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(Don't mind this, these are some of the original posts from Falling From Heaven as requested by Seth.)

"s**t!" Touku hissed as his coat caught on a nail and yanked him backwards. It was mid-afternoon, almost evening, and he did not want to make today the day that he messed up and got caught by the wannabe-yakuza gang. His coat tore as he yanked away from the loose wood holderand dashed down around the corner to the next street at full tilt. His berret only showed a glint of distinguishing dog ears. Hell, if it weren't for the fact that he kept his collar flipped up, the fact that he did not have ears in the proper area for the average human would have given him away. Except, heh, he wasn't the only person in town with the odd features befit for a hanyou (or, loosely, that's what they wre called) half-demons. Funny how that worked when you were different from anyone. If you were born of two people from a different race and looked anything short of elf, you were a demon. Oh, no, a half-demon. Such a less insulting insinuation. Buttons had popped open, bursting from when the leather was yanked away from his skin, revealing the ivory chest beneath. Otherwise, his skin would have been hidden. The fox-mask, the buttoned coat, the well kept blue jeans that were patched where he had ripped them before...

Salvation. He saw it in the form of a pretty young girl with dark, almost blue hair, right in front of a nice, dark alley as she was passing by. All he had to do was stall long enough to get away, right? The smooth black leather of his gloves reached out as he passed, fingers ensnaring the arm of the girl he passed and yanking her unceremoniously into the alleyway. It was graceful, he was sure, when he spun her so she wasn't facing hum but facing forward and released her, including the hand that had clasped over her soft lips to muffle any noise that might come out in the surpirse of being manhandled so roughly. "Please," the word came out a desperate hiss from behind the fox mask he donned, "all I ask is that you don't make a noise of start, and if those men ask if you've seen someone like me, you tell them to go another way." He didn't know what to offer her that might make it worth her while to help him, and that made him suddenly very nervous. If he got in a fight, Riki would certainly rip his liver out. Especially if his elder sister knew that he was the little thief that was starting s**t among her own ranks.

"If you do this for me, I swear," He put heavy emphasis on it as he backed away from her into the dead-ended alley so that he was less obvious, "You can do anything you want with me. Promise. Hit me, slap me, make me bring you a certain amount of money. I don't go back on my word!" He sounded a little desperate, no doubt. It made him feel only slightly more pathetic than he should have--but at least he had a mask to hide behind.

Sure enough, he dashed behind the dumpster just in time to hear the two men approach, engulfing him in height but they were much smaller in bulk. He could take them if the need arose, but he would certainly leave with a few choice cuts from those crummy excuses they for katana in their hands, and that's all it would take to make Riki aware. He wasn't so scared of losing to the thugs--he was scared of Riki. He crossed his fingers as he sat there, beads of sweat inching down his face beneath that mask, hoping that he hadn't angered the blue haired girl too much with his rough yanking of her arm to want to help.

"Have you seen a kid run by here--got a black coat on and a fox mask? Real hard to miss?" One of the men's scratchy voices echoed through the alley as he attempted, with beaten katana in his left hand, to employ as much intimidation in the question as possible. He stood about 6' 2'', with his buddy only losing to him by a short inch. They were well known to belong to the gang in town that tended heavily toward the old fashioned 'life insurance' kick. They made their living by messing up people's shops and telling them that the only way to keep them from doing so was a weekly fee. Of course, some shopkeeps were just too smart or powerful for them--hell, a right few could beat the little punks right out of their shops when they wanted to, but that didn't save the baker or the carpenter, or many other elderly shopkeeps that were much less sturdy or had young children subject to threat.

The kikou gang owned the town, and they knew it. Hence why they were such dumb assholes about it, even their own leader didn't approve.