Emperor Shōwa—Hirohito—sat on the Chrysanthemum Throne, the 124th ruler of Sushi Country. Longest-lived, longest-reigning… and, in Li Ming's book, the longest-suffering magnet for supernatural headaches.
He'd barely warmed the seat after his father's death when Zhao Zheng—yes, that Zhao Zheng—stormed in with sorcery, seized mineral veins like trophies, and carved through onmyōji like a butcher in a henhouse.
One demigod-level problem was bad enough. Now there was another: a foreign caster who commanded swarms of scarabs and had strangled an entire city in a living siege.
Earthquakes struck Sushi Country. Claim-jumpers struck Sushi Country. Now even bug plagues had them bookmarked.
The world was watching. Leaders abroad wanted to see how a modern nation handled the impossible. If Japan failed, what hope did anyone else have when gods or monsters turned up at their borders?
The Emperor pulled at his thinning hair until clumps came loose. That's when Abe Sukeyoshi, a Tsuchimikado scion claiming descent from Abe no Seimei, proposed the one thing that sounded sane: negotiate.
"Those scarabs are Egyptian," Sukeyoshi explained. "They didn't crawl out of our soil by chance. They're not breaching inner walls—they're choking escape routes. That's leverage, not slaughter. Talk to him. Even if it fails, the world will see us try."
Hirohito didn't argue. He shoved the problem at Sukeyoshi, retreated to the inner palace, and consoled himself with concubines.
Sukeyoshi left grinning, edict in hand, and split his plan in two.
Front stage: a parade of diplomacy—brocade, palanquins, banners with kanji fluttering like prayers. A message to Li Ming: We honor your power. A message to the watching nations: We prefer peace.
Back stage: assassins. Shinobi slipped into soldier's garb. Familiars hidden in the crowd. Their mission: cut the caster down. Even a failed strike might spark paranoia, pinning blame on Zhao Zheng.
What none of them knew was that Li Ming and Zhao were aligned. Worse, fate tossed into Sukeyoshi's party a familiar face: the rooftop assassin who'd already lost both blade and mask to Li Ming.
Li Ming weighed his choices as the three-day mark neared.
Option one: return to Qin lines, honor his word, shield Zhao's troops. That meant either bedding the scarabs or driving them from city to city, harvesting wraiths along the way.
Option two: stay put, tighten the siege, finish his revenge. Risk Zhao's wrath. Oathbreakers didn't live long under emperors.
Zhao's message saved him the trouble: Continue the siege. Just check in hourly.
Simple enough. The bug-ring would draw the onmyōji out. With portals, Li Ming could blink back to Qin lines whenever Zhao needed cover.
Relieved, he parked himself above the city and waited for the bait to arrive.
Days slipped by. The dementors circling him grew sluggish on sated bellies. At last, a grand procession crested the road: lacquered palanquins, silk-draped attendants, banners flapping greetings in the heat.
Li Ming squinted, a beer barrel under his arm. "Kreacher, tell me that's not a wedding. Six coats of white paint on his face—that's the groom? Who gets married in a siege? Is she desperate, or is he stupid? Should I send scarabs to grab the wedding cake, maybe score some luck?"
Kreacher's eyes glinted. "Master, if we send scarabs to block the road, they'll get a feast. I can't promise luck."
Below, the assassin—face hidden among the crowd—looked up at Li Ming's skull mask and scythe and burned with fury. He had lost those tools. And he wanted them back.
He pressed close to Sukeyoshi. "My lord, there's a flaw in the plan."
Sukeyoshi split his focus, one eye on Li Ming, one mind extending a shikigami to sniff for eavesdroppers. Sensing only his own men, he asked, "You're Iga?"
The word said everything. Kōga ninja bound themselves to a lord. Iga sold their loyalty by contract.
The assassin stiffened, then forced a loyal smile. "Yes, Iga. But also a son of Sushi Country. My duty is clear."
Sukeyoshi's gaze sharpened. "You've faced him, then. You know his weakness."
The assassin recounted the rooftop fight—how close he'd come, how fragile Li Ming was at arm's reach. He finished through clenched teeth: "His spells are overwhelming. His swordwork is not. Give me a path past the shades. One chance. I'll kill him."
Sukeyoshi studied the skull-faced figure hovering above the city. "Your name?"
The bow went low. "Shida Daio, my lord."
"Good." Sukeyoshi's tone turned flint. "If he serves Zhao Zheng, then framing Zhao is pointless. You know his weakness. The kill is yours."
He raised his voice for the guards. "Camp here. No one approaches the caster until we confirm whether his siege is part of Qin's design." His eyes narrowed, mind racing. "Inform His Majesty at once. I suspect this siege is a lure—meant to draw our onmyōji away so Zhao can strike at the Emperor."
Shida Daio basked in the words, then muttered, "My lord, ninja don't fly. We need him on the ground. Or masked from his shades. Something to let me close."
Sukeyoshi nodded to the captain. "Send envoys under flag of safe conduct. Tell him we come as emissaries to negotiate. It is a new century. Civilized men speak before they fight."
The captain shot Shida a hard look. He understood the subtext. The envoys were bait. If needed, they were anchors—men who'd die holding Li Ming down long enough for Shida to finish the job.
Orders were orders. He chose a handful of steady-handed men and handed them over.
Shida murmured the strike plan, then lifted his gaze. High above, Li Ming floated with mask and scythe. Shida's smile was sharp enough to cut silk.
He and his Iga slipped into invisibility and ghosted after the envoys as they trudged toward the living wall of scarabs.
Shida Daio briefed his three death-soldiers on the march. The caster in the sky had guardians, he said—shadow things unseen by normal eyes, dripping cold. He bragged about his rooftop duel: how close he'd come, how the kill had been a heartbeat away until those shades froze his limbs and the sorcerer tilted his head just enough to survive. One spell later, Shida had fled, forced to abandon both mask and blade.
The soldiers listened, stony-faced. They knew dementors. They knew their role. They nodded once and peeled off.
A little farther up, the interpreter noticed frost edging the roadside. He shivered, glaring at the bundled soldiers. "Why's it freezing? You three knew? Not a word? Any of you have a spare coat? Lend me one."
He said lend, but his eyes demanded. On another day, maybe they would've given in. Not today. The coats weren't comfort; they were armor. If their joints froze in the fight, Shida would die, and so would they. The interpreter didn't get it.
They ignored him with polite smiles. No one drags a spare coat to the front. He sulked, memorized three names for later whispering in Abe Sukeyoshi's ear, then craned his neck skyward and bellowed in stilted "China-speak": "Honored sir, greetings—"
Li Ming had already tagged the envoy party as baseline human. No threat. The real power was still hiding in camp.
He dropped lower, flipped his empty beer barrel so it thudded at the interpreter's feet, and barked in mocking pidgin, "Me robber. You—leave wine. Or die-die."
The interpreter blinked. A… wine bandit?
Upwind, Shida and three Iga moved invisible, closing the trap. He flashed the signal: four angles, blades in, no escape.
He didn't know dementors didn't need eyes.
Wangcai sniffed the disturbance and pressed it into Li Ming's mind like a cold finger at his neck. Li Ming narrowed his eyes, swept a hand over his face, and opened the Sight. Bodies stayed hidden, but their spirits blazed like torches. One death-soldier carried a hitchhiker, something clinging to his soul. And there—Shida Daio. The rooftop butcher.
Anger flared. Once was almost fatal. Twice was stupidity. Did he look like a raid boss that respawned for loot?
Li Ming let scarabs whisper through the grass, tunneling to form a ring around the invisible hunters. Then, loud enough for the envoys, he asked, "Who are you? Where from? Where to?"
The interpreter puffed his chest, convinced the silk on his back impressed the sorcerer. "We come on behalf of His Maj—"
Steel hissed.
The three death-soldiers ripped their coats, blades flashing as they leapt. At the same instant, Shida and his Iga struck from four sides, a perfect box.
Li Ming didn't flinch. He snapped his fingers.
The death-soldiers' eyes glazed over. Their bodies moved anyway—turning, cutting, and in one beat, a ninja's head rolled. Then they surged the other way.
Shida staggered. Death-soldiers didn't break. They didn't switch sides. Then he saw their vacant eyes and understood: spellbound. He had walked his men into a trap.
He didn't wait for the end. He spun and bolted for camp. If he couldn't kill the sorcerer, he'd sell the next best thing—intelligence. Maybe not a townhouse reward, but a latrine shed? Still possible.
Li Ming didn't care about "ninja plural." His target was Shida Daio.
The ground erupted. A wall of scarabs rose, mandibles gnashing.
Shida vanished between them, slipping invisible.
Li Ming snorted. Scarabs swarmed anyway, chewing through cloth and skin. Not feeding yet. Not until he was done reading.
Shida screamed, high and raw, as beetles crawled inside. Li Ming paged through the man's memories like a ledger, smiling. "Tough one. Roaring like a rooster. You'll last. Enjoy the tour."
He glanced toward the camp. Soldiers were packing in panic, a column already breaking.
He scratched his head. One scream and they folded? Fragile.
He flicked a hand. Scarabs surged to encircle the camp.
Then he walked back to the spellbound death-soldiers. One twitched. Something inside him shifted—too fast, too hungry.
Li Ming prodded the man's temple with his staff. "Having fun riding someone else's soul?"
The parasite didn't bother hiding. It ripped the host open like a chrysalis, lunged with claws wide.
Li Ming froze time, stepped into the stillness, and planted a boot in its face. The spirit cartwheeled back.
Not a ghost. A spirit. Different weight, different rules.
Curious, Li Ming touched the staff to its brow and pulled. Memories spilled—onmyōji secrets, bindings, reshaping shikigami. He grimaced, burned the thing with hellfire, then dissolved into black mist and arrowed for the camp.
Behind him, scarabs roared, tearing tents, snapping wagons, leaving men scrambling. No slaughter yet. Not until he chose.
His thoughts spun. Dementors were losing shine—slow feeders, always hungry, limited in a fight. Their aura chilled, but that was it. The spirit's memories cracked a door wide open. Why not rebuild them? Strengthen the runes. Reforge the bond. Make them more than slaves—make them his.
He circled the camp once, tongue wetting his lips, then yanked Abe Sukeyoshi from the press like a weed. Clean and fast: touch to temple, memory ripped, bottled. Then a heel ground into his face until nothing moved.
Language barrier? Didn't matter. He had the method now, straight from the source. Dead men didn't need interpreters. The dead translated in the only tongue that counted.
Simple. Efficient. Deadly.