Kuro stared at Ren, then down at the bronze mirror under one arm. The bronze mirror that was currently sliding down out of his loose grip. The bronze mirror that was about the hit the dirty floorboards.
He dropped Ren’s hand, grabbed the mirror and shoved it at Ren. “Take it, take it, take it!”
Ren fumbled at the mirror while Kuro removed his fingers. The mirror fell. Kuro screamed silently.
No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening. Not again! He couldn’t destroy another Imperial Regalia. He just couldn’t do that to Ren.
The mirror struck the floorboards, dinting the wood. It rolled along its edge, the bronze ringing as it turned, spiralling inward, until the mirror rattled on its side and stilled.
“Did I break it? Did I break it?” Kuro remained frozen. What if he knelt down, and accidentally put his knee on top of it and snapped it down the middle?
This was the second time that he’d dropped it, too.
“I’m so, so sorry!” Kuro wailed at Ren. “Curse these black kitsune powers! Curse them!”
“Calm down, Kuro.” Ren knelt next to the mirror. He picked up the mirror and turned it over in his hands, examining the surface. “It’s fine. Not even a scratch.”
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Kuro’s knees gave out, and he sagged to the ground. “These powers will be the death of me.”
Yumi rolled her eyes. “No source has ever listed panicking as one of the Black Kitsune’s great curses.” She sat across the hearth from them and shrugged off her straw cloak. “But how did these Yuki Onna get their hands on the Yata no Kagami?”
Ren’s fingers clenched around the mirror. He held it face down, so that the delicate carved back.
“The Shogun had them last, the mirror and the jewel,” Kuro said. The Shogun had told him while pretending to be so bereaved at the attack on the Imperial Palace. “The Yuki Onna did not steal it from him.”
Yumi must have reached the same conclusion as he did, for she shuddered. “Scary.”
Kuro wriggled, staring at Ren’s hands, then pressed his fists into his thighs to steady himself. He sidled next to Ren, their thighs touching. He hadn’t meant to hold his breath, to tense in anticipation of the punishing blow.
Ren set the Imperial Mirror down and leaned against Kuro’s shoulder. Warmth bubbled up from Kuro’s belly, and he barely heard Ren’s next words. “Then it’s decided.”
Kuro couldn’t have stopped grinning if he tried. He tried to shove the elation away to focus on Ren’s words. They’d been deciding something?
“We fix the Kusanagi.”
His stomach should have dropped, his limbs gone cold as he remembered he still needed to traverse the mountains and face the Storm God. And his brother. While the Shogun hunted them.
Instead, Kuro nodded and buried his nose in Ren’s shoulder. Ren agreed with him. Ren believed in him. Ren knelt next to him, instead of remaining across the fire like Yumi. He didn’t have chests of fancy kimono, or piles of mochi, or a six-tatami-mat room. But this human would keep his promises to Kuro all the same. Kuro could trust in that.
Kuro would not let him down. Not anymore. No matter what, or who, they faced. Even Kuro’s mother herself.
Well, maybe not Reiha. Thankfully, she was back in Inari’s Shrine and unlikely to leave. Small favours. His black kitsune luck was not all bad. Right?