~~~

Picking up the dead rat by its tail, the eight-tailed fox dangled it briefly over his jaws then, without any hesitation or sighs of this is what it’s come to, let it drop.

The poor rodent opened one eye as it fell, glimpsing a sharp fox tooth on the brink of puncturing its guts, and realised it had made a serious miscalculation. All that time playing dead, just to avoid being stamped on by a panicked human. If its paws could hold a brush, it would’ve scribbled an angry poem about it, the stupid, erratic nature of idiot humans, but that time had passed.

Ah well, it thought, looking down at its body being torn in two, at least it’s gonna be quick.

And it was.

Two more seconds then gone.

Unfortunately, its rat friend on the other side of the cell wouldn’t be so lucky. Watching the massacre of the only rat that had ever backed his idea to build a floating restaurant in the dungeon gutter was bleak, enervating and, above all, a sign of what was in store for him at some point in his own life. Rats didn’t just die in their sleep. They got slaughtered. Consumed. Ripped apart by foxes with eight tails that had the temerity to grimace after eating his friend and say, ‘not the tenderest meat ever.’

Gods of rodent kind, wasn’t there a way out of this hell?

As an immediate answer, a large zori dropped from above and squashed the rat witness into mush, ending its short stint as a nihilist.

‘Got the little bastard, finally,’ said Akira, inspecting the underside of his zori and then the rat mess on the dungeon floor.

‘Killing for any reason beyond survival is immoral,’ mumbled Daiki into his red and white ribbons.

‘Yeah, save the fake piety, that little wretch was gonna nibble on my feet soon as I nodded off. Could feel its intent in my gut.’

‘No, he’s right,’ said the fox, swallowing down the remains of the other rat.

‘Who is?’

‘Should have let me deal with it.’

‘You mean magic man, he’s the one who’s right?’

‘What? Yes, of course.’ The fox hesitated, burped up rat gas, then continued. ‘Who else would I be referring to?’

‘My name is Daiki, actually. As I’ve told you seven times since you got us dumped in here.’

Akira opened his mouth to begin relitigating, but was stopped by the sound of Miho hitting his zori against the bars of the cell.

‘Instead of arguing again, how about we find a way out of here?’

‘A rational thought,’ muttered Daiki.

‘Were you asleep just now?’ asked Akira, walking over to the bars. ‘The fox is too fat to fit through these things. Even with me pushing him. And the iron's lodged in too tight at the bottom for his claws to get into.’

‘I know, I saw all that, but-…’

‘And even if I could fit through, there’s nowhere for me to go,’ added the fox. ‘Maximum range from the ribbons is about ten metres.’

‘Only ten? That’s not very far.’

‘It’s usually sufficient. Long as my vassal is mobile. But this lump…in a confined place like this…’

‘Wait a second,’ cut in Akira, holding a hand over Miho’s mouth to stop any more pointless questions drooling out. ‘What if we lure the guards down, from inside the cell?’

‘And then what?’

‘Call them names,’ said Daiki, picking up a bit of grit from the floor and throwing it at the collapsed rat art opposite.

‘Are you idiots? We get the fox here to hide under a dōbuku near the bars, then, when they get close enough, he bites their legs, they drop, we cut their throats and grab the key. If we're lucky, it might even roll down the slope right to us.'

Miho mumbled something from under Akira’s hand, so the ashigaru lifted the restraint and let him repeat. ‘Would that really work?’

‘With strategic, rapid biting skills, yes.’

‘No,’ countered the fox, moving over to the rat remains and prodding them with his paw. ‘Gods, going through the rules again, twice in eight months.’

‘What rules?’

‘Irritating ones. Okay, here’s the short version…and I should force Daiki to say it, really, as he’s the one who messed all this up, but…as he’s entering one of his classic moods, I suppose I’ll have to do it.’

‘I’m not in a mood,’ replied Daiki, throwing another bit of grit, this time at the fox’s leg. ‘And they’re not classic.’

‘Your face looks like bonfire ash.’

‘Because I’ve been heckled constantly for the last eight months.’

‘Directed, not heckled.’

‘Okay, you two weirdos,’ interrupted Akira, tapping Miho’s zori on the bars. ‘Just give us the rules. And no patronising tone, we’ve already seen other demons, we know generally what’s going on.’

‘Ha, an expert in my kind.’ The fox skipped over to Akira’s leg and kicked it. ‘How did that feel?’

‘Kuso…what are you doing, you little-…’

‘Just an example.’

‘Of what?’

‘Rule number two. Only that which believes in me can be interfered with tangibly.’

‘Eh?’

‘You mean…’ started Miho, then stopped when he realised he didn’t know himself what he meant.

‘If I try to attack those guards, nothing will happen. I’ll drift right through them.’

‘Bullshit,’ spat Akira, still rubbing his leg.

‘Nope. Real shit.’

‘But…that didn’t happen with the other demons,’ offered Miho, looking left at some scrawled graffiti on the wall telling him to eat his own feet. Either written in red paint or blood. Probably blood. ‘The green guy almost bit my whole cheek off.’

‘Yeah, and that purple witch killed five ashigaru…one of them of my friend. Well, kind of a friend. Didn’t hate him at least.’

The fox stretched open his jaw into an O shape, gasping. ‘Wah, I did not know that. Right then, I guess I can attack people who don’t believe in me.’

‘Are you being caustic?’ asked Akira, his expression indicating that he already knew the answer.

‘You have no idea…’ said Daiki, chuckling to himself as he threw another bit of grit.

‘Shut up, void face,’ shouted the fox, waving a paw to dismiss his vassal. ‘Of course I’m being caustic, cos you’re saying stupid things. The other demons can do things I can’t, and I can do some things they can’t. That purple witch you talked about, yeah, she can swirl about and cut you to pieces…in this realm, at least…but only if some pleb is carrying her box. And she can’t do it indefinitely, or even out in the open. Rules are tightly enforced for her kind. Me, on the other hand, I’m an independent contractor.’

Daiki laughter filled the whole cell with that line, the whole corridor even, making the two guards at the other end shout back, ‘hey, no jokes allowed.’

‘Yeah, keep laughing…those ribbons aren’t glued on, remember? I can switch any time.’

‘To another pleb…and only if they agree to it…yeah, very independent.’

The fox muttered something presumably in fox language then used its paw to throw some rat flesh at Daiki’s face. The mage didn’t bother to dodge, or wipe it off, he just kept laughing, altering the volume slightly so the guards wouldn’t shout at him again.

‘Okay, so what exactly can you do?’ asked Akira, gesturing at the cell around them. ‘Anything useful?’

‘Yes, I’ll definitely tell you with that tone.’

'Turn into mist?'

'Ah, now it's guessing time. Can't even wait for me to respond.'

'Can you do anything useful, yes or no?'

'Sure. Can you?'

Akira swore at the zori [Miho's] still in his hand and threw it at one of the many [pointless] wooden struts sticking out of the wall. ‘Gods, this is endless…’

‘Then switch cells, ashigaru.’

‘Or maybe I’ll just empty out this one…’

‘Ha, a pathetic threat.’

‘Why? What can you do to stop it?’

The fox raised its tails up, the eight tips glowing silver for a second…then powering down quickly as a door opened at the higher end of the corridor and a lady’s voice asked the guards if she could pay a visit.

Akira turned and leaned against the bars, with the fox and Miho joining him, all three prisoners observing carefully as a tall woman in a plain brown yukata and bizarro, poorly-tied head scarf shuffled serenely down the sloped corridor towards them.

‘Not Aya…’ Miho whispered, sinking down with a released breath and reclaiming his zori.

‘Not a demon,’ said the fox, stroking its claws.

‘Not spiritual,’ said Akira, moving away slowly from the bars as the woman reached the cell, pulled out a bottle of clear liquid from her basket and offered it forward.

Miho squinted at the bottle, thinking it had to be water, but he didn’t get time for further analysis as Akira was pulling him back, almost ripping his yukata sleeve when he didn’t accede.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’

‘Bodyguarding,’ Akira hissed back, finally giving up on the yukata and seizing Miho by the flesh of his arm, then dragging him over to the Daiki side of the cell.

‘Prisoners,’ began the woman in a gentle tone, putting both her hand and the bottle through the gap in the iron bars. ‘I bring you water blessed by the Northern Suwa Shrine.’

‘That’s where you’re from?’ asked Miho, looking at the woman’s eyes and spotting some pink lightning streaks. Then blinking and seeing that they were still there.

‘Northern Suwa is where my duties lie,’ she replied, blinking slowly, incredibly slowly, like she was in the middle of having a stroke.

‘The same place as that orange-haired monk?’

‘I’m sorry, child, I do not know who you refer to. Our shrine is one of limited hair. In this way, we are able to access the wisdom lines of the higher realm.’

‘You have hair…’

‘Yes, for my duties. Commoners feel confused by women with no hair, so I have kept mine as you see it.’

‘And you just randomly decided to come here, today, at this moment?’ asked Akira.

‘There is no need for alarm, brother. It is the time of Onbashira, when I must visit everyone who is in need. If the cells were empty, I would offer this water to the spirits of prisoners already departed.’

‘She’s lying…’ said the fox, dipping its paw in the rat blood.

The woman flinched, looking for a brief moment at the space where the fox was, then correcting herself and turning back to the boy and the ashigaru. ‘Please, come closer and receive the blessing.’

Akira glanced right at the fox next to him, whose eyes were flashing tiny dots of silver, then pushed himself to his feet and headed over to the bars. The woman smiled as he approached, peeling off the rice paper lid on the bottle and pushing it forward.

‘Does look quite tasty…’ said Akira, fixing eyes on the liquid…then, quick as a bear cub in a human-run bear cub adoption agency, shifted weight and shot his left hand up towards the woman’s neck.

The guard three feet behind her didn’t move an inch, barely even registered the move, but the woman was a different breed; her spare hand was up instantly by her throat, guarding against the attack that had already been aborted.

Akira took a step back, then another, keeping his eyes on Misora, who tried to salvage the situation by scratching her neck and muttering, ‘pesky mosquito,’ but it was too late.

The ashigaru had sniffed her out a mile off, and now Ichiko would never let her hear the end of it.

Unless she could still get to them…a needle throw perhaps?

She mapped out the cell, the positions of the boy and the ashigaru, ignored the drunk-looking guy and the weird silver shimmery thing, possibly a demon, possibly her own fatigue, then concluded that it would have to be one hell of a shot.

The boy…no problem, he was clearly too dozy to react, but the ashigaru. He was already a good three metres away and…kuso…was sliding down next to the drunkard, blocking eighty, ninety per cent of her line of sight.

‘Are you praying?’ asked Miho, standing up and taking half a step towards her, before Akira yelled at him to get back down.

‘It is a ritual, before the blessing is-…’

‘What is the meaning of this?’

Misora cut her line instantly and tried to pull the head scarf tighter round her face as the tall, familiar figure of the Suwa general, Lord Jun’ya, appeared beside her, repeating the same question.

‘The prisoners…’ she started, softening her voice a little, ‘it is my duty, during Onbashira, to visit here and-…’

‘She’s a Shingen spy,’ shouted Akira, throwing a bit of grit at Misora’s yukata and hitting the bottle instead. ‘Here to poison us with whatever shit is in that bottle.’

Kuso on top of other kuso, Misora thought. And that was pretty much all she could think as her body switched to survival mode.

'A Shingen spy...poisoning you...' said Lord Jun’ya, his speech as slow as a Mandarin kindergarten teacher.

'Don't parrot me, arrest her...quick.'

'Is this true?'

Eyes on the ground, face maintaining a bland mask of serenity, Misora started a new line about, ‘finding forgiveness in the unlikeliest of places,’ then spun fast, pushing the needle slipping out of her yukata sleeve up towards the Suwa General’s throat.

After this, she’d have to take down the nearest guard, who was already reaching for his katana, and then find a way to-

Her thoughts stopped, the brain finally sensing that her hand was stuck and there was something metal in her own neck.

Falling back against the bars, she dropped the bottle and tried to lift up her other arm but…it was too hard…too much effort…and what she really wanted to do was lie down, sleep a while…

Kuso, again…

Lord Jun’ya helped Misora down onto the stone floor, then extracted the needle from the side of the inept spy’s neck.

‘Put her in the other cell,’ he said to the guard, who, to his credit, didn’t stutter a response or gawp at what had just happened, but just bowed and dragged Misora by the arms across to the vacant cell to the side.

‘Nice move…’ said Akira, clapping twice then stopping when the Suwa General pointed the needle his way. ‘Out-flanking a trained ninja.’

‘You might’ve wished her to succeed, murderer.’

‘Yeah? Because you’re worse?’

Lord Jun’ya rose to his feet, tucking the needle beneath the sleeve of his dark blue yukata, and was about to answer when his eyes shifted, focusing on the spot where the fox had been a few minutes earlier. The rat corpse was also there, which could have explained the sudden attention, but then that seemed to get boring too as the General moved to Daiki, bobbing his head slightly as he watched the mage squeeze the red and white ribbons in his hair.

‘Should I repeat my query?’ asked Akira, waving a hand at the cell bars and the bearded, indigo-eyed bear of a man behind it.

The Suwa General picked up the words, and the sarcasm, and refocused [with a cough] on the ashigaru. ‘Tomorrow is an auspicious day for you. Festivities by the lake in honour of your head being chopped off. And your little boyfriend too.’

‘Boyfriend?’ Miho looked at Akira, puzzled.

‘He’s quite big, actually,’ replied Akira, patting Miho on the thigh.

Lord Jun’ya blinked, as if it were the first time he’d ever heard such a joke, then looked over at the other side of the cell again. Daiki had stopped squeezing the ribbons and was now stroking them, and, when the mage realised he was being observed, lifted his whole body up and stared back.

‘You like my hair accessories?’ he asked, finally, when their connection started to border on trance-like.

‘Those ribbons…’

‘From a stall in Uehara. Very cheap. You want some?’

Propping his forehead on the bars, the Suwa General continued his study, ignoring several coughs from the guard behind as he returned from dumping Misora into the other cell.

Then pulled back and nodded to himself.

‘Made a decision yet?’ asked the mage.

‘The shrine that you claim to be affiliated with…will be contacted tomorrow. We will see then what is to be done with you.’

‘Great.’

‘And you…’ said Lord Jun’ya, turning once more to Akira and Miho. ‘Tomorrow, your souls will be cleansed.’

‘That’s a nice way of putting of it.’

Grunting in approval [at his own words], the Suwa General faced the guard lingering behind and told him that, under no circumstance, was anyone to go near the cell doors.

‘Err…dinner time, water?’

‘You will slide it in from a distance of at least ten metres.’

The guard muttered ten metres back to himself, clearly not understanding much of anything.

‘Do you understand your orders?’

‘Yes, General,’ said the guard, switching to autopilot.

‘Even if they appear to be choking to death, do not go near that cell.’

‘Ah, choking…that part’s quite similar to existing protocol, General. The sickness ploy. No problem on that one at all. We won’t lift a finger.’

‘Good.’

Turning back to the mage one last time, Lord Jun’ya muttered something under his breath then strode off up the sloped passageway in long steps and barked at the other guard to stop fiddling with his eyelids and open the door.

Then he was gone.

Into a corridor with a hundred per cent wood and tatami.

Soaking in the silence of the cell, Akira put his head back against the wall and looked up at the last ceiling he’d ever see. Unless the executioner was very bad at aiming a katana.

On the opposite side, Daiki flicked at his ribbons several times until they glowed silver and the fox re-materialised next to the rat puddle.

‘There goes the plan,’ it said, dipping a paw in the blood.

‘Pessimist,’ muttered Akira, holding the self-pathos for a good few seconds before eventually giving in to a long, stuttered laugh.

‘She’s really a ninja?’ asked Miho, pointing at the slumped form of Misora in the adjoining cell.

‘Go back to sleep…’

‘A real one?’

‘Please.’

Miho walked back into the middle of the cell, shaking his head, accidentally stepping in some of the rat blood. ‘Wah, she wasn’t very good, was she?’