The next day, they resumed work on the play. The High Priestess did her stiff, stilted best, but it was so, so strange, to deliberately portray a thing she knew to be false. And there was the style of performance, so much more elaborate that the Temple plays, the delivery so varied it made her head swim. At lunch, as the nine passed around a bowl of trail mix with diced chicken mixed into it, Ashi looked to her mother. "It's too much. You can't adapt this fast."

Reluctantly, she nodded. "But I must learn this. We must return to the Temple, and I will have to conduct services, and I must be able to project sincere belief."

"Maybe if we try something simpler?" Aki suggested. "We know a lot of secular songs, that might be a good way to start. And we can go back to town to buy some books of tales." Their mother looked baffled, Jack held his expression neutral and composed. "Let's start with… hmm. Yes." She produced from her darkness a black object that vaguely resembled an enormous sausage, then touched it in some way the Priestess didn't quite follow. Then music filled the clearing, and Ashi began to sing. "Jamie Dawson was the captain of the Indus and its crew," and she went on to tell the tale of a space-going ghost ship, her sisters joining in on the first chorus. The Priestess joined in the second, and Jack just enjoyed the performance.

They went through the song again and again, the Priestess' delivery becoming more natural each time, until by near sunset, she asked to take the verses, and did a creditable job of them, then led her daughters away from the camp, and through their devotions. Her performance was unconvincing, but she got through it smoothly. When she rose, she bowed to her daughters. "I know. I still need practice. But it is a good thing that I felt… a little disturbed, but only disturbed?"

Their masks smiled faintly. "Very good," Aki said. "We've been through this, Mother, when we started rehearsing for Night's Ebb. You're doing amazingly well." And the women vanished their masks and headpieces, and their mother her Temple robe.

As she slept among her daughters, taking comfort in their soft warmth of both spirit and body, she twitched and stirred in the shallows of dream. Upon the top of the hoodoo, she stood alone before Aku.
"Faithless servant!" he bellowed. "You would leave my service? Never!"
She gathered her courage, such few, small drops as had not vanished upon his speech. "I must! You are not worthy of praise and worship!"
And he laughed, a horrible, mirthless sound. "Very well! I shall let you leave!" and he shrank down to a human-like form. "You need only best me in combat, and I will not even use my powers!"
She produced her knife. "So be it! I will best you, demon!"
But he raised his hand, and made a snatching motion. "I have chosen to forgo my special powers, and so shall you!" She screamed as liquid darkness flowed from her mouth and nose and eyes, Aku pulling from her his essence, leaving her but an ordinary women with a knife, not even her darksuit remaining. She charged anyway, and the result was inevitable. She woke with a stifled scream, and her daughters held her closer until she returned to deeper, restful sleep.

Came the morn, she saw first her bare arm, and immediately struggled into half-lotus, her daughters quickly clearing away from her while she sought the empty stillness. Her nudity troubled them not at all; none of them had ever been trained to body shame. They simply watched in concern, until their mother's darksuit reappeared upon her and she stood. Again, they did not ask; they understood the problem without need.

On their camp stove, Jack had cooked a meal he considered normal, but to the girls still seemed a bit weird: pancakes and syrup, with fruit juice. They ate with good appetite, and their mother as well, then it was time for more practices in the art of performing. Jack took no part in her instruction, only in the performance of Aku.

By the time they broke for lunch, the High Priestess had improved greatly. Though still stilted and stiff, her performance was much closer to naturalistic, and her daughters gave her pointers and suggestions for further improvement. By the time the sun was dropping, she'd gone further along than any of them had expected, but the devotions still made her stomach clench.

The next few days fell into a simple pattern: a new song each morning, combat and athletics and darksuit practices in the afternoon, and acting practices in the evening, usually followed by a poor night's sleep for the Priestess, even with her daughters' comforting presence. Away from the camp, the women practiced their devotions each sunrise and sunset, until at last the Priestess could lead a convincing service. That evening, she waited until the girls were in the yurt before she turned to Jack. "Samurai, I… " She sighed heavily. "We are ready to move out again. The girls and I will continue to practice our devotions away from camp."

He nodded to her. "I appreciate that. You do know this is a terrible plan?"

She looked down. "I know. Sadly, it is the least bad plan I can find. I am still High Priestess of the Daughters of Aku, and that imposes responsibilities I cannot ignore."

"I understand that. Perhaps you would like some tea?"

She looked to the campfire, nearly out. "Yes, please." They sat near it, sipping at their cups. No ceremony, just the sharing of tea. "It occurs to me that in some ways, we are similar."

He raised a brow. "How so?" he asked in a tone of puzzled inquiry.

She poured a bit more tea into her cup. "We are both ascetics at base, we both greatly value composure and self-control, we are both mighty fighters, and we have both dedicated our lives to causes greater than ourselves."

Jack sipped, and considered her words. "All true. But there are also great differences. I travelled the world in my training; until recently, you have never been beyond your temple's forests. You have sought only to serve Aku; my task is to destroy him. I have no children, but have always sought to treat others' with kindness and care. You have seven daughters." He did not continue.

The Priestess looked down at the fire. "I know. It is fortunate my training of them was so limited and faulty, but that does nothing to lessen the wrong I did them. I deserve no forgiveness."

"That is true," he agreed. "For now."

"I only hope that when this is done, I will find a balm upon the hill."

An interval passed, the silence neither companionable nor overly awkward. "Priestess, there is something that puzzles me about your… about the Daughters of Aku: why is a cloistered order so skilled in battle?"

A heavy sigh. "We train for the Last Battle, when the most faithful shall be called upon. And we… they… are indeed the most faithful and devout." Jack did not dispute the claim. "Who will take watch first?"

"I think, you." And she nodded in agreement, then with a great leap, disappeared into the canopy.

The Temple was a short trip away, only two days on their bikes, and they parked a half-hour's drive from the main entrance, then set up camp. The girls systematically divested themselves of everything but their masks and initial weaponry and a small coin pouch each, and the High Priestess of everything but her initial clothing and weapons and what coin she retained from her initial funds. "Before we start," Ashi said, seeing the deep anxiety on their mother's face. "I know a song that night help." She fetched what the High Priestess had since learned was called a portable player, and the sound of many sorts of drums filled the clearing.

The song was simple, the lyrics idealistic, even naive, but the Priestess and then Jack joined in; "take strength from those who need you" especially resonated with them both: the High Priestess' responsibility to her congregation, Jack's to those who suffered under Aku's tyranny. At the end, the Priestess smiled, even to Jack. "My thanks, daughters, and to you, Samurai. I only hope that one day, I will be worthy of the help you have given."

Then, the women began the walk, arriving just a little before the sunset service began. The guards immediately ushered them into the torchlit interior, comforting and familiar, unsettling and nerve-straining, all at once as they'd expected.

"High Priestess!" Ayano gasped, holding out her staff. "Blessed Daughters!" and she bowed deeply to them all, as did the congregation.

The girls kept their faces still behind their masks, and they could not tell about their mother, but the seven took places among the congregation, in the front rank of course, while their mother reclaimed her staff of office then led the sunset devotions. After, she climbed the steps to stand before the offering stone, then turned to the congregation. "Daughters of Aku! In my travels, more has happened than I could have ever dared hope. For I not only found the Daughters of our Lord alive and thriving, but I beheld Aku Himself!" The congregation buzzed with whispers of amazement, and some doubt, as she had expected. "It is so. And more, He saw fit to give me, and His daughters, His special blessing, bringing forth the full measure of the power that is ours from Him through His Essence." And she grew from her already statuesque six feet tall to a full eight feet, a white-eyed featureless demon-woman, then shrank down moments later. She waited for the sisters to recover their composure before she spoke again.

"The Last Battle draws near, Daughters of Aku, and so I must speak new law. The first of these is that none are to enter the Pit of Darkness who have not already attained adulthood. The second is that daily prayers are cut from eight to four: sunset, midnight, sunrise and noon. The time formerly spent in the other daytime prayers will be spent in the forests, practicing and honing our battle skills in that more varied environment." Another wave of murmurs swept across the congregation.

"Then Lord Aku will slay the Samurai?" asked one of the Daughters.

"I do not know. The Revelation to Akiko says 'then there appeared a man of many lands, who entered into the dwelling of Aku, and they did battle, and the Faithful with them. And when this battle was done, I beheld that the old Law that made the old world was gone before a new Law, and that this was good.' Akiko does not say that Aku triumphs, only that after the Last Battle there will be new Law in place of old.

"There is more: Ayano will teach reading, writing and sums to all of you, so that you can teach your daughters when they are of age. Our belief that only the most devout can learn these mysteries, I have learned was a mistake." More murmuring, but no dissent. "There will be many other changes, after the Last Battle, and I myself will return once more to lead you in that confrontation. For now, train as I have said. Allow no intrusion upon our forests, but hold back from killing intruders who do not seek your death. Let them flee, and spread word of our actions."

"Will you be long with us, High Priestess?" Ayano asked.

"No," she said. "There is too much I must still learn from the greater world, too much we eight must do to prepare. I will lead the midnight and sunrise prayers, then depart after leading the midday services. You will lead in my absence."

"Yes, High Priestess," Ayano said, and bowed. She had to think about how to teach the others, and the High Priestess began to inspect the temple.

She rendezvoused with her daughters shortly before midnight, in the cavern that held the enormous lake in which they had first learned to swim. "I think we can do this," she said quietly. "The service went well, and I think the sisters are accepting of the new laws."

The masked girls nodded. "We've heard the sisters talking about your revelation, and a lot of them are worried, but it's all about things like whether they'll survive to the Last Battle, what will happen after that; none of them doubt your standing with our Lord Father."

The High Priestess nodded. "Good. Now, we must return to the Hall of Worship." And having so done she led the midnight service.

The High Priestess nodded. "Good. Now, we must return to the Hall of Worship." And having so done she led the midnight service before retiring to her chamber. The droning chant from the Hall of Worship was, like ether Temple itself, comfortably familiar, yet disturbing and stressful. Did her daughters feel the same way? She doubted it; they seemed to have resolved any conflicts they felt over the worship of Aku, and she envied them that. To pray before the great idol, to bow and pledge herself, to be once again in His service, she yearned, for it, burned for it, ached and longed for it, even as the thought turned her stomach with remembrance. Though she slept the night without dreams, her slumber was not peaceful, and in their own nearby cells, Ayano and Rika wondered what their leader's whimpers might portend.

The sunrise service went smoothly, then breakfast. "Daughters of Aku," the High Priestess said to the assembly, "this morning, we train in the forest. You will take up your preferred weapons, and contest with myself, and the true Daughters of Aku. We will not kill you, or even injure more than we must, for though our training must be strict, the Last Battle will be soon, before a year has passed, and we cannot afford to have anyone killed, or down from such things as broken limbs. And remember the Law as it is already writ: those of you who are with child, from the time your babes are three months along until three months after their birth, you will not join the fighting practice. We must protect the new generation, for it is they who will grow up with the new world and the new Law."

One of the congregation spoke as the women stood. "High Priestess, what of your children's mission? Have they killed the Samurai?"

Ashi took the question. "We have not. Yet our performance has been better than anyone else who has gone against him, for all others abandoned their pursuit after single meeting, if they survived at all. We have faced him four times, and though he has eluded us each time, we have not abandoned our pursuit. And in our travels, we have served Aku well and faithfully: we have battled criminals, slain monsters, protected the helpless and freed the oppressed, learned new ways and new weapons. And now, we have returned to start you on your way to mastering these new ways."

That sparked a great deal of murmured discussion, which did not abate until they came out into the forest, and their trainers split them into groups. "Your first lesson from us," Ashi said after donning her mask, "is this: to aid and support each other." She and Aki demonstrated against Aji, Ami, Avi and Ari, with commentary from Adi. "When you do this, you are five times as effective and ten times as safe. Now, let us begin," and the congregation attacked.

After the noon service, the High Priestess and her daughters departed, resuming their mission. Ayano watched them leave, then once they were well away, sent the sisters to their daily sweeping and cleaning, then turned to Rika. "I think there's something important she's not telling us. But we'll follow her instructions… for now." The brute nodded, but said nothing.