“I won’t fail,” I promised, as the lights drifted slowly away, toward Meido or the Pure Lands, or wherever they were headed. “If...if this is truly my destiny, then I’ll give it my all. Don’t worry, Master Isao, everyone. I’ll find the Steel Feather temple and protect the scroll, I promise.”
My words had no effect on the rapidly fading lights. They continued rising into the sky until they were no larger than the stars themselves, and disappeared.
I blinked rapidly. Safe journey, everyone. May we meet again, in this life or the next.
A hiss in the gardens drew my attention. Looking down, I met the crimson eyes of a demon, who jerked up as he saw me, as well. As it gave a shrill cry of alarm and raised its weapon, I dropped to the ground outside the wall and sprinted into the forest.
An Unexpected Proposal
The path had disappeared.
I hesitated in the shadows of the forest, listening, my hand curled around my sword hilt. Sometime during my dash up the mountain, the trail I’d been following had either vanished or I’d lost it somehow, for uninterrupted woods surrounded me, dark and thick. It wasn’t terribly problematic; I could still hear the roar of a conflagration, and the breeze through the branches carried the scent of smoke and blood. I was going in the right direction.
I feared what I would find when I got there.
There was a rustle in the bushes ahead, and Kamigoroshi gave a warning pulse, just as something exploded from the darkness and lunged at me. My blade cleared its sheath in an instant, whipping up toward my attacker’s face. It—she?—yelped and skidded to a halt, as my brain caught up to my reflexes. Hakaimono roared, goading me to continue the motion, to bathe the steel in blood. I wrenched myself from the howling bloodlust and forced my hands to stop.
The blade froze an inch from her neck. Panting, I looked across the glowing edge of the sword, into the face and wide black eyes of a girl.
She was my age, perhaps a bit younger. Small, petite, wearing a short crimson robe pattered with white swirls. Her black hair hung loose around her shoulders and down her back, and her large dark eyes, peering up at me, were round with shock.
For a moment, we stared at each other, bathed in the faint purple light of Kamigoroshi. Her face was dirty, smudged with ash and grime, and she was breathing hard, as if she had been fleeing the fire with the rest of the wildlife.
Then there was a snap in the trees behind her, and I realized why she’d been running.
“Get back,” I said, and shoved her behind me, as an amanjaku leaped through the bushes with a howl, a sickle raised over its head. I smacked the curved blade aside and slashed Kamigoroshi across its face, making it shriek and reel away. More demons swarmed from the bushes, stabbing and hacking wildly as they rushed forward. They died on my sword as I carved limbs from bodies and heads from torsos, black demon blood arcing into the air. Hakaimono reveled in their deaths, but I kept myself detached from the demon’s rage. I was the hand that wielded Kamigoroshi, nothing more. I felt nothing as I sent the creatures back to Jigoku.
When the last demon fell, I flicked steaming blood from my sword, sheathed Kamigoroshi despite the protests in my mind and looked around for the girl.
She peered from behind a tree trunk, watching me with big dark eyes. Surprised, I turned to face her fully. I had half expected her to be gone, fleeing the forest while the demons were busy attacking me. I caught the glint of metal in her hand and saw the hilt of a tanto clutched in her fist. Whether it was meant for me or the demons, I wasn’t certain.
“Merciful Jinkei,” she whispered, sounding breathless. Her eyes shone as she gazed around, at the fading tendrils of darkness on the wind. “You...that was...” Blinking, she looked up at me, her expression caught between awe and fear. “Who are you?”
Nothing. Nobody. A shadow on the wall, empty and unimportant. I turned away, toward the sound of distant flames. “Run,” I told the girl, not looking back. “Get out of here. Go to the village at the bottom of the mountain. You should be safe there.”
“Wait!” she cried as I started forward. I paused, but did not turn back. “You can’t go that way,” she said, and I heard her emerge from behind the tree. “It’s too dangerous. There are more demons, a whole horde of them. And there’s an oni!”
An oni. My eyes narrowed, even as Hakaimono gave the strongest flare of excitement I had ever felt from it. I had been killing dangerous yokai for the Shadow Clan since I was thirteen, the newest in a long line of Kage demonslayers to wield Kamigoroshi, but I had never faced a real oni. From what my sensei had told me, the greatest demons of Jigoku were nothing like the monsters I’d fought before. Tough, savage and virtually unstoppable, able to regenerate wounds, broken bones, even severed limbs at an astonishing rate. They were difficult to defeat, even with Kamigoroshi. In the past, more than one demonslayer who had gone to fight an oni had not survived the battle.
Fortunately, oni encounters were rare, as summoning one from Jigoku and binding the savage demon to your will required incredible power. Unfortunately, it meant that whomever had sent an oni here, to this forest, was likely after the same thing I was. Lady Hanshou hadn’t told me why she wanted this particular scroll, nor was it my place to ask. My mission was to retrieve the scroll, no matter what obstacles stood in my way.
“This oni,” I asked the girl, whose gaze I could still feel on my back. “Where is it?”
“The temple,” she replied, and her voice came out slightly choked. “At the top of the mountain. It killed everyone there and set the whole place on fire. Nothing is left.”
My spirits sank. If the demons had attacked and destroyed the temple, then the scroll was already gone. Destroyed, or in the hands of the oni. Setting my jaw, I headed into the trees. I had to see if the scroll was still there, if I could save it. And if the oni did indeed possess the scroll, I would challenge the demon and take it back, or die trying.
“Baka!” Something grabbed the hem of my jacket, tugging me to a halt. I spun, barely stopping myself from drawing Kamigoroshi and slicing my assailant in half. “Didn’t you hear me?” the girl asked, her dark gaze now wide with fear. “There’s an army of demons and an oni that way. If you go to the temple, they’ll kill you, like they did everyone else.”
Her eyes watered, moisture spilling down one cheek. I suddenly understood. “You came from the temple,” I stated quietly. “You saw everything.”
She nodded, swiping a dirty sleeve across her face. “Everyone died,” she whispered. “I barely got away. My master sacrificed himself so that I could escape. He fought the oni himself, though he knew it was going to kill him.”
“What were the demons after?” I asked, watching her closely. Perhaps, if she had come from the temple, she knew about the scroll, or where it was located. “Why did they attack?” I pressed. “Did they take anything?”
For just a moment, she hesitated. Her cheeks paled and she looked up at me with those dark eyes. For some reason, my skin prickled, and I fought the urge to look away. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know why they came, or what they wanted. I just know my temple is gone and demons killed everyone I’ve ever cared for. And if you go up there now, you’ll die, too.” She paused again, then held out her hand as if coming to a decision. “Come with me,” she said, to my surprise. “Before the demons find us. I can’t... I don’t want to be alone right now. We can head to the village and figure out what to do from there.”
“No.” I stepped back, away from her. “You can keep running. Get out of the forest. But I have business at the temple, something I must confirm.”
“What?” She stared at me in disbelief, as I turned