The night the seal broke, the oni general who once devoured half the capital walked out with a single paper talisman binding his throat. He cuts down whoever he's told to. He smiles when he's told to. And he quietly remembers everything he wasn't told. The last stroke that caged him a thousand years ago wasn't drawn in fear. It was drawn by a gentle hand. Only one person in the capital has noticed.
In a capital where yokai rule half the night, a single stroke of an onmyoji's brush can decide who lives. Kuon lost his master and has guarded the sealing hall alone ever since. On the night the thousand-year seal breaks, he binds the oni general Shuten with a talisman of his own. Kuon can read the person behind any brushstroke, so he sees what no one else does: the seal's final stroke was drawn with love, not fear. Shuten carries out every order without complaint, yet never shows his fangs. All he says is that he'll collect his price later. Soon the bureau and the yokai alike come to claim what this strange leash owes them, and Kuon begins to realize fangs aren't the only thing Shuten is hiding.
- Shuten comes back with a wound no one ordered him to take and laughs, "That's part of the price." Beneath the laugh, his broken horn trembles for just a moment.
- You study the brushwork on a talisman an enemy left behind and realize the hand that drew it was your master's. You can't erase it. You can't write over it. Your brush hand simply freezes.
- The oni general who knelt at a single word steps in front of you for the first time without being ordered, and bares every fang he's been hiding.
Shuten comes back with a wound no one ordered him to take and laughs, "That's part of the price." Beneath the laugh, his broken horn trembles for just a moment.
