I am NOT a Demon Queen!

A massive wave of released energy erupted outwards as the last shimmering motes of the Nue’s form dissipated. Streaks of light, consisting of souls, spiritual power, and fragments of divinity, shot back across the city and beyond, returning to their rightful owners.

Su Yao stood firm against the ethereal gale, her expression one of pure annoyance at the lost opportunity. Then she froze.

A single, concentrated stream of energy arrowed directly into her chest.

She gasped, stumbling back a step as a foreign warmth, ancient and fiercely proud, flooded her meridians. “What is this?” she snarled, clutching her chest. “It didn’t steal anything from me!”

Her own vast spiritual power, the deep crimson energy of the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox, recoiled violently. It was rejecting this energy, fighting it like a body fights a virus. This power was similar, yet fundamentally other. It was the essence of another Nine-Tailed Fox.

A voice, haughty and cold, echoed from within the fragment itself, speaking directly into her consciousness. A worthy vessel, empty of the true past. I shall reclaim what is ours.

The foreign energy coalesced, forming a second consciousness that clawed at the edges of her own. It was a soul shard, and it was trying to seize control.

“GET OUT!” Su Yao roared, both aloud and within her mind. Her own spirit rallied to crush the invader. She dropped to one knee, a hand pressed to her temple, her face a mask of strain as an internal civil war erupted.

Zhang Wei saw her convulse and was at her side in an instant. “Xiao Ling! What’s happening?!”

“She’s fighting something inside,” Jian Feng said, his voice weak but his eyes sharp. “It’s trying to possess her!”

The alien consciousness pressed its advantage, its voice a silken poison in her mind. Why struggle? We are the same. Let me in. Together, we will be complete.

“Like hell we are!” Su Yao gritted out. Crimson foxfire erupted uncontrollably from her body, forming a raging inferno around her. “You’re just a leftover, a scrap! And I am no one’s vessel!”

Su Yao’s body shuddered violently. Her own crimson foxfire sputtered and died as a cold, ancient aura erupted from her. When her eyes snapped open, the familiar sharpness was gone, replaced by a predatory, arrogant gleam. She threw her head back and let out a peel of maniacal laughter that echoed across the shattered coastline.

“Free! After centuries trapped in that wretched void, I am free!” The voice was colder than Su Yao’s, laced with a chilling elegance and a hunger for power.

From the shadows of the ruined landscape, figures clad in Yamato robes materialized, stepping out of concealment arrays. They moved in unison, forming a circle around her, and dropped to one knee, bowing their heads deeply.

“Lady Tamamo,” their leader intoned, his voice filled with reverence. “You have returned to us.”

Zhang Wei’s face drained of color. “Tamamo? As in Tamamo-no-Mae?” He shifted into a defensive stance, energy swirling around his hands. “Xiao Ling! Fight it!”

Jian Feng stumbled backward, his injuries forgotten in his shock. “They used the Nue as a delivery system! That fragment, it was meant to find a host!”

The entity wearing Su Yao’s form smiled, a cruel twist of the lips. “This body is crude, but it will suffice for now.” She flexed Su Yao’s fingers, examining them with disdain. “As for you, mortals, you stand in the presence of a queen.”

Her gaze swept over the bowing Yamato agents. “Rise. We have much to discuss, and much to destroy.”

The Yamato agents obeyed, their eyes filled with fanatical devotion.

Their leader, a man with a scar across his cheek, spoke with reverence. “Our Lady Tamamo. What do you require of your humble servants?”

Tamamo-no-Mae smiled, a slow, cruel curve of Su Yao’s lips. “What do I require?” she mused, tapping a finger against her chin. “A simple thing, really. Die for me.”

A beat of perfect, unquestioning silence followed.

Then, as one, the agents bowed again. “As you command.”

In horrifying unison, they drew short, ritualistic daggers from their robes and, without a moment’s hesitation, plunged them into their own throats and hearts. No cry of pain sounded, only the wet, choking sounds of their collective suicide as they crumpled to the ground, their lifeblood soaking the earth.

Zhang Wei stared, utterly revolted. “What kind of madness is this? They were on her side!”

Jian Feng vomited onto the rocks, his body trembling. “They’re offerings.”

Tamamo inhaled deeply. The dissipating life force and lingering spiritual energy of the dead agents swirled into her body like a black mist. A sigh of pleasure escaped her. “The first taste of true devotion in a millennium. How I’ve missed it.”

Her now-glowing eyes, full of a foreign and terrible consciousness, locked onto Zhang Wei and Jian Feng. “Now, for the uninvited guests.”

Tamamo raised a hand. Su Yao’s fingers crackled with dark energy. “Fleas,” she sneered, and a wave of pure malice shot towards Zhang Wei and Jian Feng.

Zhang Wei braced, barriers springing to life around him, but they shattered like glass under the onslaught. Jian Feng could only close his eyes, awaiting the end.

The attack never landed.

A figure dropped from the sky, landing between them and Tamamo with a soft thud. It was Mei. Her hair was mussed from sleep, and she was wearing fluffy rabbit-patterned pajamas.

“Hey, keep it down out here,” she mumbled around a mouthful of chips. “Some of us are trying to go to bed.”

Tamamo’s attack dissipated harmlessly against an unseen barrier that shimmered around Mei. Her eyes widened in outrage. “You? You dare interrupt me? Dressed in that?”

Mei blinked, looking down at her pajamas. “What? They’re comfortable. And you’re making a mess.” She crunched another chip. “Also, you’re in my best friend’s body. Not cool.”

Zhang Wei stared, dumbfounded. “Mei? How did you?”

Tamamo’s fury ignited. “I will not be disrespected by a mortal in nightwear!” She gathered a massive sphere of chaotic energy, ready to obliterate everything in sight.

Mei sighed. “Look, lady, I don’t know who you are, but you need to get out of Xiao Ling. She doesn’t like sharing.” Her eyes glinted with a sudden, deep crimson light. “And I don’t like it when people mess with my friends.”

Tamamo’s sneer was a curl of pure contempt. “And how, little moth, do you plan to make me?”

Mei sighed, as if dealing with a particularly slow child. “With style.”

A ripple of absolute silence fell. Then, the air around her shattered. The fluffy rabbit pajamas dissolved into motes of crimson light, replaced in an instant by form-fitting armor of obsidian and blood-red crystal. Two arcs of jagged, wing-like energy erupted from her back, and her eyes became pools of molten lava.

The mortal in nightwear was gone, replaced by an entity whose mere presence made the fabric of reality groan.

“What?!” Tamamo hissed, taking an involuntary step back. The sheer, oppressive weight of Mei’s aura was unlike anything she had felt. It was ancient, chaotic, and utterly boundless. “What is a devil like you doing in this mortal backwater? Why would you lower yourself to help these insects?”

Mei tilted her head, the gesture both curious and utterly terrifying. “They’re my insects.” She raised a hand, and the very space around Tamamo began to compact and crack. “And you’re in my friend’s hive.”

The air itself screamed as two primordial pressures collided.

Tamamo-no-Mae, wielding Su Yao’s body like a stolen weapon, unleashed a storm of black and crimson foxfire. The attacks were curses given form, each ember hungry to devour soul and substance alike.

A flick of Mei’s wrist sent a wall of jagged, crystalline crimson energy into being. The foxfire shattered against it, the backlash hurling shrapnel of dark energy back at Tamamo, who snarled and dissolved them with a wave of her hand.

“Run!” Zhang Wei yelled, grabbing a stunned Jian Feng and dragging him behind an outcropping of spiritually-infused rock. The very ground where they had been standing was instantly vaporized, replaced by a swirling pit of void energy.

“Insect!” Tamamo roared, her voice a distorted blend of her own and Su Yao’s. She blurred forward. Su Yao’s claws were extended and now wreathed in shadows, aiming to tear Mei’s head from her shoulders.

Mei caught the wrist an inch from her face. The impact sounded like a mountain breaking.

“You’re borrowing power,” Mei’s voice was a cascade of echoing, infernal harmonics. “I was born from it.”

She twisted, and the sound of bones cracking echoed horribly. Tamamo shrieked in pain and fury, a mix of her own and a thread of Su Yao’s genuine agony.

“Let go of my friend’s body,” Mei said, her molten eyes boring into Tamamo’s. She flung the possessed form away like a ragdoll.

Tamamo crashed through a pillar of rock, landing in a crouch. She clutched the broken arm. Dark energy already knit the bones back together with a sickening crunch. Rage contorted her features.

“You can’t defeat me without destroying the vessel, devil! We are linked!”

From their cover, Zhang Wei watched, his face ashen. “She’s right. Any attack powerful enough to harm that thing will kill Xiao Ling.”

Jian Feng stared, mesmerized and horrified. “What, what is Mei?”

Mei simply smiled, a terrifying sight on her now-demonic features. “Who said anything about defeating you?”

She raised her hand. The crimson crystals of her armor began to glow. “I’m just going to evict you.”

Tamamo launched herself forward again, but this time her form split into nine spectral afterimages, each a writhing shadow-fox with burning red eyes. They swarmed Mei from all directions, fangs bared to tear at her demonic armor.

Mei held her ground. A flare rippled through the obsidian and crystal plates of her armor, followed by a pulse of absolute silence spreading outward. The shadow-foxes slammed into the unseen barrier and unraveled into screaming tendrils of smoke.

“Parlor tricks,” Mei intoned, her voice flat. She snapped her fingers.

The world lurched as the rocky coastline beneath their feet turned to a seething, crimson mirror, reflecting a blood-red sky. They were now trapped inside Mei’s domain.

Tamamo froze, her eyes darting around. “A realm manifestation? So quickly?”

“My rules now,” Mei said. She pointed at Tamamo, and chains of solidified shadow erupted from the mirrored ground, wrapping around Su Yao’s limbs and torso, burning with a cold, nullifying energy.

Tamamo shrieked, struggling against them. “You can’t bind me! This flesh is my anchor!” She poured energy into the chains, trying to corrupt them, but they only tightened, siphoning her power.

“I’m binding the connection,” Mei corrected, taking a slow step forward. The mirrored ground cracked with each footfall. “The thread that lets a dead thing cling to the living.”

Mei was now inches from Tamamo. She reached out with her open hand, placing it directly over Su Yao’s chest.

“Time to let go.”

Tamamo’s eyes widened in genuine terror. “No! You’ll tear her soul apart with me!”

“Your concern is touching. And misplaced.”

Mei’s hand began to glow. “I’m an exterminator. I don’t care about the collateral damage.”

She pushed.

A scream tore from Su Yao’s throat. It was a raw, dual-layered sound of Tamamo’s panicked fury and Su Yao’s own submerged agony. A wisp of shadow, a screaming face that was the core of Tamamo-no-Mae’s consciousness, began to be forcibly extruded from Su Yao’s body.

From behind the rock, Zhang Wei watched, his knuckles white. “She’s really going to do it, she’s going to rip it out, no matter the cost to Xiao Ling!”

But then, Su Yao’s own hand shot up and grabbed Mei’s wrist. The movement was jerky, uncoordinated, but filled with desperate strength.

The screaming stopped. Su Yao’s head lifted, and for a fleeting second, her own eyes looked directly into Mei’s.

“Get your own damn body,” Su Yao gritted out, her own voice strained but unmistakably hers. “This one is taken.”

A shockwave of crimson foxfire, pure and untempered by Tamamo’s influence, erupted from her, shattering the shadow chains and forcing Mei back a single step.

Mei’s terrifying demonic face broke into a genuine, approving smile.

“Took you long enough.”

The shockwave of Su Yao’s own power faded, leaving her panting. One arm hung uselessly and her body trembled with the aftershocks of the internal war. The oppressive aura of Tamamo had receded, forced back into a corner of her own consciousness, but not yet vanquished.

In the sudden, ringing silence, a cheerful, upbeat ringtone cut through the air.

?~Xiao Ping Guo~?

Everyone froze.

Su Yao blinked, the crimson fire in her eyes flickering in confusion. She mechanically patted her pocket, pulled out her smartphone. The screen was cracked, but it glowed brightly, showing Li Xiu’s caller ID.

Mei, her demonic armor already dissolving back into the ether, leaving her in the same fluffy rabbit pajamas, raised an eyebrow. “That thing is indestructible.”

Su Yao swiped to answer, putting it on speakerphone. “What.”

“Xiao Ling! Thank the heavens!” Li Xiu’s voice was frantic with worry. “Are you alright? I saw the news about the energy surge on the coast! And Jian Feng, he’s not answering his phone! Is he with you? Is he okay?”

From behind the rock, Jian Feng frantically patted his own pockets. He pulled out the shattered remains of his high-end smartphone, its screen black and casing splintered. Then looked at it, utterly defeated.

Su Yao looked from the worried voice on the phone to Jian Feng’s devastated expression. A slow, weary smirk touched her bloodied lips.

“My phone is a rugged model,” she said into the receiver, her voice hoarse. “His is just for show. He’s fine, just a little broken like his phone.”

Jian Feng made a strangled, indignant noise.

“Tell her I’m fine!” he whisper-shouted at Zhang Wei.

Zhang Wei sighed, the sound containing the exhaustion of a thousand lifetimes. “He’s fine, Li Xiu! Just, slightly damaged! We will bring him home!”

The moment became absurd. A cosmic-level battle with possession and apocalyptic stakes paused for a customer service comparison of mobile phone durability.

Tamamo, trapped deep within, could only seethe in silent, utter humiliation.

Su Yao ended the call, her hand trembling slightly from the residual effort of suppressing Tamamo. She leaned against a shattered rock, breathing heavily.

Mei, now back in her pajamas and munching on a fresh bag of chips she had seemingly conjured from nowhere, nodded toward Su Yao. “So, that thing inside you,” she said casually. “I don’t think it’s the actual Tamamo-no-Mae.”

The air, still thick with spent energy, seemed to grow colder.

Su Yao’s head snapped up, her eyes narrowing. “Explain.”

“Think about it,” Mei mumbled around a mouthful. “The real Tamamo, according to the legends, was a celestial-level menace. A being of that magnitude, even a fragment, wouldn’t be so clumsy and desperate. It would have a grander plan than just trying to possess the first powerful vessel it found.”

She gestured with a chip at Su Yao’s chest. “That thing in there? It’s strong, sure. But it’s more like an echo. It’s just a powerful memory given sentience. A copy, maybe? Or a failed experiment?”

Inside, Su Yao felt the possessing entity recoil in something that felt startlingly like fear.

Lies! She spews lies! I am Tamamo-no-Mae! The one who brought empires to their knees! the voice shrieked in her mind, but the protest now sounded hollow, panicked.

“You felt it, didn’t you?” Mei continued, her eyes knowing. “When it was being pulled out. It was like peeling off a sticker. A very powerful, very angry sticker, but a sticker nonetheless.”

Zhang Wei approached cautiously. “So if it’s not the real Tamamo, what is it? And who created it?”

Jian Feng, still clutching his broken phone, looked between them. “The man in the white mask, he ‘sang the old songs.’ He recreated her? Or a version of her?”

Su Yao closed her eyes, focusing inward. She pushed past the entity’s blustering rage and probed at its core. Mei was right. The spiritual signature was potent, but it lacked the timeless weight of a true primordial being. It was a brilliant, devastating forgery.

She opened her eyes, a new, cold understanding dawning in them. “So the Yamato are playing with soul forgery,” Su Yao said, her voice low and dangerous. “They tried to build a god in the Nue, and they tried to recreate a demon in me.”

Su Yao’s gaze was a sharp, focused blade. All traces of her earlier panic were gone. She looked at Mei, who was now idly scrolling through her phone with one hand while holding the chip bag with the other.

“You,” Su Yao said, her voice raspy but firm. “You are a devil. And a law student. If anyone knows the fine print on souls, identity theft, and unlawful spiritual tenancy, it’s you. What’s the move?”

Mei looked down at her phone. “First, we establish jurisdiction. This is a clear case of a hostile entity squatting in a domicile without the owner’s consent. That’s unlawful tenancy. The fact that it’s a forgery just makes it easier to dispute its claim of historical ownership.”

She finally glanced up, her eyes glinting with a dark amusement. “We don’t fight it head-on. That’s what it wants. It’s a being of drama and conflict. So we evict it.”

“How?” Zhang Wei interjected, his professional interest piqued despite the surreal context.

“We serve it a notice,” Mei said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “We find the source of the forgery who holds the original lease, so to speak. We prove the entity is a fraudulent copy with no legitimate claim to the property. Once the connection to its creator is severed and its legal spiritual standing is invalidated, it’ll unravel. It’s just concentrated energy with a bad attitude.”

Inside, the Tamamo-echo raged. You can’t litigate me out of existence! I am a force of nature!

“She says she’s a force of nature,” Su Yao relayed dryly.

“Tell her even nature has to abide by zoning laws,” Mei replied without missing a beat. “Our next step is to find the registrar of this little soul corporation. We find the man in the mask. We subpoena his records. And then.” She smiled, a chillingly pleasant expression. “We dissolve his assets.”

Su Yao let out a short, sharp bark of laughter that was entirely her own. “Fine. We will do it your way.” She pushed herself off the rock, rolling her newly healed shoulder. “Let’s go find this forger and give him his eviction notice.”