There were too many of them even for us. I glanced up, and saw that the Byakko were now separated from us by a wave of Gaki and tree demons. Down below, the Gaki were streaming toward the house.
Suddenly, I saw a figure appear on the porch of Toshiro’s house. It was a tall figure, dressed in bright yellow samurai armor, with a tall helmet and a sword in each hand.
“It’s Toshiro!” I shouted, as I recognized the relaxed, prepared gait of the old samurai warrior. He raised his swords into the air and the swarming Gaki fell back, then he charged them, swinging and twirling from left to right in a deadly dance.
At the same time, with a great roar, Yasei and his remaining Byakko charged in from the position they had gained above the center of the battle. General Koshu and the twenty mercenaries who had survived this far began to fight their way back toward Toshiro and the house.
“We have to close that crack, Cara!” I shouted. “Come on!”
We ran over to the gaping rent in the rock, hacking our way through the screaming Gaki who poured like an unholy tide from underground. With each swing of my axe I cut ten of them in half; another ten scuttled up to take their place. We reached the crack, stamping on the crawling Gaki to get there.
“How do we do this?” Cara yelled to me.
“I don’t know, but... do you feel that?”
There was a tugging at the edge of my awareness. It was the Ironside Persona, reaching toward the Kitsune Persona.
“I feel it!” Cara said, “but I don’t know how to use it!”
“Let’s buy ourselves a little time! Use ice and fire to blast the Gaki inside the crack!”
We looked down into the gap. It dropped down, a long, deep shaft with cold, vicious blue light shining up and lighting the whole scene. At the bottom of the shaft there was a gargantuan cavern, and every inch of it crawled with Gaki and other, larger shapes that I couldn’t make out. The Gaki poured up the walls up of the shaft, crawling up it on all fours like ants.
Cara sent a flurry of ice shuriken stars down the shaft and followed up with a blast of fire arrows. The resulting explosion smashed hundreds of climbing Gaki to pieces, slowing the relentless upward flow. That bought us time to explore the pulling we felt between our Personas. I reached out and took Cara’s hand, and we stood over the crack which seemed to lead directly into the realm of hell.
“We have to combine the power of the Personas,” I called. “Can you feel how to do it?”
“I... yes, yes I can. I don’t know how I know, but I do!”
I felt her reaching back to me with the power of the Kitsune Persona, and then she cried out wordlessly as something fundamental clicked into place. As if a key had turned in a lock and a door swung open, Cara and I were aware of each other to a level of intimacy which hadn’t even been reached during our lovemaking.
The Personas combined strength and stealth, axe and sword, the power of Ironside and the power of Kitsune. It was an incredible feeling, and instinctive understanding flooded through Cara and me at the same time. Our hands were joined, but we both raised our weapons in our other hands, and lightning flashed around us. It crackled in mighty forks from the black sky and from the earth around us before meeting at the tip of my axe and Cara’s sword. We both felt it building to a peak.
“Now!” I roared, and together we brought our weapons down, flinging the mass of raw power into the chasm.
Lightning ricocheted off the stone walls, and the climbing Gaki fell by the thousand tumbling down the walls of the shaft and knocking others off as they fell. The lighting held, crackling down into the chasm, and then we felt the earth shift under our feet. There was a rolling boom, and the great chasm slammed shut.
We leaped back from the shockwave, then glanced around the battlefield. There was no time to congratulate ourselves on our victory; we had stopped the flow of new enemies into the valley but there were still many hundreds of swarming Gaki and hundreds of tree demons too. Toshiro and the mercenaries were fighting together now, but they were being pushed back toward the house. Yasei and the Byakko were fighting near the top of the ridge, but they had been driven upward as well.
“We have to try and save Toshiro!” I shouted to Cara. We turned in that direction and sprinted down the hill toward the house, but at that moment, there was a sudden ringing of horns that echoed across the valley. Everyone, friend and foe alike, stopped fighting and glanced up in the direction of the horn blast.
There were riders on the ridge.
A great mass of cavalry had appeared there, led by a tall figure in bright armor with a high helmet and a trailing blue banner. As I watched, this figure raised a spear and cried out an order, and the whole mass of riders formed up and charged into the valley.
The Byakko, their morale boosted by the appearance of new allies, redoubled their attack, smashing through the gathered tree demons in front of them. Below, Toshiro gave a great shout and threw himself at the massed Gaki and the remainder of the armored Tengu. The mercenaries and General Koshu followed behind him. Cara and I smashed into the flank of the group
