1945

The daimao were revered as war gods. This was not without merit for, in the early days of the universe, they had acted as the enforcers of the elder gods, their foot soldiers in the crusade to bring order from the entropic chaos that existed before.

Though that was untold ages past and many generations removed, the instinct for battle still remained in their blood, much how a domesticated dog might still howl at the moon, even if it can’t remember why it is doing so.

So it was that Midnite awoke for the first time in three hundred years, drawn out of her slumber by a deep resonance within her bones that told her battle was afoot. It had been some time since anything of note had happened. The constant warring of the humans who lived upon the islands blessed by her kind had been amusing for a time, but soon grew tiresome. Mankind was a dedicated race when it came to slaughtering one another, but they seemingly lacked the creativity to be more clever about it.

Watching the same battle unfold time and again under different warlords quickly became uninteresting and, when it did, Midnite pulled back from the world so as to sleep, much like her brothers. In doing so, they dreamt, allowing their astral forms to visit myriad worlds and races, many of whom were far more interesting than those of Earth.

Something had changed, however. Midnite’s servants had noted that her sleep had been fitful this past century, but there had been no occurrences significant enough to wake her ... until now.

One such servant raced to his mistress’s side, wanting to be there when she rose so as to ensure her needs were tended to and her mood was pleasant.

Though Midnite was perhaps the most even-tempered of her siblings, it was well known among the many denizens of the celestial palace that it was never a good idea to allow a daimao to remain in an ill mood for long.

♦ ♦ ♦

“Mmm,” Midnite purred as she stretched. The sheets of mist and flame that covered her slid down her body, revealing her flawless alabaster skin. “Shitoro, is my...”

“I am here, my mistress,” the diminutive youkai replied eagerly, his head barely visible above the clouds that made up the mattress of Midnite’s bed. “I have your robe, and a bath has been drawn and is awaiting you.”

Midnite smiled and sat up. Shitoro had always done his best to make her happy, ever since she’d rescued him from a band of human hunters some fourteen hundred years earlier. The truth of the matter was, she found him to be adorably cute, but being that he was a tiger demon, albeit of much smaller stature than normal, she would never have insulted him by saying so. “I see my mighty guardian has been watching over me.”

“Now and always,” he replied proudly.

Midnite stretched again and yawned. “How long?”

“The barest of moments in the cosmos. One such as you would barely have time to blink in the...”

“How long, Shitoro?” Midnite asked impatiently. Though she was dearly fond of him, he could get caught up in the pomp and circumstance of his station from time to time.

“Three hundred and twenty-four years, by human standards.”

Midnite nodded absentmindedly. The daimao were a timeless race, the birth and death of stars barely a heartbeat for them. So there was some irony in relying upon the methods of such a low species to delineate its passage.

“Hmm,” she grunted, swinging her long legs out from under the sheets. It was, she noted, just barely a long enough nap for her to feel refreshed, but refreshed she was.

That wasn’t all, though. Along with a sense of being fully awake, there was something else, something deeper – an anxiousness in her bones that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Had something at long last changed in the world of man?

She reached out with her senses, probing. Yes, they were still near Earth. She’d have sensed the residual energy had the palace moved elsewhere in the universe.

Pity. It would be a welcome change.

Mankind had long since grown repetitively dull, so she wasn’t certain exactly what kind of disturbance from below could have possibly awoken her so abruptly.

“The planet hasn’t exploded, has it, Shitoro?”

Her servant raised one eyebrow. “Not to the best of my knowledge, mistress.”

Midnite stood, excess divine energy crackling off her body. Whatever it was she felt, she doubted it couldn’t wait for a steaming hot bath. Shitoro, ever vigilant, could fill her in while she enjoyed the feel of the boiling spring against her skin.

She allowed him to lead her to the bath, all while reaching out with her senses to the endless corridors of the palace. It didn’t take her long to realize she wasn’t alone. A few of her siblings were awake, too. Most were still slumbering, but even they were beginning to stir. Curious indeed. Had she alone woken up, she would have dismissed it as a quirk, bathed, and then perhaps returned to her bed.

If the others were waking up, though, then something was indeed happening. Midnite allowed herself a small grin at the thought. It had been dreadfully dull for so long. Perhaps the humans had finally become clever enough to catch their attention again.

Once she was nestled in her bath, she lay back and enjoyed herself, closing her eyes and slipping beneath the holy waters of the palace, enjoying the feel as it reinvigorated her senses and made the tiny horns on her head tingle.

After a time, when she felt she had soaked long enough, she turned to Shitoro. “Do you know the cause of our awakening, my friend?”

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“Oh, that?” he asked dismissively. “Just another war between the humans. Nothing more. You know their kind. Can’t even go a decade without slaughtering each other for sport.”

“Nothing more? Are you certain? I sincerely doubt some petty feud over water rights or arable land would have caused me to stir.” After a moment, she added, “Nor would it have awoken my siblings.”

Rather than answer, Shitoro did his best to look busy straightening towels, making sure the right amount of candles were lit, ensuring that the scalding water was the proper temperature – anything to seemingly avoid meeting his mistress’s gaze.

Midnite smiled at his backside. He truly was the most loyal of servants, but he was easily the poorest liar in the palace.

“What about the world of man bothers you?” she asked.

This seemed to catch the diminutive demon by surprise. “The outside world, my lady? Oh, that?” Midnite raised an eyebrow. Before she could prod him, he continued. “You may be surprised by the humans, mistress. They have ... changed. Their methods of waging war have evolved significantly, especially in the last half century.”

“Oh?” she replied lazily, her attention once more focusing on the soothing way the roiling water lapped against her skin. It was almost enough to make her want to doze off again. “Tell me, do they no longer use ships?”

“Yes, but they...”

“What about chariots? Have those, too, been discarded?”

“They have changed a bit, but...”

“Have the humans perhaps sprouted wings to take to the air?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then I do not see how different it could possibly be.” She closed her eyes and tried to lose herself in the comforting feel of the water against her body.

Despite her dismissive attitude, though, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something had indeed changed. Perhaps she’d been too quick to scoff at Shitoro. Alas, it would be beneath her station to apologize to a servant.

Some things simply were not done.

♦ ♦ ♦

Once Midnite had bathed, she made her way back so as to dress. Despite her boredom with mankind, it had been too long since she’d felt grass beneath her feet, enjoyed the smell of the wind as it carried through the fields. Her intent was to visit the blessed islands of the small world far below. Certainly a little time away from the palace would ease the odd calling inside of her.

She entered her audience chamber, planning on passing straight through, then stopped short as her breath caught. The entire room was filled with wind lilies, all of them in hand-carved vases of the finest jade. They were her favorite because, when in bloom, their scent was that of the night sky right after a storm. They were very rare, only growing in a small corner of a distant world at the far reaches of the stars. Only a few knew of their existence, and fewer still knew of her love for them.

Still, she repressed the whoop of delight she wanted to let loose. If these were here, then that meant someone had invaded her private chambers while she slept. It couldn’t have been Shitoro or any of her other servants. Though they could have used the crystals to travel such a distance, they would not have done so without her permission, even knowing it would please their mistress.

“Shitoro!”

She waited patiently for him to answer, her annoyance warring with a desire to breathe in the clean scent of the flowers. She was just about to call for him again, something that would certainly ignite her ire, when he answered sheepishly from behind her. “Yes ... m-my lady?”

From the way he stuttered, she immediately realized her mistake from earlier. Shitoro hadn’t been nervous about her questioning the state of the outside world. There had been something else bothering him. Midnite suspected what it was, but she wanted to hear it from him. “Who?”

“Who?” he repeated, drawing an annoyed sigh from her.

“Who placed these here? Was it you?”

“I ... helped arrange them, my lady.”

“If I wished to know that, I would have asked.” She put just enough steel into her voice to break the little tiger youkai’s nerve.

Almost as if on cue, he blurted out, “It was Ichitiro! He brought the flowers.”

Midnite closed her eyes and silently cursed in annoyance. Of course it was him. Who else would be so bold? Which of her other brothers would be so bull-headed as to refuse to take no for an answer? “And you let him in?” She turned to find the small demon sweating profusely. “Well?”

“After some ... persuasion on his part, mistress.”

Midnite didn’t need to ask what that meant. Ichitiro was another of the daimao. Her older brother, as a matter of fact. He was perhaps the most fearsome warrior to ever grace the multiverse, living to fight, excelling at battle. He was also a petty bully, prone to tantrums when he didn’t get his way, and not afraid to use violence as a means to an end.

Her heart immediately went out to Shitoro. She had little doubt he did his utmost best to bar the way, but it was a battle he’d never stood a chance at winning. Ichitiro outranked and outclassed him in every aspect imaginable.

No, that wasn’t quite true. Shitoro was kind where her brother was cruel. He was considerate where the ancient demon was selfish. Also, Midnite much preferred the visage of her little servant to that of her sibling. Ichitiro may have been powerful, but she found him repulsive to look at.

Nevertheless, that hadn’t stopped him from taking a shine to her. At some point in the last millennia, he’d decided they should be mated. It wasn’t unheard of among the daimao, and a pairing of powerful demons made for powerful offspring.

“Think of our future children,” he had once told her, lust in his greedy eyes. “They will be an unstoppable army, pouring forth across this world. We will enact the will of our masters through them, forcing any who oppose us to their knees.”

Love, tenderness, even base compatibility; these things meant nothing to Ichitiro. He had his own twisted interpretation of the will of the elder gods and was not to be dissuaded – not by his siblings, and certainly not by lesser beings.

No matter what empty flatteries he told her, she knew what he really wanted. Had she consented, he might’ve enjoyed her body, but she had no doubt it was a secondary prize to him compared to the Taiyosori – the blade of heaven, the sword of a thousand deadly cuts.

She let her eyes rise above the flowers to where the sword hung in midair above her throne, seeming to guard the way to her bedchamber beyond. If one were to study the weapon, one would quickly notice the notched blade, perhaps the sharpest edge in the entire universe, was semi-transparent. Inside appeared to be a universe of its own, full of swirling galaxies and twinkling stars. It truly was a marvel to behold, even among beings who had seen the births and deaths of worlds.

Midnite had purposely placed it there to vex her would-be suitor, both as a reminder of what he could not have, as well as knowing it angered him to see such a formidable weapon relegated to a mere decoration.

However, it was hers and hers alone to do with as she pleased. The Taiyosori had been gifted to her by the elder gods themselves. She thought back to the day it was first given to her, so many eons ago. Such a strange moment, cloaked in more questions than she had answers to. It was an experience she had never forgotten, one which was impossible to fully explain to her siblings, save for the knowledge that one of the gods had reached out and bequeathed it to her.

She found herself wondering how long Ichitiro had stood here, after forcing his way in, staring at the sword, debating whether to try and take it.

Midnite barked out a chord of laughter at the thought.

The elder daimao was a bully, but he was no fool. As much as he lusted after the weapon, he knew it would reject him as surely as she had. The blade would not acknowledge a thief as its master. It could be inherited, gifted, or won in honorable combat, but not stolen. Unfortunately, it could also be claimed through the union of two beings, their souls forged as one. Therein lay Ichitiro’s hope, a hope that she had no inclination to ever grace with anything remotely resembling serious consideration.

Continued thoughts of her brother angered Midnite, stealing from her the sense of ease she’d gotten from her long bath. These flowers, beautiful as they might be, were tainted. They would bring her no enjoyment, so she saw no need for them to remind her of the lout. With a wave of her hand, the wind lilies all burst into blue flame, burning nearly as hot as a star for a scant second, until not even ashes remained.