The air rushed past her ears as she plummeted toward the ground. She loved this feeling, the feeling of euphoria and freedom that came from free falling. It was in moments like this that she understood why humans often threw themselves to their deaths off of buildings and cliffs.
As the ground grew closer, she turned so she was diving through the air headfirst, punching through dense wind to reach her final destination, a vast forest spread across the landscape.
A hundred feet above the trees, a strong gust of wind hit the woman, changing the course of her descent. Instead of falling into the forest and becoming a bloody wreck of pulverized flesh and snapped bones as nature intended, she followed the strip of air over the forest and down into the trees, landing on the mast covered ground in a semi-graceful heap. Standing up and grumbling, she made her way into the forest.
***
Scarlet flecked molten silver eyes with 150 times better vision than a hawk, watched the woman as she plummeted off the cliff and toward the forest below. They remained trained on her even after she disappeared into the relative safety of the tree cover.
The young lady who had been tailing her silently slid out of the cover of the clouds she had been hiding behind. Gliding on outstretched wings, she slowly descended. Landing in a spot a good mile from her target, naively assuming that it was far enough, she followed.
***
Deep inside the Unnamed Forest the young winged female crept through the brush, tailing her mark. The hours slid by and, unnoticed by the girl, she was so absorbed the in trail that she failed to notice the impending sunset.
The young woman was shaken out of her concentration when her foot sank into a soggy patch of ground with a slurp. Startled, she tugged her foot out of the bog and jumped back, ready for a fight. It took her a moment to realize that her mark had been playing with her and she hadn't noticed. At least not until she had reached the bog.
The young woman sighed and turned, facing the woman she had been tailing, one Arashi Yui. Who was currently sitting on an overturned tree behind her, gazing at her with amusement.
"If I had been your enemy, you would be dead right now. Have you gotten sloppy in your old age Ayane?" Yui's stern expression showed disapproval, but a twitch of her lip gave away a smile.
The woman, Ayane, chose to ignore this comment, and instead, flounced across to Yui and sat down next to her in a huff. "You're a very hard person to get a hold of you know." Ayane spoke with a pout. "It took me four whole years to find you. That's not very good for morale you know!
Yui rolled her eyes and gazed at her companion. "Oh suck it up, you'll live, The Makai is a big place you know. Now, what is so urgent that you spent four whole years looking for me for?"
"Well." A mischievous smile slid onto Ayane's features. "You know that tournament……?"
***
Somewhere in the human world, three boys shivered.