Winds temple,” he rumbled, his terrible voice making the air shiver, “my name is Yaburama, fourth demon general of Jigoku, and I have come for the Dragon scroll.” He raised his tetsubo and swung it into his palm with a meaty thump, as the small demons hissed and chortled gleefully behind him, waiting for the signal to attack. “Give me what I have come for, and perhaps I will make your deaths painless.”
“Abomination!” Denga’s voice rang over the snarls and cackles of the demon horde. Fearlessly, he strode forward, until he was only a few yards away from the mountain of an oni. “We will never relinquish the scroll to such evil. You are not welcome here. By the Jade Prophet, begone, and take your minions with you!”
The oni cocked his head. Abruptly, he swung his club, shockingly fast, striking Denga in the side and smashing him into a pillar. The monk hit the beam with a sickening crack and crumpled to the floor, blood streaming from his nose and mouth, eyes staring sightlessly ahead. I bit my lip to stifle a shriek, and the oni curled a lip.
“Your Jade Prophet means nothing to me,” he commented, as the demons shrieked with laughter and swarmed into the room.
With cries of fury and outrage, the monks surged forward, meeting the demons in the center of the hall. They were unarmed, and their opponents wielded blades and spears as well as claws and teeth. But the monks were far from defenseless. Ki energy pulsed, turning fists into hammers and feet into weapons of destruction. A demon’s skull imploded after Nitoru kicked it in the head, spraying demon blood everywhere before it writhed into crimson-black smoke and disappeared. A trio of demons swarmed Satoshi, who caught a spear thrust at him, wrenched it out of the demon’s grasp and plunged it through its gaping mouth. But he didn’t see the danger behind him until a second demon sank a kama sickle deep into his leg. Satoshi staggered and dropped to a knee, and the monsters piled on him, dragging him to the floor.
Yumeko! Master Isao’s voice rang in my head, though the master of the Silent Winds temple strode right for the center of the room, ki energy crackling around him, where the terrible oni waited. Go, now!
I turned toward the hole in the floor and prepared to shift into fox form. But a bulbous blue head poked up between the boards, and a demon clawed itself out of the hole, followed by two friends. When they saw me, they hissed and raised their spears, and I hastily backed up.
Jinkei help me, I was trapped. I couldn’t go forward with the trio blocking the hole, and I couldn’t go back into the room, where the battle between monks and demons raged. The din was deafening, screams and howls mingling with flashes of ki, flying bodies and blood. As the trio of demons grinned evilly and tensed, I raised my arm, and a ball of blue-white foxfire flared to life in my palm. The blue demon glanced at the ghostly flames and sneered, making my heart sink; apparently a ball of kitsune-bi to the face wasn’t going to work a second time.
With a roar, the massive bulk of the oni flew backward and crashed into the statue of the Jade Prophet, knocking her off her base. The statue teetered for a moment, giving me just enough time to scramble away, before toppling through the wall with a deafening crash of wood and stone. The three amanjaku were buried under the rubble, and a warm, smoke-scented breeze rushed into the hall from the hole it left behind.
I cringed, ducking behind one of the pillars lining the room, as the oni shook its head and looked up at Master Isao, who stood in the center of the room. The monk was breathing hard, blood running down his face from beneath his hat, both palms raised.
A deep growl came from the oni, sitting against the ruined statue. “You hit hard, for a mortal,” the monster rumbled, getting to its feet. “Well done, but it will not save you. The amanjaku are tearing your brothers apart as we speak. No one is left.” He craned his neck from side to side, rolled his shoulders forward and raised his club. “It is time to end these games. Let us see if you have the ki to do that again!”
The oni lunged with a roar. As he barreled forward, raising