Chapter 41: Crisis in the East

"So, how's the situation from your side?" An image of a man in his forties with dark brown hair, scruffy beard, visible brown eye while the left eye was covered by an eye patch along with a nasty scar in the left side of his face. He also had two horns sticking out his head but the left horn looked broken off.

"Not great." Harumi shook her head as she looked at some reports caused by Oni-Youkai. Though it wasn't common to find malevolent Youkai as they were just low-class demons but not many go pass the barrier of the demon world. But now there seems to be a large number of them recently. "The number of Oni-youkai found have been increasing and even though it's low-level ones and most imperial soldiers or guilds can eliminate them it still is alarming and there are reports of unknown creatures attacking the country."

"But your seal part of the still intake?" He raised his eyebrow.

"Yes, but I'm starting to feel some disturbances for it."

"Hmm do you think it's the Cerberus which Marella spoke about?"

"It must be as she did say it had a demonic essence to it when she fought it and it also had some form of spatial magic this is the best link of what's happening we have for now."

"This is still irking me though a demon not sealed in the demon world and is strong enough to battle on of the wizard saints of Ishgar with the possible power to travel to and from the demon world." The man shook his head.

"Yes, this is highly problematic especially if it manages to bring high level demons to this realm hopefully this doesn't escalate into another Convergence event." Harumi rubbed her head a little as she thought of the possible worst-case scenarios the creature could bring.

"Hopefully it doesn't. I'll inform the other keys while you get back to your work as it seems like you have more than just the demon situation you need to focus on." The man announced and Harumi nodded and the two cut the connection.

She leaned back in her set a little and thought about the resent events. Things in Taiyo have not been going well with the increase in the Oni and the trinity of dark guilds. The emperor has arranged an emergency meeting with the daimyos and major military leaders to address the issues. Speaking of which she should contact Salem soon.

Her mind was brought back when a connection was made to her Lacrima once more.

"Hey Harumi-chan." The image of Marella appeared on the Lacrima.

"Hello Marella-san it's wonderful to hear you." Harumi smiled a little upon seeing her friend.

"So how are things going along there?"

"Not great."

"Well, the same could be said for Fiore. Even though the pack form the Acnologia situation has settled down things will still need time before they went back to normal."

Harumi was familiar with the legendary black dragon of the apocalypse as it was of the beings which stood on top of the food chain in this world. She didn't know what was worse the demon kings, the calamity deities or that thing. Which begged the question why did it attack some guild out of nowhere. Marella had told her that the guild was the top in the country, contained the 7th wizard saint as it's master and had taken down one of the top dark guilds associated with Zeref but there had to be more to the story than that.

"So how is Kagura doing?" Meralla asked.

"She's doing fine okay, she's in my training area in the forest in some sword styles I gave her." Harumi answered. "But about Mikazuchi-san I wanted to ask you what the point of all this Marella-san"

"What do you mean?"

"Marella-san we both know that girl is already good at sword play and the only thing she truly needed is experience and polish her defense techniques. So why did you truly send it here and to me specifically?" Harumi asked.

"'Sigh' You caught me. The reason why I sent Kagura to you was because I need you to help her with her revenge."

"What?"

"You see when Kagura was just a little girl her village was raided by followers of Zeref and her family was killed along with her brother getting kidnapped by them. She looked for him for a long time and also trained hard so that one day when she found him, she could protect him."

"So, her brother was killed than?"

"Yes, he was. Kagura was devested when she learned the news from a fellow guild member who was also a victim of the tower of heaven. She went further into her training saw that one day she could kill him and get her revenge. A lot of us understand her motives but revenge can send people in a very dark spiral and she won't listen to our advice warring her of the path she has chosen for herself."

'So, I was right on that hunch.' Kagura thought, then turned to her friend. "I see what you're doing Marella-san but you know even if I can relate to her losing a sibling through murder but I…"

"Harumi-chan please. This girl really needs this and I've seen too many people who got consumed by revenge who ended up dead or empty husks of themselves especially during the convergence event and even if Kagura has gotten better, I don't want her to end up digging two graves." Marella begged and Harumi softly looked at her friend.

Harumi sighed and looked at a picture of herself, another purple haired woman and a dark-haired boy about 12 years in age. The three of them where in a forest in winter wear with the boy was at Harumi's right hugging her waist with a huge smile on his face, the other woman was on Harumi's left while eating some cotton candy a bit funnily and Harumi had her right hand on the boy's head while looking at the other female with an amused smile on her face.

She wasn't planning on training Kagura but at least let her train at the golden lotus temple in swordsmanship and she was sure the monks at the temple would also help her with her problems. But hearing story of her brother she truly saw why Marella truly sent Kagura to her.

"I'll see but don't expect much."

"That's all I ask thank you Harumi." Marella smiled brightly making Harumi smile a bit also.

The two talked a little more than ended the call. Soon Raiden heard a knock on the door and she could tell it was one of her maids.

"Come in Mikan-san." She answered and a beautiful brown-haired woman entered the study.

"I'm very sorry to disturb you Raiden-sama but we have a situation Mikazuchi-san's signature has disappeared from the shiunboku forest!" She alerted making Harumi's eyes widen.

"Get Kekio and Erika now." Harumi ordered.

"Hai Raiden-sama." Mikan bowed and quickly left to fulfil her orders

Earlier with Kagura

Kagura was in the training in the larger training area in the forest swing her sheathed sword practicing the wind-blade style from the scroll which Harumi provide for her. She had increased the gravity on herself as usual to intensify the training regimen. Salem had advised that every time she got used to the amount of gravity on her she should increase it for a bit. It was hard but it was very effect form of training.

As she swung her sword following the instructions so she got from the scrolls and a demonstration she got from one of the maids from Harumi's estate named Iroha. She had placed a good amount of purple flower petals and leaves in front of her and they moved along with her strong swings which made strong gusts of wind.

"Quite the beautiful display." A male voice came from behind her and Kagura jumped back and got into an offensive stance and so a man dressed in a black ninja outfit. "Jumpy aren't you." He commented in amusement.

"Who are you?" Kagura asked as her guard was high as her eyes narrowed at the stranger.

He suddenly appeared behind her much to her surprise. "Well beautiful you can call me your senpai." He eirly whisper close to her ear sending uncomfortable shivers down the girls spine

Kagura quickly attacked him with sword but he easily dodged it by flipping and landing a few feet away from her. She quickly turned to his direction but before Kagura knew it the stranger had grabbed her by neck and literally dragged her into the shadows. The resurfaced and the man smashed her body through three trees stopping at the fourth one. Kagura flinched in pain and struggled to breath as she felt her attacker's cold hand on her neck and his hollow black eyes borrowing into her. She looked around a bit and with the regular green coloured leaves trees she deduced they were no longer in the shiunboku forest.

She added extra weight to her left leg and gave him a hard kick to the stomach making him let go of her and he skidded back a bit. Kagura quickly went on the attack and delivered a barrage of swings to which the man was effortlessly dodging. In the next swing he ducked down and quickly swiped her leg but Kagura stabbed her sheathed blade in the ground and used it as a balance to send herself upwards to a tree and used it as leverage as decreased her weight and leaped towards her opponent in break neck speeds.

'Slashing form!' Kagura swung her weapon hard and the impact caused a trail of destruction for meters destroying the trees and ground making a cloud of dust.

When the dust cleared Kagura was wide eyed as the stranger was holding her sheathed blade by one hand. In a flash he had kicked in the stomach sending her crashing through multiple trees but she quickly got up clutching her stomach and she spat out some blood. But then he as restrained by shadowy tendrils.

"So, you're supposed to be her new student. I'm not so far." The man commented his voice holding disdain towards the swordswoman and out before he could move further rumble and remnants of broken trees come crashing down on him like meteor showers making a huge dust cloud once again.

The man come out of a dark dome unscathed. He then felt the gravity of the place increased heavily making it hard for him to move. Kagura was instantly in front of him getting ready to slice him but he noticed the posture was slightly different and he recognized it as the wind-cutter technique from the wind-blade style. The sword went past his body much to Kagura's surprised. The aftermath of the swing had cleanly cut down numerous trees.

Then he appeared beside her.

"Wow not bad little girl." He commented and Kagura thrusted he tip to his head but simply tilted his head avoiding the attack. "Slow". She swings again which he dodged again. "Sloppy." Kagura than backed away and stabbed the ground making 13 large pieces of the ground breaking apart into smaller pieces and sent them to him but A black katana with crimson kanji written on it spelling 'abysses appeared on his hand. He quickly deflected or cut her projectile attack.

The ninja appeared dashed to her but he was too fast for Kagura to keep up with and on instinct she used archenemy to guard herself blocking the ninja's sword strike but she was launched high to the air several meters away slamming hard into the hill side breaking the ground beneath her.

Kagura laid in the crater with glowing golden as she used her gravity magic to heighted her defenses but she still took a good amount of damage.

'Okay so he outclasses me physically and has a form of shadow magic which he can also use to make himself intangible.' She thought as she got up. Not to mention he was strong enough to tank her gravity: Earth attack. She didn't know why the man as attacking her as all she was getting was that he keeps on calling her the student of someone. Kagura couldn't sense him anywhere but she couldn't sense him before so she couldn't let her guard down.

"Okay let try this out. Quantum sensor." She closed her eyes feeling her sensory increase as she felt the gravitational fields, the weight, and the magic around and thanks to her high amount of magical energy this extended a great distance. She than opened her eyes. "Graviton's Slicing Wave!" She swung her sheathed blade making destructive wave of gravity combing it her wind-cutter technique to which the ninja was blown back by as long with a good proportion of the ground and boulder and trees. The technique itself also had a cutting effect.

"Not bad." The ninja thought as he began to increase his magic power causing the area to begin violently shaking and even darken a little.

'HE HAS THIS MUCH MAGICAL POWER!' She thought in fear as her hand began to shake on the handle of archenemy as she was contemplating on releasing it, she promised herself that she would only release it to deal the killing blow on Jellal one day but the situation was dire but she was also thinking on ways she could make a proper tactical retreat without releasing Archenemy.

When the man was about to anymore sudden moves, he stopped as well as the magical pressure and began clutching his head in pain and his chest began to glow dark purpled. Kagura was confused but she saw this as a chance to make a move but the ninja looked at her eyes his which previously looked hollow now were filled with pain and desperation.

"P-please warn H-Harumi-sensei. T-the dark trinity a-are dangerous m-making collaborations and making d-deals with dark g-guilds beyond the boulders and the o-o-oni d-dragons AHH!!" He was on his knees and his chest grew brighter than in a flesh he disappeared.

Kagura looked at the what with a lot of questions running through her head. Who was that man really, she only knew one Harumi here which begged the question what was his relationship with Raiden, if he was there to warn her why did he attack her. She sat down and let out a heavy sigh of relief and looked at Archenemy for a bit.

"Now where exactly am I?" She questioned as she wondered if she was at least still in the

In a streak of lightning Harumi had appeared besides Kagura. They the maids had finally managed to track her magical signature which they couldn't allocate but it was a good thing she was still in the Region.

"Raiden-san!" Kagura spoke in slight surprise but was a little annoyed the woman didn't show up sooner.

"Mikazuchi-san I'm glad to see you're alright." Harumi knelt beside her and looked around her. "What happened?"

Kagura than gave a detailed explanation on what happened and Harumi took in every detail on what happened.

"I see. Thank you for tell me this Mikazuchi-san." Harumi spoke as she helped Kagura stand. "Come on, let's go back and get your wounds treated." And with a purple flash the two had left the forest.