Sword Art Online - Volume 20 - Chapter 8

8 
Before the calendar of the Human Era began, meaning more than 380 years before the present day, there existed system-designated Moving Objects known as Divine Beasts. 
A silver serpent that dwelled in the deep mountain valleys of the eastern empire. A fiery phoenix from the volcanoes of the southern empire. A behemoth ice dragon that protected the mountains of the northern empire. And a winged lion that raced across the grasslands of the western empire—and others still. 
There were over forty of these creatures in all, and though they did not have their own fluctlights, they were top-class AI programs equipped with their own verbalization engine that allowed them to communicate with the inhabitants of the realm. The people worshipped these Divine Beasts as the gods of the land and left behind many legends of their prowess. 
But to the girl who had established the Axiom Church in the year 30 HE and called herself Administrator, any god beyond those of the Church’s self-written history was an impediment to be dealt with. She transformed all the Divine Beasts into weapons—Divine Objects—or had her Integrity Knights exterminate them. By 100 HE, the Divine Beasts had been completely wiped out, and all records of human contact with them had been fed to the flames. 
The animals that currently inhabited the human realm could not speak human language. But of them all, there was one creature with a very limited artificial intelligence, and that was the partner of the Integrity Knight: the dragon. 
Dragons couldn’t speak human language, but they could understand their masters’ orders to a very complex degree. A dragon also possessed a heart that tried its very best to serve a master the dragon shared a close bond with. 
So Apprentice Integrity Knight Ronie Arabel’s juvenile dragon Tsukigake ran and ran, carrying out her order: “Go down the passage to the surface and find a way to reach Centoria’s north gate.” 
The diminutive dragon beat her tiny wings as she ascended the sixty-step staircase, then shoved her body through the bars of the gate at the top and into the outdoors once more. 
Behind her was the iron gate she had just come through, and to the left and right were overgrown, thorny bushes, leaving only the narrow path ahead. But Tsukigake did not want to go down the path. She knew the mansion lay in that direction, with its eerie and unpleasant aura. If she went that way, the dark humans who captured her brother, Shimosaki, would find her. They weren’t scary, but Tsukigake couldn’t save Master if she got caught. 
The dragon turned right and looked at the top of the brush. The plant was as tall as Master, so she tried to leap and flap her wings to jump over, but the attempt was nowhere near high enough. Tsukigake kept trying, but eventually her wings got tired, and she plopped back down on the stone path, where she bounced like a ball a few times before getting back to her feet. 
Getting past the hedge was going to take more drastic measures. 
“Krrrr,” Tsukigake chirped to steel her nerves, then folded her wings and stuck her snout into the base of the hedge. Most bushes had a space between the ground and the roots, but this plant’s branches extended to just over the soil and brandished sharp thorns three cens long. Tsukigake tried to crouch as low as possible to slide along the ground and squeeze through the tiny gap, but a thorn caught the base of her neck, sending sharp pain through her flesh. 
Tsukigake wanted to pull back, but she gritted her fangs and kept pushing instead. The hard thorns dug into the soft down of her back, tearing the skin that had yet to grow its defensive scales. The pain was so bad that she whimpered, but she kept moving onward. 
Getting through the hedge that was no more than fifty cens thick took over a minute. Once Tsukigake was finally free of the thorns, she sprawled out on the damp leaves, panting. 
Once the pain receded a little, she curved her long neck as far as possible to look over her back. Those beautiful, soft yellow feathers were tattered and disheveled, with red spots where she had bled. 
Tsukigake had no concept of a “life value,” but like all living creatures, she knew that as long as the blood kept leaking out, she would eventually die. She brushed the disheveled down with her snout and licked each wound carefully. Dragon saliva had a faint healing property, so after enough licking, the wounds stopped bleeding, except for those on the far end of her back, which her tongue couldn’t reach. 
But at least the pain was down to a bearable level. With one last shiver to shake off the mud and leaves, Tsukigake stood up on her rear legs. 
Nothing but thick forest lay ahead. The sunlight was turning rich and yellow through the conifer trees, and while almost none of it reached the ground, it was enough to tell the directions by. 
Ronie had said to go to Centoria, the big human town to the south. Tsuki had never been to this forest before, and they’d come here by riding in a horse-drawn carriage, so the distance was a question, but she had to get back as soon as possible, regardless. 
Fortunately, she had eaten plenty of fish from the lake earlier, so she wasn’t hungry yet. She hadn’t eaten much fish at the stables in the past few months because of the smell of the dead ones, but catching them in the water was fun, and they tasted very good, being so fresh. Tsuki had to stop thinking about fish, because remembering the flavor was going to make her hungry again. She began to gallop on all fours through the trees. 
Unlike the grassy lawns and ponds at the cathedral where Tsukigake lived, the forest ground was damp and slippery, and the rocks and roots hiding under the fallen leaves made it hard to run. Each time she got tripped up, the little dragon tumbled and rolled but kept on moving south. 
After rounding one especially big tree, Tsukigake’s sensitive nose caught the odor of something rotting. 
There was a spot on the ground surrounded by gnarled trees where the dirt had been dug up. The black soil was cold and damp and sticky, not like the soft and lush soil of the flower beds at the cathedral. The rotting smell was coming from the hole, but even up close, Tsukigake could not see the bottom. 
“Krr…,” she crooned, backing away from the edge. If she fell in, there was no telling if she could escape, and this wasn’t the time to be distracted. 
Instead, the dragon circled around the smelly pit and kept running for a few more minutes, at which point more light was visible in the distance. The exit was near. Tsukigake ran and ran, wings flapping, through the last ten mels, and burst through two large, ancient trees into the open. 
The fields that surrounded the forest were lit up gold with the fading rays of the sun. Tsuki greedily sucked in the cool, fresh air as she ran up a small knoll. 
From there, she saw a distant white wall on the right that crossed the grassland, the sparkling surface of the lake on the left, and the human city straight ahead, small in the distance. It was farther than Tsukigake realized, but if she kept running, she would get there eventually. 
“Eventually” wasn’t good enough, though. At this very moment, Master, Master’s friend, and Shimosaki were trapped and terrified in that awful dungeon place. 
“Kyurrr!” Tsuki squeaked, quiet enough that none of those dark humans could hear, and resumed running. 
It was easier than going through the forest, but the grass here was still tall, and it resisted the dragon’s little body. Tsukigake had to jut her head forward and use her front legs to part the grasses as she ran. 
After five minutes, the feeling of hunger was real this time. Child or not, a dragon was a dragon and required much more food to maintain its life value than a dog or a fox of the same size. 
The big lake sparkled gold just a hundred mels to the left. Many delicious fish were swimming beneath the surface, the thought of which started swinging her path to the left, but Tsukigake shook her head and returned to the proper direction. A little hunger wouldn’t be fatal, but Master was in a life-and-death situation. 
If memory from the carriage window served correctly, the south part of the area surrounding the lake was a very large field that had fallen into disuse. There would probably be an old, shriveled potato or two there. Tsukigake ran another five minutes based on that very hope. 
Then Tsukigake’s front feet abruptly sank into the ground, and she promptly lost her balance. The dragon rolled and rolled before finally coming to a stop, and her back felt cold and wet where it touched the ground. The sting of the wounds on her back returned, fresh and painful, and she wailed in agony. 
But she couldn’t just lay there. This was the wetland area, where the water from the lake trickled out and covered a wide stretch of land. Tsukigake had never been in something like this, having been raised at Central Cathedral, but her instincts said that remaining in the cold water would increase the loss of life. The dragon sat up, stretched her neck and head, and examined the area again. 
The areas ahead and to the left were blocked by wetland, so the only dry ground was on the right. But it was completely unclear how far there was to go in order to get around the wet area. If it continued all the way to that white wall in the distance, it would mean so much lost time. 
“Krrrrrr…,” Tsuki whined, totally at a loss. 
Just then, in response to her wail, a small creature popped its head out of the grass a short distance away and squeaked, “Kyu-kyu!” 
It had short brown fur, ears that were about as long as its entire body, and small, round eyes. The creature looked up at Tsukigake and tilted its head to the right, as though wondering what this animal was. 
Tsukigake wondered the same thing. From its pointed snout to the end of its short tail, it was about thirty cens long. The people of the capital called this a long-eared wetrat, but of course, Tsukigake did not know that. 
Examining the brown rat’s elliptical body, which had no discernible boundary between head and torso, Tsukigake began to wonder if it would taste good. The animal sensed the dragon’s sudden pang of hunger and began to retreat into the grass, so she called out again. “Krrr!” 
Wait! 
Whether the rat heard Tsukigake’s thought or not was unclear, but it stopped moving, leaving just its long, twitching nose sticking out of the grass. Two seconds later, it slowly, hesitantly emerged again. 
If she scared the rat again, the creature would flee for its life, so Tsukigake made her body as low to the ground as possible and burbled, trying to reassure the other animal that she wasn’t going to eat it. “Rrrrrr…” 
The rat twisted its head again, to the left this time, and walked out of the grass. The ends of its long limbs were webbed. It was clearly an animal that had lived in this area for a long time. Perhaps it might know the way through these wetlands. 
“Kyurrr, kyurrrrrn.” 
I want to go south. Tell me, if you know the way. 
Tsukigake couldn’t put these thoughts into words, so she had to hope they got across somehow. The rat’s long ears twitched. It squeaked, “Kyu.” 
It felt to Tsukigake like the creature was complaining that it was too hungry to do such a thing. 
If you show me the way, I can give you as many tasty fish as you want, she offered. 
I don’t want fish. I like to eat nuts. 
But there isn’t a single tree around. 
But just then, a small black object bobbed into view on the water between the two animals. The rat squeaked and leaped into the water, grabbing the object with both hands. 
It was indeed a nut. It had probably fallen from one of the lakeside trees into the water, then slowly floated along until it was caught in the trickle that went into the wetlands. The rat carefully lifted it to its mouth and bit into it with its long, large front teeth, but it only made a soggy, mushy sound, not the proper crispy crunch of a dry nut. It had lost most of its life taking on so much water. 
“Krrrrr, kyurrr!” 
If you show me the way, I can give you lots of fresh nuts. Dry and crunchy ones that aren’t at all soggy. 
“Kyuu…” 
Really? Even one dry nut for the year would be considered a lucky find. 
I promise. You can eat as many as you want, every day. 
Okay, then. Follow me. 
Tsukigake didn’t actually know if they had traded words in this precise manner, but it felt that way, at least. The rat finished eating the blackened nut and moved across a patch of dry land nearby, then plunged through a big tuft of tall grass. 
The dragon hastily leaped over the water and stuck her head into the spot where the rat had vanished. Among the overgrown grass, there was a tunnel about thirty cens around. Dried grass was knotted and packed against the walls—it clearly was not a natural development. 
The rat had stopped farther down the tunnel, wagging its tail to indicate it wanted to be followed. It was a tight fit for the little dragon, who was a fair bit larger than a rodent, but it wasn’t as bad as those bars in the underground cell, and the dried grass beneath her feet was a relief. 
“Krrrr!” Tsukigake cried to bolster her courage, then charged down the dark, narrow tunnel. The rat faced forward and sped through the passageway, its short limbs scrabbling rapidly. 
About three mels ahead, the tunnel forked left and right. The rat hurtled down the left passage without slowing, so Tsukigake followed. Soon there was another fork, and they chose the right path this time. 
Now they came to a round room one mel across, woven of the same dried grass as the tunnel. Along its walls, one grown rat and three little ones were eating what looked like grass seeds. When Tsukigake came into view, the adult screeched a warning, but her guide through the tunnels squeaked something in explanation, which calmed its partner. It then proceeded past the curious baby rats and ducked its head into a new passageway. 
Apparently, the rats with the webbed feet had woven these tunnels of dried grass throughout the wetlands. It would be all too easy to get lost in them without a guide. As they ran, their footsteps sloshed and splashed, so the bottom was clearly coming into contact with the water. All the islands dotting the soggy marsh must have been connected by the dried grass tunnels, which had just enough buoyancy to stay afloat. 
By the time Tsukigake lost count of how many forks, intersections, and little chambers they’d passed through, there was a small light at the end of the tunnel. What looked at first like a dead end actually had looser grass around the walls, which opened up enough to allow some of the setting sunlight in. 
The rat stopped at the dead end and stuck its pointed snout out of the gap in the grass, carefully smelling the outside air. Then it pushed its whole head through. Satisfied, it left the tunnel, parting the grass on the way out. 
With a bit more trouble, Tsukigake managed to leave the tunnel and discovered that they were on the south side of the wetlands now. Dry grassland was before them, and a human-built wooden fence beyond that. That had to be the field area she’d seen from the carriage. 
“Kyurrr, Krrr!” 
Thank you, Mr. Rat. I can go on from here, Tsukigake said. But the brown rat’s head swiveled and tilted to the right. 
“Kyuiii!” 
When will you give me the nuts? 
I don’t have them now. But I will bring you many nuts very soon, I promise, Tsukigake tried desperately to convey. But the rat’s long ears were pointing up and flattening down, back and forth, in distress. 
No, I want to eat them now! I want to eat a lot of dry, crunchy nuts! 
Then…come with me. You can have your nuts if we go to town. 
The rat’s beady eyes blinked in confusion. 
Town? What is town? 
Town is…where there are many humans. 
Humans? Humans chase us with sticks when they see us. 
You’ll be fine if you’re with me. We don’t have time. Let’s go! 
Tsukigake began to march again. But the rat grabbed the end of the dragon’s tail. 
“Krrrr!” 
What’s the matter? 
“Kikiii!” 
You can’t go that way. Father said that something scary is on the other side of that wall. 
Scary? You mean humans? 
I don’t know…but none of us who’ve gone over that wall have ever come back. 
Tsukigake considered this information. The south side of the wooden fence as seen from the carriage was simply a field that had grown fallow with disuse, and there hadn’t been any humans there. Master said that all the surfs had been libberaded. Whatever that meant. If the “scary thing” the rat was talking about was humans, there would no longer be any danger there. 
Also, Tsukigake’s hunger was reaching a peak. If there wasn’t anything to eat in the field, there would be no strength left with which to run. 
“Krrrruu…” 
It’s all right. There’s nothing scary there anymore. If we don’t pass through there, we can’t get to the town. 

But the rat still seemed suspicious, until at last its appetite won out over caution. 
“Kiki!” 
All right, I’ll go with you. 
Good. Let’s hurry, then. 
Tsukigake began to run across the firm, dry ground. The rat was surprisingly fast, and it kept up with her. 
They zoomed across the grassland and approached the wooden fence, where they quickly looked left and right. There was an entrance to the field a bit to the left, so they headed that way. 
Fortunately, there wasn’t a gate or any bars over the simple entrance to the field. The wooden sign hanging on the crosspiece featured the human words IMPERIAL ESTATE PLANTATION, but neither Tsukigake nor the rat could read it, of course. 
Beyond the gateway, they smelled earth and withered plants. It wasn’t a good smell, but at least it was better than that dark hole in the woods. 
The plantation contained row upon row of vegetables, the names of which they did not know, but because no one was around to tend them, all the plants had died. Yellow, wilted leaves littered the ground, and many of the plants had completely withered into nothing and returned to sacred power. 
It didn’t seem as though Tsukigake would find any edible vegetables or fruit. Disappointed, they kept trotting through the middle of the plantation. At least the ground was easier to run on here than elsewhere. If they passed through this field, Centoria would be very close. There were already many little buildings along the horizon, beyond which was the familiar sight of the white tower rising into the distance. 
“Krrrr!” 
There. That’s the town, Tsukigake said with pride to the rat. To her disappointment, the rodent did not seem particularly impressed. 
“Kikii!” 
That’s weird. Do they have nuts there? 
Of course. Many of them. So many that you and I could never eat all of them in our lifetime. 
Really? Then may I take some back for Father and Mother and my sister? 
Sure. I’ll ask if you can have some for your entire family. 
Because they were so absorbed in their conversation as they ran, Tsukigake initially failed to recognize that there was something else among the smell of rotting crops. 
The rat noticed it first and squeaked a loud warning. 
From the ridge ahead and to the right emerged a long, narrow shadow—but still bigger than Tsukigake—that blocked their path. 
It was a creature the likes of which the dragon had never seen before. The torso and tail were long and slender, and the legs were short but powerful. There was white fur around its long, jutting snout and eyes, but everything else was dark gray. 
The beast stood silently, blocking their path, so Tsukigake cautiously called out, “Kyurrrrrr…” 
Let us pass. We only want to get to the town. 
But the ashen creature just stared at the two through pale-red eyes and gave no response. 
They were at a loss for what to do. Then there came a scuttling noise from the fields to either side. More of the same creature emerged from the ruined crops. There were four of them. Two of them snuck around the rear in total silence, meaning that five of these animals were now surrounding Tsukigake and her guide. 
The gray creatures were a scourge to the serfs who once worked these fields, who called them point-nose coatis. They were nocturnal and omnivorous and would eat the crops in the fields at night. With the permission of their supervisors, the serfs were allowed to let large dogs roam the fields at night. The dogs fought the coatis bravely to limit the damages, but once every two or three years, a pack of them would attack and kill a dog. 
But as the residents of the private holdings were freed from their bondage a year ago, they had moved on to Centoria and the surrounding villages, taking their dogs with them. The fields went fallow with no one to tend them, and even the plants that had continued fruiting over the next half year were fully withered now. Most of the coatis had starved and died without their food source—wild animals in the Underworld had a prescribed range of habitation and could not wander beyond it—but the individuals with the highest life value managed to survive by eating the smaller animals that wandered into the fields, the insects they previously ignored, and even the flesh of their own kind. It was not adequate food, however, and so they were constantly hungry and dangerously desperate. 
Only when the coatis surrounding them began to growl menacingly did Tsukigake realize the peril they were in. 
The long-eared wetrat trembled in silence. Tsukigake protectively surrounded her companion with her long tail and growled. 
“Gyurrrrrrrr!” 
If you intend to fight, I would advise against it, she tried to say, but the coatis only growled louder and fiercer. And unlike with the rat, there was no sense of meaning or will behind their vocalizations. 
Though Tsukigake couldn’t have known this, as distant relatives of the Divine Beasts of ancient times, dragons had the ability to share their will with wild animals. The power was initially designed to warn off the regular animal units from Divine-Beast habitats. All animals were not given their own artificial intelligence from the start—only by having contact with Divine Beasts did an animal unit receive a minimal level of thinking ability and a database. 
In other words, the rat companion gained that ability when Tsukigake spoke to it. But this phenomenon worked only on units with a much lower priority than the speaker. And the priority of these coatis, who were hardy enough to have survived these severe conditions, was only slightly lower than Tsukigake’s. The five of them didn’t have the ability to think rationally; they were driven only by the fundamental principle of hunting for food to satisfy their hunger. 
Tsukigake stared down the wild beasts that did not respond to her thoughts. 
The dragon had never been in this situation before. For that matter, she had never been on her own outside of the cathedral before this. But her instincts told her that these creatures did not just want to fight over food but intended to kill the pair of odd companions. 
If Tsukigake died or was injured, she couldn’t call for help for her master and Shimosaki. Tsuki’s life was currently lowered, but on second look, the coatis were scrawny and starving, too, so perhaps if they ran with all their might, they could escape the predators. 
But the rat was a different story. It wasn’t slow, of course, but they’d come a long way from the wetlands, so it was surely tired. Tsukigake had promised the rodent all the delicious nuts it could eat. She couldn’t abandon it now. 
There was no routine in Tsukigake’s AI program for leaving the rat as a sacrificial decoy to escape the coatis. So the juvenile dragon summoned up her courage to fight the five predators and roared as fiercely as she could. 
“Garrrrrrr!” 
This time, the wild beasts understood her meaning. The coati standing directly ahead of them opened its mouth wide to expose small, sharp fangs. 
“Gyaaaaa!” 
Right on cue, two coatis leaped in from the sides. 
Tsukigake clenched her tail around the petrified rat and leaped as high as she could. The coatis jumped, too, but the dragon’s wings gave her extra lift. 
The coatis collided in midair; they fell to the ground in a tangled heap. Tsukigake used the opportunity to glide toward the west, landing in the middle of the field. There were still tall millet stalks standing in this particular spot, which would hide them for a few moments. 
But there would be no escape with the rat wrapped up in Tsukigake’s tail—and even less of a chance to fight five predators off while protecting the creature. The first step had to be hiding the rat in a safe location. 
For that, Tsukigake chose a wooden bucket left out between the rows of plants. It was rotting away into nothingness, but for now, it still had its shape. She rolled the empty bucket over the top of the rat and whispered Stay quiet! 
There was no answer, but the animal surely understood that moving or making any sound would be dangerous. Just in case, she needed to pull the enemy away. Tsukigake ran to the south, making lots of noise on purpose, and numerous footsteps approached from the right. 
If they surround me, it’s over. I have to peel them off and fight them one by one. 
The dragon hid among the stalks of millet, leaping left and right at random. The number of footsteps coming behind her dwindled. Once she was sure that there was only one coati in direct pursuit, Tsukigake used her wings to make a sudden change in direction. 
The moment the creature emerged from between the stalks and saw a dragon charging directly toward it, it stood up on its rear legs. Tsukigake bolted for its defenseless throat like an arrow and bit deep. 
The taste of the fresh blood was not very pleasant. Perhaps now Tsuki would have a distaste for raw meat; but that was assuming she survived this encounter. The coati collapsed, unable to cry for help from the fangs in its throat. 
It scrabbled desperately with its forelegs, sharp claws glinting, but Tsukigake grabbed its wrists to avoid being scratched—something dragons could do because their fingers were prehensile, like humans’. After ten seconds of biting, the coati’s movements slowed, until the strength went out of its body at last. 
Tsukigake let go of the perished creature and listened carefully. There was one set of footsteps rapidly approaching from the left. No time to hide, either. 
The dragon went to lie down next to the dead coati and stopped moving. A moment later, a new coati burst through the row of stalks. 
When it saw its companion collapsed on the ground due to its struggle with Tsukigake, it growled. As it approached, it sniffed, catching the odor of the dead coati’s blood. 
Either out of concern for its fellow or interest in devouring the corpse, the second coati took its attention off Tsukigake for a moment—enough time for the dragon to leap upward and bite its neck. 
The play-dead method worked, but because it was coming from the side, Tsukigake couldn’t actually grab it around the throat. 
“Gyooo!” the coati howled, trying to shake off the dragon clinging to the right side of its neck. Tsukigake tried to grab the creature’s arms like the last one, but it didn’t work this time, and the flailing claws tore through the dragon’s downy feathers to split the skin. 
Blood spattered and mixed on the ground around the two creatures as they rolled, locked in combat. This was going to cost more life, but Tsukigake could not relax her grip now. The dragon jabbed her claws into her prey’s throat and ripped downward with all her might. 
That was the end of the second beast. It slumped to the ground, dead, and Tsukigake got unsteadily to her feet above the corpse. 
The dragon examined her own body; there were countless claw marks from neck to chest. The violent rolling on the ground had tugged at the thorn wounds on her back, which now oozed fresh blood. And there were still three left to fight. 
Now, drawn by the cries of the second coati, the others approached from three directions at once. Tsukigake didn’t have enough energy to run around and thin them out again. She would have to fight them all together. 
Seconds later, the coatis burst through the dead standing stalks. One of them was the leader, the first coati that had blocked their way. It was noticeably bigger than the other two. 
The boss coati let out a ferocious roar when it saw the bodies of its two dead companions. 
“Gruaaaah!!” 
Tsukigake didn’t need to understand the will behind the cry to feel the intense fury contained in it. Determined to at least match them in ferocity, she summoned what strength she had left to growl back. 
“Garurrrrrr!!” 
Tsukigake had only been alive for little more than a year, but she was a dragon, the most powerful creature in the world. The coatis, which ran off a very crude algorithm, pulled back as they sensed a threat that went beyond life and priority value—but of course, they did not flee. 
“Gaurr!!” the two smaller coatis barked, attacking from both sides. 
The coati’s weapons were a powerful jaw and claws. Tsukigake’s main weapons were the same but with the addition of a strong and dexterous tail. 
She lunged in, feinting at a bite, then rapidly rotated and smacked both of them with her tail. Her fancy tail feathers flew loose, but the coatis shrieked and flew sideways to crash into the line of stalks. Because the plants were withered, their outer husks were split and cracked, and the animals’ bodies caught on them, leaving them flailing helplessly in the air. 
That hadn’t been part of the plan, but it made clear that this was the final opportunity. Tsukigake leaped off the ground and charged at the boss coati head-on. 
“Gwaa!” 
The creature bared its fangs and bit. Tsukigake curved her long neck, trying to aim for the throat, but the enemy lifted its front legs to protect its weak point in a gesture that was surprisingly humanlike. Tsukigake’s head lifted up on instinct, and her jaw clashed with her foe’s. They bit down on each other, jaws and fangs interlocked. 
Searing pain ran through Tsukigake’s face. It was impossible to tell if the blood flooding into her mouth was the enemy’s or her own. The only thing certain was that life was gushing out of both of them. Whichever ran out first would die. 
To this point, Tsukigake had never experienced what it felt like to be close to death. 
Her mother dragon, Akisomi, was still young, and she didn’t take part in the war, so she hadn’t seen human death up close. But catching living fish and eating them in the lake today was a shocking experience. Fish that swam and spun through the water, once trapped in Tsukigake’s or Shimosaki’s mouth, simply twitched once, then went completely still. 
It was probably true, then, that many animals died like this to feed larger animals every day. The coatis hadn’t attacked Tsukigake and the rat for fun. It was what they had to do to survive. 
But Tsukigake wasn’t going to give up and be someone else’s food. Her master and brother were trapped in an underground dungeon—and the dark humans who’d captured them weren’t doing it because they were hungry. It was for something worse, so they could hurt the ones Tsukigake cared about…perhaps even kill them. That couldn’t happen. 
Suddenly, Tsukigake felt something prickling the back of her throat. Deep inside her body, something hot was surging, swelling. It could not be contained. 
With her jaw locked over the boss coati’s mouth, Tsukigake unleashed that heat. A great shower of sparks spilled over where their jaws met, singeing the fur of both animals. But the majority of the heat—the flames—flooded into the coati’s body, dealing fatal damage. 
“Gyau!” shrieked the lead coati, pulling away from Tsukigake’s face and rolling on the ground, twitching and convulsing. Eventually, it stopped moving. 
Tsukigake didn’t know what she had done. She didn’t know that she had emitted a dragon’s greatest weapon, heat breath, or that it had a terrible life cost. 
At that point, Tsukigake’s life was less than a tenth of its maximum. And blood continued to drip from her back, chest, and face. 
Still, the little dragon managed to rise and turn to face the other way. 
The two smaller coatis stuck on the millet stalks had just gotten themselves free and hopped back down to the ground. The boss might be dead, but they weren’t giving up yet. They growled, inching closer and closer. 
Tsukigake didn’t have the energy to growl back—only to keep her bloodied body upright. If she fell over, the two would leap upon her at once. 
The dragon’s vision was darkening. Her limbs were heavy and weak. But she couldn’t fall over. Not yet. Not until she reached the town and called for help. 
She thought she heard a sound. 
The coatis looked up to the sky. Tsukigake’s bloody face rose as well. 
Very high in the sunset-darkened sky, something was flying in a direct line. It wasn’t a bird. It wasn’t a dragon. It was something like a star, roaring like a gust of wind and emitting green light. 
I’ve never seen that before—but I know what it is. 
Moved by a strange feeling she didn’t fully understand, Tsukigake began to howl. 
It produced no vocalization at all, but the star changed course, as though it heard her loud and clear.