Yoshika’s forward expedition wasn’t as extensive as she would have liked. The demons were able to keep pace easily, as were most of the Yamato veterans, but most of the remaining force had to lag behind. None of the healers from the Cult of Harmonious Stars, nor the Goryeon mages could join, and the Yamato generals were only willing to restructure a few of their armies.

Lord Ienaga and his generals stayed behind with the main force, sending Takeda Chiyo and Minami Yuuko to represent them. Kaede was joined by Long Ruiling and Yang Qiu, while Jin Hu and Luo Mingyu stayed behind to remain in command of the Jiaguo troops that were unable to keep up.

Ienaga Yumi, still injured, stayed behind as well. It meant that they wouldn’t be able to present themselves as a united front again, but once they made it through Kasuga’s territory it was just a race across abandoned territory to reach the capital. With a force of veterans chosen specifically for speed, they’d leave the pursuing Hayakawa vassals in the dust.

Things were going well, but the traces of Yu Meiren’s influence made Yoshika nervous. Hopefully, she was just being overcautious, and Ishihara’s mission would be successful enough for them to take Kasuga without much opposition.

It didn’t take long for them to arrive at the castle—or what was left of it.

Yoshika had been prepared for a dug-in enemy force, welcoming allies, or anything in between. What she had not expected was for the entire castle and the surrounding town to be ablaze.

Jia stood on a hill overlooking the flaming ruins, a cold pit in her stomach.

“Melati!”

One of the wasp-fiend’s tiny drones zipped around her head and waved.

“Hi Yoshi!”

“Check the city for survivors!”

“Yes ma’am!”

The little drone zipped off to comply, and Jia saw several of Melati’s full-sized bodies join it to sweep their way through the burning city. Kaede rushed to join Chiyo and Yuuko.

“Change of plan—we’re not taking the city, we’re rescuing it!”

Chiyo looked away from the blaze to meet Kaede’s eyes.

“From what?”

“I don’t know yet. Hopefully someone can tell us what happened here.”

Kaede and her lieutenants swiftly assembled units to set up camps and evacuate survivors. With Melati’s help, Yoshika herself swept the city, putting out fires and tracking people down before guiding the units on the ground toward them.

The castle itself got the worst of it. Charred corpses littered the courtyards, not all of them human. While the palace was a lost cause, Yoshika sensed a pocket of living auras sheltering deep within. The fire was too strong and widespread to put out, and there was no way any of the soldiers would be able to make it to the survivors within.

Yoshika surrounded herself with a protective shield of mana and dove in.

Once inside, she had to navigate with only her domain. The air was choked with smoke, and flaming debris crashed around her with every moment. None of it was a threat to her, but it was a grim reminder of how dire the situation was for the survivors.

Following the auras led her to a heavily barricaded storage room. The heavy stone walls of the room had protected them from the blaze, but trapped within by their own barricades, they were trapped in what was essentially a giant makeshift oven, slowly cooking alive.

Without time to think of a better plan, Yoshika moved with haste, smashing down the barricades. The air-starved flames instantly flooded the room, but Yoshika was faster. She expanded her shield and with a combination of Lightspeed Traversal and Absolute Awareness, she blinked from person to person and pulled them into her Soul Realm.

Among them were a few palace servants, Kasai Ryuuji, Ishihara Nao, and a young nobleman who had to be either Lord Kasuga or his son.

Securing them all took more out of her than she would have liked, but once they were safe, Yoshika blinked back out of the palace just in time to watch it collapse into a pile of flaming rubble.

Evacuating the rest of the city took hours of nonstop effort, and by the time they were finished there was little left to salvage. Despite their best efforts, over half the city was dead, and the camp was full of displaced people grieving over the loss of their families.

Yoshika sat in somber silence with her lieutenants in the camp’s command tent.

“What the hell happened here?”

Chiyo shook her head.

“We’ve been asking the survivors, but most of them don’t know. One moment the city was peaceful, then the next thing they knew everything was on fire and the city was under assault by monsters.”

“Demons. I saw some of their corpses in the castle. But why?”

“I wish I could say, but nobody from the palace survived.”

Yoshika shook her head.

“Not nobody. Give me a moment...”

She closed her eyes and focused inward. She’d already overtaxed herself, so rather than bring the palace survivors out, she manifested an image of herself inside.

Ishihara Nao was the most comfortable of the lot, simply sitting on the edge of a fountain in the academy square and waiting patiently. Ryuuji was taking in his surroundings, confusion written across his face, while the lord and palace servants were on the verge of panic.

They jumped in surprise when Yoshika appeared among them, except for Ishihara, who waved casually.

“Evening, boss. Thanks for the save.”

Yoshika furrowed her brows.

“Don’t call me that. Is everyone alright?”

“More or less. Spooked—a little overcooked, maybe, but we’re alive thanks to you.”

The young noble straightened himself out and tried to school his expression to hide his nerves.

“Who are you? Where have you taken us?”

Kaede put a hand on her hip and glared at him.

“Is that any way to speak to the person who saved your life? I know you’re stressed, but that’s no excuse for rudeness.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair in a vain attempt to smooth out the frizzy brown mop.

“I am Lord Kasuga Daichi, and if you did indeed save me from that blaze, then you have my thanks. However, after recent events I’m disinclined to offer my trust to shapeshifting strangers.”

Kaede raised an eyebrow curiously, then double-checked everyone present for any signs of Meiren’s influence. Surprisingly, she didn’t sense anything amiss—aside from one of the palace servants hiding an array of shikigami talismans beneath her robes. An onmyouji spy, apparently.

She’d deal with that later.

Ryuuji had been characteristically silent, but she turned her attention to him as the best option to explain what had happened.

“Kasai Ryuuji, it’s good to see you well. It’s been years.”

He bowed politely.

“Lady Hayakawa. I heard you conquered Shoda—is Hana alright?”

Kaede ignored Lord Kasuga’s startled sputtering and returned the bow.

“Your wife and child are safe under our protection. What happened to the city?”

Before Ryuuji could answer, Lord Kasuga took an aggressive step forward and snarled at her.

“Your father happened! He’s been running roughshod over my agency as a provincial lord, unilaterally reassigning troops and poaching my best retainers. Almost the same moment we received word of the border fort’s fall, half the palace staff turned out to be oni in disguise.”

Ryuuji shrugged and gestured vaguely at his lord.

“That’s the gist of it. Ishihara told us about the shogun’s dealings, but we didn’t have time to decide on a course of action before everything went up in flames.”

Kaede furrowed her brows.

“But why?”

Kasuga grimaced.

“Because I’m expendable. Burning my city slows you down, and doing it with oni makes it look like it was you. I never expected him to resort to scorched earth tactics within the heart of our nation, but I suppose it’s hardly surprising after Sir Ishihara’s revelations.”

Ishihara Nao inclined his head.

“Happy to be of service. What I’d like to know is how they were able to act so quickly.”

Kaede cast a sidelong glance at the disguised onmyouji. The girl’s eyes widened in panic and she reached for one of her shikigami, but Yoshika’s domain suppressed her conscripted spirits, preventing them from manifesting.

“How indeed?”

The priestess grimaced and turned to flee, but Kaede cocked her head and shifted the realm such that the spy ran headlong into her. She staggered back, shaking her head in confusion before slumping her shoulders and sighing in resignation.

“Fine—just get it over with. I won’t tell you anything.”

Lord Kasuga gave the woman a scandalized look.

“Miss Yagi? What’s the meaning of this?”

Yagi refused to respond, standing in stubborn silence. Kaede sighed.

“It seems that at some point my father began employing a clandestine order of onmyouji. I suppose that they make for good infiltrators. They’re mortal, so nobody suspects them, but their shikigami let them hold their own in a fight—usually.”

“But...Yagi is one of my oldest retainers. She’s been serving our family since before I took up the mantle.”

“And Hattori Koji was supposedly a close friend of the previous Lord Noguchi. I’m beginning to suspect that my clan’s rise to prominence wasn’t entirely a product of our martial prowess.”

Ishihara stood up and cracked their knuckles.

“If she’s not going to talk, I can find out what she knows.”

Kaede held up a hand and shook her head.

“No need. Miss Yagi, if that’s your real name, you know the priest who goes by Hattori Koji, don’t you?”

She didn’t respond, but Yoshika felt a sense of recognition, respect, and determination.

“I see. He’s your master, then. I can respect your faith and loyalty, but you’re being used and so is he. Hayakawa Takeo won’t hesitate to sacrifice you or your master, and Yu Meiren won’t hesitate to sacrifice him. My father will burn this entire nation down for his own personal ambition. That is what your loyalty will earn.”

Yagi bit her lip and averted her eyes. Shame and embarrassment, though it was hard to tell whether it was because of what she was fighting for, or because Kaede was reading her like that. Probably a mix of both.

Kaede held the priestess’ wrist and reached into her robe. She blushed and tried to pull away, but Kaede’s grip was like iron, and after a moment she withdrew one of Yagi’s origami talismans—a complex and intricately crafted paper crab.

Yagi’s eyes widened. Kaede sensed her panic and worry.

“Don’t—”

“I won’t hurt them. I’m glad that you and your master’s respect for the kami isn’t a lie, at least. You see, I know another who studied under Hattori.”

Heian manifested next to her and looked up at the talisman curiously. Yoshika smiled and ruffled her daughter’s hair.

“Heian, do you think you can free the spirit inside this talisman?”

She nodded.

“It’s not trapped like the spider lady’s were, but it’s still inside the spell. If we break the vessel, then the spirit inside will emerge unharmed.”

Yagi grabbed at the talisman.

“No wait—!”

She was too slow. Kaede tore the figure in half, and with a flash of bright blue essence that smelled of the ocean a giant crab coated in shimmering blue flame appeared between them.

Yagi blinked in wonder at the spirit.

“What? How is he taking form without a shiki?”

“We’re in the spirit realm. It doesn’t need a physical anchor here.”

The crab scuttled its way between Yagi and Kaede, brandishing its claws protectively. Heian reached up and patted it between the eye-stalks.

“Good boy. You take good care of your mommy.”

Yagi turned to look at the others, who were just as confused as she was, before returning her attention to Kaede.

“Why are you doing this?”

Kaede smiled gently.

“To show you who we are. And because it’s impossible to lie in the language of spirits.”

“Wait, what—”

Yoshika allowed a tiny piece of her soul to mingle with the crab for just a moment, sharing their thoughts and feelings. After all the practice she’d had with Heian, Iseul, and more recently Void, what was once a painful and disturbing vortex of incomprehensible emotion now felt more like a grand tapestry of feeling, telling a story entirely through the emotions it incited in the observer.

Kaede pursed her lips as she put the story together.

“Onmyouji use soul resonance between their shikigami to communicate. They’ve kept that power secret for thousands of years, but the Hayakawa clan discovered it a few centuries ago. Since then, my family has been maintaining a secret order, slowly insinuating itself into other shrines and earning the trust of the local lords. A spy network that nobody but my father even knew existed.”

Yagi’s jaw dropped.

“How do you know all that?! How does he know that?! I only bonded with Kani twenty years ago.”

Kaede hugged Heian to her side.

“Spirits have long memories, shared between their siblings and cousins. This Kani might be only twenty years old, but the spirit of the Ocean is as old as the earth itself.”

Kasai Ryuuji crossed his arms and frowned.

“So where does that leave us?”

Kaede sighed and shook her head.

“Nowhere good. We’ve fallen right into Meiren’s trap, again. She knows we’re still alive, and she knows we’re coming. She’s going to be ready for us.”