Snowflakes dusted the darkness in white as Kuro sank to his knees, and then flopped onto his back. Gravel pinched his side and the drop jarred his wounded shoulder, and his body should have screamed in pain. He should have been biting his lip to hold his cries inside. He should have been mentally berating himself for showing weakness.

But it was as if someone had snuck up and stuffed his body full of snow, insulating him from any pain or fear or sensation but grey. Cold grey.

Those thoughts blew away like so many of the snowflakes tumbling to the earth. The snowflakes touched the flagstones, and where they should have blanketed the world into the nothingness Kuro felt inside, robbing the world of its scent, they melted uselessly. As useless as Kuro.

“I don’t want to go back,” Kuro muttered to himself. Oh, see he did have a response. Not that he could tell Ren that.

All he could do was stare up at the charcoal clouds, the twirling snow, the squalls of wind. Feel the snowflakes land on his cheeks, feel them melt, feel the drops roll down his skin. Because he wasn’t crying. He couldn’t be crying. Not so stuffed with grey.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid—

“Oh, Kuro.”

Kuro rolled his head to the side. Kuchisake swept out of the door that Ren had disappeared through, the transparent edge of her kimono hovering over the thin layer of melted snow.

Kuro tensed. “What did you hear?”

“Everything.”

He cursed. If Kuchisake had heard everything, then other demons must have as well. Wow, when Kuro failed, he failed spectacularly. Now the castle would be alive with the rumours that the black kitsune and Ren were fighting. “I should have—”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“No, no, I’m the one to blame.” Kuchisake knelt next to him, smoothing her kimono beneath her knees. She stroked his head, as Kuro had seen human mothers do. Cold that had nothing to do with the weather sank into his scalp. He shuddered, and raised his hand to shoo her away. “I knew this would happen. I should have tried harder to keep you two apart.”

Kuro stopped moving. She’d tried to keep Ren away from him? Why? Keeping him out of the demon’s sight, he could understand, but away from Ren?

Kuchisake kept talking. “All those teas where I listened to your pain. I knew he’d hurt you.”

Which was true. Maybe Kuchisake truly did care about Kuro’s wellbeing, beyond having all his blood in his body and his lungs filling with air. All those teas, as Kuchisake put it. Acting like a human mother.

Except not even his real mother had cared that much. It would have been so nice to believe in Kuchisake’s good intentions, but suspicion wriggled in his mind.

“I—” Kuro closed his mouth.

“Yes?” Kuchisake asked, her voice soft and all concern, like a particularly doting mother when her eldest son scraped his knee. Not even Ren, running up to his wound just moments ago, had sounded so concerned for him.

Something was wrong. If she really cared… “I just want to sleep for a hundred years,” Kuro told her. It wasn’t even a lie. He’d give up mochi and inari zushi forever just to lie there, as the humans grew old and passed away, as humans did. Wait for the Shogun to be gone. Then none of this would matter.

And this was all Ren expected of him anyway.

“Let’s get you back to your den,” Kuchisake said, using her ice-cold fingers to help Kuro up to sitting. “I’ll set a guard. No one will disturb you.”

“What about Ren?”

“Allow me to handle him.”

Kuro pressed his lips shut. The Shogun must have beaten him with the stupid stick when they’d fought. He must be stupid to have forgotten.

Maybe Ren used to care about Kuro for no reason at all but liking him. But everyone else was more selfish. They only concerned themselves with their own desires.

If she really cared, she wouldn’t reply with barely suppressed glee. Kuro and Ren together were stronger than divided. Divided, they gave up their power to Kuchisake.

She hadn’t wanted Kuro to fix the Kusanagi. She wanted Kuro in his den, alone and under her power.

Kuro nodded at Kuchisake and let her lead him back to his den. He only spoke to ensure his complete seclusion, even from her. Especially from her.

He needed all the time he could get to search for the Storm God.