Tsubaki whimpered like a wounded animal.

She massaged the paws of the dead cat, squeezed its shoulders, rubbed and patted its back and sides vigorously. The corpse lay unresponsive on her lap.

A strained gurgling sound bubbled from Tsubaki's throat. She cast desperately around the room as if there might be something there that would resurrect the dead cat.

Nothing.

A fresh wave of horrible tears overcame her, and she clutched the body close, rocking wildly back and forth as she sobbed.

Eitsu had been frozen all this time. At this point, she marched to stand in front of Tsubaki and crouched down right before her. “Hey!”

No response.

The kaibyou immediately looked to Bunshyo, who tried to pretend she had not been watching the whole situation intently.

“This is a mirage. What's this all about?”

The house, the projection of Tsubaki, the dead cat, everything collapse into dust immediately. Bunshyo mutely turned away.

A hand fell on her shoulder. Five sharp claws pierced the flesh mercilessly.

“Well?”

“Sh-Shinigami Mou ordered...” Bunshyo croaked, her voice rough and dry with disuse like the pages of ancient books.

“Why?”

Bunshyo looked away. Eitsu dug her claws even deeper, feeling bone.

The shinigami might be dead, but she still felt pain. She writhed and rasped hastily, “I don't know! I don't know! I was told to retrieve memories of you from the deceased, but this is the only one I could find!”

“And why is that?”

“Some of the dead are... control... it's hard. Those with strong wills can sometimes hide things.”

“So you grabbed the only memory you could find and trotted it out in front of me, hoping for... what, exactly? This?” She shook Bunshyo with the hand clamped into the flesh of the shinigami's shoulder, like a cat with a rat.

“No... No... I don't know. Shinigami Mou said to observe your reaction.”

“Shinigami Mou is doing a lot of ordering around. Is this Izanami's orders?”

Bunshyo's eyes widened at Eitsu's lack of respectful titles for the Queen of Yomi, but the claws in her shoulder soon brought her back to the situation at hand. “I don't know. Shinigami Mou never said.”

“Right.” Eitsu let go of Bunshyo and calmly washed her fingers with her tongue. The blood tasted strange, but not unpleasant. “We're going back.”

---

“You ordered what?” Izanami asked coldly.

“Divine Majesty.” Mou trembled but remained firm. “We cannot trust the kaibyou. I simply wanted to test her-”

“And who gave you the authority to do that?”

The shinigami bit her lip and closed her eyes. “Y-Your Majesty... I am retribution, revenge against injustice. I-”

“Whose retribution? Whose revenge?”

“Y-Yours, Divine Majesty.”

“So when I speak, you move. Did I speak, Shinigami?”

“Your Majesty!” Mou fell to her knees. “Please, stop this madness! I serve only you! I only did this to protect you-”

“From what, exactly?”

Eitsu slid into the cave, dragging Bunshyo. She threw the bleeding shinigami down on the floor next to Mou without looking, her golden eyes fixed on Izanami.

“What a pretty play you're putting on,” she sneered. “You want to test me? What right do you have to test me, Queen of Yomi? Don't hide behind your inferiors, admit you dare to try and test me.”

“This was not my orders,” Izanami replied stiffly.

“Oh, well that's alright then,” Eitsu said sarcastically.

“Shinigami Mou. Shinigami Bunshyo.”

The two shinigami rose slowly and bowed.

“You will both report to Jigoku, the Court of Hell. Go.”

Bunshyo bowed silently. Mou gritted her teeth, looking ready to cry, but bowed too, and slowly followed Bunshyo from the cave.

Eitsu clapped, slowly and loudly.

“Why are you clapping?”
“For the amazing performance. I've never seen anything like it.”

Tap tap tap, went Izanami's cold fingers on the arm of her throne. “What... can I do to prove it was not my orders, Lady Eitsu?”

“You can't,” Eitsu snarled. “Betrayal and distrust don't just go away like that.”

Izanami flinched and slumped in her throne, her sleeve to the cloth over her face. “Who... Who is Tsubaki to you?”

“Is this what this is about?” Eitsu laughed angrily. “Did your shinigami come running to you with tales of a little mortal that seemed a little cosy with your pet? I didn't know you thought so highly of me, Master.”

“A pet... That's not...”

“We had this conversation only just now, Your Majesty, did you forget? You wanted a pet. But oh no, the pet previously spent some time with a human, how terrible. Are you jealous? Of a human?”

Izanami was silent, had no mouth to speak with.

Eitsu stalked, step by slow step, up to the throne, taking on her white-haired humanoid form, red markings glowing in the dark of the afterlife. With a single move, she leapt up, a foot on either arm of the stone chair, resting faintly against Izanami's wrists under her voluminous sleeves. The kaibyou crouched until her face was level with the Queen of Yomi's, and her tails crept up and lifted away the cloth that hid Izanami's face. She took the Queen's chin in her hand, eyes tracing the lines of her skull, the moon-paleness of her remaining skin. She pulled Izanami forward, so the Queen was awkwardly hovering over her own throne, her arms straightened to keep her from falling back, now pressed against the length of Eitsu's shins, her face tilted upwards to look at the kaibyou.

Eitsu's eyes were alight with desire, the desire to tear apart and consume, the desire to swallow, the desire to hurt. Izanami tried to speak, but her chin was being held.

“What is it?” Eitsu growled, her voice predatory in Izanami's ears.

“P... Please...”

“Hm?”

“I'll do anything.”

Eitsu showed her teeth. “Why?”

“D... Don't leave me.”

“You think you can order me around, Izanami no Mikoto? I was running through the snows of the north long before you were even a concept.”

“No... I... This is my fault for not...”

Ah, she could feel Eitsu's warmth sinking into her dead bones and she craved it. “Punish me.”

Her arms shook from keeping herself upright. Her voice shook too.

Eitsu's voice was soft and low and pleased, like the purr of a cat. “Is that really what you want?”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes... Kesshinichabe-kamuy...”

Eitsu threw her back against the throne and Izanami jolted as though waking from a sudden dream. She gasped for breath, as if she were not already a corpse. The stale air passed uselessly into her empty ribcage, knocking against the dried husk of her heart.

“You... What did you do?”

“Me?” Eitsu had hopped down from the throne, and was primly rearranging her clothes. “I didn't do anything. Well, nothing that wasn't already there...”

“You dare... You dare to trick me? IN MY OWN REALM?” Izanami howled. A gale whipped up within the cave, making Eitsu narrow her eyes, and tossed her clothing and hair wildly, but she stood without moving.

“So punish me.”

The wind ceased.

“What, can you not do that?”

“Leave here, Eitsubyou no Mikoto.”

“What if I do this?”

All at once, Eitsu's claws and Izanami's spear met.

The cave rang with the sound of claw on metal, Eitsu moving entirely on instinct and rage and the dim, dim light that afforded her faint glimpses of the swinging spear. The spear glanced across her ribs and cut slices from her arms and shoulders until she was bleeding in a hundred places. Her claws tore Izanami's cloths mask to shreds, broke a tine from her antlers, left rake marks down her arm. She did not bleed.

“Do you like this pet, Izanami?” Eitsu snarled, swinging her claws at Izanami's half-face. “The kistune tried to put a collar on me. That human too.”

Using the spear as a vaulting pole, Izanami leapt backwards to avoid the slash.

“They said it was love,” Eitsu whimpered. She was slowing down; the point of the spear found her foot and she cried in pain, making Izanami flinch again. “They said they would treasure and look after me... The human... ha, what could she do, a mortal...”

She bit at Izanami's hand, chips of bone coming away under her teeth

“But that fox... that monster...” Was she crying now? She, who never cried? “We could have been together forever, but he... He...”

Izanami dropped the spear, and they fell into each others' arms.

“He hurt you,” she said. “You thought you had found your destined one. And he hurt you.”

“You know,” Eitsu whispered, limp in Izanami's arms. “Why... why do they do this...?”

“Everything will be fine,” Izanami said, stroking Eitsu's hair. “I will have more shinigami go out to find him. I'll send out oni and youkai too.”

One of her hands was purely bone. When she ran the tips of the phalanges through Eitsu's hair, the kaibyou shivered and mewled.

“Izanami...”

“Call me Īśānī¹Īśānī may once have been the original name of Izanami,” the Queen of Yomi whispered soothingly. Her other hand was corpse-pale, with long black nails that left faint lines on Eitsu's skin. The kaibyou's breaths rose and fell, slowing to a shudder as the tears left her, but rising as fingers scraped pleasantly along her back.

“Let me pet you for a little while,” Izanami murmured in the dark. Eitsu could see nothing, only feel the electric tingle of fingers.

Is this what Tsubaki felt, when she dreamed of death? A dark ecstasy?

She lay on her back, drowning in the sensation. It was cold, so cold, alone in the dark with unseen hands stroking her. Eitsu pushed the hands lower, desperate to feel something.

Why are you doing this?

… why am I doing this?

She choked back a gasp of surprise at the feeling of bone sliding between her legs, tears sliding down her temples and collecting uncomfortably in her ears.

“It has been a long time since I... I am sorry if this...”

“Don't talk,” Eitsu said faintly, her attention on the sensation, her thighs and abdomen tensed. “Just there... More... More... Let me...”

The black nails of the other hand raked her chest, scratching her nipples unexpectedly.

“Īśānī... Īśānī...”

Ah... Yes...

She came with a cat-like cry, lights bursting in her vision until she was light-headed, laughing wildly in way that sounds more like sobs.

No, she was laughing. Increasingly weaker and weaker, but it was laughter that shook her trembling limbs, even as Izanami pulled her close, murmuring words of comfort. At some point, she heard the Queen give orders for more of Yomi's inhabitants to join the search for Rei.

It was hard not to burst into laughter again.

Three hours later, a shinigami that Eitsu did not recognise entered the throne room and bowed to the two women entangled there on the throne.

“Your Majesties, we have found and detained the Shinigami Rei.”