Winds howled, thunder roared and a solid curtain of rain washed the walls of the Marine Palace. In the guest room of Mars' suite, Nura got up from the couch.

“It’s time,” he said, turning to Chusei.

His last loyal retainer nodded, taking out a black crystal from the inner pocket of his waistcoat. If Veer was here, he would be surprised at how the man had managed to keep it on his person despite the thorough search he had been subjected to.

Nura took the crystal from Chusei. The light of the smokeless torches did not glint off its edges as it would off an ordinary crystal, nor did the crystal split the light into seven colours. Instead, sitting on Nura’s palm, it dyed his pale skin dark with colourful shadows. And, if one were to strain their eyes, they would find a jet-black flame burning quietly in its depths.

“I’ve kept my part of the bargain,” said Nura, bringing it up to his lips. “I hope you’ll keep yours.”

The fires of the smokeless torches suddenly burnt black, plunging the room into an impenetrable darkness. The emotionless voice of a woman sounded within the shadows. It had an odd, echoing quality that made it seem like there was more than one woman speaking at once.

“I will.”

The shadows contracted, coalescing into a circular portal on one of the walls with small tongues of dark flame burning at the edges. Turning his gaze back to his palm, Nura found that the crystal had disappeared.

Closing his empty fist, he took purposeful strides towards the portal. It was finally time to mediate his grudge.

Chusei called out to him just before he passed through the portal. “Be careful, Lord,” he said.

Nura paused. Turning to look at the man who had given everything up to follow him into his self-imposed exile, he smiled. “Don’t worry, I will.”

Then he walked through the portal…

… and emerged on the other side, in Ragyo Kirin’s cabin.

“We meet again, father-in-law,” he said.

Ragyo sat in seiza in the centre of the room with his eyes closed and his palms crossed upon his lap. Slowly opening his eyes, the head of the Kirin clan took in the sight of the smokeless torches that now burnt with a depressing grey fire that had leached all the colour out of the room, turning it into a greyscale mirror of itself. His gaze paused slightly on the circular patch of darkness that had appeared on one of the walls before finally resting on the tall, lanky man standing in front of it.

The pupils of his violet eyes shrunk slightly, then returned to normal.

“I see that you are still alive,” he said calmly.

“Despite your best efforts,” Nura replied.

“Not my best… but close.”

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“Must have been expensive.”

“Hiring a Demigod generally is.” Ragyo inclined his chin towards the shadowy portal hanging behind Nura. “What price did you pay?”

“A commitment.”

Ragyo raised his eyebrow. “Really?”

Nura nodded. “One I fulfilled just now.”

The corner of Ragyo’s mouth curved up. “It seems your life is quite cheap.”

“No, I still owe her for that,” said Nura. “This one was just for making a portal to your cabin and for concealing the fluctuations caused by our fight.”

“Her, huh?” Ragyo sighed and got to his feet in a leisurely manner before brushing off his clothes. “I guess I should expect it from a Tamer. They always do seem to know how to get a woman on their side.”

Some of the hatred he bore seeped out into Nura’s voice. “Maybe, if you didn’t try to separate them from their husbands, they would listen to you too.”

“Maybe,” shrugged Ragyo.

“Anyway,” he said, “if you had just stayed away, I would never have realized that you were still alive. I don’t know how you convinced a Demigod to heal your soul and even camouflage it so it seems like your bond to the rest of your wives has snapped, but since you are here…” His violet eyes flashed with electricity. “Die!”

Nura staggered back clutching his chest, his eyes wide. His heart had suddenly stopped beating.

His back hit the wall and he slid down it as he felt like his legs had turned to jelly. His line of sight began to contract as darkness started eating into his vision from the edges. His breath hitched in his throat and thinking became a chore as blood stopped flowing to his brain.

Suddenly, prompted by the threat of death, his bloodline activated and two crystalline horns grew out of his temples. His spine curved and his body jerked as vibrant green tendrils of electricity arced down from his horns to his chest and sank into his heart, jump-starting it. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath as blood rushed through his veins again.

He swiftly clambered to his feet, his skin already catching the tell-tale sheen of bronze and jet-black feathers shot through with gold sprouting from his neck and back as he morphed into his battle- form. Unlike the last time he had transformed during his confrontation with the Kirin twins, his build remained the same.

Ragyo watched him dispassionately with his hands clasped behind his back.

“You stopped my heart,” gasped Nura. “How?”

Ragyo scoffed and stamped down with his right foot, blindly bright streaks of violet lightning spread out from the point of impact. His shadow twisted and screamed soundlessly like a living creature before it was mercilessly burnt away. When the light dissipated, all that was left was an ordinary patch of darkness pooling around his feet under the effect of the grey light of the Demigod level blockade. “I would commend you for trying to distract me if your acting weren’t so shoddy. Not to mention, the flaw in your defences was a bit too obvious.”

The shocked expression on Nura’s face melted away like a dream. “I guess so.”

Digging up the past exploits of the Kirin head had been easy. The man had been quite active in his youth, fighting against the giant monsters that encroached often from the seas – the Kaiju. His favourite mode of attack had been stopping the hearts of the beasts, causing them to drop dead in their tracks. He had famously earned quite a fortune from selling the perfectly preserved hides of the monsters he hunted.

Nura had hoped to catch him off guard by baiting him into using his favoured mode of attack.

Ragyo shook his head. “I have been fighting since you were a twinkle in your father’s eye. You have no mana, yet you stand with confidence in front of me. It was quite evident that you had something to depend on. I just didn’t think it was turning yourself into this abomination.”

Unclasping his hands from behind his back, he reached to his side and untied the drawstrings of a pouch hanging from his belt. A stream of fine metallic powder tumbled out of its mouth and hung suspended in the air – the amount of powder far more than what such a tiny pouch should be able to hold. The Kirin overlord inserted his hand into the cloud of metal and pulled it out, the particles sticking together to form a silvery katana, the hilt held firmly in his grasp. Jagged streaks of electricity ran up and down the length of the blade, making it vibrate with a quiet hum.

Without a word, he stepped forward. Disappearing in a flash of lightning, he reappeared behind the Shogun’s back and chopped down with all his might.