Kuro woke to the indignity of a human finger prodding the pad of his paw.

He bared his teeth. His body ached from muzzle to tail, and he didn’t need a human to make him more miserable.

The finger bounced upon his pad.

Kuro pushed himself up on his forelegs to bite the fingers, sniffing for the scent – oh. He snapped his eyes open.

“You’re awake.” Next to the futons Kuro lay upon, Ren leaned against a plastered wall, one guilty finger extended.

Kuro’s forelegs gave out. He sank back into the softness of cotton blankets and futon. If Ren wanted to prod his paws, that was fine.

His hind leg slipped onto the recently polished wood floor. No sun peeked through the slitted windows, but a paper lantern glowed in the opposite corner.

Ren turned his lip up in amusement, but the amusement didn’t reach his eyes. The darkness remained, like the impenetrable black between stars. A scratch crossed his nose and another dashed across the forehead, but neither would scar. Kuro didn’t think, anyway. Humans didn’t heal like spirits did. What spirits considered scratches killed humans.

More worrying were the white cloth bandages winding around Ren’s arm and ankle to disappear beneath his borrowed kimono. But even then, Kuro smelled more sour blood than explained by Ren and Kuro combined.

He pressed his muzzle back onto his paws, resisting the urge to lick Ren’s wounds. Ren would not appreciate the gesture at all, even if only because humans found it inconceivable to heal wounds by licking, and not because Ren despised him.

Where was the Kusanagi? Kuro had taken it back from the Shogun, hadn’t he? He remembered clenching the blade between his teeth. But if he had, why wasn’t Ren resting the hilt against his shoulder, like when he’d knelt in the closet?

Ren withdrew a leaf from his sleeve. Kuro lowered his muzzle to better expose the crown of his head, but Ren rested his elbow on his knee and twirled the stem. “I like you this way.”

Kuro raised his muzzle again. There wasn’t any point with trying to ask Ren what he meant, since he wouldn’t hear him anyway. Did he mean he liked Kuro’s fox form, or how injured he still was?

“You can’t interrupt me every three words to tell me what an idiot I am. It’ll make things go faster.”

The fur on Kuro’s back bristled. What could he possibly mean to do that Kuro would need to stamp out? He sounded more like his old self, the one that asked stupid questions about every single thing, and then ran out into the Capital at night to find demons. Almost. There was something more mature about the way he talked now.

“The leader of the Night Parade found you unconscious outside the castle walls. The ghost we met in the Capital. You don’t know as much as you think you do.” He tapped Kuro on the furrow between his eyes.

“The ghost I saved you from,” Kuro reminded him him. “But why haven’t you reclaimed the Kusanagi yet?”

“Her name is Kuchisake, the Split-Faced Woman,” Ren continued, oblivious. “Apparently, not all ghosts are so wrapped up in their revenge, like you lectured me. She didn’t even try to slice open my lips.”

Wait, Ren moved close enough to Kuchisake to have his face sliced open? Had Ren completely abandoned his senses?

“Kuchisake is different. More. She said she arrived just as the Shogun fled and you fell unconscious. She sent her demons after Uncle — after Gorou, but they couldn’t find him. I’m not surprised. That was always Gorou’s greatest strength. He moves too quickly to be anticipated when he wants to. Arrives at the battlefield days before expected. Jumps through besieged spots before the attackers even set up their attack.”

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“And you didn’t chase after him, did you?” Kuro narrowed his eyes, but if Ren had, and had caught up with him, he’d be a lot more injured than he was.

“Word among the spirits is Gorou returned to the Capital before dawn,” he said. “We never would have caught up with him before then. The samurai followed him. Those that weren’t captured by the Undesirables, that is.”

“Bully for them. What about the Kusanagi?”

Ren tipped his head back. “We need a new name.”

Kuro tipped his head to the side.

“We can’t keep calling them Undesirables. They’re not undesirable, they’re wanted. They’re needed.”

The Shogun wouldn’t agree. But none of that mattered. Kuro prodded him with his nose.

Ren jerked. “The Night Parade had us surrounded. They had you.”

But Ren had the barrier around the castle, and obviously they were inside it. The room was too big for a hut and the beams too nice for a farmhouse and Ren wasn’t so foolish he’d return to the city.

“I lowered the barrier,” Ren said.

Kuro jerked onto his feet, barking in surprise. He had what? He lifted his muzzle, sniffing. How had he missed the reek of demons before?

“Relax, Kuro,” he said. “I negotiated with them first.”

Ren had no need to do either. Why should Kuro matter more than Ren’s own life? Kuro yipped at him.

Ren smacked him on the nose.

Kuro scrambled back onto his hind legs.

He chuckled. “They had us surrounded. They didn’t need to break the barrier. Gorou didn’t prepare the castle for a siege. We could have lasted a day or two before we ran out of food. We could have tried sneaking out, but they would have hunted us down. Negotiating was the best option.”

Kuro lowered himself onto the blanket. Everything he said was true.

“If it makes you feel any better, Yumi argued with me until she ran out of breath.”

It did, a little. But then she’d allowed him to break the barrier.

“My people will be safe from the Night Parade.”

Kuro barked. Ren must be one heck of a negotiator.

“The Undesirables,” Ren said. “They can stay here in the castle with the Night Parade. I know it’s not ideal, but they can’t return to the Capital, and they’d be snacks for demons on their farms. At least here, I can protect them.”

From an army of demons if they decided to break their truce?

“I need them.”

So he kept saying.

“Gorou has announced his enthronement date.”

Kuro’s jaw dropped. But — but— He stared down at the futon. The Shogun’s enthronement could only mean one thing. Kuro had failed. He hadn’t retrieved Ren’s sword — his birthright.

Ren reached behind him into the shadow and held up a length of steel. A length of steel with one side sharpened, and ending in a point. Ren held it along a jagged edge.

No, that couldn’t be… Kuro sniffed the sword, jumping back when Ren moved it.

Kusanagi screaming, steel creaking, and then a clang. His life bleeding away, sound and sight draining away.

Kuro had broken the Kusanagi. He’d broken the Imperial Sword. The sword that told the heavens who the rightful ruler was. The sword he’d sworn he’d bring back to Ren. He’d broken it.

Kuro collapsed in a heap. If the gods had an afterlife, Nekogami would be hissing at him. This was what she’d died for?

He squeezed his eyes shut. Her blood everywhere, the only remnant of her but vapour.

She shouldn’t have done it. She should have let him die, and the Shogun to escape. At least then Ren would have had another chance to get it back, and Nekogami wouldn’t be… wouldn’t be gone.

“Gorou has the other half.” Ren let the blade fall, then flipped it up perpendicular to him. He stared at the steel, his eyes hazed over.

Then the Shogun knew nothing stood in his way. He’d enthrone himself. The Sun Goddess couldn’t smite him. Ren couldn’t use the Kusanagi against him.

And Kuro was just a blight on the Empire. Ren didn’t need him to regain ownership of the Kusanagi.

“I’m going to make the Night Parade into an army,” Ren said.

The Night Parade was already an army.

“My army. A moral army.”

The Night Parade?

Ren must have noticed Kuro’s lips pulling back, because he smirked and scratched Kuro behind the ear. Kuro’s tail wagged, and he pressed his head into his hand. Traitorous body. It should be taut and furious and ridiculing Ren.

“I know Gorou’s plan. I heard him moralise so much, but I didn’t listen. I should have listened. I should have noticed what he’d done enacting all the sumptuary laws and codes of conduct. Samurai. Farmers. Artisans. Anyone else — anyone who breaks a rule or doesn’t fit into those three ranks, he’ll use them as bait. He’ll hunt down every supernatural being in the Empire. I can’t allow that to happen.”

Ren meant it too. His words weren’t just code for revenge.

“I can’t do this alone. I need the Black Kitsune. I need you.”

Kuro may have only known Ren for a week, but he’d witnessed Ren do an extraordinary amount of stupid, reckless and downright suicidal things. Spying on the Undesirables. Inviting the Black Kitsune into his home. Running into the Capital at night. Trusting the Shogun.

But all that seemed downright sensible compared to what he said next.

How could Kuro possibly save him from this?

“Kuro.” Ren dropped his hand. “I want you to become my familiar.”