“Okame!” I cried, but the ronin was already striding forward, raising his bow, and the first arrow slammed into the chest of a minor oni, toppling it backward. The second pierced the throat of an amanjaku, while the third struck the forehead of a doglike yokai with the face of an old man. As they shrieked and collapsed, three of the Orochi’s heads turned toward the steps, eyes narrowing as they spotted us.
I reached behind me, grabbed a handful of chrysanthemum leaves from the bushes growing beside the door and hurried to join Okame at the top of the steps. He glanced over, met my gaze with a smile and a nod and turned toward the enemy as I released a surge of fox magic into the courtyard.
Dozens more samurai appeared, exploding into existence with small puffs of smoke, and rushed the demon army with unified battle cries. Startled, the hoard turned to face this new threat, giving the real warriors time to regroup. The Orochi snarled in rage, sending its heads down to bite at the newcomers, shredding illusions and slicing through them with its tails. But for each illusion the monsters destroyed, I added two more to the battle, tossing leaves into the air and filling the courtyard with fox magic.
As Okame continued to rain down arrows and I continued to bolster the samurai army with illusions, one of the scorpion twins looked up and met my gaze over the carnage. Her eyes narrowed, and she leaped onto the Orochi’s back, then stood up and swept her arm over the mass of demons.
“We’re fighting illusions!” she cried, and pointed at me with a long black fingernail. “It’s the kitsune! Kill the fox, and the shadows will vanish. Orochi, destroy her!”
With a roar, the Orochi reared up, four of its jaws opening and breathing a wave of fire at the top of the steps. I cringed back as the inferno howled toward me, but before the flames could get close, they slammed into a wall of magic that flared blue-white between us. The fire sputtered out, and a few steps away, Reika winced, her brow furrowed in concentration. The few demons that made it past the samurai and Okame’s arrows hurled themselves up the steps but they, too, hit the barrier of holy magic and were flung back, though each time they did, Reika would shudder as she fought to maintain her hold on the wall.
I flung out a hand, and a trio of Yumekos appeared to surround me. “Okame!” I cried, tossing a pair of illusionary ronin into the fray, as well. “We have to take down the Orochi! If it gets up here, Reika won’t be able to hold it back.”
“Don’t ask for much, do you?” the ronin gritted out, but he turned his bow on the massive creature still making its way across the courtyard, snapping and crushing the samurai around it. He loosed an arrow that hit the Orochi right in the chest, but the monster didn’t even notice it.
“The heads, Okame,” I gasped at the ronin. “It’s too big to hurt directly, but cut off the heads, and maybe the body will die.”
The Orochi was very close now, a writhing, unstoppable force just a few yards away. As it reached the first step, an arrow sped through the air, and a head that had been rearing back to breathe flame spasmed as the dart slammed between its jaws and pierced its throat.
As the neck fell limply to the monster’s side, a shout of triumph arose from the remaining samurai in the courtyard. Perhaps seeing that the creature could be hurt, after all, they surged forward with renewed effort, blades rising and falling through the demon ranks. One warrior, standing his ground as a head snaked down at him, slashed at it viciously and managed to strike the Orochi’s neck. The head reared up with a scream, half-severed from its body, spilling bright red blood over the stones as it thrashed.
Another gout of flame came at me, again sputtering out against Reika’s barrier, and a demon snarled as it bounced off and tumbled down the steps. Reika gasped, and I spared a split-second glance at Tsuki-sama and the mages, desperately hoping they were almost done. We couldn’t keep this up