Soul of the Sword (Shadow of the Fox #2) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,102

Hakaimono. Or the First Oni would kill us all, and the Master of Demons would rise again. Simple as that.

“Yumeko-chan?” Something touched my arm. I jumped and opened my eyes to see Okame gazing down at me, his eyes concerned. “Are you all right?”

“Hai, Okame-san.” I nodded. “I’m just…thinking about the mission, and what I have to do when we find Hakaimono.”

He grinned. “Don’t worry about it, Yumeko-chan,” he said brightly. “We just have to save the empire from the First Oni and the Master of Demons. Easy stuff, right?”

I frowned at him. “I don’t think it will be easy, Okame-san. Do you?”

“Nope.” The ronin shrugged. “Not at all. But I can’t take this too seriously, considering we’re all probably going to die. Just think of the ballads they’ll compose in our honor.”

“You two,” came Reika’s impatient voice from up ahead. “Whatever you are talking about, can it not wait until we are off the Path of Shadows and out of the realm of the dead?”

“Gomen, Reika-chan,” Okame called, his voice still obstinately cheerful in the darkness. “Yumeko and I were discussing what kind of ballads they’ll write of our tragically honorable deaths while fighting Hakaimono. Personally, I would like mine to be done in haiku.”

“Baka,” Reika muttered, rolling her eyes as she turned away. “Don’t compose our fates before we even get there. Besides, who would write a poem about your idiocy?”

“The archer unbowed,” Daisuke murmured as we started down the path. “The demon could not break him. He laughed as he died.”

“Ooh,” I said, pricking my ears forward. “That was impressive, Daisuke-san.”

The noble chuckled. “I am a man of many talents, Yumeko-san. I believe that if one takes an interest in something, one must strive to perfect it, and himself.”

“That,” Okame said, glaring at Daisuke with a half-gleeful, half-annoyed expression, “was entirely too easy, Taiyo. I would expect you would spend at least a week agonizing over the words of my death.” He struck a dramatic pose on the path, making us pause. “My death must be poignant and tragically noble, like the endings of all the Kabuki plays.”

“Okame-san.” Daisuke gave the ronin a faint, almost sad smile. “Should you perish on this mission while I somehow live, I swear I will compose a ballad in your honor that will make even the kami weep. However, you must promise to do the same for me, for I do not intend to sit idly by. When the time comes, I plan on meeting that glorious death right alongside you.”

My stomach twisted. “Has anyone ever composed a ballad where the heroes win, the enemy is defeated and no one else dies?” I asked. “Perhaps where, at the end of the tale, they go home with their friends, marry their love and live a peaceful life until the end of their days?”

Daisuke laughed, a strange, light sound in the gloom and darkness with the voices of the dead moaning all around us. “That would make for a very anticlimactic tale, Yumeko-san,” he chuckled. Raising a hand, he motioned us forward again, and we trailed the priest and the shrine maiden into the dark, following a sliver of light that fluttered and danced up ahead. “In the best stories, the heroes always give their lives, for honor, duty, sacrifice and the glory of the empire. Anything less and it is not much of a story at all.”

The journey back through Meido and the Path of Shadows wasn’t as bleak and horrifying as the first time; we knew what to expect and were prepared to close our ears to the calls of the dead. But it still wasn’t pleasant. I glimpsed Denga and Nitoru again, scowling at me, their faces dark as they glared through the mist that lined the trail. I knew it wasn’t really them, but my stomach twisted and a lump caught in my throat all the same. My friends were beside me this time, and I knew we wouldn’t let each other step off the path. Daisuke’s face was serenely blank as he strode forward, looking neither left nor right. Behind him, Okame stalked down the path with his arms crossed and his lips twisted in a smirk. Every so often, he would glance into the swirling mist and sneer, as if he was daring the spirits of the dead to do their worst. Once, I saw a spirit reach out for Reika, moaning, but there was a dart of orange in the gloom, as Chu rushed the ghost