Like calls to like.

Below the cloth was a giant skin, well-preserved and shimmering bronze. Eitsu felt a resonance to her very bones, even though she was a kaibyou, and this, this skin had clearly once belonged to a ryuu¹竜 (ryuu) – an Asian dragon..

Still, they were both spirits of nature, legendary beasts, and very, very old.

Although Eitsu knew that her lifetimes paled in comparison to the years this ryuu had lived.

Before she could even turn on Rei, a huge roar shook the hall, almost knocking her flat. From the back of the room, a living ryuu emerged, tail lashing with anger.

Are you the one who was looking for her sister?

Eitsu dragged her feet but Rei lifted her easily and quickly departed the stage. He gave orders to the terrified staff to take as many items as they could from that place, but before they had even begun to carry out their orders, two people appeared.

While all the other members of the audience were trying to escape, this pair, a small cultivator of indeterminate gender and a tall foreign woman covered in tattoos, had followed them backstage. The look in their eyes was impossible to mistake.

Rei sighed. "Really, not much has been going my way recently."

I wonder why that is, Eitsu thought privately.

Still carrying her, he once more retreated, flowing through the corridors as only a kitsune could, half in-and-out of his fox form. When they reached the room where Eitsu had been held captive, he put her down, avoiding her sharp teeth. The space was lined with those ubiquitous white candles.

"You'll have to wait here, little treasure," he said, almost apologetically. "I'll be back in..."

Both of them could hear the distant sounds of someone pursuing. The strange thing was, the runner was not particularly fast, certainly not for someone like the cultivator. It sounded like the movements of an ordinary, healthy human. Rei cocked his head thoughtfully for a moment, then smiled.

"Ah, I believe it is my special guest."

Tsubaki dashed into the room.

She was panting, perspiration making her beautiful face glow. In one hand, she held an ornate sword in a sheathe, and her eyes glared coldly at Rei as she steadied herself.

"Did you enjoy the show, Tsubaki-dono?"

She responded by drawing the sword.

Rei looked at it.

Eitsu looked at it.

This... was clearly a prop.

A true performer, Tsubaki held the object threateningly, as if she really were a warrior with a real weapon. Aside from her panting, her face was as cold and serious as usual.

Rei burst out laughing.

Eitsu was tempted to join in, but this was tempered by the fact that Tsubaki was firstly, not a warrior, and secondly, a mortal human, whilst Rei was a kitsune at the height of his powers, and Eitsu was only partially awakened to her kami and also bound. She tried to surreptitiously break the chain around her without success.

"Seems my luck has returned," Rei said mockingly, with a sidelong glance at Eitsu. With a lazy wave, from empty air he produced his own sword, a simple one-handed straight sword only decorated with a golden pommel like a rounded crown. This sword was definitely a weapon. It floated hilt-down above his open palm.

Eitsu lunged forward and headbutted Rei's back.

As he stumbled with surprise, Tsubaki raced in and slashed down at his head with her prop. He caught it lazily, and sent his own sword plunging towards her. Eitsu barrelled sideways and knocked the dancer out of the way, and the sword veered to avoid hitting her.

She leapt lightly into a crouch, keeping Tsubaki strategically behind her.

"Am I imagining it, or are you very concerned about not causing me physical harm, Kitsune-san?"

"Why would I want to hurt you?" Rei replied smoothly, with an arrogant smirk. He sent the sword spinning behind Eitsu, seeking Tsubaki again, but once more Eitsu pulled the dancer upright with her bound hands and leapt to safety.

"I might be into it?"

"I'll keep that in mind for next time."

Tsubaki's fingers dug into Eitsu's shoulder.

A heaviness filled the air, making the women's eyelids begin to droop. Eitsu blinked furiously, phantasms starting to materialise before her eyes. She could see the little assistants from Tsubaki's performance troupe, and other people she knew she had met before, but could not place. Mitsui Toi's frightened face stared at her again.

She felt Tsubaki slip down behind her. Wake up!

Before Rei's sword could stab through Tsubaki's ribcage, Eitsu found the strength to break the chains and batted it away.

Rei made a sound of disappointment. But his eye glowed perversely with pride as he looked at the kaibyou before him, her power returning with each passing moment.

"If only I had found you before her."

"I doubt that would have changed anything." She covered Tsubaki's eyes with her hand. "Don't look..."

Somehow, it seemed like that sentence was unfinished, as though there was some word or name that needed to follow. But there was no time to think on it.

She pushed back against Rei's hallucinatory aura with her own, fighting hard. There was no holding back now. They both stood in their power as kami of psychological trickery.

Rei's head was no longer human. A white kitsune's face peered out of the dimness of the room, its left eye partially covered by a grotesque growth of skin, fur stripped from the body revealing damaged red skin. The sclera of both eyes were red, with only the irises maintaining their familiar pale brown.

Eitsu had transformed too, the head of a black cat replacing her human one. Her pupils were pinpricks in her golden eyes, and bottomless holes appeared and disappeared in the blackness of her face. Although the room was dark, Rei's inhuman vision could see them clearly.

Eitsu grinned at him, her teeth sharp.

"I see why you have that fringe now. Not so pretty, huh?"

"... Are you seriously saying that?"

They lunged forward.

Auras clashed, this pair of yokai trading blow for blow while Rei's sword flew about seemingly autonomously. Eitsu found herself fighting on two fronts to protect Tsubaki from both the kitsune and his weapon.

They broke apart, breathing lightly. Rei summoned his sword back to his hand. Eitsu laughed at him mockingly.

Before she could think, Rei threw the sword directly at her.

She dodged.

Tsubaki stood behind her.

Eitsu whipped around, supernaturally fast, but there was no way she could stop the trajectory.

And yet-

The prop sword that Tsubaki held shattered on impact. With the distance that Rei's sword had travelled, and the brief barrier that the prop had provided, the blade only entered a little way into Tsubaki's arm before Eitsu had managed to seize hold of it.

Time seemed to slow for Tsubaki. She was vaguely aware that Eitsu was calling her name, anxiously pushing her sleeves up to look at the wound, but above her she could see Rei, leaping high above them, his nails grown to long claws prepared to slash down on her as Eitsu was distracted. He grinned at her.

Tsubaki pulled Eitsu's arm deeper into her sleeve, placing her hand on the object she had hidden within.

Eitsu pulled them both sideways, Rei's claws slicing harmlessly through the fabric of Tsubaki's robes. She dragged the soft cloth from within Tsubaki's sleeves and lit it from the nearest candle.

Rei let out a strange cry and pounced upon the burning fabric.

Eitsu picked Tsubaki up and fled.

She ran back towards the auction hall. It was only when they were nearing the hall that Eitsu finally began to slow. She could sense that there were still people there, including the cultivator and their companion that had confronted them earlier. She finally let Tsubaki's feet touch the floor, but she didn't let go.

"Tsubaki-san, where did you get my fur from?"

The square of fabric that she had burnt was woven from the fur of kaibyou, and hers at that. Although it hadn't hurt, she had faintly sensed the disintegration of the fibres.

The dancer didn't reply. She looked exhausted.

Eitsu's eyes travelled over her, and stopped at her neck. It was always covered by the high collars of her robes.

Tsubaki and Rei both. They covered their necks and their hands.

Eitsu reached for Tsubaki's fingers, but the dancer turned away again.

"Who were you to me?" Eitsu asked softly.

Tsubaki shook her head and closed her beautiful eyes. "No-one."

"... I won't look, so give me your hand?"

After a beat of hesitation, a soft hand crept into hers. Eitsu's sensitive fingers could feel tiny, tiny scars.

Backstage, the cultivator and the woman had stacked a large pile of items from what had previously been a holding place for the items for auction. Now it was a chaotic pile of debris that Eitsu nodding approvingly at. All around their feet, miscellaneous old items were strewn. Broken dolls, a torn umbrella, a rusty knife, the remains of the many tsukigomori that Rei had in his employ.

The cultivator bowed with a polite smile. The woman shuffled her feet and looked awkward. Strangely, Eitsu could feel a similar sort of energy to Rei's coming from her. Not the scent of pine or his foxy smile, but the feeling of his cold skin.

Eitsu couldn't help grinning with amusement. "Nice work."

The monk and their companion looked confused. Evidently they didn't understand the language she was speaking. Tsubaki tried in stumbling common tongue.

"Good... You tired?"

The monk replied with something that Eitsu couldn't understand and Tsubaki was puzzled by. The former squeezed the hand that she held.

"Ask if they... ask if they found anything."

The 'anything' of course, referring to her past lives.

Tsubaki thought for a moment. "I only know the words for 'cat' and 'thing', though."

"Better than me."

The dancer brokenly queried the other pair, maintaining her cold dignity despite being unable to string together a sentence.

They had, in fact, found something relating to cats.

Would they show it?

Neither party knew the other from an eggplant. What was the likelihood that one would show the other something so fraught, the precious proceeds of a crime?

"I'll encourage them," Eitsu said, and she changed into her cat form.

Neither the monk nor their companion looked surprised. The latter nodded immediately and retrieved a box from the pile of items.

It was a sturdy rosewood box with what had once been a strong lock, the wood carved with intricate depictions of animals and woodland.

Someone had smashed the lock.

The foreign woman looked a little awkward as she handed it over, and they caught a glimpse of her strong, rough hands, tattooed, bruised and scarred. It was clear who had been responsible for the break-in.

Eitsu had transformed back into humanoid form, and the foreign woman backed away quickly, blushing so much that her extraordinarily pale skin was pink as a peach. The monk said something to her that made her clap a hand over their mouth and blush even more furiously, until everyone watching thought she might catch fire.

As funny as this sight was... they turned their gazes to the box.

It was large enough to hold a cat.

Tsubaki turned away. Eitsu wanted to do the same. But if she didn't open the box now she might never want to.

She flipped the lid open.

The box did not hold a cat.

Inside were a collection of cat pelts.

They stared at the furs. Tsubaki seemed to want to say something, but no words came from her mouth. Instead, she laid a hand on Eitsu's shoulder.

Her hand was like an anchor. Eitsu closed her eyes and let the feeling of that hand bring her back to reality, although every time she opened her eyes and caught a glimpse of the furs, she thought she might spin away into oblivion.

"Do you think they're mine?" she said suddenly. Even as she asked the question, it seemed foolish. A faint divine light radiated from the pelts.

"Yes."

"… Why?"

"That top one... Your first life. When I first met you. There's... no mistaking it."

The top pelt was a luxurious golden colour, the fur long and silky. Every detail had been preserved, including the skin of the face with whiskers and nose. Eitsu stared into her own eyeless pelt.

Tsubaki's hand was shaking, but she kept it firmly on Eitsu's shoulder.

I'm here.

[I'll come back everyday for the rest of my life.]

Old voices rang in her head as Eitsu sat down. At some point, the monk and their companion had considerately left them for some privacy. She could still sense them nearby, along with the other presences she had felt previously.

Only a certain fox seemed to be missing.

Tsubaki's face was as cold as usual, but there was a strange flatness in her dark eyes. Eitsu squeezed her hand.

"... Let's go."

She led the dancer gently away from that place.