Prologue

Under a perpetually evening sky, Dramank ascended a steep slope of rock in the middle of Tokyo. The details of the city below―its misshapen buildings, disgusting streets, and all manner of inhuman filth―incrementally shrank from sight. When he completed the ascent, he stood briefly in the glow of a sinister aperture before he stepped inside, leaving the mechanical cesspool of poverty and squalor behind.

He already missed it.

He had made this climb many times in his service, and he didn't think he would ever get used to it. He didn't think he'd ever be able to still the inner tremors that wracked him, tremors whose frantic message he was powerless to heed. Dramank did not know Hell (in his world, Hell had never existed in the minds of men), but he would have recognized it nonetheless if informed of it. He would immediately have thought of this place.

The source-less firelight illuminated the huge, bottomless interior of this decidedly non-urban rock castle. Dramank walked along the outcropping protruding from the entrance. Countless stalagmites in the distance (for this place seemed to know no boundary) carried the same shape as the outcropping, looking for all their motionlessness like angry tails of flame.

And in the middle of it all, a shadow that no light could have created. Uncannily, it stole light from wherever it came. A long, chalice-like shape, it ended in a rough crown that recalled a dead spider.

"Master Aku," he said. "The spies have given their report."

The shadow turned. A shadow in three dimensions, Dramank thought, was more unnerving than most people would think. More unnerving still was the face atop it: green, sneering lips, long fangs, pillars of fire for eyebrows. The eyes, in their unblinking constancy, spoke of immeasurable age.

"And?" The single word came from the mouth, of course, but it also seemed to come from everywhere else, even from inside Dramank himself.

"He has entered a portal. The Tyflinn, in the Eastern Lands―"

"I have felt the disruption," admitted the demon. Aku turned to the cave wall, intoning gravelly. "That foolish samurai continues to seek the past, even though I have―" here, he raised his terrible voice and shadowy fist, "―SMASHED THAT ACCURSED SWORD OF HIS…" He let out a few chuckles: a faint remnant of the moment the sword had been destroyed, and Aku filled all the Earth with his laughter. Dramank remembered it well. "You must admire his stubbornness, I suppose."

"Master―"

"Shall I reiterate this for you, Dramank?" Aku went on, sensing the named man's uncertainty. "He cannot use time travel to fix this dilemma. He cannot retrieve the sword from himself in the past, because he will then exist in the same time twice. He cannot travel to before his time; his mere presence will prevent him from being born."

"Master Aku," Dramank said, unsure whether he was coming off as patient or nervous. "The samurai hasn't gone back in time."

Aku turned back with heart-stopping speed, but his speech was slow. "What nonsense is this?"

"The Tyflinn's magic doesn't do that. He has entered a different dimension entirely."

Aku bent down with all the immensity of nightfall. His face lowered, closer and closer, to Dramank. The fires of his countenance bathed Dramank from head to toe with heat.

"Explain," he said.

Dramank hadn't lasted this long by quavering visibly in situations like this, and he didn't now. Aku liked to keep people around who reminded him of his greatness through their fear, but he also saw the importance of those who spoke plainly and were dependable. "The Tyflinn's magic works because of where they live," he said. "The air in that small place across the ocean is reported to be…thin. And strange."

"It is called a lack of pollution, Dramank," Aku remarked in his occasional dryness.

"Indeed, O Great One. Nonetheless, many foul creatures who wander there have disappeared."

"Mmmmm." Now Aku made no movement, and Dramank finally lowered his eyes. Even he couldn't look directly at the Master of Darkness when his intentions were so unclear. Aku could be so angry that he would burn a veteran such as Dramank to a crisp. Dramank had seen it happen before.

"Dramank. Do you know what this means?" Purely interrogative, no apparent excitement behind it.

"I don't, sir."

"In this other dimension, someone lives in that very spot. Someone powerful, someone dangerous. A being―or perhaps beings―strong enough to rupture the laws of magic and nature that separate dimensions."

Dramank tried not to read too much into that. For Aku to be calling someone dangerous…

"Do you know, however, what it also means?" The sneer was back. The hot light of the cavern dimmed, was drawn more and more into that unfathomable body. Dramank wondered when he could return to the crime-ridden alleys of the city.

"No, sir."

"It means―" And now there was actual excitement, honest and genuine giddiness. Dramank had never felt such a chill in his life. "―there is another whole world for the taking."