And the reputation of one is worn by all.

Ryuichi nodded at the truth of that statement. As his father’s son, he would carry his father’s dishonor, if they let it continue. “We have to stop our father.”

Cocking his head, Yorukaze listened to the ether around them. That wave of the nether realm that stood between all worlds. The dragon lied.

It didn’t surprise Ryuichi. “You know where our father is?”

Then he felt it too.

Like a warm rush of adrenaline. His entire body reacted to receiving the knowledge he needed.

“Ryuichi . . .”

He started to not respond to his father’s summons.

But this was why he’d come. He wanted to meet his father. To know the man-demon who’d fathered him. “I’m here.”

The earth below shifted again, shaking all of them.

“Open the gates!”

His heart pounded. It was his father. The one he’d thought was dead.

A father he never thought he’d meet . . .

But this wasn’t how he wanted to meet him. As much as he wanted to be an obedient son, he shook his head. “No.”

“Disobedience!”

Ryuichi cringed at that mighty roar. It went against everything he’d ever been taught. No son should ever defy his father.

It was wrong. But so was what his father planned to do. “I cannot allow you to harm the world.”

Light flared across the darkness, blinding him as his father appeared in front of him. Huge and dark, he was a mammoth beast. Scary as all get-out. No wonder everyone was terrified of him. He could only imagine facing his father on a battlefield. “It’s the gods I want. I care nothing for the humans.”

Ryuichi shook his head. “I cannot let you tear down the gods.”

His father scoffed at him. “You cannot stop me.”

That certainly depended. “If you need me to open the gates to release you, I can.”

His father laughed in his face. Fire sprang up around them, forming a horrific wall between him and his classmates’ shadows.

“Do you see the human world, Ryuichi?”

His throat tightened as he realized that inside the fire he saw scenes from his school. And while he might have summoned his friends’ shadows to his side, his friends were still at the school, going about their lives. “I do.”

“Then you see what I control.”

That was terrifying. Ryuichi gasped as he saw the demons descending upon the school.

“Hanzō and his students are no match for my spies . . . or my allies.” His father took a step toward him. “I will kill them all, boy. Make no mistake about that. Release me or see your friends dead. Your choice.”

His certainty that his father would spare him began to crumble. Was Masaru right? Killing a son was a horrible thing.

But then his father was also a horrible thing.