~~~

‘Are you sure this is the right way?’

‘Don’t ask him that, he doesn’t know.’

‘Feels like we’re heading up the mountain.’

‘Yeah, to avoid the guards we nearly bumped into just now.’

‘How long until we reach the lake?’

‘Must be somewhere near, we’ve been running for almost an hour.’

‘My legs are getting tired.’

‘Can’t believe you just let him go.’

‘Mine too.’

‘Top of my list and we’re just leaving him back there in the castle.’

‘Gods, not that Suwa General shit again.’

‘Can we stop a second, take a rest?’

‘What’s that giant black spot, up ahead?’

‘Suppose I’ll have to switch targets now. Something closer. That even a coward can’t say no to’

‘Or I can just rip out my beads and leave you here, how about that?’

‘Wah, the fake mage threatens…’

‘Don’t push me, fox.’

‘Fox?’

‘Is it a black spot? Quite hard to see in this light…’

‘Well, it’s not the lake, I know that much.’

‘All of you…shut up!’

The last line was loud and reverberatory and Akira regretted it almost as soon as it left his mouth. Not the content, that was valid, but the fact that it might’ve just told nearby Suwa guards their location.

Lowering his voice to an angry hush, the flustered ashigaru jabbed at random trees on the non-existent path behind them and reminded the four moaners that they were in the middle of a life and death escape attempt and, in cases like these, it was not the most productive thing to lose themselves in petty squabbles and constant, irritating whines of are we there yet?

Of course, being exhausted and an ashigaru, he managed to sprinkle in some kuso and other gutter slang too, and, finally satisfied that the point had been made, he turned and walked onto phantom ground…swinging his right arm wildly as he fell down into a giant hole that, in brighter daylight, he may have seen coming.

‘Not a black spot,’ muttered Miho, running to the edge and peering down into the darkness.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Daiki, keeping his voice low.

‘What the hell…’ grumbled Akira, grinding his palms into the dirt at the bottom of the hole and pulling himself up into a sitting position.

‘Do you need us to throw down some rope?’

‘Or a chain of our yukatas maybe, tied up,’ suggested Miho, looking at Aya for validation.

‘I’m not taking mine off, it’s freezing.’

‘You’ll survive,’ said the eight-tailed fox, taking a seat on the other side of the hole, placing a claw nail in its mouth. ‘In one form or another.’

Aya glared back, pulling her yukata in tighter.

‘Okay, how about a human chain then?’ offered Miho, switching to Daiki, who winced as he looked down at the dirt by his zori.

‘Rope’s better.’

‘Do you have any?’

‘No.’

‘Then…’

The ashigaru half-heard the nonsense coming from above and, normally, would have replied with more kuso attacks, but the green, metre-long sticks poking out of the soil bed around him were proving a strong distraction.

Ritualism?

Measuring the depth of the hole?

He tried to grab one and pull it closer, but it was planted in tight, so he crawled over and inspected the sides for marks or clues that might explain why there was a giant hole in the middle of the mountain slopes.

Nope. No marks, no clues, which left…nothing.

‘What is this thing anyway?’ asked Miho, walking around the perimeter above and almost knocking his foot into the fox.

‘Hey, watch it, human.’

‘Who would put a hole this big in the middle of nowhere?’

‘Probably a trap of some kind,’ replied Daiki, checking back on the trail they’d taken to get there, seeing nothing but slots of darkness and shadow between the tree trunks.

‘Dug by the Suwa guards?’

‘In case of attack, yes. Suppose the intention is to cover it at some point, let the invading army fall in.’

‘Can we go to the lake now?’ asked Aya, already by the next set of trees. ‘It’ll be sunrise soon and the guards are still out looking for us, remember?’

‘We have to get Akira out of the hole first.’

‘He can do it himself. It’s not that deep.’

Miho glanced down again, frowning at Akira trying to yank out one of the green sticks, then looked at the sides to see if they were scalable. Aya was right, there was a bit of slant to them, probably enough for him to crawl up and out. Though it was still about twelve feet deep…and he’d been running for the last hour…and stuck in a dungeon cell for a whole day and half a night before that.

‘Arrggh, kuso,’ shouted Akira, giving up on the green stick and pushing himself up onto his feet. ‘It’s a hole, just climb the fuck out, idiot.’

‘Are you talking to yourself?’ asked Miho, looking at the others.

‘But I’m telling you, if I ever find the guy who dug this…or ordered it dug…’

An abrupt laugh, like a demonic child finding an injured cat, then a slow fade into an aggravated sigh as the eight-tailed fox threw a clump of dirt at the ashigaru’s head.

‘What the-…’

‘The guy who dug this…is back at the castle…hydrogen brains.’

‘Don’t start that again.’

‘And, no, it’s not a defensive trap, or magic, or a mass grave…it’s an attempt to find a backdoor into my world. And a pretty naked one at that.’

‘A backdoor?’ asked Miho, going with the question that everyone else wanted to ask but were too proud to repeat words from the fox’s own sentence.

‘I have to hand it to the Jjanna General though. Or Lord Jun’ya as he calls himself. He does plan for all eventualities.’

‘But…why would he go back?’

Daiki nodded, fondling his red and white beads. ‘Good point. Isn’t he on your list?’

‘I don’t have the time or incentive to explain it to humans.’

‘Then why did you tell us?’

‘Or fake mages.’

‘Hey…’

The eight-tailed fox threw another clump of dirt at Daiki’s head, missed, then scooped up another and started reforming it.

‘I’m still your vessel, demon.’

‘Yeah, sure. If you really want to know, ask her.’ The fox threw the new ball of dirt at Aya’s servant yukata, managing a direct strike. ‘She knows just as much as I do.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You mean, about the hole?’ added Miho, squinting at the edge and flinching when he saw Akira’s hand appear and bury its fingertips into the ground.

‘The hole, the dungeon escape, how she managed to knock out two guards, where she vanishes to every night…’

‘She has trouble sleeping,’ answered Miho, leaning down to help Akira up while keeping his head aimed at a very stationary Aya, who wasn’t even bothering to wipe the crumbling dirt off her yukata. ‘Right?’

‘It’s not sleep she has trouble with, it’s maintaining human form. Ah, don’t glare at me like that, sessskat. You’re lucky I haven’t added you to my list. Though now that I think about it…the way the night’s going…maybe I should.’

‘Who’s a zesty cat?’

‘Yeah, what are you yabbering on about fox?’ asked Akira, breathing raggedly, rubbing his dirt-covered hands on Miho’s yukata hem.

‘I’m not an encyclopaedia. Ask her.’

All three of the gang tutted in defiance then turned their heads towards Aya anyway. Not glaring exactly, but…

‘We’re staying here too long,’ she said, finally brushing some of the dirt off the front of her yukata. ‘The guards will come soon.’

‘Is the fox right?’ asked Miho, his voice more detached than usual. ‘Are you not human?’

‘He’s playing tricks on you, trying to get you to go back to the Suwa General.’

‘But…how did you get into the dungeon? Safely?’

‘I told you already, I dressed like this and sneaked in. Knocked out the guards with poison darts. Can we go now?’

Another laugh from the fox, loud enough to rustle the leaves nearby and get a grunt from Akira. ‘Gods, you’re still evading. Typical sessskat. Desperate to stay in your little fantasy world. What was it? Murder?’

‘… … … … …’ said Aya, a mix of hisses and slurs.

‘Ah, it was, wasn’t it? Maybe I should check the database, see if there’s a reward. Or better yet, just tag you now and make it a surprise.’

‘What do you mean tag?’ asked Daiki, watching the fox grind its claw nails against each other.

‘Don’t get queasy, this is work of the highest morality. Sessskat are notoriously vicious back on my world.’

‘Aya, what is he talking about?’ Miho took a step closer, half offering a hand. ‘Why does he keep calling you a sex cat?’

She looked past him, her own hand still robotically wiping the dirt stain off her yukata…but actually just rubbing it in deeper to the material.

‘Back off, human,’ ordered the fox, swishing all eight of its tails out into a decadent fan formation. ‘I’m gonna need a little space…’

‘To tag her?’

‘…and someone to carry me afterwards as I may be weakened. Ah, well-remembered, mage.’

‘No…’ mumbled Miho, his legs forcing his body quickly over to Aya and parking it in front as a protective shield.

‘Don’t think I won’t drop you too, human.’

‘You can’t do this, she just rescued you…from the dungeon…’

‘Move aside.’

‘She’s not-…’

‘Now.’

The eight tails of the fox started to glow pale silvery light, exactly as they had in the dungeon, and Miho did the same thing he’d done when Yuki had held his head under the river surface, closed his eyes and braced for doom.

But doom didn’t come.

Instead, there were moans and growls and insults of you stupid fake mage and other words in an unknown language and then the glow was gone and, when Miho opened his eyes again, he saw Daiki standing over by a tree trunk twenty metres away, with the fox kicking out at his calves, telling him to walk back over to the sessskat or else.

‘I’m not gonna be complicit in murdering innocent young girls.’

‘Tagging, you fool, and she’s not a girl, she’s a murderer…’

‘The Suwa General, fine. The others, fine. But not her.’

‘Kuso…you just ran away from the Jjanna! And the palak monk. In fact, the only thing you actually ever do is run away…and drink. And pine for that silly bandit who left you to become a magician. A real one.’

On the branch above, a bird hooted right as Daiki’s eyes went nova. Then self-diluted almost in the same instant as he looked at his hands and saw he was weapon-less.

‘Okay, enough fucking drama,’ interrupted Akira, finally dusting all the dirt from his yukata. ‘We’re moving.’

‘Ah, the palak monk catcher,’ shouted the fox, tapping its claws together, running forward the full ten metres it was capable of. ‘Take the sessskat…the girl…and I’ll give you a percentage. And make you my new vessel.’

The ashigaru ignored the fox and moved over towards Miho, who was still standing guard in front of a catatonic Aya. ‘You two as well.’

‘She’s not what she looks like,’ continued the fox, adjusting its tone to something more sinister, ‘if that’s what’s stopping you.’

Akira turned back, sharp, his hand reaching towards his katana. ‘Would you stop shouting?’

‘Relax, no one’s coming here. It’s too close to the Jjanna’s hole.’

‘Gods on a-…’

‘Don’t be vulgar. I mean, the guards will have been ordered away from this spot as it’s precious to the General. Even if they hear a girl screaming, they won’t come near it.’

In his head, Akira knew it was a curse, knew that saying something so challenging out loud could only result in one thing, but the chances of the gods actually paying attention to this little scene and sending the guards in was…

‘Hands down, move to the hole.’

Akira closed his eyes, muttering to himself. He didn’t need to look, he could tell by the footsteps that there were at least six of them, all armed no doubt.

‘Don’t try anything, we have you surrounded.’

Aya woke up from her comatose state and took Miho’s hand, whispering in his ear that he should get ready to run.

Which was a strange statement as eight Suwa guards were closing in on them from three different directions and the only route left open was suspiciously open and quiet.

‘We’re looking for the escaped prisoners,’ tried Akira, for some reason pointing up at the sky, but he knew straight away that the picture didn’t fit, and, when the guards switched from one hand on their katana grips to blade fully out and diagonal, he sighed and did the same thing.

‘Wah, it’s magical…’ blurted out one of the guards, transfixed by the green stain.

‘Nah, he just pulled it out of the lake…’

‘Spilt ink on it, more like…’

‘Quiet, all of you. Focus on the ashigaru, keep him by the hole,’ the lead guard commanded, flicking a hand at a spare man, signalling for him to watch Daiki by the tree.

‘You can’t shed blood here,’ said Akira, gesturing down towards the hole as was forced back by seven slowly advancing guards, none of them breaking formation to attack, even when he stepped forward and feigned a weak lunge.

It was a well-trained move, the idea simply to shepherd him into the hole where there would be no hope, and hack him to death if he tried to single any of them out.

No, his only real chance was…kuso…something very deflating.

‘See those green sticks down there…’ he continued, using his katana to point into the hole that none of the seven guards could yet see. ‘They belong to the gods. And the gods won’t be happy if humans stumble in and stain it with their blood.’

‘Ignore him, he’s desperate,’ said the lead guard, taking another half step forward. ‘The gods are on our side.’

‘You sure about that? Cos I’ve communed with them, had my blade blessed by their magic, and they told me…any human who interferes with our rituals, will be blinded…by a bright, silvery light.’

Nodding at his own words, Akira looked over at the fox and repeated the line, putting so much stress on the silvery light part that the lead guard stopped and asked, ‘which gods?’

And the guard next to him leaned in, whispering that it had been a silvery glow above the canopy that had brought them there.

‘So now you need me, do you?’ said the fox, scraping invisible dirt off one its claws.

‘The gods who speak with a very loud voice…and glow silver to attract nearby guards who wouldn’t have found us otherwise.’

‘If you’re appealing to my sense of fairness,’ the fox started, then trailed off into an annoyed hiss.

‘Which gods?’ repeated the lead guard, taking another step forward. ‘Answer or we’ll hack you down right now.’

Akira checked the lead guard’s feet, saw an opening…then took a step back, right to the edge of the hole, as the flanking guards closed it up, all of them shuffling in tight to their slightly isolated commander.

Kuso…too slow. Too many of them.

‘Tell me which gods…’

‘Ah, forget it. They would be stuck here anyway. With all of us dead and unable to carry them forward on their mission.’

‘Ha, ashigaru wretch, I knew you were lying.’

‘Trapped for eternity inside a bunch of ugly red and white beads.’

‘Advance, men, push him in, hack if he tries to run…’

Akira breathed out, glanced over at Miho and Aya, who may as well have been invisible as the guards paid them no attention at all, saw her hand gripping the boy’s sleeve…

Ah well, at least I can go down stabbing, he thought, raising his green katana and picking out the lead guard as his only target, the one who had annoyed him the most.

But if I see a fox in Hell, even a mono-tailed one…

The ashigaru’s vision of chasing a bright silver fox round the rim of a volcano spurting out gargantuan chunks of lava was cut short by the ground at his feet glistening a faint shade of white, then the katanas of the guards doing the same thing, then their uniforms, then their heads, then everything.

Akira closed his eyes and flung himself down into the hole, blocking out the blast of heaven assaulting him.

Screams rang out on the ground above, then moans, then a yell of help, a fucking fox is biting my-…

Akira waited for the light to fade and the whining to subside, then climbed back up the slope of the hole.

‘You owe me,’ said the fox, sitting on the corpse of one of the guards, chewing on a cut-out slice of his neck. ‘All of you.’

Shaking his head without really understanding that he was doing it, the ashigaru scanned the massacre site, breathing out in clear relief when he saw Daiki still standing by the tree, stroking his beads with an equally stunned expression on his face.

‘Miho…’ he muttered, switching to the empty space where the boy and the pretend human girl had been.

‘The sessskat and her useful idiot have fled,’ said the fox, swallowing down the last of its human meat and coughing afterwards. ‘Probably halfway down the hill by now. Which means we’re back to the original list.’ The fox coughed again, patting its chest with a bloody claw. ‘You know, I don’t even like human flesh. Far too rough.’

‘We need to go,’ said Akira, giving little slaps to his own cheek, then moving over to Daiki and doing the same thing.

‘What…’ slurred the mage, blinking like a village infant.

‘That light would’ve been seen by all the guards in Suwa. We probably have about ten minutes, if that.’

Daiki held up a hand to veto any more slaps, then did what his brain was telling him not to and surveyed the Goya landscape.

His first reflex was to retch, but then he remembered the corpse on the trolley from outside the General’s chamber and, compared to that, a small clearing of eight dead soldiers with all their limbs intact didn’t seem that awful.

And then one of them moaned.

Reanimated.

Both Daiki and Akira grabbed each other by the sleeves, both getting in each other’s way, both giving up and just saying, ‘wah, they’re still alive.’

‘Of course, I’m not a murderer,’ replied the fox, licking the blood off its claw. ‘Okay, not a mass murderer, before you say anything. Just felt a bit peckish with that one. And I’m kind of drained now, to be honest. Not a small thing, using that level of shine.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us you could do that…in the dungeon?’ asked Akira, scanning the murmuring bodies.

‘It was useless there. Obviously.’

‘But…’

‘Wah, no follow ups. I’m too tired for exposition. And none of you deserve it anyway, not after letting both the Jjanna and that sessskat go.’

‘Gods, this is gonna be annoying,’ muttered Akira, refocusing on the gaps between the trees, the path they came from earlier.

‘What did you say, ashigaru?’

Another guard groaned, this one flipping over and waving his hand around. This seemed to act as a signal, resuscitating most of the others. Except the one the fox had chewed on, he was still dead.

‘They’re all waking up,’ said Daiki, straightening out his yukata.

‘Yeah, with their friends on the way. Come on. And keep your eyes off the bloody one. Can’t afford to have you in that zombie state again.’

‘I’m okay,’ he said back, refusing Akira’s outstretched arm then doing his own little series of slaps to the cheeks.

‘Finally, a backbone,’ said the fox, wiping its claw on the dead guard’s uniform.

‘Good. We’ll aim for the lake. Shouldn’t be too far.’

‘Miho and Aya…’

‘If we see them, fine. If not…’

Daiki dipped his head, doing another quick scan of the moaning bodies to see if he’d missed any non-soldiers.

Nope, all uniformed, all Suwa.

‘Enough dawdling, we need to go now,’ said Akira, shouting over from the other side of the hole, with the fox stuck halfway between them. ‘Before they get their senses back.’

‘You heard him, get those beads moving.’

‘I’m coming.’

Stepping over one guard, then another, then the solitary corpse, Daiki followed the ashigaru’s trail round the hole and into the next crop of trees, shivering slightly as the silvery light flashed again and the fox was sucked back into his beads.

None of us died, he repeated inside his head. Aya, Miho…Akira…me…

We’re all okay.

Somehow.