“This is uable!” Kondou-dono snarled, face white with anger. He swept his arm out, striking his por mug off the table to shatter on the floor, the hot tea within spshing over Kiku and seeping into her threadbare kimono, burning the flesh beh.

  As she bowed, trying to assuage his anger, she thought that it was a bitter irony that most of the feelings she could once more experience were painful ones. Pain is all Kondou-dono gift us with…

  “Why ’t you do anything right, you useless bitch?” he was ranting, his fist striking the table aing it in, the expensive wood splintering. “The amount of resources we are wasting on this war, only to lose again and again…” He kicked out, and the table struck her as she was bowing low, near-kneeling on the floor. “… now the rats are at my own borders.”

  Feeling sluggish bck blood trig from her mouth, she touched the floor with her forehead, hoping to calm him and escape his retribution. “I uand, Kondou-dono. However, without leadership, the … these Orcs…” Filthy beasts, even mihey disgust me. Oh, my lot in life as a woman is to suffer… “… they ot pete with the enemy. They have some powerful warriors, perhaps even another one such as yourself, my master. If only you would take the field personally, then…”

  His eyes were as hard as her nails, and she realised she had made a mistake. Suddenly pain was r through her, her mind reeling, thoughts scattering away like spiders into the darkness when a mp was lit. She gagged, a mixture of bile and blood rising. “Master… Kondou-dono… please…” She reached out a pale hand towards his boot, only for him to stamp on her, and she felt bones grind under his tender care…

  “You do not order me, woman. You belong to me, you obey me!” he snarled, crushing her underfoot, while pain boiled through her. “I am the only God you shall he only master you’ll serve. And I’ll go into battle when I am damn well ready, and not before.”

  His rage exhausting itself, he looked down on Kiku as she thrashed around. Gradually the pain started diminishing, leaving her limp and trembling.

  “If our foreed dire, you and them in person.” he snapped out harsh orders. “After all, your minions are proving a disappoi. How ghosts who hardly be hurt be so… so… pathetic? If you need further strength, we could always use those two that we bound… that would bolster our offensive power.”

  For someoh such a gift of pain, you are quite the coward, Kondou-dono. My husband was no coward, though he was quite the savage. She was rubbing her golden band, her thoughts foggy. He is eager to bully the weak, but if he was to e up against a rival who could match him… Grittieeth, tasting bitter metal, she proffered a warning… “I uand, master, I do. But if we were to lose the bound ones, our strength would be much diminished and…”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Pain khrough her again, though mercifully brief. “Still, we ’t have intruders running around my domain. They probably ot breach our defences, but should they do so… no, you ha. I will not allow any excuses or failures.”

  “I uand, Kondou-dono.” Kiku gasped. “I shall attend to it at my own discretion…” If he does not allow that, then I shall be forced to use my…

  “See that you do. I want those rats dead, and their domain under my trol. Our other avenues of growth have been choked off by this wastefulness.” He cut her off, and she hid an expression of relief, her hand still fondling her ring.

  “I shall make sure of their defeat.” Kiku promised.

  “Good. But before you go, up the ba. You use her, if you want.”

  As her master left, Kiku rose to her feet, the phantom pain still lingering. Knowing what she would find in the pyroom, she entered, only to be surprised, as the girl was still alive, groaning pitifully. Poor woman, another victim of the crass violend lusts of base men…

  The blood-soaked woman looked up at her, the one eye remaining open wide and staring. She let out a pitiful cry for help, though her shattered jaw strahe words, rendering them unintelligible. One of her arms was broken too, bent at a cruel angle, but with the other she scrabbled desperately across the floor, trying to reayohat would help her, rant her peace.

  Oh sad little girl. She is toooo gravely hurt. Her hand clutched a nail as she moved closer. “Poor child, stay silent now. I shall help you.”

  At those words the girl rexed, going limp, moans seeping from her ruined mouth. Kiku stood over her, and the nail drove down, pierg flesh and boilling her movement forever. Casting her sight to the Boundary she could see another fused ghost there, awaiting her instrus. Once given, she returned her attention back to the corpse, preparing herself to e the bitter, brutalised flesh with her mouth of nails.

  This one is… As she looked at the body she noticed it was not the usual type of victim, the poor, loravellers to this nd that her lord catered to. No, this one was a native. Nobody of importance, probably, judging by the torn clothes lying around. A pleasure girl. One who suffers the touen for mohough that perhaps is no crueller thaouch of love. The band on her finger was digging into her pale skin, a thin trickle of dark blood dropping to the floor.

  “Still…” she spoke, the words painfully loud in the poignant silence of the pyroom. “… Kondou-dono grows ever more arrogant and sure of his might, yet he still will not face our enemies. Disappointing…” The gangmasters of Edo who ran the brothels and slums would no doubt be wroth. Harlots and geisha were as numerous as grains of sand, yet they did not let it pass when anything of theirs was taken, for reputation was their currency as much as silver old.

  If only Kondou-dono had not e before her, but some other… She had been dwelling in the graveyard, lovingly tending her husband's grave, making sure none of the other spirits or creatures of the dark could get at it, or his remains, which were hers and hers alone, but one day she felt a strange flow of power in that pce. Then Kondou-dono came, and she tried to defend what was hers, with her nails that repelled all who would hurt her and could ehose of a weaker will, yet…

  Eveing his gaze give great pain. My very soul burhat day. Kiku had expected oblivion, but he had spared her, on the dition she would be his sve. I sidered the final death, for what is left for me, other than tending to the grave, keeping the ash and bones… but my anger, my bitterness, it would not let me pass on…

  Whatever sorceries Kondou-dono had ied, he could bind her, and disobeying his orders was impossible, yet… as long as I interpret it, I maintain my own will…

  Now, only ohing was certain, she would have to defeat the invaders. With that in mind, she finished her grizzly feast, the rotten taste of flesh filling her mouth and nose. With that done she returo the Boundary, her daughters flitting about her, insubstantial and wispy. I must do what I , as Kondou-dono has ordered. Until his cruel deeds catch up with him, or he meets an enemy he ot defeat… until then I am his sve, and the grave of my husband goes untended. In the Boundary her form had shifted, less human and more baleful, her hair streaming behind her, metallid grey, her hands cruelly twisted amalgams of flesh and irorue nails scraping against the worn and scarred ring of gold she wore on her finger.

  “Time… to… feast.” She grated, her mouth full of long, gore-slicked nails, grinning like a shark, her bck eyes lifeless and full of dark emotions, hunger, revenge and sorrow…

  ***

  “Die!” Kiku hissed, her hands knotted into cws. Rusted nails, tipped with dark liquid, appeared in the air in a spread in front of her, dozens of the dark metal spikes obeying her will. Arouhe beasts she was forced to and were surging out to attack, yet the two intruders were proving more than their match.

  Pirl, so pretty, so young, so i. Yet soon enough you will know the cruel hands of men, what they want, what they are capable of when the dles are snuffed out and darkness creeps in… It would be a mercy to kill her now, indeed, before she suffered. Such a noble girl, wearing a yukata with practiced grace, her long amber-blonde hair trailing behind her refined, patri features. As for the man…

  Nails hissed through the air, passing through the defensive barrier that protected the nds her master had cimed. The girl opened her amber eyes wide in surprise befesturing and a gust of wind spread from her, smelling of the woods and water and stranger, fey things, that brought back memories of when Kiku walked the Material, so long ago.

  Not enough, not nearly enough. Some of her projectiles were deflected by the gale, but more passed straight through, aimed at her fad body, like knives seeking her life. Soon you shall be one of my daughters, and all the pain you will have to face shall never e to you…

  “Look out!” The man shouted, leaping in front of her, spinning his spear. Nails cttered against the bde, sg it, and several hit him, the sound of breakial ringing out.

  “Master, are you unharmed?” the girl cried, and he nodded.

  “Yeah, my armour held as I reinforced it with aether at the st sed. Bloody hurt though, like wearing a bulletproof vest aing shot.”

  Kiku gaped in surprise. The man would take a hit for his woman, his servant? Her metal teeth gnashed as she started biting on her fingers, teeth digging into her ring. This was nht. No, this is nht at all. Orcs were falling, most of them diced apart by wind and some strange whirling traptions of wire and bdes the girl was wielding. Oaggered back towards her, both arms missing, falling in front of her. She looked down, and then a nail appeared, thrusting into its skull.

  Useless, useless, useless.

  Out of the er of her eye she sarismatic light, then a vicious bolt of energy flew from the heart of Kondou-dono’s demesne. Her enemies dodged, and the bolt carried on, to explode violently behind them. She clicked her teeth, enraged. If her master had entrusted her with the ability to and his defences she would be able to oppress the intruders, but he was too trolling, too dismissive of women. I only oversee the transfer of resources from the nds of the nailed ones I have ensved. I do not want t them to the battle, but if I ot win here without them…

  Her thoughts were interrupted as the barrier shuddered, shrinking inwards under a great bst of wind. The positioning of the defences had left rge gaps, only the stro one able te over the eerritory.

  Howling, she called upon her gifts aal nails, each as long and thick as a spear, tore free from the ground under her foes. Somehow they mao avoid the pierg spikes, and iurn came great gouts of yellow fire, causio flinch back, afraid. That could hurt me… I remember when my husbahe fme to my… ugh, no, not now, not again… Her metal teeth bit to her fingerbohe cool of gold in her mouth driving away the fog. There was nothing to fear now, anyway. I am no lohat meek woman…

  The fme had burst against the barrier, weakening it still further, but uo break it down. As droplets of molten energy raio the ground she cast out more nails like bullets, and called forth more spikes from the ground and surrounding buildings.

  “She is most-most powerful indeed.” The girl pined, her metal wires shimmering with energies as they sheared through the spikes that burst at her. “She could-could grace the dark court of the Unseelie, she resembles the banshee my sister told me tales of as a child to scare-scare me, though she feels even fouler than that-that.”

  Me? Foul? I child, you shall have long to repent spurning my embrace… Kiku hurled handfuls of nails oer another, demolishing the surrounding terrain. Bright fme and wind exploded, a mushroom-cloud of ford debris rippling out, shivering the barrier once more. When it died dowruders were gone, leaving behind a battlefield studded with spikes.

  “So, they fled… but I did not kill them. I ot retur, not since Kondou-dono gave his foolish and.” The beasts were useless. The beetles… there were reserves that could be tapped, though they were to be used for future expansion, as they were harder to repce…

  Perhaps I will have to use… that… after all… but the risk… It owerful, to be sure, but if it was to fall, their power would be diminished. No, not our power, his power. The other alternative was chasing them outside the barrier and hunting them down, but that… remembering the fire, she quivered, nails scratg her ring.

  No, not yet. The pair will have to return soo we attack them once more. And when they do… this time they shall not escape…