you want, demonslayer?” He glared down at Tatsumi. “Your little fox girl came all this way to save you, and now she’s going to watch Genno slaughter her friends and everything she cares about, before she dies, too. Because you failed to save her. Can you live with that for the rest of eternity?”
“I…” Tatsumi’s tortured, anguished gaze flicked to me. “Yumeko,” he whispered, “if I do what Hakaimono suggests, I…I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know if I’ll be myself anymore. If I hurt you…” His words faltered, his eyes flickering shut, as if that thought was too painful to continue. “I am not the Kage demonslayer,” he murmured. “I have fallen to Hakaimono, and am no longer worthy to bear Kamigoroshi. Even if I survive here, the clan will call for my death. I can hope only that they will be merciful and allow me to take my own life with honor.” His gaze met mine again, resignation settling over his features. “But until then, until they come for me, my life is yours. What do you wish me to do?”
The glow suffusing Tatsumi grew brighter, almost blinding. His body flickered, becoming transparent, and coils of light began drifting upward, vanishing into the black. Hakaimono growled a curse.
“We’re out of time, demonslayer,” the oni snarled, and held out his claw once more. “Give up, or keep fighting? Decide, now!”
“Tatsumi.” I framed his face with my hands, and though I couldn’t feel him anymore, his eyes pierced the distance between us. Bright and soulful as I whispered the final word. “Stay.”
Tatsumi bowed his head, and for a moment, my heart sank. But his eyes flashed open once more, hard with determination, as he spun toward Hakaimono and grabbed the outstretched talon.
The light surrounding Tatsumi flared, expanding outward, and both human and demon vanished into the glow. Shielding my eyes, I squinted through my fingers, trying to see what was happening, suddenly terrified that, when the light faded, Tatsumi would be gone and Hakaimono would be the only soul remaining.
The glow faded to almost nothing, and I drew in a sharp breath, my heart seeming to stop in my chest. A body knelt where Tatsumi had been a moment before, shoulders hunched and head bowed, breathing hard, as if in pain. Human-sized. Human-looking…almost. Hakaimono’s evil-looking tattoos crawled up his arms and shoulders, and a pair of glowing ember horns curled from his forehead, but that was the only sign of the demon. No void-dark skin, no white mane or claws or fangs. He looked like Kage Tatsumi.
Then he raised his head, and a jolt went through me like lightning. I was looking at them both, two entities somehow merged into one. Their souls overlapped, tangled with each other, but they were still separate individuals. I could see both Hakaimono and Tatsumi gazing back at me, and the surrealness of it all made my head hurt.
The figure before me slumped, bowing his head, and my worry spiked. “Tatsumi,” I whispered, dropping beside him. “Are you all right?”
He gave a painful nod. “Almost didn’t make it in time,” he murmured, and I couldn’t tell if it was Tatsumi’s voice speaking to me, or Hakaimono’s. Or both. Raising his head, he looked me in the eye and jerked his head. “Go, Yumeko,” he said. “The Master of Demons is still out there, with his army. Find your friends, see if any of them are still alive. You have to keep Genno from getting the last piece of the scroll.”
“What about you?”
“I have to…recover a bit.” Raising a hand, he clenched a fist, before letting it drop. “This body is still weak—it took everything I had to keep it alive. I don’t think I can move yet.” He reached out again and grabbed my shoulder, making me jump. “Go,” he ordered again. “Stop Genno. Don’t worry about me. I’m not…going to disappear. Not this time.”
I bit my lip, paralyzed with choice, feeling torn in several directions at once. Worry for my friends and everyone at the temple was twisting my stomach into knots. I desperately hoped Reika, Daisuke and Okame were all right. To find them I had to return to my own body before a hungry demon or yokai ripped it apart. I might already be too late, but I was reluctant to abandon the soul I had come to save, leaving it with the demon I had sworn to drive out. “Do you promise?”
“Yumeko.” His gaze met mine, and for