The air in Susanoo’s personal dimension was perpetually thick with the promise of violence. Here, under a bruised sky of swirling charcoal and violet clouds, the sea was her primary subject. It did not lap peacefully at the shores of black volcanic sand; it crashed, roared, and clawed at the land, a perfect mirror of the tempest within its mistress. Thunder was the realm’s heartbeat, and the flashes of lightning that illuminated the jagged, obsidian cliffs were its fleeting, furious thoughts.

Susanoo, the anthropomorphic lilac lynx, stood on the highest of these cliffs. The salt-heavy wind whipped her short, black-and-blue hair across her face, but she didn’t flinch. Her striking red eyes—her father’s eyes—scanned the churning maelstrom below. Her plump, powerful form was tense, a coiled spring of divine energy. One lilac-furred hand rested on the hilt of the formidable katana strapped to her back, a familiar comfort.

She was stewing. The feeling was as common to her as breathing. Another “family council” in the heavens, another session of Amaterasu’s serene, sun-drenched wisdom and Tsukuyomi’s quiet, lunar grace. They spoke of balance, of order, of harmony. And all the while, she could feel their gazes on her—the untamed one, the chaotic storm, the battle-hungry daughter who was more an embodiment of their father’s destructive might than his creative will. They pitied her. She was certain of it. The thought sent a fresh wave of fury through her, and the sea below responded in kind, a colossal wave smashing against the cliff face with a deafening boom.

“Fools,” she snarled to the wind, her voice a low, dangerous growl. “They measure strength in tranquility. True power is the will to shatter tranquility!”

Her hand tightened on her sword’s hilt. She wanted to prove it. She wanted to unleash a storm so vast it would blot out Amaterasu’s sun, to roil the seas so violently they would swallow Tsukuyomi’s moon. She wanted them to see her, not as a problem to be managed, but as a force to be respected. Feared, even. That would be validation enough.

It was then that the air tore open.

Not with lightning, but with a sound like a high-speed zipper and a flash of brilliant, cerulean light. A vortex of shimmering energy spun into existence a few dozen yards away on the black sand beach below her perch. Before Susanoo could fully process the intrusion, something was violently ejected from the portal, tumbling end over end before skidding to a halt on the wet sand. The portal snapped shut, leaving behind only the lingering scent of ozone and something… clean, like a clear sky. An scent that had no place here.

Leaping from the cliff, Susanoo landed with a predator’s grace, her feet sinking only slightly into the sand. Her red eyes narrowed, piercing the gloom. The intruder was a splash of defiant color in her monochrome world—a being that managed to get into her world. A low growl rumbled in her chest. This was her sanctuary. Her place of rage and solitude. No one entered without her permission. The storm overhead intensified, a low, guttural roar from the heavens that was entirely her own doing. She began to walk toward the hedgehog, her movements slow, deliberate, each step a threat. The black whisker-like marks on her cheeks seemed to darken, and the red makeup on her eyelids made her gaze look all the more malevolent.

“You have ten seconds to explain what you are and how you breached my realm,” she called out, her voice cutting through the howl of the wind and the crash of the waves. She drew her sword just enough for a few inches of glinting steel to clear the scabbard, the shing of metal a sharp promise of pain. “After that, I will make you a permanent part of the landscape.”