“The Lord Regent expresses her regret for not being able to attend,” Kofuku said, crossing her legs under herself to sit on the mat in front of the backlit screen. “But the issue with the Wind Hall is not that we can’t let you in. It was rendered magically inert after the pacification.”

“Do not play coy with me, girl,” the veiled woman said. “You can hide the state of things from your mother, but you cannot hide it from me. The Serpent-Blade did the same when he refused to negotiate with us, and now we come to the consequences.”

Kofuku felt the muscles all over her body tense up. “I’m sorry, consequences? Are you threatening me?”

“I do no such thing,” she hissed. The shape of the veil shifted as he moved in her seat. “But you tread the same path as he did. You seek the weapon as a symbol of your past, not for what it really is. In this way pain is inevitable.”

“I’m all ears, you know. You could just tell me what I’m doing wrong for a change. On the other planets this is how they go about doing all that self-improvement and personal growth stuff.”

“You jest, girl, but soon it will be impossible to hide the degradation of this world. We were given grace to live on this land by our lord, and he remains incomplete. Only by reuniting his shattered soul may we be spared the oncoming storm.”

“We’ve had worse. I don’t know if you’ve been here since the beginning, but the dry lighting, the superstorms, the yokai attacks…we survived that because the people have hope that their kami-sama protects them.”

“And if they do not?”

“Okay, that one I’m actually going to take as a threat. And here’s mine: cut our lifeline short before I get the sword back and I’m going to drive your little cult into the ground so hard that you’ll wish you were actually cursed.”

“You sound so much like your father.”

“There is an honour to be upheld here, priestess. My father granted you your current exempt status out of respect and recognition for your beliefs. Beliefs which have been very helpful, and yet present no solutions to the problems we currently have. In the end it still falls to me to find the blade and the fragment inside it, and you’re not exactly doing anything to help. How am I supposed to feel about this?”

“Is respect not given freely?” There was a venom in her voice. “Is belief not enough? You have your role, as do we. Your dynasty’s suppression of the truth continues regardless, the people clinging to a fragile hope that will inevitably be washed away. If they can weather the storms, so can they with reality.”

Kofuku stood up. “Have you considered the actual reason you believe these things?”

“There is no room for misinterpretation. The serpent is real. I take it you retract your prior agreement?”

“Oh I agree there is a serpent. It’s like the fucking reptile exhibit out there if you know where to look. But these past years I’ve seen a lot of messed up things. Gods whose worshippers so wished to escape that they made up an entire, brand new world, only to die squabbling with each other. A dream so massive and intricate gifted to us by Oneiros, out of love, which humans still just exploited it for their own gain. There was a god-” This one formed a lump in her throat, which she had to quickly clear. “-a god that wants nothing but to take what is ours and turn it against us. It destroyed an entire world because a mother wanted to save her child, and now neither of them can die. They’re in this…you get the point.”

“Clearly, you have something to say.”

“That thing on the mountain might be magical, but it also might not be your god. My father never tamed the storms, he just redirected it at the people we didn’t like. There’s no guarantee that bringing the sword back will even do anything. Regardless of whether that’s your god or not, I’m a bigger fan of acting on information we can actually confirm empirically. I get your faith in how this all works, I really do. But it doesn’t mean you do nothing.”

“Then pray tell, what are we to do?”

“Your teachings. Your studies. They have been accurate before. You want to convince me those aren’t flukes? Do it again. Show us those readings can be trusted and then you can tell us what’s actually happening on that mountain. Then we can figure out what to do, sword or not.”

The priestess of the Tidekeepers was silent. Given her current pose, it was entirely possible she was meditating, and that right there was Kofuku’s cue to get out of the creepy basement.

She backed around the altar, almost bumping into one of the snake-headed statues, and was about to leave when the veiled guard outside stepped in, blocking her way. A second hard followed, this one holding a machine pistol, although it wasn’t pointed at her…yet.

“You will bring us the old charms,” the priestess said. “They will point the way.”

“I’m really sorry, but I don’t think you’re in a position to tell me to do anything.” She tried to push past the guards, only for one of them to grab her wrist…and palm something plastic under her sleeve. Curious, he yanked it out, to find a button and a cord reaching deep into her clothes.

“What is this?” he demanded, yanking her closer. “An explosive?”

“Just a call for help,” she admitted. “In case you tried anything like this.”

“Too bad you’ll never get the chance.” He severed the cord with a short dagger from inside his own cloak, tossing the button end to the ground. He started pulling her away, but stopped in his tracks as he heard the sound of an ominous creaking, groaning - bending metal. This crescendoed into a cracking pop as the hidden door likely came off its hinges, sending a cloud of dust tumbling down the steps.

Kofuku couldn’t help but laugh. “You idiots. I pressed it after she didn’t like my rant about shitty gods.”

The man with the machine pistol silently stepped out, taking aim at the space between the steps and the ceiling, but he didn’t even get the chance as Falano rolled down the stairs like a tumbleweed, shooting him in the head mid-bounce before crashing into the wall. The plasma bolt tore into the disciple’s skull, its energy unloading into his tissues all at once and making his cerebrospinal fluid boil, popping off a section of his scalp and spraying brain better over Kofuku and the other guard. Reacting swiftly, the remaining cultist pushed the knife against her throat, very slightly grazing the skin.

“Get the fuck back!”

Falano casually straightened his limbs as she stood up, dusting himself off for dramatic effect. “Look at it like this buddy: I’ve my favourite gun and a robotic arm that’s wired into this lens right here.” With his free hand, he tapped the side of his mask. “So here's how it’s gonna go. You’re gonna let her go, and I’m not gonna send you to meet god like your friend on the floor there. Given your taste in decor I don’t think it’ll be a pleasant trip. Does that sound like something you’d be up for? Five seconds. Four…three…”

The cultist quickly took the blade off Kofuku’s throat and stepped away from her, pressing his back against the wall with his arms raised. “Okay, okay! I was just following orders! The others will be here any tim-”

“That’s being taken care of right about…now.” Falano tilted his head up the stairs, from which not-very-faint screaming and visceral popping could be heard.

Kofuku quickly hopped onto the bottom steps, but as soon as she was out of the way, Falano moved his aim down and shot the cultist in the foot, ripping the flesh off at the ankle. “Whoopsie.”

“What the fuck was that for!?” Kofuku hissed, looking between him and the torn-open door at the top.

“Don’t want him coming up behind us with a gun. Also, foot shot! Totally survivable with that cauterisation!”

“Let’s just go!” She climbed the stairs, emerging just as the screams stopped. Outside, in the fresh snow, lay at least eight bodies, each charred and still buzzing with excess charge from Richard’s lightning. The heat from their cooked corpses turned the frost into pools of water around them, like morbid, crooked snow angels.

The ninth corpse was in-the-making, as Richard held a cultist to the ground and let the brilliant lightning arm from his hands into her, each incident sparking off bits of flesh, setting hair ablaze, and causing the body to convulse. He hummed to himself as he pressed her into the snow, watching her flesh slough off her charred bones.

Falano pushed Kofuku back, and slowly approached his compatriot. “Hey, Ritchie…you feeling better?”

Richard didn’t respond, a big grin visible on his face as the lightning arcs illuminated it.

“Yo, Rich. We gotta get out of here man.”

“Almost done my dude. Just…there!” He clapped his hands together, crumbling his victim’s skull to dust. He stood up, and pointed at the corpse like a child showing their parents a crayon drawing. “Did you see that? Wasn’t that cool?”

Kofuku didn’t know if she should be sick right then and there, or if she’d seen worse in the things she’d met traipsing around hunting with Barrett. Still, the glimmer in his eyes, seeing him this jovial since the incident on the Conservator, certainly added a to the ever-growing definition of “monster” in her dictionary. She pushed any regrets about having him tag along and chose to run through to the side street, before turning and sprinting back towards the summer palace.

Falano fired upwards as he ran after her, trying to target the vague, flitting shadows dashing along the rooftops alongside them, but even his targeting failed him in this respect. “What the fuck is this!?”

“They’re shadow-walking! Don’t bother!” She altered her trajectory as she neared the row of buildings, aiming for the cargo lift that ran up the side of the circular landing pad. Then it was one bridge over, and she would be home free. Or at least, that was the plan. It was a known fact that after the first few yokai assaults, an effort was made to import as many magically infused building materials as possible to create a ward. It was a known fact that after repelling one of the fiercest hordes to ever pour in from the northern valley, the enchantments had never been used again, mainly due to the purification eliminating all need for such a contraption.

Which was exactly what Kofuku was counting on. She finally made it to the lift, and held the metal door open for Falano to get it. Richard, however, was nowhere in sight, though the flashes in between the builds pretty much painted the picture for them. She helped him lock the door into place, and then repeatedly pressed the button to ascend. After a second of warming up, the winches that held it finally began to move, dragging them up the flattened cliff face and along the rails built into their side. At the end of the roof closest to them, a few of the veiled assassins stopped and notched bows, the tips of their arrows burning bright red before they were loosened.

Falano grabbed Kofuku and pushed her to the ground, just as the blazing hot tips of the enchanted arrows dented the heavy metal gate below the lift’s upper fence section. A few more whizzed overhead, some into the rock wall behind them, but were crushed as the weight of the lift slammed into them. After a few seconds, the shooting stopped, meaning they were either just out of range or the Tidekeepers were trying something else.

They didn’t wait for the metal doors on the other side, and just climbed through the opening above them to get onto the landing pad, upon which they both began sprinting across the bridge. A squad of ashigaru had taken position along it, waving them through, and Yamashiro was seated on a bench standing before the haunted red gate, writing something on his tablet.

“Shuu, we need to get the-”

“Calm down.” He didn’t even look up. “Your mother had the same thought. It just needs a bit to charge up again.”

“Does it work?”

“Does what work?” Falano asked, looking out over the town and zooming with his mask lens.

“It’s my dad’s work. Of course it’s going to work.” Shuu looked up at Falano. “Magical force shield. We used it to deter rogue yokai trying to enter the palace by vapourising them. Bit of an old piece of paratech.”

“Wicked.” Falano sat down on the ground. “Can’t wait to see the fireworks.”

“Shuu,” Kofuku said. “When you say it works, do you mean the deterrence works or the vapourisation?”

“We’ll see.”

“Shuu!”

Falano stretched his limbs, an entirely pointless but instinctive motion from him. “What happens if we can’t vapourise them?”

“Then we have pretty lights and glowing rocks,” Kofuku said. “And we hope they can’t tell the difference.”

“That won’t be a problem.” The Lord Regent said, descending the front steps in an elaborate robe that stretched behind her, a large fan-like headdress that made her seem bigger than she actually was. “Get back. These are zealots, not soldiers. They will falter.”

“Mother…are you sure?”

“It’s been long enough. Yamashiro, do it.” She started across the bridge, with each of the gunners bowing their heads in reverence as she passed them.

Shuu tapped something on the tablet, and a blue glow began to pulse from the edges of the cliffs. All around the plateau, stones embedded in the cliff faces began to shine, weaving a blue aura that was blinding even where Kofuku was standing.

She kept watching, however, and as her mother reached the landing platform, she held up both her arms towards the sky. The light flared then, blazing with a newfound ferocity, starting from long blue threads that spread from her hands and wound into the colour of the ward, stitching together intricate webs that blanketed the mountain and wreathing herself in it. With a simple snap of her fingers, the threads came alight, spewing cold blue flames into the night sky, outshining the remains of the evacuated festival down below.

Falano’s one eye was glued to the Lord Regent’s form, mesmerised. “I’ve never seen anyone cast like that. What is she?”

“Jorōgumo,” Kofuku said quietly. If one focused, they would see the thin, spindly limbs that extended from within her clothing, catching invisible threads and pulling to and fro in order to maintain the illusion around them.

“Fucking hell. You’re not a spider as well are you?”

“Didn’t get those genes, only some of the magic potential.” She turned to Shuu. “Did Adam ever finish what he was doing?”

“Partly,” Yamashiro admitted. “Needs more tweaks.”

“Well this lightshow isn’t going to keep them distracted for long, even if they stop trying to get in here. I need your people to find Richard again. Screw tomorrow: we’re going to that cabin today before we lose the chance.”

“But, Kofuku-hime, the yokai will be out…”

“Which means the Tidekeepers won’t try to follow us there. Falano?”

“I’m in. Better than staying with those shadow walking fucks.” He untied his outer robe and tossed it on the ground. “Do we really need Ritchie? He seems to be having fun.”

“That cabin was made with him in mind. It’s gotta mean something.” She took a long look at her mother, with her shuddering form, exploding with the glory of a goddess in and of herself, even though it was all smoke and mirrors. “Let’s make this count.”