Shadow of The Fox (Shadow of the Fox #1) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,156

lunged at me with a roar, swinging the tetsubo in a savage arc. I stepped back from the first blow, ducked under the second and then, as the weapon came straight down at my head, braced myself and threw up my empty hand, catching the end of the club in my palm.

Yaburama’s eyes bulged. He strained against the club, trying to drive it down into my skull, but neither I nor the tetsubo moved. I smiled at him from the shadow of the weapon, and curled my claws into the wood.

“I am Hakaimono the Destroyer,” I growled up at him. “The strongest demon Jigoku has ever known. And soon, this entire realm will remember why!”

Shoving the tetsubo away, I leaped into the air as Yaburama staggered back, flailing and off balance. As he caught himself, swinging his club once more with an angry snarl, I brought Kamigoroshi flashing down. The blade struck the oni’s forearm, shearing through flesh and muscles and bone, continuing out the other side. The tetsubo and part of Yaburama’s arm struck the stones with a thud, and Yaburama’s snarl turned into a howl of pain.

Hitting the ground, I spun and darted back toward the reeling oni. Maddened with pain and rage, bloody arm stump dripping steaming puddles over the ground, Yaburama roared and swung at me with his other claw. I ducked, rolled beneath it and sliced his leg as I went by. The oni staggered, swayed like an oak in a storm, then toppled over, his body falling one way while his severed knee remained where it was. He hit the ground on his back and lay there a moment, gasping, blood pumping from the stumps of his limbs and spreading over the stones.

Smiling, I walked casually up to the panting oni and leaped to his chest, pointing the bloody sword in his face. “Well, this was fun,” I said calmly. “Nothing like a good old-fashioned massacre to get the blood pumping. Tatsumi never had it in him for savagery. Oh, I’m sorry, you were saying something, weren’t you? Something about letting me rot in that cursed blade for another four centuries?”

“Damn you, Hakaimono,” Yaburama rasped. “You’ve been stuck in Kamigoroshi for too long. You don’t know what’s been happening the past few centuries.”

Smiling, I raised the sword over my head. “I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”

Yaburama snarled and tried to rise. I brought Kamigoroshi down in a flash of steel, slicing through the burly neck, being sure to sever it from his body this time. The oni’s head toppled backward and rolled several feet before coming to a stop, his jaw clenched in rage.

Throwing back my head, I filled my lungs and let out a roar of triumph, hearing my voice boom into the air and echo over the castle peaks. Free! There was so much to do; so many lives to take, so much destruction and fear and chaos and death to wreak upon this pathetic realm. I was back, and this world would pay dearly for the centuries I was sealed away.

A gasp came from the castle entrance, and I smiled.

Turning on Yaburama’s chest, I spotted the girl at the top of the stairs, the shrine maiden, a pair of dogs and an old human priest behind her.

35

The Demon of the Blade

“Jinkei preserve us.” I heard Reika whisper behind me, in a voice that sent a chill racing up my back.

I couldn’t answer, staring at the center of the courtyard, at the figure outlined in moonlight. At the jet-black skin and wild mane of white hair, at the horns, fangs and claws. At the demon that still had Tatsumi’s face. Tatsumi, or the thing he had become, turned atop the smoking corpse of the headless Yaburama, Kamigoroshi blazing in his hand, the blade shining red with blood. The oni’s head lay several feet from the body, also letting off coils of smoke as it disappeared, vanishing back to Jigoku. I should have been happy to see Yaburama dead; the oni that had destroyed the Silent Winds temple and killed everyone there was lying headless in the center of the courtyard. I should have felt vindication, or at least some form of relief.

But right then, gazing at the figure standing atop the corpse, all I felt was terror. Because the oni that had replaced Yaburama, who smiled at me from Tatsumi’s body, was a hundred times more frightening.

“Ah, there you are, Yumeko-chan.” I jumped at the voice, at the sound of my