Blood splattered across the Shogun’s cheek like a demon’s tattoo. Red streams twined down Nekogami’s body.

She fell to the blood-slicked roof tiles.

Nekogami had saved him. She’d saved him.

But she hated him. Despised him. She battered him like a mouse caught between her paws.

White mist rose off the two parts of her body as they dissipated into nothing. She was a god. She had been a god. But then she was nothing because she threw herself onto the Shogun’s sword.

But why?

The mist danced around the Shogun’s red-stained armour.

Why?

She’d helped him up onto the roof, but only to mock him. She didn’t even like him.

But she… she…

The Shogun slipped his kimono sleeve out of his gauntlet. Tally characters littered the inside of his biceps. “Eight hundred and thirty-eight.”

Kuro’s knees trembled. The Shogun reduced her mystery — reduced a god — to a number. All of her feline worshippers abandoned because the Shogun wanted to increase his kill count — because of Kuro…

She’d been a god. And Kuro was nothing.

But Ren wasn’t nothing. He’d fed her where any other human might try to eat her. Because Ren needed the good will of a god, and—

And Ren couldn’t see who she truly was. She looked like a cat to him. He’d fed her because she was hungry and he was kind. Just like Ren had fed Kuro. Just like Ren had taken Kuro into his home, even knowing the danger.

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Kuro’s chest eased.

Maybe, just maybe, Nekogami had even liked Kuro. He ducked his head. Perhaps, she even thought of him as a friend.

“I’ll do you one last favour,” the Shogun announced.

Kuro clenched his hands.

The Shogun stepped past him. “My gift to you.”

He raised the Kusanagi toward the second bailey.

“I’ll allow you to live a few moments longer,” he said. “So you can have the satisfaction of watching Ren die.”

The Shogun’s back faced him. If Kuro was quiet enough, if he was quick enough, he could disappear into the courtyard. He’d give himself another few moments to live.

“Run!” Nekogami had yelled at him.

But he couldn’t. Nekogami had died for him. And Ren would die.

Everything the Shogun had accused Ren of was a lie. The Shogun didn’t even believe it. He’d only said it to push Kuro off balance. And Kuro had bought it like half-price mochi. No more. He could trust Ren for another ten minutes.

“Please don’t,” Kuro said.

“You’re begging me not to avenge you?” The Shogun shifted to watch him.

“Please don’t kill him.” Kuro knelt, his toes tucked under. “I won’t run. I’ll stay still. Just please…”

The Shogun turned back to him, lips turned into disgust. “I don’t require your cooperation.”

“Please.” Kuro bowed. The cold tile chilled his forehead. He gripped the ridge.

The Shogun snorted. “Very well. You may die first.”

Kuro wasn’t the only idiot on the roof that night. His hands and feet perfectly positioned, Kuro leapt at the Shogun.

The Shogun hissed in a breath of surprise, but swung the Kusanagi in front of him. Kuro tried to dodge under the blade, to jump up in the space between sword and man where the Shogun was defenceless.

But the Shogun was too quick. He stepped forward, his sword moving with him. The blade pierced Kuro’s chest. Kuro’s own momentum skewered him.

His mouth went lax. From surprise — the thought scattered before it reassured him, leaving his mind blank. He should have felt the blade in his chest. He looked down at it, sure the Shogun had actually missed. But the blade stuck through Kuro’s chest. Blood darkened the fabric around the wound.

It had missed his heart by an inch, sparing him from an instant death. He looked back up at the Shogun, but neither of them were where they were supposed to be.

The Shogun was diagonal, not vertical. His feet slipped out of him. He hit the tiles. The Shogun yanked out his blade in a shower of blood. That was bad.

The roof reached up to smack Kuro, but it didn’t last long. The roof vanished beneath them. Kuro grinned.

The Shogun plummeted to the slope. Kuro hit the barrier.

Pain, so much pain. Pain like when he’d stepped into Yusuke’s trap, unable to move, unable to flee.

Gravity plunged him into the barrier and the barrier refused to let him pass.

Caught forever in a world of searing blue light and agony. At least he’d touched the Kusanagi.

The barrier dropped him.