In his true form, Kuro bounded across rooftops. The Cat Girl’s words resonated in Kuro’s skull like a temple bell.
Below him, bruised humans wailed outside their homes, trapped by their own locked barrier gates. Only a scattering of houses had collapsed, yet they moaned like the world was ending.
But the world couldn’t end. Kuro had left Ren. He’d left.
He dug his claws into the roof of the rice shop Ren had gawked at. The lumber groaned but held. His tongue lagged out of his mouth as he gulped in breath.
The palace bulwarks remained derelict but whole, untouched by whatever the explosion had been. But the Night Parade didn’t need them broken. No walls could stop the Night Parade.
Serpents, ogres, hell wheels, imps, hags, and countless other demons streamed down from the clouds into the gravel yards. Flames licked the main palace building, but Ren’s compound seemed untouched.
Humans rushed out from the flames, some servants, and a few minor nobles sent to serve the Imperial family for punishment. The first samurai troops rallied, yelling orders and marching in formation, even as head ogres dropped out of the skies to crush their spines and sickle weasels cut through their knees. Limbs disappeared down the gullets of demons. Their blood soaked the dry gravel.
And the siege had only just begun.
Kuro shuddered as if swarms of flies bit him. He hadn’t expected the Cat Girl to tell him the truth. “The Dragon God’s Eastern Barrier… faltered?”
Only when the Cat Girl replied, did he realise he’d spoken. Not with his muzzle, too fox-shaped to speak human words, but thought them aloud. “Which is why they’re enjoying a nice appetiser of Undesirables. Oh wait, they’re not.”
Kuro glared at the Cat Girl, but she was correct. The Night Parade didn’t stream from the East. They came from the West.
“The Western Barrier.” The one upheld by the four major shrines, and formed into a barrier by the onmyouji. The onmyouji had lectured Kuro on how his plan to win the Eastern shrine had weakened his barrier.
“Perhaps it broke,” she said.
Or Kuro’s presence broke it. He hadn’t left the city fast enough, and his presence had steadily poisoned the barrier.
She shrugged. “Or perhaps it was allowed to break.”
He stared down his muzzle. At the exact moment when the demons could be blamed on Kuro’s presence instead of the onmyouji or the Shogun.
He should leave. Sneak through the streets and leave the humans to their fate, and crawl out through the break in the onmyouji’s ward before anyone noticed.
But Ren must still be within the palace bulwarks. Kuro had left him standing on the veranda, reaching out as if he actually wanted Kuro to stay.
Kuro jumped onto the wall and down into the courtyard.
He landed among a clump of ogres and imps. The demons froze as Kuro gained his hindquarters under him. He barked. They fled.
Just as well. He wasn’t there to fight demons. He was there — why was he there? He’d jumped before he’d even thought about the consequences. He—
A troop of samurai roared and charged at Kuro. A demon form was a bad form to take in the middle of a demon attack.
He jumped to the side, but the samurai followed, surrounding him on all sides. They brandished their swords, each darting into slice at Kuro.
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He dodged one sword, only for a samurai on the opposite side to take advantage and slice open his hide.
He jumped straight up, and the samurai raised their swords like needles sticking out of a pin cushion waiting to skewer him. He tried to land on his hind feet, but his front paw nicked a raise sword. His tail huddled between his legs.
Then he heard it, the sound that made his fur stand on end. Dogs barking. The demon hunting dogs had arrived and raced across the courtyard to bury their fangs in his flesh.
He barrelled through the samurai, who were caught by surprise. He raced toward Ren’s compound. The sooner he found Ren, the sooner he could escape the dogs. He whined as he scrambled over the compound walls.
Landing in the garden, he perked his ears toward the building. The panels over the banquet room were shredded, bits of paper and wood scattered over the tatami.
“No!” Kuro mentally screamed. He couldn’t be too late.
He jumped onto the veranda and sniffed. A tinge of human blood, but the room didn’t stink of it. Ren’s? Or another human’s? The stench of smoke bombs, fire and demons from the rest of the palace covered any finer details. But whoever had bled survived. No blood soaked the tatami.
Steel clanged. He startled, pinning his ears back.
The room wasn’t empty. Two furious kimono-clad warriors parried with daggers. One thrust forward, the other blocked, and they stilled long enough for Kuro to get a good look at them.
The dowager empress angled toward Kuro, although her steel-grey eyes were only for her opponent. Sweat slicked her skin and locks of hair had come loose from her hairstyle. She’d slit open the seams of her kimono, pale flesh sticking through to allow her legs to spread for better balance. She handled the dagger better than most samurai handled their swords. Kuro gulped at the phantom feeling of her dagger pressed against his neck.
The moment split, and her opponent lifted her own dagger, dodging to the side. They exchanged furious blows and blocks, equally matched. Neither scored a point, neither lost a block. They turned as the opponent attempted to thrust her dagger into the dowager empress’ open side, but the dowager empress moved too quickly.
“Hear those screams?” the opponent asked the dowager empress. “It’s the sound of your guards dying. Your daughters being ripped apart.”
Kuro’s breath stuck in his throat. The opponent had no feet. Her kimono faded away.
“Dying, not dead.” Strands of hair flew around the dowager empresses’ head, but she retained her polished exterior through force of will. She ducked to the side, giving Kuro a good view of the ghost’s Noh mask.
“Dead would be a mercy,” the ghost said. “My demons have you surrounded. At one signal from me, they’ll show you humans what hell truly is.”
The ghost from the Riverbank Settlement. A ghost in the Night Parade. A ghost who called the Night Parade hers. A ghost — this ghost — was the leader of the Night Parade.
What next, the Shogun juggling live fish on Market Road?
“Unless you’d prefer to share where we can find the Sun Prince.”
“I’m afraid I must decline,” the dowager empress said. “Such dregs may never be admitted in the presence of our Heavenly Sovereign.”
The ghost flickered and vanished. The dowager empress froze, not relaxing her guard. She knew the ghost remained, but she couldn’t feel the spiritual energy moving around her, couldn’t follow the ghost’s invisible trajectory. Couldn’t feel the energy simmering as the ghost prepared to reenter the mundane world.
Kuro barked to warn her. The dowager empress jerked into action, but toward Kuro, not the ghost. The ghost stabbed her in the back, then ripped out the blade, perfuming the air with the dowager empress’ blood. The dowager empress dropped to the mats.
The ghost floated through the dowager empress’ body towards him. Kuro shrank from the blank Noh eyes. “Our hero returns. A pleasure to meet you again.” She bowed at the waist. “Thank you so much for this gift.”
“No.” Kuro had nothing to do with this. He’d decided not to kill Ren. He’d run. This wasn’t his fault.
“When my scouts caught sight of you sneaking out of here,” she continued, “I knew we could attack. Tonight, we deliver a decisive blow the entire empire will feel.”
He whined. But he was nothing. A fox running through the city, one of many. But the only black one. The only Dark Kitsune.
Stupid, idiot fox.
A blade whipped through the ghost’s incorporeal head, cracking the back of her mask. The ghost curled over, screaming.
Behind her, the dowager empress pressed one hand against the wound, and rose to her knees. Her thighs trembled in supporting her. Instead of pushing her attack, the dowager empress stared at Kuro.
Kuro cringed, his tail pressing tight to his hindquarters.
She collapsed onto her thighs, the fight draining from her limbs. “You came back.”
He barked. “I came to help! I didn’t mean to…” Make everything worse.
But humans didn’t understand barks and they couldn’t hear his words. All she knew was the Dark Kitsune, the bringer of calamity, had infiltrated her home, slept next to her son, and brought the Night Parade down upon them.
She clawed the tatami. She snarled back the tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. “Go!”
He crawled backwards, head low to avoid the inevitable dagger.
“Go keep my son safe!”