“Akashima needs the Kami. The Kami need us. I cannot explain why this feels different, but it does. Just as the Old Gods will keep nature in harmony with our world, the Kami will stand vigil over these lands. The Greater Oni were corrupted by the Forgotten Ones, just as we were.”

“Do you promise to make the right choice when the time comes?” Ruby looked at her sister with the weight of worlds. “To choose man over whatever power this being gifts you?”

Lilith nodded. “It doesn’t control me. It needs me. Just as I need it. We’re symbiotic, rather than parasitical.” The geisha unsheathed the Komodo and held its blade to the maelstrom’s light. It glowed with red flame, as though reacting to the Tap.

“That such evil could be used for such good is no end of joy to me. I thought I would spend the rest of my days fighting my demons. Now, I will spend them inspiring providence and hope in the hearts of my kin.” Lilith flicked her wrist and loosed the dagger back into the whorl of the maelstrom.

“But with the end of the Thayne comes the end of our immortality. One day, you will die, and then what happens?”

Lilith took a moment to think, throwing the remaining blades to join the dragon. Once again, the maelstrom stormed and raged, and across Akashima the spirits returned to tantalise dreams and frolic with gleeful children.

“I’d resigned myself to an eternal vigil. To be a bastion till the world falls apart.” Lilith had chosen to leave her life behind and become the Kitsune proper; to wear a mask and hide away to let her ancestors live through her. “I was a spirit-warder once, my mother passed down the arts to me as a child so that I too could teach another. They were all but wiped out by the Shogun’s ronin; perhaps it’s time to restore the old ways.”

“Were they not an order who existed to kill the Kami?”

“In a way, yes. They ensured that Kami who became too chaotic were stilled. Once, they hunted the lesser gods to keep the balance between Oni and Kami equal. The more I succeed in this, the less chance there is of creatures like Tsukuyomi returning and corrupting the Kami into creatures more akin to the Thayne.”

“Were it anyone else asking me to walk away, I’d decline. The risk is too great, but you are the strongest person I know.” Ruby patted her sister on the shoulder. “I trust you to keep the balance.”

“I’m sorry if this plays havoc with your plans. But, rest assured, no matter if you kill the Thayne and the last Illar…one day, mortals will be consumed by their own greed and history will repeat itself.”

Ruby wanted to believe that this time, they would break the wheel. That dreams would stay dreams and not come to life to enslave their dreamers. Perhaps she was right, or perhaps she would be proven wrong. But if history had taught them anything, it was that nothing changed if people accepted their fate.

“I don’t care what happens to other worlds. Althanas will stand alone and be what it may of its own accord. I am tired of our fates being playthings of the Illar. Whatever creatures are born in this new frontier will never be so cruel and all consuming as the Thayne. If we fall, then it is because we are flawed, not because the gods decide.”

Lilith laughed. “If there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s making a fucking mess of everything we touch.”

Ruby chuckled, an infectious laugh that lifted their hearts.

“For once we agree on something,” the spell singer leant back and rested on her palms, tucked behind her head to shield her head from the flagstones. She stared skyward. “What does this mean for us, though?”

Lilith reflected on her choices. “If you’re asking if this is goodbye, I don’t know.”

“That wasn’t the enthusiasm I was hoping for…”

“What were you hoping for?”

“That you’d still be a part of my life, maybe?” They stared at one another awkwardly.

“We’ve not been a part of each other’s lives for three decades. Longer than that, in fact. For once, I don’t know what the future holds and that’s the best thing.”

“So not a goodbye…”