The other five Kai-dan were now coherent, except for Ryuichi, and no one needed to know anything about what Koichi had just learned regarding the kid. “We have to keep this a secret.”

Masa shook his head. “He’s unclean!”

Normally true. Those like Ryuichi were to be shunned. However . . . if Ryuichi was what Koichi suspected, he wasn’t demonic, like they were thinking.

He was worse.

“We are the Kai-dan. When things are broken, they should never be cast away. The cracks and scars add character. They become integral to our stories. Ryuichi is one of us. He’s our brother and part of our family. Kai-dan doesn’t abandon Kai-dan.”

Those words haunted Koichi. He, too, had forgotten their message. For too long he’d been on the sidelines. Hurting. Aching.

Absent.

No more.

Evil things were on the move to harm the innocent, and now it was time he taught his ragtag students how to defend themselves from the powers that had broken Koichi himself. How to battle the nightmares that were determined to bring them all down—not just in this world but the next.

If the gods want me back in this fight, fine. They have me.

Kicking and screaming. Probably bleeding too.

He just hoped that the students could appreciate the weight of what had fallen onto all their shoulders. The responsibility.

Koichi tried to wake Ryuichi, but it was useless, so he inclined his head to Ichiro. “Help your brother.”

Ichiro screwed his face up in distaste. “I don’t know what’s happening. Did we win?”

Koichi wasn’t sure how to answer that. “The demon we came to fight is dead. Yes.”

But they were going home with a whole new problem. Hopefully, this one wouldn’t try to destroy them.

Again.

Life . . . it was ever surprising. Never what anyone expected. And never once was it what Koichi had signed up for, even when he thought he knew what he was doing.

He definitely didn’t know what he was doing right now. Or even what he was really facing.

I picked a bad day to give away my sake.

But as he looked into the face of a boy who had no idea what was inside him, he was torn. This wasn’t the case of a yōkai taking over someone. Using them.

This was a child born of an unholy union of some kind.

Maybe this was his own redemption. If he could save Ryuichi . . .

Maybe there was hope for him. Maybe he wasn’t what others thought of him.

And if you can’t?

Simple. They would all die.

CHAPTER SIX

“I told you to leave.”

Koichi ignored Hanzō’s distracted tone as he dumped the bundle in his arms down on the table in front of his former commander. The porcelain teapot and cup jingled and threatened to spill.