That massive delivery truck T-boning the sedan was pure cinematic chaos. But of course, Kanae's luck is a double-edged sword. Surviving a high-speed pursuit only to hit a stationary car and get launched into the stratosphere? That's exactly the kind of brutal, adrenaline-pumping punishment our Kunoichi is known for.

  Thankfully, gravity was a little kinder this time. After shattering ribs and fighting demons, landing in a mountain of grain sacks is the softest break Kanae has caught in a long time. But the quiet transit won't last forever. As the GPS drones on toward Meieki, our Kunoichi is unknowingly being ferried straight toward the heart of a new nightmare.

  ?? ANNOUNCEMENT: THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

  "END OF VOLUME 1: The Kansai Requiem. Thank you for reading! This is only the beginning of a 10- Volume Epic.

  Volume 2: "TOKAI BREACH"

  Releasing on March 21st!

  If this sky-high launch and grain-cushioned landing had your heart racing, please consider dropping a Follow, Rating, or Review! Your support is the "long-haul truck" that catches us and keeps us moving up the Rising Stars list!