The Catacombs stretched beneath Toyama like a secret second city - ancient stone corridors lit by flickering paper lanterns, the air cool and dry and faintly sweet with the scent of old incense. It had been here for centuries. It would be here for centuries more. And somewhere in its deepest chamber, a tribunal was about to begin.

The throne room was not what most humans would picture when they heard the phrase throne room. There were no torches, no skulls, no dripping water. Just a long, high-ceilinged chamber of smooth gray stone, lined with pillars carved in the old style - simple, elegant, austere. Paper lanterns hung from the ceiling at precise intervals, casting a warm, steady light that left no shadows. At the far end of the room, a raised dais of dark basalt held a single seat: a throne of polished black stone, its back straight and unadorned, its armrests worn smooth by centuries of use.

Tamonten sat upon it, one leg crossed over the other, his chin resting on his fist. He had not changed from the indigo kimono he'd worn to break up the fight, though someone - probably Morosuke - had set a cup of fresh tea on the armrest beside him. The golden mask still covered the left half of his face, the twin horns curving downward like crescent moons, the violet flame in the socket burning with its usual cold, steady light. He looked, as he always did during these proceedings, like a man who had resigned himself to an eternity of minor annoyances.

At the foot of the dais, standing shoulder to shoulder and very carefully not looking at each other, were Kama and Urazuki. Their masks had receded completely now, their faces fully human, which only made them look more guilty - two schoolgirls called to the principal's office. Kama's lip was still healing from the fight, a faint pink line where the split had been. Urazuki's tracksuit still had the tear across the shoulder, the pink fabric hanging in a sad, limp flap.

Behind them, a small audience had gathered. Not a crowd - the Catacombs didn't do crowds - but a scattering of lesser bogeymen, functionaries and observers who had heard that the patriarch was holding an audience and had drifted in to watch. They stood at a respectful distance, their faces half-hidden in the lantern light.

Morosuke was at his usual post, slightly to the left of the dais, a tablet balanced on his knee. He was short - barely four foot three - and completely bald, his scalp smooth and pale in the lantern light. His suit was immaculate, his tie perfectly knotted. He looked less like a supernatural creature than a small, tired accountant who had somehow wandered into a fantasy novel and decided to make the best of it. His stylus moved across the tablet in small, precise strokes, recording the proceedings.

And beside him, seated in a low chair that had been placed at the edge of the dais with careful, deliberate respect, was Iroha.

Her hair was the first thing anyone noticed - a deep, lustrous violet so dark it was nearly black in the shadows, but when the lantern light caught it, the color bloomed like ink dissolving in water. It fell in a heavy, straight curtain past her shoulders, framing a face that was unlined and serene. Her eyes were a startling, vivid fuchsia, the kind of color that didn't exist in nature, and they moved across the room with a slow, unhurried curiosity, as if she were watching a mildly interesting play.

She was dressed in layers of traditional robes - a pale mint-green kimono underneath, soft and flowing, and over it a deep midnight-blue surcoat that fell to her ankles in heavy, elegant folds. The sleeves were wide, the fabric rich, the whole ensemble speaking of an era that had ended a thousand years ago. Her fingernails were long, perfectly shaped, and painted a deep, translucent red with balsam flower dye - the kind of meticulous, old-fashioned grooming that took hours and had long since fallen out of fashion. She looked like a woman who had stepped out of a Heian-era court painting, and she sat with the same poised, unhurried stillness.

She was also watching Kama with a faint, private smile.

"-and I was just patrolling," Urazuki was saying, her voice pitched somewhere between indignation and self-pity. "I was doing my job. I saw an intruder on my territory, I moved to engage. Standard procedure."

"Standard procedure," Tamonten repeated. His voice was flat. The violet flame in his mask's socket didn't flicker.

"Exactly !"

"You engaged an intruder by drop-kicking her into a stack of delivery crates."

"It was tactically sound."

"It was a tantrum."

Urazuki's mouth opened, then closed. 

Tamonten turned his head slightly, the violet flame fixing on Kama. "And you. Reason for your presence on Urazuki's territory ?"

Kama had been staring at a point somewhere above the dais, her expression carefully blank. At the question, she shifted her weight, crossed her arms, and made a small, dismissive noise.

"There's a bar," she said. "On my sector."

"A bar."

"Yeah. And there was a guy there. A human. Really... appetizing." She paused, searching for the right word, and then shrugged. "I mean, not sexually. He wasn't particularly hot or anything. Just. You know. Appetizing."

In the audience, someone coughed.

"So I followed him," Kama continued, ignoring the cough with the practiced ease of someone who had spent 175 years ignoring things. "He went into Urazuki's territory. I didn't want to leave him to-" She jerked her head toward her rival. "-this one. So I went after him."

"To protect your prey," Tamonten said.

"To protect my prey," Kama agreed.

Urazuki made a strangled noise of outrage. "You see ? You see ? She admits it ! She was poaching !"

"Poaching is a strong word."

"It's the exact word!"

"I prefer 'proactive resource management.'"

"That's not a thing !"

"It could be a thing, though, Tsuki-chaaaaa !"

Tamonten closed his eyes. The violet flame in his mask dimmed, just for a moment. When he opened them again, he did not look at Kama. He looked at the audience, at the gathered functionaries and observers, and said, in a voice that carried to every corner of the chamber:

"Clear the room."

There was a moment of frozen silence. Then the lesser bogeymen began to move, shuffling toward the exits with the awkward haste of people who had been caught watching something they shouldn't have seen. Morosuke kept writing, his stylus moving in small, unhurried strokes. Iroha didn't move at all.

When the last of the functionaries had filed out and the heavy doors had boomed shut behind them, Tamonten turned back to the two women standing at the foot of his dais.

"The human," he said. "Describe him."

Kama blinked. "What ?"

"The human. The one you followed. Describe his energy."

"I... it was good ? Really good. Like, really, really good. I've been doing this for a hundred and seventy-five years, and I've never smelled anything like it. It was-" She paused, frowning, searching for the word. "Clean. Bright. Full. Like a meal that hasn't been touched yet."

Tamonten was silent for a moment. Then he turned his head, very slightly, toward Iroha.

Iroha hadn't moved from her chair. Her hands were folded in her lap, her long red nails gleaming in the lantern light. Her fuchsia eyes were fixed on Kama, and her faint, private smile had widened, just a fraction.

"Fu fu fu hu hu..."

The laugh was soft, almost musical, a ripple of amusement that seemed to come from somewhere deep in her throat. It was a sound that didn't belong in the throne room. It was the sound of someone who had just heard a very good joke and was choosing not to share it.

Tamonten waited.

"Tamonten," Iroha said, her voice smooth and unhurried. "I would never presume to question your justice. But you sensed it too, didn't you ?"

Tamonten said nothing. The violet flame in his mask's socket was very still.

Iroha uncurled one hand from her lap and gestured, a small, graceful motion toward Kama. "That energy. The trace of it still clinging to our dear girl. It's not merely appetizing." She paused. "It's complete."

Morosuke looked up from his tablet. "It's true," he said, his voice dry and papery. "The oniric energy that has lightly perfumed Kama is not simply appetizing. It is... flawless. A quality I have never encountered in twelve centuries."

Kama looked between them, her brow furrowing. "Wait. What are you saying ?"

Tamonten ignored her. "You're certain ?" he asked Morosuke.

"Quite certain."

"Tamonten," Iroha said again, and there was something new in her voice now — something sharper, more focused, beneath the silk. "Isn't it possible that this is exactly what you've been searching for ? For your project ?"

The word hung in the air. Project. Kama didn't know what it meant. Urazuki, beside her, had gone very still.

Tamonten was silent for a long moment. The violet flame in his mask's socket burned, steady and cold.

"It could work," he said at last. "But you can sense it as well as I can. The energy isn't refined enough. It's raw. Untrained. And I don't know where the boy is now."

Iroha's smile returned, slow and private. "One of us does," she said.

And she turned her fuchsia eyes, very deliberately, toward Kama.

She rose.

The movement was slow, fluid, almost ceremonial. The layers of her kimono slid over one another with a soft rustle, and the midnight-blue surcoat rippled behind her like an unfurling wing. She descended the steps of the dais without haste, her long sleeves nearly brushing the stone, her red nails gleaming in the lantern light. She stopped in the middle of the steps, exactly halfway between the throne and the two offenders, and spread her arms in a gesture of theatrical amplitude.

"What I am proposing to you, great Fujiwara no Tamonten," she said, and her voice, though soft, carried to every corner of the chamber, "is to entrust to Kama the task of refining and collecting this young man's oniric energy."

Kama blinked. "Wait, what ?"

"We entrust her with this task," Iroha continued, as if Kama hadn't spoken, "and we grant her the right to set foot on Urazuki's territory."

In the corner of the room, Urazuki made a noise like a cat that had been stepped on. "Hey! Excuse me ?"

Kama, for her part, had already raised her thumb, a radiant smile splitting her face. "Yeah ! Thanks, Iroha !"

Iroha didn't turn around. Her private smile, the one meant only for herself, floated on her lips. She clasped her hands before her, the long sleeves of her kimono forming a perfect drape, and inclined her head slightly.

"However."

The word dropped into the chamber like a stone into water. Kama's thumb came down. Urazuki's smile — not quite a smile yet, but getting there — froze.

"Kama obviously deserves a punishment," Iroha said. Her voice was still soft, still reasonable, the tone of a mother explaining to her child why the bedroom must be tidied. "She violated territorial rules. She provoked an altercation. She caused property damage." She counted the points on her red fingers, one, two, three. "And moreover, this mission will occupy her far more than usual. She will find it difficult to make time to hunt at night. I doubt she will even feel the urge, faced with such a... savory source of nourishment."

Kama frowned. "Where are you going with this ?"

Iroha turned her head slowly. Her fuchsia eyes met Kama's, and her smile widened, very slightly, at the corner of her lips. "Thus, let us cede her entire territory to Urazuki. Temporarily."

The silence that followed was so deep one could have heard a feather fall. Then Urazuki let out a victory cry.

"Ha !" She jabbed a triumphant finger toward Kama, her platforms slapping against the stone, the blue streaks in her hair vibrating with righteous satisfaction. "Serves you right ! Oh, I love this woman. I love her. I take back everything I said."

Kama, for her part, did not move. Her face had gone blank. "What ?" she said, and her voice was very small, almost incredulous. "Why, Iroha ?"

Iroha didn't answer right away. She still stood in the middle of the steps, her hands clasped, her smile floating, and she looked at Kama with an expression that might have been tenderness. Then she turned to Tamonten.

"What I am proposing is fair. The mission is an absolution, but the infraction deserves a sanction. Kama keeps her prey. Urazuki receives an expanded territory. Balance is maintained."

Tamonten had not moved since the exchange began. His posture had not changed - the crossed leg, the chin on the fist, the golden mask impassive. But the violet flame in its socket burned, very calm, very intense. He was watching Iroha as if he could see something beneath her words, a pattern she was weaving in silence.

He kept silent for a long moment. Morosuke, at his side, had stopped writing. Urazuki held her breath. Kama clenched her fists.

Then Tamonten spoke.

"Granted."

The word fell, dry and final, like a blade.

Urazuki let out a second cry, louder than the first, and nearly toppled over backward. Kama, for her part, said nothing. She was staring at Iroha, and her blue eyes were full of something unreadable.

Iroha held her gaze for a moment, then her lips rounded again, and the strange laugh, the little cascading laugh that belonged only to her, rose softly in the throne room.

"Fu fu fu hu hu..."

It was not mocking. It was not even truly joyful. It was simply sweet, like a mother seeing her child learning life by a few frustrations.

"This audience is adjourned," Tamonten said. And without another word, he rose, the hem of his indigo kimono brushing the stone, and left the chamber through a side door. Morosuke followed him, his tablet tucked under his arm, his small, hurried steps echoing on the flagstones.

Urazuki spun on her heel, radiant. "Your whole territory ! Oh, this is the best day of my life."

Kama didn't answer. She was still staring at the place where Iroha had stood, the smile of her mentor still hovering in the air like a presence.

SEE YOU FOR CHAPTER 6...