James gritted his teeth.

  “All right then,” he grated. “Why don’t you tell me about this plan.”

  “It is very simple,” Kana said condescendingly. “Harue is disguised as you, so the sorcerer will underestimate her. We allow her a small amount of time to disable the defences, and then we attack.”

  “Just… bust into his home and assault him?” James asked doubtfully. “That doesn’t seem right.”

  “He is an evil sorcerer—as you have determined for yourself—who deserves everything that comes to him,” Kana said.

  James frowned. “What makes you think you know what I have determined?”

  “All sorcerers are evil,” Kana said confidently. “They practice evil, twisted magics that can overcome physical strength. Harue knew that you wouldn’t take her word for it, so she arranged for you to see for yourself.”

  “Just because he attacked me, doesn’t mean I have to attack him back. Isn’t there some sort of magical police? Harue said the Golden Dawn was in charge here…”

  “There is no such thing. You have been challenged by this worm, and you must rise to meet it. If you do not, he will certainly track you down and go after Suki.”

  “No! But Suki is supposed to be safe, as long as she stays on the island.”

  “Safe?” Kana scoffed. “What a foolish notion. Do you trust the ones who let brigands snatch Junko-chan right out of the dorms to keep her safe? Safety only exists if you have the strength to obtain it. Look around!”

  She gestured at the stalls around them. All of them were boarded up. The streets that he could see were all empty of customers.

  “Harue gave you that mask so that you could pass unnoticed. That is the way of the fox. Now you are unmasked; everyone can see what you are. The question is: Are you vulnerable, now? Exposed? Or should they fear what they see?”

  She walked over to the ramen stall. Of all the stalls that James could see, it was the only one open, the blue cat still standing nervously behind the counter.

  “This is the way of the dragon,” Kana told James. “Order everything as you desire, and what does not concern you—” she waved at the rest of the market— “does not exist. I will have that ramen, now.”

  “W—which of my wares does the Great Lady wish for?” the blue cat asked. It twitched its long fingers nervously.

  “The black garlic tonkotsu will do.” Kana looked back at James. “Sit. We must wait for a short period before we strike.”

  James sighed and took a seat of his own. The stall owner stared at him in fear.

  “Hu—hu—hu— What can I get the Honoured Sir?” it finally managed to stammer.

  “Two yuzu shio ramen, if you please,” Mitsue said, sitting next to James. The ninja pushed his mask up, prompting a startled yelp from the proprietor. To James, he said, “You will find it more refreshing than most ramen dishes. And… I’m not sure we should trust the meat here.”

  “Meat is meat,” Kana said with a predatory grin. “It is all tasty.”

  The cat-faced monster didn’t say anything, but quickly started preparing dishes.

  “Why is this stall still open?” James asked.

  Kana raised an eyebrow. “I told him to,” she said. “I knew that I would be having ramen later.”

  “Do you think someone from the Golden Dawn will show up?” Mitsue enquired diffidently.

  “I doubt it,” Kana said with a shrug. “Nothing is happening that requires intervention.”

  “Nothing… you killed that spirit!”

  “Simply a disagreement between customers,” Kana said. “The market makes no guarantees of safety to those who attend.”

  James stared at her. “I don’t think I like the spirit world,” he said mournfully.

  Kana raised an eyebrow at him while the monster set down three steaming bowls of noodles on the counter.

  “I don’t know why you think your opinion is of any kind of concern to any spirit,” she said.

  * * *

  James summoned his armour with a thought. He felt the strength flow into him.

  This is for Suki, he told himself. And that guy had it coming.

  There were still two attendants manning the entrance to Master Tan’s dwelling. The one with the veil had been replaced with an identically dressed spirit, but this one had a softly glowing light shining through its veil.

  Both of them turned to face James as soon as he came into view. Kana, just behind him, scoffed and threw a ball of lightning at them.

  It shattered into a shower of sparks about a foot from the head of one of the attendants. It didn’t even flinch.

  “Magic,” Kana sneered. “Always cheating.”

  “Um, wasn’t that magic?” James asked. “What you did?”

  “Of course it isn’t!” Kana said scornfully. “It’s lightning!”

  The two attendants stared silently at Kana. At least James thought they were; it was hard to tell. Kana stalked slowly forward and gathered another ball of lightning.

  “Is that going to break the defence?” James asked.

  “No,” Kana admitted. “We must have arrived early. I will keep up the pressure so we can see when Harue has completed her part.”

  James silently wondered if Harue was doing anything about the defences. Kana’s explanation made sense, but James couldn’t help but wonder if Harue hadn’t just made off with whatever treasures the old man owned, leaving them to answer to the authorities.

  Before James could voice his concerns, one of the attendants acted. The glowing one raised a stick-like arm and shot a jagged bolt of cracking lightning at them.

  “Cheek!” Kana snorted, but James was already moving.

  Acting on a reflex he didn’t know he had, he blocked the lightning with his sword. The lightning leapt to the blade with a bright flash, and for a second, James thought he was dead. Then his vision cleared, and he could see that he and his sword were unharmed.

  “Your concern for my well-being is appreciated, but unnecessary,” Kana said. “An attack of that level could not possibly hurt me.”

  James shot her a quick glance, unsure if she was telling the truth or just showing her arrogance. That was all he had time for, as the shadow-faced attendant was also raising its clawed hands.

  Before it could attack, it let out a shriek of pain and dived to the side, revealing Mitsue, standing behind it. His short sword was covered in black blood.

  “Interesting,” he said. “These defences do not seem to stop mundane attacks in any way.”

  The glowing attendant swiped at him with its long, spindly arms, but Mitsue dodged easily, somehow finding room in the cramped confines behind the stall. He slashed at the arms with his blade, but was unable to cut the skin. The monster did pull back with a hiss, so it wasn’t entirely unaffected.

  The shadow-faced attendant was getting to its feet just as James made it to the stall. His sword was out in front of him; it suddenly stopped dead just before it would enter the space delineated by the counter. James stared in shock as green lightning crackled around the point of impact.

  “That is interesting,” Kana agreed. She ignored the light show that James was putting on in favour of addressing Mitsue. “It seems that mortals have a use after all. Finish off these two quickly. It won’t be long before they are reinforced.”

  “Easier said… than done,” Mitsue said. He was dodging and weaving between the two of them now, so close that it looked like they were wrestling. In the moments between his frantic dodges, redirects and blocks, he managed a few slashes, but the close range worked against him as well.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Then the green lightning cut out, and James jerked forward, his sword no longer stopped.

  “Never mind then,” Kana gloated and reached out with a monstrously enlarged arm, tipped with dragon claws. She grabbed the nearest monster and dragged it over the counter.

  Knowing that Kana wouldn’t appreciate help, James thrust at the shadow-faced one that remained. It was starting to panic, if its increasingly jerky motions were anything to go by. Pressed on both sides, it tried to defend against them both, but James’s sword sliced right through the arm it tried to block with.

  The monster shrieked like a tea-kettle and lashed out wildly with its remaining arm. Its attacks were mostly against Mitsue, who dodged them easily.

  A bright blue flash came from behind James, but Kana’s mocking laughter told him it was nothing to worry about. The monster in front of him froze for a second, so he took the opportunity to leap over the counter.

  In that same moment, Mitsue had driven his sword into the creature's ribs—or whatever it was that it had under those robes—and the monster wailed in pain. It dropped its guard, and James was ready to take advantage. Just as Midoriko-sensei had taught him, he made a horizontal slash—a yokogiri—that went right through the monster at neck level.

  The monster dissolved into smoke.

  “Are these guys even real?” James asked. He looked over his shoulder to see that Kana had disposed of her opponent.

  “I do not think they are shikigami,” Mitsue said. “If they are, they are summoned by a far more capable onmyōji than my teachers… which is, I suppose, what we are up against.”

  “I suppose,” James agreed. He tried the iron-bound door. It opened easily.

  A crashing sound came from behind him. Looking back, James saw that Kana, rather than jump or move the tables, had just smashed one to pieces and stepped over the remains. Talismans were scattered everywhere.

  “Everything is going to plan,” she said smugly.

  James looked through the doorway. He was a little surprised to see that the corridor was still there.

  “Where are we going to go?” he asked. “There were so many rooms.”

  “The audience chamber is a good place to start,” Mitsue mused. “That was where we last saw the book we are after.”

  “Harue will have the book,” Kana said confidantly. “We just have to listen for the sounds of mocking laughter.”

  It was as good a plan as any, but James couldn’t stop himself from opening the doors they passed and looking inside. The first two were just dusty storerooms, but the next…

  It looked like a study lined with sturdy birdcages. Each one held a silent, monstrous aberration, no more than a foot high. The only thing their twisted forms had in common was that they were all blindfolded. As James slid the door open, each one of them turned their heads in unison.

  James shut the door without comment. He let a few more doors pass unopened before a fluttering sound attracted his attention. Behind that door was a chamber with paper charms fluttering in midair, circling slowly around a cracked obsidian basin filled with ink—or some black liquid.

  He kept this door open for longer, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, but they had a mission. He closed the door and continued on.

  “This should be the place,” Mitsue said, as they came to a door like all the rest. James nodded and gripped his sword tighter. Kana opened the door without hesitation.

  This was the audience chamber. Just as before, Master Tan Wira was sitting on his raised chair. This time, he was sipping tea. He sneered at them when they entered the room.

  “More intruders? You must be the rescue team. The bodyguard is joined by another warrior, and the fox is pretending to be a dragon.”

  He looked over at James, who realised with a start that, without the mask, and in his armour, he hadn’t been recognised.

  “You’ll join your master soon enough, but that armour is interesting. Hopefully, there will be enough left to study after you’re done.”

  “Foolish human,” Kana said. “I am no fox.”

  She started gathering lightning in her hand. Tan Wira kept his smile, but it became more brittle.

  “Call me a fool, would you? It is you who have attacked me here, at the very heart of my power.”

  He gestured, and the walls of the room fell away. Even the wall with the door. Behind them were more of the robed figures than James could easily count. They all seemed to be copies of the ones that James had already fought—glowing, shadowed and veiled.

  Kana snarled and flung her lightning at the sorcerer. He sneered as it disappeared into nothing, a foot from his flesh.

  “Be a dragon, then; it matters not. Your corpse will make for valuable reagents once I dissect you.”

  James raised his sword. Surrender didn’t seem like an option at this point.

  I guess I get to find out what this armour can do, he thought. It's a shame, but at least—

  “Hey!” Harue’s clear, bright voice called out. “Is this thing important, do you think?”

  Her voice came from behind the ranks of robed figures. Tan Wira gestured, and the sea of spirits parted. Harue was standing there, holding up a glowing orb, about the size of a tennis ball.

  “Give me that!” Tan Wira demanded, all traces of amusement gone from his voice. He made a different gesture, and the orb flew from Harue’s hand, like an arrow, straight into his. Then it exploded in a puff of blue flame.

  Harue tittered. “Whoops! I guess that was a bit of foxfire, disguised as your little orb thing. This is the one I was asking about.”

  She held up another orb. Wan Tira glowered at her but didn’t snatch it. He hadn’t been seriously damaged by the fire, but his clothes and hair were singed.

  “See, the thing about spirits enslaved for eternity is… they’re terrible gossips. And the one thing they want to talk about is the item that keeps them enslaved. They just can’t stop talking about it.”

  She held the orb up, admiring it. It was swirling, James could see. The light came from deep within, mostly obscured by that grey swirling.

  “A captured storm,” Harue said. “Not a bad trick to manage. And then you can use it to summon all the arashi-no-ko that you can use, without any cost to you. It’s too bad I can’t use it to take control of them all. That’d take a bunch of magic I just don’t know.”

  Wan Tira snarled and gathered fire in his hand.

  “You sure you want to risk it?” Harue asked, holding the orb up. “Your boys can’t. They can’t go within ten feet of it or risk it getting damaged in any way. That must have been your first order, right?”

  “Destroy it, and I will destroy you,” Wan Tira blustered. “It will only take a second for me to condemn you to such agonies that you will wish that I had killed you.”

  “Oooh, sounds like we’ve got some kind of Guatemalan standoff going then. Except—guys, attack!”

  Not needing to be told twice, Kana threw her lightning and lunged forward to attack. James and Mitsue were right behind her. Wan Tira screamed with frustration and rage.

  “Kill them! Kill them all!”

  The sound of the glass orb shattering on the floor somehow overpowered all the other noises in the room. There was a moment of silence.

  Then the storm roared free. Furious gusts of wind, driving rain and flashes of lightning filled the room. James quickly lost sight of Harue. He stayed on his feet somehow and kept moving towards Wan Tira. Mitsue was not so lucky, getting blown to one side. Kana weathered the storm as she did everything else.

  Most of the lightning seemed directed at Wan Tira. The white heat of it was enough to make James cover his eyes, and the sound was almost enough to shatter his bones. The armour absorbed it without complaint. Wan Tira, the target of all that livid violence, managed to withstand it, but not without cost.

  Then it was gone, as swiftly as it had appeared. With it went all the robed figures. The room now felt almost empty, with just the four of them and the sorcerer there.

  “You think that was all I had?” Wan Tira screamed. “You think me defenceless now?”

  “I think you should die,” Kana said. She changed back to her dragon form and towered over Wan Tira. Lightning crackled in her mouth and along her claws. The smell of ozone filled the air.

  James didn’t bother talking; he just dashed forward and swung. A passable shomen-uchi, trying to split the sorcerer straight down the middle.

  It didn’t reach him. His sword stopped in midair, and the green lightning started to crackle around it. Unlike at the stall, however, he could still feel some movement. The invisible barrier was yielding to the pressure he was applying.

  Wan Tira must have felt it too. “What is that sword?” he demanded. Without waiting for an answer, he shot a fireball right into James’s chest.

  The whole dais exploded into flames. James was flung back and winded, but he wasn’t seriously hurt. He landed fairly close to where Mitsue was picking himself up.

  “Are you all right?” James asked.

  “I will be,” Mitsue replied, groaning as he got to his feet. “I see Harue has stolen my role again.”

  James looked back at the fight. Wan Tira had summoned some kind of chain made out of green light, it looked like, and had wrapped it around Kana. She was struggling with it, but keeping it on her was taking Wan Tira’s full concentration, and it looked like he hadn’t noticed Harue sneaking up behind him.

  “I gotta get back to it,” James said. “Stay back if you’re hurt.”

  “Frontal assaults are not my style,” Mitsue assured him. “I’ll look for my chance.”

  James nodded and charged back into the fight. Harue struck before he got there. Somehow, her claws managed to get past Wan Tira’s magic force field and reach him. They didn’t cut him, though. There was a yellow flash of light, and Harue was sent flying back.

  When Wan Tira turned around to see who had struck him, James saw that the sorcerer’s robes were torn and burning with that same yellow light. Then Wan Tira was forced to turn back to Kana, who had broken free of the green chain. Wan Tira was forced to content himself with sending a conjured blade flying in Harue’s general direction.

  He sent more blades at Kana and James. James managed to parry his, and Kana swatted away the ones sent against her.

  James was in range now, and his sword swept down in another overhand shomen-uchi. Like before, it was stopped by the magical defence, but something about the attack seemed to bother Wan Tira.

  “Get away!” he cried, pushing James back with a gust of wind. That left him open to Kana, who brought her jaws down on the man’s head. Or, at least she tried to. She was stopped by the same forcefield that had stopped James. She didn’t produce any green lightning, that seemed to be a feature of his sword.

  Encouraged, James charged in to attack again. Wan Tira snarled as he was pinned down by two attackers. His hands started to glow—but he was distracted enough to miss Harue flickering into visibility behind him.

  There was the same yellow flash of light, but this time her claws caught on a necklace that Wan Tira was wearing.

  “Oooh, shiny!” Harue exclaimed as she pulled back. The necklace broke, and beads went flying everywhere.

  “No! You can’t!” Wan Tira yelled. The rest of his speech was cut off as Kana’s jaw bit down on him. The forcefield was gone.

  That wasn’t the end, though. He still had defences. The yellow light flashed, and Wan Tira was engulfed in yellow flames. They didn’t seem to hurt him, but Kana reared back and flung Wan Tira like a rag doll. He went flying about thirty feet and landed heavily, while Kana coughed and spluttered.

  “Treating an old man like this…” Wan Tira muttered as he slowly got to his feet. “I ought to—gah!”

  Mitsue had found his chance, even as James was charging in. Wan Tira twisted at the last minute, but Mitsue’s ninja-to came away bloody.

  “Vexatious insects!” Wan Tira snarled. Lightning flew from his hands at both James and Mitsue. It skittered off James’s armour, but Mitsue shuddered and collapsed.

  “No!” James shouted. He swung at Wan Tira with all his might. In that moment, he forgot his forms, forgot to maintain the proper grip. He just swung.

  Glowing a furious green, James’s sword passed right through the body of Wan Tira. The sorcerer fell to the floor in two pieces.

  Everything fell silent for a second as James stared at the corpse, horrified by what he’d done. Then Harue clapped him on the back.

  “Nice work!”