Kuro waited in his den for two days. He’d tried to train, as Ren would have wished him to. It didn’t help that every creak of the corridor floor made him jump and hide the box of leaves, but it certainly hadn’t hurt. He still hadn’t transformed. Bald patches spotted his tail, marking each failure.

The creaks always receded. Or the door slid open, Kuro’s heart jumping into his throat as he leaned toward the door, but then it was only the Kuchisake for tea, or the imp that maintained the smoldering fire beneath the kotatsu. Kuro would sink into the kotatsu, his heart sinking with him even as his stomach settled.

Another hour that he didn’t have to leave his cosy, safe den. Another hour without Ren.

Another hour closer to the Dark Days, when he couldn’t do anything at all.

On the third day, he only had two leaves left. He shut the box and threw it across the room with a grunt. It fell onto the tatami and rolled onto its top. Kuro growled again, throwing his fists up, and thrust himself up to pace.

Ren wasn’t coming that day either. His scent was long gone, muddled under demon and tea and grilled fish. “He must be busy,” Kuro muttered to himself. “He has the Night Army and the humans to train. He has a war to prepare for. He—”

Kuro stopped, staring at the gleaming wood pillar in front of him. He sighed and rested his forehead against the wood. “He hates me.” Kuro squeezed his eyes shut. “No.” He ground his forehead into the wood. The wood was too smooth for splinters, when he needed something sharp to bite through the heavy cloud of dark thoughts. “He’s angry.”

Angry, because he thought Kuro wasn’t even trying to train. And he’d be even angrier when he found out that Kuro had found something that would help Ren win, and yet had hidden in his den for three days instead of seeking him out.

Kuro recoiled. Or he’d be more angry about Kuro interrupting Ren’s Very Important Work. Kuro shook his head. Ren wasn’t like Kuro’s mother. He wasn’t. He… hadn’t used to be.

Kuro stumbled away from the wall, and yelled. As if yelling would get all these bawling emotions out of his chest and far away.

The sliding door opened. Kuro straighted, his lips turning up. “Ren—”

Kuchisake popped her masked face up.

“Oh.” Kuro deflated. “Why do you even bother with the sliding door when you’re a ghost?”

Kuchisake didn’t answer, only gracefully rose to her feet, ignoring the demon servants bearing tea behind her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Kuro barked.

She stared at him. Kuro stared back. But Kuchisake was going to win. She cheated. Her Noh mask didn’t blink.

“Just… Ren…” Kuro murmured. “Ren’s busy. These past two days. Too busy.”

She tilted her head. “Not especially.” She might as well have stabbed a dagger in his gut. “Is that way you’ve been so jumpy?”

“No!” Kuro turned his back on her. Maybe that would hide the prickle in his eyes from her too-knowing gaze. Ren wasn’t busy. He was avoiding Kuro. “I don’t — I don’t feel like tea today.”

“Nonsense,” Kuchisake said. She must have gestured the servants in, for ceramics clinked behind Kuro. “This is exactly when you need tea the most. To soothe and to distract.”

But three cups of fine green tea and two hours later, and Kuro was not soothed or distracted. As soon as Kuchisake left, Kuro had jumped back up, pacing in front of the sliding door. Waiting for the human that would never come.

“Idiot!” When had life tipped upside down so that Kuro had to call himself stupid, instead of Ren and Yumi? When had Kuro become a besotten maiden utterly dependent on others when he’d had it beaten into him that he could only rely on himself?

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He had to leave his safe den. He had to find Ren. Kuro dragged the sliding door open, and flinched at the noise. Holding his breath, Kuro listened for approaching demonic feet. But none came running.

“Stupid,” Kuro whispered to himself. “I need to find Ren, not attract fox-eating demons.”

Not that Kuchisake would allow any of her demons to eat Kuro. She needed him alive. But Kuro hadn’t survived the forests by naively disregarding danger.

Keeping to the shadows, Kuro snuck through the castle to Ren’s own room. It took him so much longer than it should have, since he had to duck out of sight whenever he heard footsteps, and go around brightly-lit rooms, to avoid the demons. Even the weakest demon was far stronger than Kuro, and would make a way better familiar for Ren, if they hadn’t been, well, demons. Demons proud to stay demons, and not get purified.

How sad that this was Kuro’s only advantage to Ren’s affections, that he was the only one in the castle who hadn’t eaten a human. Did Ren even know that? But then, he knew he’d made a deal with demons. And everyone knew demons ate humans. Only spirits seemed to know that demons were made, not born. Just like humans.

He was so brave, his Ren. A human walking among demons without fear of being eaten, while Kuro, an actual spirit, hid away in his den—

“Stop thinking,” Kuro hissed to himself.

Across the hall, two oni stopped and stared at the shadowy corner Kuro hid in. Kuro jumped, then glared as if that might fend them off, and then hurried past them. His mind was like an overactive kit that day, one scared of their own shadow.

If he’d mastered transformations, he could have marched through the corridors as one of them, instead of lurking like a scared kit.

He managed to make it the rest of the way to Ren’s private quarter without too much mental distraction. His room was only one floor away, and would have taken Ren only a few minutes to reach. Kuro didn’t want to know how long it had taken him.

Kuro knocked on the pillar, but received no reply. He perked an ear at the paper, but nothing shuffled on the other side, nor was there even the slight sound of breath as Ren slept.

Kuro banged his wrists against his temples. “Of course he’s not asleep at this hour, idiot.”

Laughter rolled behind Kuro, approaching him quickly. Kuro jumped into Ren’s room and slid the panel closed enough to hide him, catching a glimpse of an imp and a burning wheel.

“Sh, sh, sh,” the imp hushed. Their footsteps and rolling slowed. “That’s its den. The human must be about.”

Kuro’s eyes widened, and he pressed himself further into the darkness.

The imp poked his green nose through the opening. Kuro narrowed his eyes to slits, in case the corridor light reflected off his fox-like eyes. “Drat. It’s not here. I tell you, it’s hilarious, watching it strut around as if it’s the Shogun. It, and its — and its Sun Parade.” The imp could barely spit out the word between choking back his laughter.

Kuro clenched his jaw.

“Funny, when you’re not the one on human duty,” the wheel said. “Wasting hours a day on training exercises. As if it’s strong enough to boss us around, without Lord Kuchisake hovering over its shoulder.”

Kuro tensed, wishing he could move, to wrap his arms around his knees and keep himself there. His body thrummed with the need to jump out and deliver a blistering tirade about how blind they were, to think Ren weak.

“Did you hear what happened yesterday?” the wheel asked. “A blue oni got fed up and tried to take a bite of it. Kuchisake had to protect the human. Too weak to even take that low-ranked oni.”

As if the two in front of him were anything more than the dregs of the Night Parade. Kuro ground his teeth, even as his stomach heaved. Ren had been attacked by an oni?

The imp pulled his head out. “Really? I wish I could have seen that.”

“You and half the Night Parade! I’ve gotten more paid drinks out of that story than any slaughter.”

“Doesn’t it have a familiar though?” the imp asked. “Better watch out!”

If Kuro had stepped up to his duty as a familiar, if he’d trotted at Ren’s heels and took a bite out of uppity demons, than the only thing these low-ranked demons would be able to say was, “What are your orders, Master?”

Maybe if Kuro was the black kitsune of legend, not the kit that was currently hiding from said low-ranked demons. If they saw him, saw that he couldn’t even transform, then not even Kuchisake would be able to help Ren. No wonder Kuchisake encouraged Kuro to huddle in his den, out of sight.

“The black kitsune only cares about themself,” the wheel said, and the two burst out laughing.

If Kuro was smart, he’d slink back to his den before anyone saw him. The demons thought him selfish. He did not want to correct them.

Or maybe if they saw Kuro looking strong, attending upon his master, Ren would gain respect. Kuro could manage that act for an hour, and make these two demons regret ever looking for Ren. Hopefully.

Kuro took a deep breath and puffed up his chest. No more slinking. He’d march through these corridors as if he owned them. As if he’d curse any demon stupid enough to cross him.

He stepped into the bright light of the corridor. His hands shook at his side. No. He smoothed his hands against his thighs. He could do this.

So of course, tons of demons placed themselves in Kuro’s way. Kuro strode through the halls, imagining himself to be the onmyouji Yusuke, just as he had in the Shogun’s Palace. Sweat trickled between the raised hairs on the back of Kuro’s neck, but with his imperious glare, the demons only glanced at him, and bowed respectfully.

As sweat soaked through Kuro’s linen underkimono, and Kuro’s heart could take no more, Kuro slipped into the courtyard for a moment to calm down.

And just to highlight his bad luck, there was Ren.