The transformation took root, just as a pair of swords appeared in her hands. My heart pounded in my ears, unsheathing the sword at my side and tossing it to Sun Fang before the shift completed. “Hold on to that,” I commanded.

I charged towards the enemy, but upon impact, neither side relented. Their blade pushed against my scales, but I pushed harder. We were evenly matched. After struggling with Olivier, how could this one be easier to battle?

She fizzled into nothing, reappearing behind me to deliver a swift strike to my back. I let a knee fall to the ground as I grit my teeth. A hiss passed through my mouth as the cold air stung the open wound in my back.

“Help him,” I heard Sosuke say.

My dragon rumbled in my mind, Stand up. You can’t let our mate think we’re so weak, we can’t handle an apparition.

It doesn’t matter what he thinks because I won’t be his mate, I countered.

If you reject your mate, you’ll be preventing him from ever being whole. Are you really that cold-hearted to allow your mate to live out the rest of his life in solitude and incompleteness? 

Dragons and kitsune do not mix. Review the laws of the realm.

Laws can always be changed, but you can’t change what’s in your heart.

“He needs to do this on his own, Master. If he wants to stand on equal ground with the final boss, he has to achieve the next level,” Jin explained. “He would ask us for help if he didn’t agree with me. Isn’t that correct, Zixin?”

“Shut up,” I said through clenched teeth. I leaned onto the hilt of my sword embedded in the ground to raise myself up to my feet, doing my best to ignore the burning pain on my back. It would heal soon enough. I swung my fist towards my opponent. She shapeshifted into my mother without warning, forcing me to stop mid-attack. 

Beneath the crevice of the light above, her dark hair fanned out behind her. She waited for me, seeing what I would do next, but no matter what I willed my body to do, it refused to move. My feet were firmly planted to the ground and my body remained frozen under her loving gaze.

Upon closer inspection, my eyes locked onto the love swirling in her hazel eyes. It was a dead giveaway that the woman before me wasn’t really my mother. I lost her love the day I left for the battlefield, or maybe I never had it to begin with and it was all a plan to keep me from ever suspecting they would send me away.

Before I could do anything else, a blast of ice threw me to the ground. I struggled to maintain my balance amidst my blurry vision, and I returned to my human form. The taste of iron filled my mouth, but I forced myself to swallow. I didn’t want anyone else to discover a dragon’s weakness.

The fallen angel leaned down and whispered what sounded like a prophecy in my ear, “The first trumpet will resound, releasing hail and fire to the realm, unleashing a great evil, with the wrath of Satanas at the helm.”

A fireball whipped past my head, landing square in the fallen angel’s face. I slowly raised my head to see Tui generating foxfire in the palms of her hands. It had no effect because Tui’s foxfire had demonic properties, given she was a demon herself.

Pink smoke surrounded us, emanating from the golden pipe Jin always had in his hand. The fallen angel’s head turned as though she saw and heard something that wasn’t really there. Jin had persuasive magic, but he had to choose the target to succumb to his illusions.

“Taizi!” Sun Fang exclaimed.

“It won’t hold her for long,” Jin said, appearing by my side in an instant before teleporting me away from the enemy while Tui distracted her. “It should buy us time.”

“For?” I asked.

A smile spread across his face and he said, “You’re about to find out.”

“Wash away their sins, Seiryū,” Asari’s voice reverberated. Her spear, with the power of the ocean, shot through the pink smoke, aiming for the fallen angel. To my astonishment, she caught it with her bare hands. Her skin burned upon contact, but she didn’t care about the pungent odor of her burning flesh.

“Shatter their sins, Raijū,” Aimi’s voice followed. Lightning crackled and exploded when it hit the fallen angel. Smoke filled the air, and we waited, watching the black clouds to see if she would emerge unscathed.

When the smoke finally cleared, she stood in the same spot, completely unharmed. If two attacks from the Inari Defensive Forces did nothing to her, would any divine object hurt her?

“Pray for absolution, Byakko,” an unfamiliar voice said from above.

Two wolves with stars and the night sky as their bodies rained down on the fallen angel, causing her to stagger back. I glanced up and saw a three-tailed kitsune with dark blue and purple hair that reminded me of the twilight sky. She wore a kimono that had a print of a moon and white tiger on the back and stars on her sleeves.

A five-tailed kitsune appeared, restraining the fallen angel with a barbed whip. She wore all black, her grin wide with excitement. “Punish the unworthy, Harionna.”

Beside her was another five-tailed kitsune, but male. His sword lit up with flames as he said, “Cleanse their souls, Suzaku.”

A final seven-tailed kitsune appeared, wielding a sword as well. “Chill their blackened hearts, Genbu,” her soft voice feeling like a soft caress.

The Inari Defensive Forces were a specialized unit of kitsune from the three Clans: the Holy Fox Clan, which had nine-tailed foxes who accomplished cultivation; the Wicked Fox Clan, the clan of demonic fox spirits; and the Blossoming Fox Clan, which had kitsune training to become nine-tailed kitsune. Everyone could decide which clan they wanted to be promoted into, the Holy Fox Clan or Wicked Fox Clan.

Realizing she was outnumbered, she vanished.

Soon after, my body emitted an immense amount of heat as my irritation increased. This shift felt different from the others. I was losing control of my body as a darker force overwhelmed my senses. Hunched over on the ground, my slowly elongating talons were digging into the ground. Pain was the only thing my mind could register.

Blood red scales rapidly replaced flesh. The sensations were equivalent to my skin being forcibly peeled. Guttural cries escaped my mouth. The torment was too much to bear in such a short period. Normally, dragons could heal as they shifted, but because the process happened quicker than usual, my body didn’t have time to adjust its healing speed.

“Jin!” Tui called out.

“I know, I can sense it,” Jin responded in a surprisingly calm voice.

“What’s happening?” Sun Fang asked in a panic. “What have you done to Taizi?”

“Restrain him,” Sosuke ordered. “We have to purify the area before Sathanas passes through him.”

‘Sathanas?’ I thought. Was one of the Vices really planning to take over my body? If it managed to do so, the only person who could stop me was Sosuke. Drowsiness rushed into me as my vision started fading. Who I would be when I awakened was a distant mystery.