They’d dressed him in a white kimono with traceries of gray feathers cascading across the silk. It was the perfect canvas for the shifting rainbow light that danced across the room. Yoshisune would never be handsome, he could only ever be beautiful. Delicate cheekbones and gracefully slanted eyes, even his nervous movements added a sensual ambiguity to his gender.

Across the room, Cesare tracked the three white clothed sharks locked onto Yoshisune. The uniforms were stripped of ornamentation or ostentation, only a pin incised with a kanji marking them as murderers. They had no need of costly fabrics or jewels to prove their superiority. An air of discipline threaded the three together, bonded to their souls, it made itself known in every step.

“Killer.” The word brought Alexandra on point, focused and intent, following his eyes to the three foreign students arrowing in on Yoshisune. “Collect the boy.” She was off before he’d finished, the crowd parting before her blood soaked aura, happy to move aside for the hunting psychopath.

“She’s dedicated to you,” Kali said, watching Alexandra slice into the crowd, cutting the distance between her and Yoshisune with an ease that spoke of the raw terror she was held in. No one wanted to talk to her, shying away from her shadow, averting their eyes from the mad thing. She was utterly alone. “I’ve never known a vampire to swear fealty to a non-vampire.”

Cesare nodded, tucking the fact away for later thought. “She’s no more dedicated to me than I am to her.”

“And that's what makes you so dangerous.” Deathly quiet, the words were sharpened with truth and poisoned with experience.

Alexandra and the Hitokiri reached the boy seconds apart. Laying her hand on the boys shoulder, the vampire glared at the Hitokiri. Coiled death waiting to spring, she was more than ready to carve into flesh. Words passed between them until the students looked across the room at Cesare, Lady Kali, and Elizabeth. Tension fled the Hitokiri, it was one thing to kill with surprise and another to tempt immortal powers.

Bowing slightly, the Hitokiri stepped back, opening the way for the vampire. Pushing the boy ahead of her, Alexandra kept between the Hitokiri and the boy. Tension tightened Cesare's muscles as anger beat along the glassine blackness of his soul. He didn’t like her back to the foreign killers. Then and there, he promised if they laid a hand on her he'd take their lives, no matter the cost.

Alexandra’s eyes never left Cesare, trusting him to watch her back until she slipped into the cordon. She wouldn't have trusted anyone else to watch her back. She trusted him with her life, a trust that shone in her eyes. It was a precious grace Cesare hoped he wouldn’t tarnish.

She slipped into her spot, to the side and one step behind him. White showed around Yoshisune’s eyes, being caught between killers had rattled him down to his bones. “They forced me to come, sensei,” he said by way explanation. The boy knew Cesare had been the one to save him. Everyone in the school knew Alexandra Dracul would kill you as soon as look at you. If she lifted a finger, it was because Cesare asked.

“I know.” With a gesture, he sent the boy opposite Alexandra, shielded from view by Cesare's blade thin shadow.

He’d expected the Hitokiri to look like regular students with an Asian cast. The uniforms helped fit the mold, but no one would think they were anything less than unique beings. Standing at the point of the spear, the leader studied Cesare.

At about Cesare’s height he wasn’t tall, slim and tight, corded muscle wrapped around bone. Darting eyes and swift movements, he was kinetic energy bound too tight, leaking it into the air like a meth addict. Black hair kissed his shoulders with ice blue electric tips, almond eyes shone with dangerous intelligence.

Bowing deeply, the man presented a packet of papers from his waist. “Lord Hachimon sends his best wishes to the Lady of Destruction, and his continued prayers for her prosperity.”

Lady Kali neither looked at the boy or moved to take the papers. Taking the coarse paper, Cesare weighed it in his hand, there was a gravity to the paper, an ancient grace that mass production had stripped from the world. Folded over each other, the packet was a master work of origami, itself a mark of the esteem the sender had for Kali. This wasn’t a letter from a friend, it was a correspondence from one god ruler to another.

“Lady Kali expresses her wish for Lord Hachimon’s continued good health and prosperity,” Cesare said as the boy straightened from his bow.

“I will convey Lady Kali's words to my superiors.” Easing from his stiff stance, the boy smiled. “Seijuro.” The introduction was done with the barest ducking of the head.

“Cesare.” His nod copied the killers exactly.

“You're the one they call the Master of Arms,” Seijuro said, the boy had a richness to his voice, a talent honed through training, it captivated and pulled the listener in. This wasn’t a thug; it was a leader who inspired as well as commanded. “They say you're behind the Lady of Ruin's dramatic wins.”

Cesare met the Seijuro's eyes. “I would say she won them on her own.”

A smile tugged at the boy's lips. “May I have words with your kouhai?” Seijuro asked with a darting look at Yoshisune. After only a moment’s thought, Cesare nodded his ascent. Turning so that they were face-to-face, Seijuro’s eyes hardened into a glare on the smaller boy. Yoshisune withered under the hate, shrinking back from the lethal boys violent aura.

“I bring news from the Hyakki Yagyo. You may live your life in peace as long as you stand on barbarian soil. Should you return to the homeland, we will carve you into food for the koi. This mercy is contingent on you never attempting to take up your family name.” Seijuro stopped, a thread of malice weaving into his voice. “Your ancestor was a traitor, and sought common cause with the Christians, that treachery will never be forgiven or forgotten. We of the Hitokiriwill abide by the truce knowing dogs have no honor.”

Each word drove Yoshisune deeper into the folds of his kimono. The boy mustered up a shaky nod of understanding, unable to meet the killers eyes. Amusement lit the Hitokiri's eyes as he faced Cesare. He’d enjoyed scaring the kid, taking a sadistic thrill in putting the rabbit in its place.

Narrowing his eyes, the boy locked with Cesare. “Our teams will meet tomorrow on Lord Hachiman's Blessed Field. My Lord has charged me with stamping out the diseased weed you’ve sown. The perversions of equality, protecting failures, and blatant disregard for the natural way of caste are poison to the body of our society. Tomorrow, we will twist your heads from your bodies and show the world that the Hitokiri won't let you cancerous idea’s take root. Even if we must offer our lives to the Dark Mother for the sin of taking the life of her daughter.”

There was an intensity to the man's words. Conviction, honor, and violent rage tempered into a clean blade. Cesare registered the other Hitokiri glaring at him, but it was Seijuro that held his attention. This was controlled, honed, pounded into something sharp and wedded to unbreakable honor.

Yoshisune had been cowed by the sight of the mans focused power. Seijuro would do his best to kill them tomorrow and nothing would stop him. They didn't want to kill the Furies, they wanted brutalize flesh, savage minds and souls. They'd use their bodies to make an example that would resound through the ages.

The air was still as the three pushed on Cesare’s mind with an almost physical force. A battle fought in the mind before a punch was thrown, if you thought you could win, then you thought you could lose. You had to be sure, had to know it down to marrow, seared into bone, setting blood to fire. It was a hairs breath from taking it for granted and yet a world apart. It was reasoned and bloody, with the certainty you wouldn’t hold back, that it was better to pay any price than face defeat. If you could cut a man open and seed his guts with doubt, you were winning before ever facing a blow.

Cesare held Seijuro’s eyes easily. He'd faced better and stronger than this kit of a weasel's bitch. “Tomorrow, when you’re starring up at my beautiful blade,” Cesare said with a motion to the vampire that thrummed ready and eager at his side. “I want you to remember my words. We’re not going to kill you; we’re going to take everything you love. You'll return to your Lord in disgrace, crippled, maimed, a broken thing of failed meat, unworthy of your Lords fealty. I’ll take your family, your honor, your body, and your future. I’ll make you into what you hate, a monument to the Furies power.”

Cesare’s voice deepened, the dark rumble dominating the air, shouldering aside the weasel’s words with casual malice. The slithering, metallic shriek of a knife drawn in a pitch-black room, the lonesome whine of a deer limping as wolves closed in, the low growl of a jaguar before it leaps down on its prey.

The three held his eyes, searching him for truth. They reached the same conclusion, eyes widening, realizing the Furies were eager for the fight. There was a still moment as they leaped to the next truth, that it might be better to cut the weed before it bore poisoned fruit. It hung there like a razor pricking the neck.

Anastasia stepped to his right side as Alexandra stepped forward on the left. Suddenly the Hitokiriweren’t confronting the Furies, it was the Furies surrounding them. Tension tightened between them as Cesare’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl. “You think you can come into my home and threaten me?” Stepping forward, sadistic glee ran through him as the Hitokiri backed up, matching him step for step. “Tomorrow is the end of everything you know.”