Hidetsugu sighed. “Our time grows short. So sad.” The ogre lashed out, snatching Toshi from the yamabushi with his free hand. With Toshi in one fist and Kiku in the other, the o-bakemono rose smoothly to his feet and held them out to each side at arm’s length.

  “Goodbye, Toshi Umezawa. You were an amusing oath-brother. I will send you to the spirit world with your paramour. Let us see which one of you departs first.”

  Hidetsugu’s powerful hands constricted around Toshi’s chest, and Toshi’s breathing simply stopped. He heaved and strained as best he could, but his lungs could not expand past his ribs, and his ribs were compressed to the point of breaking. Toshi’s face began to tingle and his chest began to burn.

  This is how Kobo died, he thought. If Hidetsugu allowed him any air, he might have pointed this irony out to the o-bakemono. Instead, Toshi sent his eyes darting around the room, searching for an out. All he saw was Kiku’s panicked face and the ogre’s dreadful leer.

  Behind Hidetsugu, the door to the chamber cracked open. To Toshi it seemed like the door was very far away, at the end of a glittering tunnel. But glittering tunnels don’t have rats, do they?

  Toshi’s mind came back to him and he recognized Marrow-Gnawer. What was the little vermin doing here? He was supposed to be on the roof. Not only had he abandoned his post, he was going to get himself killed.

  Despite his lack of air and his impending death, Toshi tried to shout a warning. Hidetsugu was too enraptured with constricting the life out of his former oath-mates. The yamabushi were keeping a close eye on Toshi and Kiku. The nezumi had not been spotted, but if he struck Hidetsugu …

  Oblivious to the danger, Marrow slid his black, rusty blade between his teeth. This can’t happen, Toshi thought. It won’t happen. Marrow was fraction of Hidetsugu’s size and the ogre’s skin was far too tough for a rusted nezumi blade, even if it was wielded by one of the most competent rats in all the world.

  But Marrow was even more competent, brave, and resourceful than Toshi could credit. The nezumi carefully weighed the situation, plotted his attack by scanning the walls and ceiling, and then literally sprang into action.

  The tough, powerful muscles in his legs carried him halfway up the chamber wall to the left of Hidetsugu. His claws dug into the fabric covering the stone wall, giving Marrow enough purchase to launch himself all the way up to the ceiling. Were he larger or less strong, he never could have climbed so high so fast. Rats were made for climbing and jumping, and Marrow was a most exceptional rat.

  As he rebounded off the ceiling, Marrow was spotted by the yamabushi. The female shouted, and the male raised his staff, but neither of them were quicker than a striking nezumi.

  Marrow screeched from a few feet over Hidetsugu’s head. The o-bakemono instinctively looked up at the sound just as Marrow struck with all his might, driving his dirty, jagged sword deep into the ogre’s eye.

  Konda had never felt so alive.

  The greater oni descended on the battlefield like a storm cloud, large and savage enough to engage all of the Daimyo’s ghost army. His retainers threw themselves against the enemy’s snapping jaws while the battle-moths hurled bolts of righteous fire at its eyes.

  Both sides seemed inexhaustible. The greater oni grew darker and thicker, its multiple mouths larger and sharper no matter how much damage Konda’s army inflicted. Likewise, his soldiers reformed and rejoined the battle seconds after being rent by those terrible jaws. If not for the fact that he was slowly and surely pushing toward the academy, Konda would have considered this situation a stalemate.

  Konda felt a renewed rush of pride for his army and the justness of their cause. The beast was fearsome in battle, but Konda’s army was beyond fear. They were the demon’s equal in ferocity, stamina, and determination, and with Konda leading them it was only a matter of time before the prize would be his once more.

  The oni’s buzzing hive-body rumbled like the beginnings of an avalanche. The ground shook and the moth-riders were buffeted as the air itself pounded them. The great demon’s form expanded briefly, then contracted down to half its original size.

  Before Konda could shout an order, the oni’s body exploded, sending hard, sharp teeth and a crushing wave of concussive force radiating outward across the battlefield. The daimyo himself was able to remain upright only by tucking his head behind his horse’s and tightly gripping the animal’s saddle.

  Konda’s spectral retainers were less fortunate. Those closest to the oni were torn to shreds by the shrapnel and the sheer power of the blast, which scoured a circular crater deep into the ground. Battle-moths were sundered from their grafted-on riders and hurled violently from the field, their broad wings useless in the gale. The oni’s eyes and horns remained constant, mute witnesses to the bedlam and bloodshed below.

  Konda glared at the oni, impressed but undeterred. It was an excellent blow, well struck, but it would not be enough to stop him.

  The field was now covered in a thin layer of smoke and dust. It had grown deathly quiet. Then, as Konda’s soldiers regained their feet and resumed their charge, their war cries sounded again, mingling with the feral snarls of the lesser oni. Yes, Konda thought, this battle is far from over.

  He kicked to prod his steed forward but pulled back on the reins when something in the southern sky caught his attention. As he wheeled the horse around, Konda’s eyes remained fixed on the academy, but the daimyo could still see the awesome and terribly familiar sight that was forming on the horizon.

  Six new suns had flared to life, burning away the heavy banks of afternoon clouds. These fiery orbs moved in pairs, scanning the ground below as they increased in both size and brilliance. They drew closer to Konda, and he saw three reptilian faces forming around each pair of eyes. The serpent heads became sharper, more defined, and more terrible with each passing moment, perched atop huge, writhing necks covered in dazzling golden scales.

  This was O-Kagachi, the ultimate guardian of the spirit world, the physical world, and the boundary between. Its rage had spurred the lesser kami to action when Konda brazenly raided their realm, and its ire launched twenty years of conflict. The multiheaded serpent had personally battered Eiganjo’s walls to pieces and crushed the Daimyo’s army in its rush to recover the Taken One. Konda took some small satisfaction from the fact that while he no longer possessed the prize, neither did the Great Old Serpent.

  As a rival for the Taken One, O-Kagachi was Konda’s mortal enemy. As the embodiment of the barrier preventing direct contact between kakuriyo and utsushiyo, O-Kagachi was his nemesis. The great serpent’s arrival was a threat, but it was also an opportunity, for an abstract concept made flesh can be dangerous, but it can also be overcome.

  Konda quickly weighed his choices. He could continue to battle the oni—the more timely his victory, the more likely he’d get to the prize first. Or he could turn and try to engage O-Kagachi, which would give his army the chance to avenge their own deaths but would also expose them to the oni’s treachery from behind.

  Neither of these options appealed to Konda, so he chose a third course. He concentrated, calling his best horsemen and five battle-moths to him. Together they would form a phalanx that would punch through the oni and enter Minamo while the main force continued to fight the demonic horde. O-Kagachi moved slowly while it fully manifested, so the daimyo was confident his retainers could win the day while he acquired the prize, all long before the old serpent joined the battle.

  Konda waved his sword in a wide arc, drawing cheers from his personal phalanx. The daimyo spurred his horse, and the noble beast charged. By the time it reached the edge of the oni’s crater, it had built up enough momentum to leap clear over the smoking hole created by the oni’s blast.

  Airborne, between the moths overhead and his soldiers on the ground, Konda felt the force of his true destiny pulling him forward. The prize, victory over the oni, revenge on O-Kagachi … eternal life, and ultimate power to wield for the glory of Eiganjo. Before this day was done, Daimyo Konda would have them all.

  Hidetsugu raged and roared after Marrow’s blade struck. He immediately dropped Toshi and Kiku as he fell back.

  For several moments after tumbling to the floor, Toshi thought he had been crushed to death. His cruelly compressed lungs at first refused to reinflate, so he had to coax in a sip of air at a time. Marrow was there beside him before Toshi could rise or even clear his vision.

  “Let’s go, oath-brother,” the nezumi hissed excitedly. “I hurt him but I don’t think I stopped him.”

  Toshi shook his head. He grabbed Marrow by the shoulders and pulled him close so he could look in the nezumi’s eyes.

  “Find my sword,” Toshi said. “The long one.”

  Marrow-Gnawer cocked his head. “What? What’d I do? My hand burned, I saw him hurting you, so I figured the oath was already broken. Like you said.” Marrow quickly glanced down at the slightly smoking triangle scratched into his palm. “The oath is gone, right? I saved you. I did good.” The nezumi’s pleading eyes searched Toshi’s face. “Didn’t I?”

  As the last syllable left his mouth, Marrow went rigid. He stood trembling and twitching as his face flushed. Toshi could see smoke rising from Marrow’s fur and feel heat radiating from the nezumi’s body.

  He sadly shook his head. “No, Marrow. The oath is intact. You spilled Hidetsugu’s blood, and now the reckoning is upon you.”

  Toshi couldn’t tell if Marrow could hear through the throes of his seizure. Several feet away, Kiku lay on her side, coughing and struggling to roll away from the ogre. Something brittle crackled under her hip as she moved.

  Hidetsugu had stopped roaring and knocking chunks of wood and stone from the walls. Blood and his ruined eye still oozed down his face as he gingerly tested Marrow’s sword to see how firmly it was planted. The yamabushi stood nearby, unsure if they should assist their master or exact vengeance on the one who struck him.

  Toshi spotted his sword belt. For Marrow, for Kiku, and for himself, he dived for his weapons and rolled, drawing his long sword in one hand and his jitte in the other.

  He charged toward Marrow, his mind working feverishly. There was a chance they could still pull this off and stay alive. He could fix this and still capture the Taken One for his myojin. All he had to do was survive the next few minutes.

  Toshi reached Marrow and sheathed his jitte. Keeping his eye on the yamabushi, Toshi brusquely pulled Marrow’s arm out straight. He turned the rat’s hand over to make sure the hyozan mark was still there, and then Toshi raised his sword.

  “Sorry, oath-brother,” he said. He swung the blade down at Marrow’s wrist. As the edge touched the first hair on the nezumi’s arm, a bolt of white light struck Toshi’s sword in the center, shattering it into three equal pieces. Marrow’s arm was barely even scratched.

  “Don’t do that, Toshi.” Hidetsugu had regained control of himself and stood smiling, Marrow’s sword still jutting from his eye socket. Next to him the female yamabushi held her stringless bow ready, a new bolt of magical force drawn and ready to fire.

  “I’ve heard that the hyozan curse has only been invoked twice,” the ogre leered. “And I didn’t get to see the other one.”

  “I wouldn’t worry,” Toshi said. “You’ll only see half of this one even if I do let you watch.”

  The o-bakemono chuckled. He seemed remarkably placid for someone who’d just been maimed. As Toshi watched and waited, Hidetsugu scrunched up the wounded side of his face and plucked the blade from his eye like a loose lash.

  “Much better.” He tossed the stained and rusty sword aside. “Now then. I was just about to kill you—”

  A thick column of dusty black slammed into Hidetsugu’s chest like a battering ram, cutting him off in mid-threat and hurling him back through the stone wall behind him. The entire room, the entire floor of the building shook, raining dust and bits of plaster down on the stunned yamabushi. Toshi was as shocked as they were by this surprising turn of events, and he followed their wide-eyed awe across the room to its source.

  Kiku was in the same place Hidetsugu had dropped her, floating three feet off the floor and surrounded by a nimbus of shadow. Pieces of a brown ceramic disk lay broken at her feet. Toshi’s stomach went cold as he recognized the kanji he’d crafted back in the swamp to contain the mahotsukai masters’ curse.

  “Kiku?” he called. She did not reply. From the shadows crawling over her perfect cheekbones to the dull black void in her eyes, Toshi guessed that she couldn’t … and that the masters’ spell had reclaimed its original vessel.

  More thick columns of shadow sprouted from Kiku’s body and bent down to the floor, lifting her up like a spider’s legs. Suspended from this network of shadow limbs, Kiku’s entranced body skittered over the yamabushi and through the hole in the wall after Hidetsugu.

  Toshi turned his attention back to Marrow. One crisis at a time, he told himself. In swift, practiced motions, Toshi stretched out Marrow’s arm and crisply lopped of the nezumi’s hand at the wrist. It popped off of the rat’s arm and landed with the hyozan mark facing the ceiling.

  Marrow was too far gone to cry out, but Toshi felt the heat coming off him dwindle. Marrow’s convulsions also eased. The ochimusha wrapped Marrow’s bleeding stump in a strip of the rat’s own shirt.

  “I don’t know if that will work,” Toshi told Marrow’s rigid body. “But I think one less hand is better than slow, agonizing death.” He tilted Marrow’s head so he could look into his eyes. There was no sign of conscious thought.

  “I’ll ask you again when you’re able to answer,” Toshi said. “If you disagree, I can always kill you then to make it up to you.”

  The yamabushi had recovered while Toshi had tended to Marrow, and the female was taking aim with her bow. For the first time since the oni dog had bitten him, Toshi had the strength and the focus to call upon the power of his myojin. “Hoy, skullcaps,” he called. “You’ve done enough for now. Rest.”

  Toshi spread his fingers wide and then slowly clenched them back into a fist. Across the room, the yamabushi staggered as the air around them grew cold, then frigid, then arctic. A thin patina of powdered ice formed on their hair and eyebrows as the color drained from their faces.

  The female shuddered and then sat right where she’d been standing. The bow clattered from her numb fingers, and her chin slowly drifted down to her chest. Her partner managed to stagger a few extra steps before he also dropped his weapon and crumpled to the floor.

  Beside him, Marrow toppled onto his side. The rat and the yamabushi were out of the picture for now. That only left Kiku and Hidetsugu.

  Toshi drew his jitte and sprinted through the hole in the wall. To his surprise, the next wall had a similar hole, and the wall beyond that. Whatever Kiku had hit the ogre with had not been a lover’s tap.

  In the room past the third hole, Toshi found his former oath-mates. Kiku was still entranced, black-eyed and unresponsive, but her shadow limbs had Hidetsugu pinned against the floor. With a separate column of shadow restraining each arm and leg, the ogre was slowly crushing the floor beneath him into powder and he heaved and strained against the ponderous black force.

  Though it seemed Kiku had the upper hand, Toshi knew it could not last. Ten years of uneasy partnership had not helped him develop a kanji spell to defeat Hidetsugu, and he’d worked very hard to do so. The ogre was too strong, too tough, and too magically adept for Toshi’s best efforts, even if he had the element of surprise. There was no reliable way to kill Hidetsugu or render him helpless with a single stroke, and the ogre’s return blow was almost guaranteed to be lethal. Frankly, he was amazed Kiku had lasted this long.

  Toshi racked his brain to come up with some way to help or call her off before Hidetsugu gathered his wits. Too late, he thought, as fire sparked in Hidetsugu’s eye and he opened his mouth wide in a voracious grin.

  “Magnificent,” he cried, just before a plume of white-hot flame blasted into Kiku at the center of her shadow-cloud. Toshi registered that Hidetsugu was referring to Kiku’s attack and not his own fire spell—it must have been decades since someone had knocked the o-bakemono off his feet.

  The blast forced Kiku and her shadow limbs up through the ceiling, but the recoil also drove Hidetsugu the rest of the way through the floor. Masonry and planks rained down around Toshi, and he wondered how much more abuse this wing of the academy could take. Cracks had already formed along the exterior walls, and as Toshi watched, one huge slab of stone slid out of alignment, threatening to fall and crush anyone beneath it.

  Four spidery shadow legs folded themselves around the hole in the ceiling and then dragged Kiku back into the chamber. Her blank eyes had narrowed and her mouth was closed, as if the ogre’s attack had reminded her of the need for caution and considered action.

  Before Kiku could pull the rest of her shadow limbs in behind her, Hidetsugu’s muscular form rocketed up from the crater in the floor. The ogre slammed into the mahotsukai and wrapped his powerful arms around her waist. She was protected within her field of shadow, but Hidetsugu was far too strong to simply be ignored. Kiku’s real and conjured limbs flailed as the ogre compressed her midsection, but she was unable to grab him or toss him clear.

  Hidetsugu cinched his grip and locked his hands behind Kiku. He forced his head back, opened his mouth, and chomped down on the shadowy substance surrounding her. Kiku opened her jaws in a silent scream of agony as Hidetsugu tore a jagged hunk of darkness free and spit it back over his shoulder.

  The nimbus reacted like a living thing, shuddering in what appeared to be pain. Hidetsugu bit again, ripping another piece of the material free, and it instinctively crawled away from his mouth. This left a patch over Kiku’s torso thinner than the rest of the envelope, and Hidetsugu’s next bite sank into the weakened spot.

  Inside the cloud of shadow, Kiku suddenly blinked. The black glow that had occluded her eyes faded. She seemed shocked to discover herself in close combat with an ogre, but she remained Kiku of the mahotsukai: tough, smart, and capable.