The Sun Prince

Ch21 P3 - Is It Rude to Throw Up the Shogun's Breakfast?

Kuro destroy the Night Parade? The Shogun was as delusional as Ren.

"Ah, breakfast." The Shogun waved to the side. Kuro barely saw the page enter with two trays. He only saw the tray appear beneath his gaze, with strips of meat — real meat. His stomach gurgled. He hadn't eaten the slop Yumi had brought for him. He picked up the chopsticks.

Destroy the Night Parade. Kuro couldn't go up against the Night Parade. It was suicide. Ren couldn't either. Perhaps the Shogun could, with decades of experience battling demon armies under his sash, but...

"Thank you for this meal." Kuro scarfed down the meat. They tasted more like field mice than the cows and chickens humans raised.

But the Shogun had a use for Kuro that didn't involve Kuro's head on a traitor's pike. The tension slivered from his shoulders. Kuro had forgotten to mention one vital key when lecturing Ren and Yumi about not trusting others: only trust that others are out for themselves. If their motivations are selfish, then they're not lying. Probably. And the Shogun's plan would end up with Kuro dead or worse. That he could trust.

The page left, and even hindered by the chopsticks, Kuro made short work of his tray. When he finished, the Shogun still picked at the meat. Kuro hesitated. Was he allowed to speak? Or would he make the Shogun believe that Kuro was too much a nuisance to live?

The Shogun finished his meat and rested his eyes on Kuro, waiting.

"With my powers..." Kuro trailed off. How could he put this without accidentally implying the Shogun should kill him?

The Shogun arched his brow, waiting for him to continue.

"Wouldn't it be better for your rule if my shrine wasn't in the Capital?" He waved his hands. "Not that you shouldn't build me a shrine. You should definitely build one to appease me. Just not here."

"Oh?"

"If you give me the funds, I'll build my shrine far away, on the edges of your empire." He couldn't leave without that money. He couldn't leave without the shrine. He was so close. The Shogun didn't even want to kill him.

The Shogun intertwined his fingers in his lap. "I believe you can be more useful than that."

"I don't fight."

His eyes flicked over Kuro, a faint smirk on his lips, as if to say that is obvious.

"I'm more use to you as a god," he said. "Just further away."

"My onmyouji is designing you a suitable shrine," he said.

One filled with barriers that trapped Kuro inside. "I'm sure he is, but when his hands are so full with the Night Parade and protecting the Capital, humans would be better off if his attention wasn't divided."

"Yusuke is industrious."

"Without a doubt," Kuro lied. "But even so—"

"You will stay in the Capital," he said. "I can't throw my newest god into the demon-infested wilds."

No, just throw him at the Night Parade and hope his bad luck rubbed off. "But I'll have to travel so far away. The Night Parade hides in a mountain on the other side of the empire. I'll have to cross oni and rivers and steep mountains to even reach them. Such a journey won't come cheap."

The lie had worked on Ren; it would work on the Shogun. If he didn't want to hand over the funds for his shrine, then he would win it his own way. The fox way.

"You needn't travel so far," the Shogun said.

"If you want me to destroy the Night Parade, I do." He shrugged a shoulder. "I've heard proximity helps."