The idea crystallized quickly in Toshi’s head. He scanned the field below to confirm. Yes … while Konda and O-Kagachi were fixed and oriented on the towers of Minamo, the All-Consuming was facing south, its eyes pinned to the great serpent’s approach. The ochimusha spared one last look at Hidetsugu, who was sightlessly searching for him with wide sweeps of his massive arms.
Do you understand?
At last, Toshi realized he did. The three-way struggle developing on the shores of the lake provided information that Hidetsugu didn’t have, information that would wound the ogre more viciously than any spell or blade.
Thank you, O Night.
Fare well, my acolyte.
Toshi ignored the pain in his chest and rolled onto his knees. The ogre’s probing hands were only inches away.
“Hidetsugu,” Toshi said, “listen.”
At the sound of the ochimusha’s voice, Hidetsugu lashed out and snared the front of Toshi’s shirt. He lifted Toshi up and said, “No, my friend. Every time I listen to you, I lose. It would be more fitting … more dignified if you simply accepted your death in silence. Nothing you say will save you.”
Swaying in the ogre’s grip, Toshi said, “All right, don’t listen. Smell. Point your ugly face south and tell me what you find.”
Hidetsugu shook his head, but in doing so turned his face to the open air. The scent of battle reached him, familiar odors that could not help but fire his ogre blood.
“The All-Consuming,” he said. “And an army of souls who fight even though they don’t have proper bodies.” Forgetting himself, Hidetsugu tilted his head back and drank deeply of the evening air.
“And an elemental force of amazing power. That has to be the fabled O-Kagachi.” Hidetsugu sniffed again, momentarily forgetting his rage. “There are hundreds of powerful scents out there in the world, Toshi, but this one smells like all of them. It is the world itself.”
Hidetsugu lowered his head. “And now I have listened, old friend. Good-bye.” The ogre raised his powerful fist, preparing to crush Toshi against his own open palm.
“Before you kill me,” Toshi said, “let me tell you the one scent you missed.”
“Oh? Tell, ochimusha, tell.”
“Fear,” Toshi said evenly. “Fear of O-Kagachi. Whatever that thing is, it’s more powerful than Konda, and it’s more powerful than the All-Consuming. If it arrives here …”
“Nothing is more powerful than my oni,” Hidetsugu said. “Chaos is the fate of all things, living, spiritual, and in between. All that lives will someday die, all that is ordered will someday unravel. And when they do, Chaos reigns.”
“Oh?” Toshi said, and he could see how his mocking tone annoyed Hidetsugu. “You seem certain. But is your oni?”
Hidetsugu huffed, but he did not strike. Instead, he turned once more to the opening in the wall and waited, drawing a steady stream of air into his nostrils.
A mere hundred feet from the shores of Lake Kamitaki, Konda’s advance had ground to a halt. Even as his main forces threw themselves against the Oni of Chaos in endless waves, the demon held fast. In the sky and on the ground, even his personal strike force could not break through.
Konda was confident in his eventual success, but the approach of O-Kagachi threatened them all. The great spirit beast now filled the entire southern sky, five castle-sized heads thrashing and rolling down from the horizon. The battlefield and the entire world seemed to tilt toward the serpent’s coils, as if the world were overbalanced by its presence.
The daimyo shouted for another charge, and his troops obeyed without hesitation. Doubt had crept into Konda’s own mind as he weighed the risks of being trapped between two of the kakuriyo’s most powerful spirits.
O-Kagachi roared then, adding its multiple voices to the cacophony of battle for the first time. The serpent’s cries covered the entire range of pitch and timbre, from a high, shrieking wail to a low, ground-rumbling roar. Konda’s army did not react to the terrible new sounds, but all of the oni did, from the lowliest foot soldier to their lord hovering and slavering overhead. The greater demon recoiled as if stung by a hot needle, and then its hissing, malevolent call stabbed through every ear and mind for a mile in all directions.
Konda’s heart surged. Could it be? Was he actually hearing the sound he had heard in a hundred different battles from a hundred different enemies? Was the mighty Oni of Chaos sounding a retreat?
Like a squall on a sunny day, the greater demon suddenly soared up from the shore into the sky. It grew darker, heavier, and broader as it rose, its eyes aglow with crimson light. Thousands of sharp-toothed black jaws coalesced around the oni’s eyes and horns, giving it a distinct shape for the first time. Still rising, the Oni of Chaos boldly turned to face O-Kagachi. Its shape swelled, and then a river of snapping jaws erupted from below its eyes, streaming toward the five-headed serpent like a horizontal geyser.
Konda stopped, half-mesmerized by the enormity of the conflict in the sky. All around him, his soldiers and moth-riders slowed their advance, waiting for the daimyo to act. Even the lesser oni stopped fighting but stood dazed and almost frightened as their deity struck.
The stream of demonic jaws curled slightly as it streaked toward O-Kagachi. The closer its leading edge got to the serpent, the smaller and more comical it seemed. Konda let out a mocking laugh as the oni’s attack made contact with O-Kagachi’s closest face. The stream of vicious jaws splashed harmlessly off the old serpent’s scales like gentle rain.
The stricken head then blasted forward at a speed greater than Konda could follow. He saw a flicker of movement and felt a rush of air and pressure as something huge rushed over him. It took but a split-second for him to jerk his head back to the oni. What he saw chilled him to his core.
O-Kagachi’s return stroke had torn through the center of the Oni of Chaos, sundering the great demon in two. Two of its three eyes remained on one ragged half, opened wide with shock. On the other half, the third eye rolled back in its socket and lost its angry red glow just before the lid drifted closed. This smaller half of the oni’s body jerked and twitched for a moment. Then it began to fall, leaving a trail of stunned and motionless jaws fluttering in its wake.
Before the disintegrating mass could splash into the waters of the lake, O-Kagachi’s head turned and swallowed it whole in one single bite. As quickly as it struck, the great serpent’s head withdrew, rejoining the other four heads and the huge crush of undulating coils.
Lesser oni on the battlefield screamed in impotent rage. Many disengaged from Konda’s soldiers and disappeared into clouds of foul-smelling black smoke. As they cleared the field, the stunned greater oni still hovered overhead. Crippled, diminished, and chastened, it began to fade from sight.
The way to Minamo was now clear. Konda had secured his position as the greatest military leader in Kamigawa by seizing opportunities as soon as they arose. He raised his sword hand and his voice to rally his troops onward.
“Now, my retainers,” he cried, “even our greatest enemy serves our cause today! Ride on! To Minamo! The prize shall be mine once again!”
Red tears dripped from Hidetsugu’s empty sockets, but the ogre’s face was a mask of rage.
“No,” he said softly. “This cannot be.”
Toshi took advantage of Hidetsugu’s distraction to become immaterial. The ogre did not notice his intended victim’s escape, did not even lower the arm that had held Toshi.
“It fled,” he whispered bitterly. “It faced the great serpent and lost, and now it abandons its own kind. It abandons me, the truest acolyte it has ever known.”
Toshi collected his jitte and went to check on Kiku. The mahotsukai was still unconscious, but her masters’ curse had protected her from the worst of the ogre’s attack. She lay next to a pile of rubble, her body painfully twisted but basically intact.