She cupped her left hand, still pinned to her side by the ogre’s hug. When she turned her hand palm up, it held a delicate purple bloom.

  As he had with Marrow, Toshi opened his mouth to warn Kiku that the oath still applied to her but stopped himself. She was in the fight of her life and she needed every tool at her disposal. Hidetsugu was likely to kill her anyway, so why not let her do all that she could to get him first?

  He beat back the inner voice that whispered of the other reasons he did not speak when he had the chance. Wasn’t this what he’d brought Kiku and Marrow for? Whether they killed Hidetsugu, or he killed them, the end result was the same: easy access to the Taken One.

  As he debated with himself, Toshi saw Kiku flick her wrist, tossing the flower clear of the shadow nimbus. The camellia spun as it arced up over Hidetsugu, gracefully drifting down toward the ogre’s head.

  “No,” Toshi said. The purple kanji on his forehead flashed again, and the supple petals of Kiku’s flower went brittle. Instead of writhing and digging in when it touched Hidetsugu, the frozen camellia shattered like a wafer of spun sugar.

  Kiku’s face snapped toward Toshi, murder in her eyes. Hidetsugu laughed.

  “Thank you, ochimusha.” With a brutal jerk, Hidetsugu twisted his body at the waist and tore Kiku loose from the legs that anchored her to the ceiling. He turned a somersault in the air and, as he completed the rotation, he straightened out his body and hurled Kiku violently against the exterior wall.

  The impact blew a great gap in the stone, revealing the orange evening sky beyond. Kiku had the presence of mind to use her long shadow limbs to grip the edges of the hole, which saved her from plowing clear through the wall and falling five hundred feet to the lake below.

  Hidetsugu landed heavily on the floor. The wall directly above Kiku collapsed, burying her in a pile of jagged stone. The tremors from the rockfall were still reverberating across the floor when Kiku forced herself up through the rubble.

  But Hidetsugu was relentless. A volley of fireballs rained down on Kiku like hailstones, and the instant the last of these slammed home Hidetsugu himself crashed down upon her with both feet. The ogre rained kicks and punches on the shadow envelope, and though Kiku was protected by her masters’ shadow curse Toshi could see the painful effects each blow had on her. The punishment continued, but Kiku did not respond. She was exhausted, and she was dazed. The last of the Numai jushi was beaten.

  Standing on a blister of solid shadow, Hidetsugu roared with delight. He plunged his hand through the thick dark mass and clamped thumb and forefinger around Kiku’s throat. The ogre tensed, planted his feet, and yanked Kiku free of the shadow nimbus like a pearl from an oyster.

  “You are magnificent, mahotsukai.” Hidetsugu settled to the floor as the shadow nimbus faded beneath his feet.

  He held Kiku high over his head and turned toward Toshi. “Isn’t she?”

  Light from the windows above cast Kiku’s shadow across Hidetsugu’s ruined eye. He peered around the chamber, searching for Toshi.

  “She is, old friend.” Toshi’s voice came from Kiku’s shadow on Hidetsugu’s cheek. “And she’s the last magnificent sight you’ll ever see.”

  Hidetsugu dropped the mahotsukai and leaped back, but it was too late. Toshi’s short sword plunged through the surface of Kiku’s shadow and up into Hidetsugu’s remaining eye.

  The ogre seemed to explode in pain and fury. Amid the dust, the shattering stones, and the thunderous peals of rage, Toshi backpedaled away from Hidetsugu as quickly as he could.

  He took a moment to reorient himself, and then Toshi squeezed through a shadow made by a pile of rocks beside Kiku. The mahotsukai was unconscious but alive. For now. Her best chance of staying that way was for Toshi to concentrate on Hidetsugu.

  Toshi stood, careful not to make any noise that would alert the ogre to his location. The o-bakemono may have been blind but he was far from defeated.

  But Toshi had a plan for that as well. He silently drew his jitte, dragged the sharp tip across his forearm, and collected a few drops of his own blood.

  Hidetsugu’s roar ended as if his throat had been cut. Just as Toshi realized the folly of drawing his own blood in the same room as a keen-nosed o-bakemono, Hidetsugu lashed out with his foot. The rock he kicked broke in half—most of it disintegrated into a cloud of dust and sharp pebbles. The rest shot across the room and hit Toshi full in the chest, pinning him against the far wall and crushing a spray of red blood from his lungs.

  The jitte tumbled from his fingers as Toshi sank painfully to the floor a short distance from Kiku. No help there; the mahotsukai was still unconscious.

  Hidetsugu sniffed again, grinned savagely, and started toward the fallen ochimusha with careful, unhurried steps. He didn’t taunt or threaten but simply strode with a definite purpose and a terrible, undeniable gravity.

  Toshi struggled to breathe, to roll away, to move at all. He failed.

  Hidetsugu drew ever closer, unhurried, precise, and deliberate. Unable even to wipe the blood from his lips, Toshi scanned the chamber for some alternative to violent death. Kiku was out cold; Marrow was probably dead or would be shortly. And Toshi himself was no longer protected by the hyozan curse.

  O Night, he prayed, your acolyte needs your blessings.

  The voice that replied was cold, and distant, but not uncaring.

  Nonsense, Toshi Umezawa. You already have all the power you need.

  Desperate, Toshi thought, Please, great myojin. I do not have my full wits about me. What must I do?

  What you did at the beginning. What you did when you first accepted my gifts.

  Hidetsugu was almost close enough to reach down and grab Toshi. The ochimusha searched his memory … what had he done at first with Night’s blessings? Called for silence? That wouldn’t stop Hidetsugu’s nose from locating him. Fade into nothingness? He didn’t have the strength.

  Toshi looked out through the massive hole in the exterior wall. Far below, he saw armies of twisted spirits and demonic oni. He saw the All-Consuming Oni of Chaos, looming as large as a small mountain. And across the southern sky, he saw the Great Old Serpent, O-Kagachi. Three of the most powerful entities in all Kamigawa, the rulers of humankind, oni, and spirit alike were all assembled to fight for the prize that lay all but forgotten just a few rooms away.

  He had been beset by powerful forces the first time he’d called on Night’s Reach. Then, he’d used her power to subdue the powerful patron of Jukai Forest, the Myojin of Life’s Web. He’d struck at the great spirit through its worshippers, robbing her of strength by silencing her followers in mid-chant. Perhaps he could do the same thing in reverse now, attacking Hidetsugu through the oni he worshiped?

  The idea crystallized quickly in Toshi’s head. He scanned the field below to confirm. Yes … while Konda and O-Kagachi were fixed and oriented on the towers of Minamo, the All-Consuming was facing south, its eyes pinned to the great serpent’s approach. The ochimusha spared one last look at Hidetsugu, who was sightlessly searching for him with wide sweeps of his massive arms.

  Do you understand?

  At last, Toshi realized he did. The three-way struggle developing on the shores of the lake provided information that Hidetsugu didn’t have, information that would wound the ogre more viciously than any spell or blade.

  Thank you, O Night.

  Fare well, my acolyte.

  Toshi ignored the pain in his chest and rolled onto his knees. The ogre’s probing hands were only inches away.

  “Hidetsugu,” Toshi said, “listen.”

  At the sound of the ochimusha’s voice, Hidetsugu lashed out and snared the front of Toshi’s shirt. He lifted Toshi up and said, “No, my friend. Every time I listen to you, I lose. It would be more fitting … more dignified if you simply accepted your death in silence. Nothing you say will save you.”

  Swaying in the ogre’s grip, Toshi said, “All right, don’t listen. Smell. Point your ugly face south and tell me what you find.”

  Hidetsugu shook his head, but in doing so turned his face to the open air. The scent of battle reached him, familiar odors that could not help but fire his ogre blood.

  “The All-Consuming,” he said. “And an army of souls who fight even though they don’t have proper bodies.” Forgetting himself, Hidetsugu tilted his head back and drank deeply of the evening air.

  “And an elemental force of amazing power. That has to be the fabled O-Kagachi.” Hidetsugu sniffed again, momentarily forgetting his rage. “There are hundreds of powerful scents out there in the world, Toshi, but this one smells like all of them. It is the world itself.”

  Hidetsugu lowered his head. “And now I have listened, old friend. Good-bye.” The ogre raised his powerful fist, preparing to crush Toshi against his own open palm.

  “Before you kill me,” Toshi said, “let me tell you the one scent you missed.”

  “Oh? Tell, ochimusha, tell.”

  “Fear,” Toshi said evenly. “Fear of O-Kagachi. Whatever that thing is, it’s more powerful than Konda, and it’s more powerful than the All-Consuming. If it arrives here …”

  “Nothing is more powerful than my oni,” Hidetsugu said. “Chaos is the fate of all things, living, spiritual, and in between. All that lives will someday die, all that is ordered will someday unravel. And when they do, Chaos reigns.”

  “Oh?” Toshi said, and he could see how his mocking tone annoyed Hidetsugu. “You seem certain. But is your oni?”

  Hidetsugu huffed, but he did not strike. Instead, he turned once more to the opening in the wall and waited, drawing a steady stream of air into his nostrils.

  * * * * *

  A mere hundred feet from the shores of Lake Kamitaki, Konda’s advance had ground to a halt. Even as his main forces threw themselves against the Oni of Chaos in endless waves, the demon held fast. In the sky and on the ground, even his personal strike force could not break through.

  Konda was confident in his eventual success, but the approach of O-Kagachi threatened them all. The great spirit beast now filled the entire southern sky, five castle-sized heads thrashing and rolling down from the horizon. The battlefield and the entire world seemed to tilt toward the serpent’s coils, as if the world were overbalanced by its presence.

  The daimyo shouted for another charge, and his troops obeyed without hesitation. Doubt had crept into Konda’s own mind as he weighed the risks of being trapped between two of the kakuriyo’s most powerful spirits.

  O-Kagachi roared then, adding its multiple voices to the cacophony of battle for the first time. The serpent’s cries covered the entire range of pitch and timbre, from a high, shrieking wail to a low, ground-rumbling roar. Konda’s army did not react to the terrible new sounds, but all of the oni did, from the lowliest foot soldier to their lord hovering and slavering overhead. The greater demon recoiled as if stung by a hot needle, and then its hissing, malevolent call stabbed through every ear and mind for a mile in all directions.

  Konda’s heart surged. Could it be? Was he actually hearing the sound he had heard in a hundred different battles from a hundred different enemies? Was the mighty Oni of Chaos sounding a retreat?

  Like a squall on a sunny day, the greater demon suddenly soared up from the shore into the sky. It grew darker, heavier, and broader as it rose, its eyes aglow with crimson light. Thousands of sharp-toothed black jaws coalesced around the oni’s eyes and horns, giving it a distinct shape for the first time. Still rising, the Oni of Chaos boldly turned to face O-Kagachi. Its shape swelled, and then a river of snapping jaws erupted from below its eyes, streaming toward the five-headed serpent like a horizontal geyser.

  Konda stopped, half-mesmerized by the enormity of the conflict in the sky. All around him, his soldiers and moth-riders slowed their advance, waiting for the daimyo to act. Even the lesser oni stopped fighting but stood dazed and almost frightened as their deity struck.

  The stream of demonic jaws curled slightly as it streaked toward O-Kagachi. The closer its leading edge got to the serpent, the smaller and more comical it seemed. Konda let out a mocking laugh as the oni’s attack made contact with O-Kagachi’s closest face. The stream of vicious jaws splashed harmlessly off the old serpent’s scales like gentle rain.

  The stricken head then blasted forward at a speed greater than Konda could follow. He saw a flicker of movement and felt a rush of air and pressure as something huge rushed over him. It took but a split-second for him to jerk his head back to the oni. What he saw chilled him to his core.

  O-Kagachi’s return stroke had torn through the center of the Oni of Chaos, sundering the great demon in two. Two of its three eyes remained on one ragged half, opened wide with shock. On the other half, the third eye rolled back in its socket and lost its angry red glow just before the lid drifted closed. This smaller half of the oni’s body jerked and twitched for a moment. Then it began to fall, leaving a trail of stunned and motionless jaws fluttering in its wake.

  Before the disintegrating mass could splash into the waters of the lake, O-Kagachi’s head turned and swallowed it whole in one single bite. As quickly as it struck, the great serpent’s head withdrew, rejoining the other four heads and the huge crush of undulating coils.

  Lesser oni on the battlefield screamed in impotent rage. Many disengaged from Konda’s soldiers and disappeared into clouds of foul-smelling black smoke. As they cleared the field, the stunned greater oni still hovered overhead. Crippled, diminished, and chastened, it began to fade from sight.

  The way to Minamo was now clear. Konda had secured his position as the greatest military leader in Kamigawa by seizing opportunities as soon as they arose. He raised his sword hand and his voice to rally his troops onward.

  “Now, my retainers,” he cried, “even our greatest enemy serves our cause today! Ride on! To Minamo! The prize shall be mine once again!”

  Red tears dripped from Hidetsugu’s empty sockets, but the ogre’s face was a mask of rage.

  “No,” he said softly. “This cannot be.”

  Toshi took advantage of Hidetsugu’s distraction to become immaterial. The ogre did not notice his intended victim’s escape, did not even lower the arm that had held Toshi.

  “It fled,” he whispered bitterly. “It faced the great serpent and lost, and now it abandons its own kind. It abandons me, the truest acolyte it has ever known.”

  Toshi collected his jitte and went to check on Kiku. The mahotsukai was still unconscious, but her masters’ curse had protected her from the worst of the ogre’s attack. She lay next to a pile of rubble, her body painfully twisted but basically intact.

  Kiku’s skin was now a deep, perfect black like the heart of an onyx. She had been stained by the shadows, marked by the forces she manipulated. She was still strikingly beautiful, but her beauty was more dire and terrible than ever.

  At the opening in the wall, Hidetsugu snarled and shattered one of the half-broken stones before him. He was cursing angrily in the old language of the o-bakemono.

  Toshi limped back to the chamber where he’d left Marrow and the Taken One. The disk was intact where he had left it, so that was something. It didn’t look good for the rat, however.

  The nezumi was still rigid and radiating heat, but it would take several hours before he died. As Toshi feared, removing the hyozan mark slowed the curse but did not spare the nezumi from it. As intended, the spell would incapacitate the traitor and make him suffer until the rest of the reckoners came to put him out of his misery.

  “Toshi,” Hidetsugu called from the distant chamber. “Where are you, oath-brother?”

  Toshi considered. He was not in immediate danger, but Hidetsugu had served him one surprise after another today. Since he was quickly regaining his strength and able to call on Night’s Reach, Toshi felt safe enough to answer. He went through the holes Kiku had punched through the academy walls and stood on the verge of the chamber where the ogre and the mahotsukai were.

  “Here, Hidetsugu. Though I think our time as oath-brothers has long since passed.”

  The ogre took a few steps toward Toshi’s voice. The ochimusha was chilled by how steady and confident those steps were, how quickly he had adjusted to being blind. He was also leery of the raucous ogre’s subdued tone.

  “Nonsense,” Hidetsugu said. “We are blood brothers … you, Kobo, and I. The hyozan oath may no longer bind us, but we have tasted each other’s flesh. We are all still tied to one another.”

  “I never tasted anyone’s flesh,” Toshi said, annoyed. “That’s your hobby.”

  “Of course you did. When we took Kobo into our brotherhood, you drank the water that cooled his brand. Kobo had already eaten of my flesh, and you in turn swallowed his.”

  Toshi considered this. To his growing unease, he realized Hidetsugu was right. “Does this mean you can still kill me somehow?”

  A thin smile flickered across the ogre’s features. “No, my brother. It means that we will never be free of each other until we are both dead.”

  “Oh. That’s all right, then.” He waited a moment for Hidetsugu to reply, then added, “So … what happens now?”

  The ogre’s brow furrowed over his bleeding eyes. “I have a favor to ask of you. For old time’s sake.”

  “A favor?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “Same old Toshi. Let me put it this way, ochimusha. I am blind. I am alone, having outlived my hunters and been deserted by my god.

  “But I still hunger for vengeance. There are yet many who deserve my wrath. I wonder … when you travel on the power of your myojin, have you visited the spirit world?”

  Toshi weighed his words carefully. “Not exactly. I have only seen visions of the kakuriyo.”

  “But have you gone to the honden of Night’s Reach? Have you visited her place of power?”

  “I have.”

  “Then help me. Send me to my oni’s home. The honden of the All-Consuming.”