Tomoe froze, clawed fingers crumpling the paper in his hand. Send my love to your new lover, it read, in a familiar spikily elegant script.

Whirling in a flurry of silk and foxfire, he flew over the miles to the small house, only to stop just inside the doorway, his senses overwhelmed with blood; a small, elegant figure sprawled gracelessly across the floor, her kimono sodden crimson and her chest-

Tomoe turned, meeting a wide, sharp, angry grin, then dropping his gaze to the shredded, still-bleeding heart in Akura's outstretched hand.