Page 17 of Son of Shadows

He locked eyes with Ryuichi. “Have you any idea how valuable the real estate next to the gate would have been? I was going to be the richest yōkai in all the realm! Every beast wanting to gobble up humans in their world was going to have to travel through my property to reach the portal. My tolls and prices would have been ridiculous, yes, to deter the lower-class yōkai, but they’d be fair. Balance, you know? If too many humans were eaten by the yōkai, that would affect my bottom line and⁠—”

Masaru cleared his throat, interrupting the yōkai’s rant. “Is there a point to your rambling?”

Lord Hayasaka seemed a bit ruffled. “That was the dream I had. Until the Ryukage decided to vanish without warning. Without. Warning! Now my beautiful dream has become a nightmare. An awful, horrible nightmare! Did you hear me?”

His black wings twitched and ruffled as he tossed his teacup at the doorframe, where it shattered. “Now I’m stuck in this death trap of a shabby castle, waiting for every displaced, greedy, treacherous, low-born yōkai to crawl its way up from the darkest pit and eat me alive. And there’s a lot of them, just so you know. Your father wasn’t the best demon lord we’ve ever had. By the gods, far from it. Positively awful, really. But he was the meanest and cruelest. Fear of him kept the other yōkai in check. Made a system here, you understand. A good one too. For the first time that I can remember—and that’s centuries long—the spirit world was obedient under his rule. Everyone remembered their place, because if they got uppity, the Ryukage would notice. And once they had his attention, their lifespan went from being measured in years to seconds.”

Hayasaka hobbled over to a stove, where a teapot was brewing more tea. He tried to pour another cup and spilled it everywhere. Slamming the pot down, he glared at Ryuichi as if it was his fault he’d done that. Then he shattered a second teacup against the wall.

“And on top of it all, Orochi has been unleashed!”

Ryuichi didn’t like the high-pitched sound of Hayasaka’s voice when he said that.

“Orochi?”

“The World Eater. Have you not heard of him? How could you not know about the World Eater? Everyone knows!”

Ryuichi didn’t. He glanced over at Masaru, who shrugged. “You don’t know him?”

“Of course I do.” Masaru winked. “Just messing with you.”

“Care to tell me what it is?”

“Ugly.”

Masaru was seldom helpful. It was infuriating.

“Orochi is an old enemy of your parents. He found a secret portal into the human realm,” Keiko explained.

“No one knows how he found it exactly. But he burst through and almost devoured Japan. Your mother and father are the sole reason he didn’t finish it off,” Koichi interjected.

“Your father served Orochi some kind of drink that made him faint, and when he was unconscious, your mother banished him to a wasteland and locked him in a cavern,” Haruki added.

“He’s been nursing a grudge ever since,” Masaru said. “Oh, and he’s a vicious dragon with eight heads and eight tails. Almost forgot that part.”

That was a lot to process.

“Why didn’t any of you tell me about this?” Ryuichi was a little annoyed to be out of the loop.

“It just never came up,” Keiko said.

“What a poor excuse,” Ryuichi-kage said, glaring at everyone.

In this moment, it felt good to have someone else standing up for him.

Hayasaka let out a frustrated growl. “Can we focus, please? While Orochi is restoring his powers, he’s managed to form an army. He’s sending them to claim the gate, and they’re all coming after my hide to make their lord happy. Because I serve Ryukage, that means I’m an enemy. If I could, I’d flee this place faster than my wings could carry me and let them have it all. Even though I’m a tengu, I’m an agreeable bird, mind you. I don’t want any trouble. But I’ve seen Orochi’s soldiers in my scrying glass, and they aren’t beasts I’d call friends. So here I am, stuck with a useless castle, fighting for an absent lord, who may or may not ever return. All over a plot of land I’d do anything to get rid of.”

“Then why do you stay?” Ryuichi-kage asked.

Hayasaka gave him a withering stare. “Because if your father finds out that I abandoned my post, he’ll turn me into tengu curry. And I don’t want to be anyone’s main course.”

Koichi coughed into his fist, but not before Ryuichi saw the smile he was trying to hide. “Well. That says it all, doesn’t it?”

For some reason, his sensei took delight in this yōkai’s stress.

Masaru, however, wasn’t amused at all. He narrowed his eyes at Hayasaka and scowled. “Are you really a tengu? I have never, in all my centuries, seen anyone more disgraceful. And while I appreciate your warning that you’d abandon us the first chance you get, I insist that you help those you dragged all the way here.”

Hayasaka laughed cruelly at Masaru. “Do you really think I want to trust the son of the Ryukage, whose last action was fighting his father to the death? If there was any other option, I’d take it, but none of you sent me a single word about your plans for repairing what you broke. Nor did the Ryukage warn me he intended to leave this realm with no rulership. Now everything is in chaos, and all the yōkai are marching here to take over the portal for Orochi.”