7 Chapter 7: All Worldly Things Are Transitory

The young Onmyouji Mistress hid herself quite nicely within the dense vegetation of the woods. With the leaves and shadows to cover her up, the thick green brush and soft grass to mask her presence, she could safely watch from a good distance the lone Crimson Shadow fighting the Creeps. Another boring day of training, it seemed.

"Oh, I can't wait to surprise Haya-chan!" She giggled. "Then, he'll thank me and praise me a lot, and once he sees that I can handle my own fight, I'm bound to get more!"

Kagura continued to watch Hayabusa disappeared like the shadows, only to reappear as passing silhouettes over the Creeps, with his sword to pierce their flesh. In the end, the Spider Creeps fell down, dead. The white haired girl cheered for him silently when the Shinobi quickly left the grounds and proceeded further into the jungle.

"W-wait! Oh, he can't hear me… well then- I think I should go now…"

She held close her umbrella and leaped off from the shrubbery. She did not simply learn the teachings of Onmyoudo, she also learned from the institution. If she were not the heiress, she would have most likely ended up as a Kunoichi.

Slowly but steadily, she maintained her distance away from Hayabusa, but close enough that she could keep an eye over him; it would not bode well for her to lose him all the sudden, and with what Hayabusa's accelerating speed and all, the Onmyouji Mistress needed to quicken her pace.

The sun slowly dipped down the horizon as daytime transitioned painfully slow to dusk. The ombre colour set the mood for the wistful Onmyouji. If only there were no traitors, then either clans would need not to send her childhood friend away…

She gazed upon the rising moon, the silver plate that governs the night... ever fleeting it chases the sun, and ever fleeting the sun runs away from the moon. Kagura felt sombre… it was just like her and Hayabusa. She placed her hand over her heart. Such a cruel world they have to live in, and such a miserable world it is for them to be separated.

Like the Yin-Yang, ever together yet separated by a thin line.

She shook her head and instead, watched the Ninja readying his shuriken. This time, it was a group of highwaymen. Armed with swords and knives, they went for the kill.

Kaguya almost left her position, but it seemed that the problem was solved rather quickly and efficiently.

Hayabusa split his shadows into four, and used them to travel to and fro, causing confusion and fright for the would-be robbers. It was then that, one by one, they fell down by the blunt edge of the dulled tanto. And just like all the other times, he left as fast as he could, away from the scene of the crime.

With a deep sigh, Kagura followed suit.

"Hey, hey! Why can't you use us to help the boy?" The voice within her umbrella spoke. "I mean, look at him! He haven't even noticed that you were following him at all!"

Kagura frowned and smacked her umbrella to the nearby rock, only to elicit howls of pain from within the artefact. "Why can't you see that Haya-chan has a lot on his mind?" She said to the voices angrily, a pout even formed on her face as she spoke of it. "I already told you that this was supposed to be a hush-hush mission! So everything should be kept a secret! I… I need to stay away from him…"

"And yet here we are, following your lover boy."

"H-he's not my- we're friends!"

"Uh-huh, and me and my gang here are living inside a pillow."

Angrily, she smacked the umbrella three times on the hard rock before she took off and followed her objective.

"Stop… smacking… the umbrella~" one of the Spirits inside the umbrella spoke. The voice was how Kagura knew that the Spirits has received their rightful judgement. Or at least, a memo not to pick her and her… interests in mind. "Please… forgive us… Lady…"

"Hmph," she blew up her face to a more adorable pout. "You're all monsters living in my umbrella. Remember that the next time when you bully me."

"Yes, milady," the voices replied.

Several days had passed by, and yet Kagura was amazed by herself that she managed to not get caught by her childhood friend. Well, it was not like she was the champion of hide-and-seek back when they were little, but still… it would have been a huge blow on the Shadow's Successor for him to not detect even a smidge of presence of his friend.

"Hey, is this really the right way..? I mean, not that I'm questioning Haya-chan's sense of direction and all, but…" she looked down to her umbrella and opened it. "Could you take a look?"

A blue mist escaped through the umbrella. Kagura took this as a 'yes', and threw the umbrella a few feet away from her. The artefact rotated in place, still emitting the blue energy that was the monsters and Spirits within it.

"I'll go check over here, so please don't move!"

"It's not like we can run away…"

The Onmyouji threw a small rock at the artefact, who then spouted off apologies as it tried to rebalance the umbrella, who was tipped off of its place.

"You're all smart-mouthed Spirits!" She shouted before she went the other direction. Though, only a short distance else the connection between her and the umbrella would break. As she found a nice platform, the smoothed out rocks, she climbed above to check where Hayabusa was heading towards to.

"Milady! Milady, come quick!" The voices crowed in what sounded like fear.

Kagura, with all her training in mind, quickly went back to the artefact and wielded it like a staff or, the very least, a magic conduit.

Orcs… two of them, with each holding an axe.

"Remember your training, Kagura," she told herself. She opened her umbrella to the fullest, and she felt a powerful essence of magic linking with her own.

"Are you ready, Messrs. Spirits?" She asked the monsters within her umbrella.

"Aye!"

"Then, let's go!" She threw her umbrella towards the Orcs. The edges of the artefact shredded their rumoured thick skin, impenetrable by any and most weapons.

Orcs, though slow and dumb, were known for their durability. And each proved this by rushing towards the white-haired Onmyouji with their weapons raised above their heads. Kagura saw this and teleported herself to the umbrella, dodging the twin axes.

"Alright, time for your super strong power, okay?"

"Do we have to..?" The voices asked, though it came with a hint of reluctance.

"Of course!" Kagura sent her umbrella again to the Orcs and chanted, "Shogyou Mujou!*"

Two misty tendrils extended from the umbrella and attached themselves on both Orcs, to which they stared at the magical link with a hint of curiosity.

Of course, if they even knew what curiosity was.

They then snapped out of their short trance and went for the kill the second time. Kagura readied herself and Blinked away from her previous position and threw her umbrella again to them. And this time, the cut was more noticeable and were deeper from the repeated slices of the artefact. They both howled in pain, which was cut off when they were pulled back to the umbrella.

"Don't look down on me because I'm small!" She teleported herself to the umbrella and quickly casted another bout of magic, pushing the Orcs away. With all the push and pulls and the fast manoeuvre of the small girl, the Orcs became quite dizzy and fell down to the ground instead. Wounded as they might be, they were both very much alive, only that they were too dazed to even continue fighting.

"We did it! We did it, Messrs. Spirits!" She cheered. "We've beaten the Orcs!"

"They're only unconscious, though…" it deadpanned.

"Oh please! We won, and that's what counts! Oh, I can't wait to tell the others about this when I go back to the village!"

"Erm, yeah… about that, is there something that you've forgotten about?"

"None that I know of, no. Why, is there?"

"Two words: Lover. Boy."

At this point Kagura knew she messed up.

"W-we were supposed to follow him! I… I got distracted again!" Kagura flustered as she closed her weapon and leaped away. The Onmjouji Mistress had not noticed that she, herself, was being tailed.

The figure looked at the girl and sneered. "This is my competition? Pathetic."

She took of and ran straight towards where she knew Hayabusa was heading. This was her time to show off.

"I don't wanna lose to that snot nosed Shadow…" she trailed off before she absent-mindedly looked towards where Kagura went. Jealousy sparked inside of her. "Do… do all men only like cute girls?"

*Shogyou Mujou - 諸行無常 - All worldly things are transitory*

Sneak Peak:

The Thief smirked as he brought his feet up to the table without a care and leaned back on his chair, as if he owned the place. "Well, you ran away from your family... does killing for a living... and have your, well, your description at the 'Wanted' list lately, so yeah. Outlaw."