Kuro destroy the Night Parade? The Shogun was as delusional as Ren.

“Ah, breakfast.” The Shogun waved to the side. Kuro barely saw the page enter with two trays. He only saw the tray appear beneath his gaze, with strips of meat — real meat. His stomach gurgled. He hadn’t eaten the slop Yumi had brought for him. He picked up the chopsticks.

Destroy the Night Parade. Kuro couldn’t go up against the Night Parade. It was suicide. Ren couldn’t either. Perhaps the Shogun could, with decades of experience battling demon armies under his sash, but…

“Thank you for this meal.” Kuro scarfed down the meat. They tasted more like field mice than the cows and chickens humans raised.

But the Shogun had a use for Kuro that didn’t involve Kuro’s head on a traitor’s pike. The tension slivered from his shoulders. Kuro had forgotten to mention one vital key when lecturing Ren and Yumi about not trusting others: only trust that others are out for themselves. If their motivations are selfish, then they’re not lying. Probably. And the Shogun’s plan would end up with Kuro dead or worse. That he could trust.

The page left, and even hindered by the chopsticks, Kuro made short work of his tray. When he finished, the Shogun still picked at the meat. Kuro hesitated. Was he allowed to speak? Or would he make the Shogun believe that Kuro was too much a nuisance to live?

The Shogun finished his meat and rested his eyes on Kuro, waiting.

“With my powers…” Kuro trailed off. How could he put this without accidentally implying the Shogun should kill him?

The Shogun arched his brow, waiting for him to continue.

“Wouldn’t it be better for your rule if my shrine wasn’t in the Capital?” He waved his hands. “Not that you shouldn’t build me a shrine. You should definitely build one to appease me. Just not here.”

“Oh?”

“If you give me the funds, I’ll build my shrine far away, on the edges of your empire.” He couldn’t leave without that money. He couldn’t leave without the shrine. He was so close. The Shogun didn’t even want to kill him.

The Shogun intertwined his fingers in his lap. “I believe you can be more useful than that.”

“I don’t fight.”

His eyes flicked over Kuro, a faint smirk on his lips, as if to say that is obvious.

“I’m more use to you as a god,” he said. “Just further away.”

“My onmyouji is designing you a suitable shrine,” he said.

One filled with barriers that trapped Kuro inside. “I’m sure he is, but when his hands are so full with the Night Parade and protecting the Capital, humans would be better off if his attention wasn’t divided.”

“Yusuke is industrious.”

“Without a doubt,” Kuro lied. “But even so—”

“You will stay in the Capital,” he said. “I can’t throw my newest god into the demon-infested wilds.”

No, just throw him at the Night Parade and hope his bad luck rubbed off. “But I’ll have to travel so far away. The Night Parade hides in a mountain on the other side of the empire. I’ll have to cross oni and rivers and steep mountains to even reach them. Such a journey won’t come cheap.”

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The lie had worked on Ren; it would work on the Shogun. If he didn’t want to hand over the funds for his shrine, then he would win it his own way. The fox way.

“You needn’t travel so far,” the Shogun said.

“If you want me to destroy the Night Parade, I do.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve heard proximity helps.”

The Shogun looked amused.

Kuro spread his hands, palms up. “How am I supposed to use my power on them, when my paws have to be hobbled to keep you safe?”

“The Night Parade isn’t so far away. They shelter quite close to the Capital.”

Kuro cursed himself mentally. Unlike Ren with his head full of stories, the Shogun was a general. He must have sent reconnaissance shinobi. “If they were really in striking distance, you would have destroyed them by now.”

“Unfortunately, the blood cost would have been too high,” he said. “Hundreds of samurai dead. My people wouldn’t allow such bloodshed. Until now.”

Because Kuro would turn the tide against them? He needed out of the Capital before then. He needed money for his shrine, and money to travel. He needed his shrine to shelter Ren until he lost the fool ideas in his head and settled back down to the grinning, story-telling fool he’d first met. Until he stopped hating Kuro and appreciated Kuro risking his life for him.

Now who was the idealistic fool?

“You seem to have recovered from your beloved…” Kuro’s words failed him mid-rant. He waved a hand and decided to give up, “Ren’s — the prince’s death.”

The Shogun blinked. Blinked. Such a small sign of surprise, but the only one Kuro had managed to prod out of him.

Buoyed, he added, “Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve had tons of time to come to terms with it. Since you planned his death.”

The Shogun smirked, looking away as if hiding a private joke. “Ren’s death provides a rallying call.”

Gah, almost a confession. But unless it was written and signed, Ren wouldn’t accept it.

“His death unites my people,” he said. “His death reminds each and every citizen of their duties. Their place in society, rather than whatever soul-destroying entertainment they can afford. His death is far more useful than he could ever have been alive.”

Was he launching into another lecture? Kuro cringed, wondering if he came off the same way to Ren. But no, because Kuro actually taught Ren something useful. Something that would keep him alive. “He wanted to protect his people.”

The Shogun laughed. “He never could have led the empire. He’s too enamoured with the supernatural. It isn’t his fault. He’s half-supernatural himself, descended from a god, and that blood sways him to the wrong side. Without my control and influence, he would have descended the empire back into the chaos of the Demon Lords, just as his ancestors did. The tainted blood of the Tendo had to be extinguished.”

Kuro swallowed. He’d had it wrong. The Shogun hadn’t tried to assassinate Ren just to hold onto power. The Shogun looked at Ren and saw him as the same vermin as a fox or tanuki. Ren never could have won his love. Oh Ren.

“However,” the Shogun said, “Ren isn’t dead.”

Kuro desperately suppressed a sharp inhale of breath at his words. He tried to relax, shrug a shoulder, and casually ask, “You found him?”

Wait, no, Kuro should look shocked. Shocked because he had no idea Ren hadn’t died. Shocked like Ren hadn’t stumbled into the teahouse late last night. Shocked, but not guilty.

“I mean,” he corrected himself, widening his eyes. “He’s not? He survived? Have you seen him?”

“This morning, a cow gave birth.”

Kuro allowed his confusion to muddle his expression. Was that supposed to be a koan, a riddle that never made sense?

“The calf was born with a human head.”

Oh. His stomach started to sink.

“It cried out one phrase before it died.”

A true phrase. A prophecy.

“It cried, ‘The prince of chaos lives.’” The Shogun tipped his head, pretending nonchalance but carefully observing Kuro’s expression. Kuro knew the look too well to be fooled. “For now.”

Kuro might have traded his left hand for Ren to be in the garden right then. No, better Ren kept far away. They needed to leave as soon as possible. That day, if not earlier. He couldn’t risk keeping Ren in the teahouse. The Shogun was watching.

Like he watched Kuro now, picking up his every twitch and deciphering his thoughts.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Kuro said truthfully. The Sun Prince was too foolish to survive on his own.

The Shogun chuckled. “One more thing, and then you can return to your holiday.”

What next? Kuro waited for the blow. He could handle whatever the Shogun threw at him, and spin it to his own advantage. Just watch him.

But what the Shogun said eclipsed everything Kuro could have ever imagined.

“Little fox, how did you like tanuki meat?”