Hi, it's Akely again. Well, here's the second chap, with the infamous "small boy that accompany Kagura". A rather light chapter :D

Putxi-chan: Sadly, as the tag says, it's a rather light story. There are still some angst and lot of action coming up, though ;) Thank you for you support!

The dark side of the Moon

New Moon II

Where Kagura was most of the time there was not any sunlight to wake her up. No matter how close she was to the sun of the system, without, of course, burning the spaceship, light didn't seem to ever cross the solid glass panel of the windows. It was bright red-orange painted in black that simply never shone— perhaps space was too dense and just consumed the light.

Nonetheless, she loved exploring the universe, traveling from planet to planet. She lived for this lifestyle when she met all kinds of people, there were bad and good ones but more often than not, they were more complex than a 'yes' or a 'no'. It took her years to both develop the skills and gain the experience one needed when trying to understand how people and worlds worked. Back at fifteenth years old, she was totally clueless— why were some people richer than others, even if they work less and were also more stupid? Why did this gangster fight with the officer, other than because they were a gangster and a policeman? Now, she could answer them. Most of them, at least.

Add to that, now, she was the one teaching those knowledges. She had been just woken up from her bed by the small boy who had for the past minutes, was shaking her since calling her by name never worked anyway. He was still wearing yesterday's cloth; they had gotten back to the ship late and dropped on their bed for a good night sleep. Missions were quite tiring, especially one which included chasing an entire flock of sand-dragon-bird aliens. It was nothing she couldn't beat— yes— but she wasn't used to teaching someone yet, and protect the small boy at her side too.

Though he wasn't half-bad, really. "Had your wounds healed yet?" She asked, not sure on how fast he was supposed to heal— unlike her, he was not a pure-blooded warrior who, moreover, came from one of the most prestigious union within the tribe in the form of Umibouzu and Kouka's daughter. "If not, I have to disinfect them or else it could grow bad, you know."

The black haired boy shook his head, "It's fine, even someone like me heals overnight. Besides, you took most of the blows. It's not fair, I will learn to dodge if I had taken them," she laughed at the serious aura he was giving off. This child was always too uptight— hell so funny, and kind of adorable when flustered or embarrassed.

"You won't learn by getting hurt on a real mission right now, you will, later. Right now that's too young, you have to sharpen your senses, see how battles work and when you had mastered the basis, you will get your own share of experience." Didn't she make a magnificent teacher? "I don't want brats learning to fight through pain."

"I'm not a brat!"

"Yes you are," she pinched his nose which earned her a cry of disagreement. "Now let's eat breakfast, shall we? No—wait— we have to shower first." She had just noticed her dirtied arms, not to mention her beds' sheets and it wasn't a beautiful sight to see. First, there was a lot of dirt or rather, of red sand because the mission had taken place on Mars, then blood. Violet blood that had splashed as she had killed the whole flock of aliens with Kei, she did most of the job and looked pretty much like a blueberry taste Yato right now. As for Kei, he wasn't better since she had thrown him around so he would not take any blows and his skin had been scratched here and there. Of course, he did make some kills himself, you could see it on his torso covered of violet.

"What are we going to do today?" He had asked just before leaving the bedroom and going to his own private bathroom— he was enough of a big boy to clean himself.

With a smile, Kagura rose from her feet and pointed a disapproving finger at him. "It was the first time you were on a real mission so we'll rest. Though the next one is coming soon, we are going to Edo, you know, on the blue planet. The Earth." Then, as he had nodded Kagura enjoyed her long bath, taking her sweet time to wash her hair and skin.

After slipping a white Qipao on her fully grown body Kagura went to the kitchen. The ship was spacious and had a large one with everything you might need, even the latest technology of frying pan. As ridiculous as it may that's where she lived now. Well, most of the times. After all, not everyone had somewhere to park Cyber-Sadaharu 8888 (the name of her spaceship) there. Talking of Sadaharus, the giant white dog joined her quickly, both to greet her and demand foods.

"Good morning to you too, Sadaharu," she saluted before suddenly announcing the menu. "All right, today it will be…Pancakes!"

They were going to Earth in a matter of twenty-four to forty-eight hours, with a ship like hers; the best of the best. They might as well as getting used to eating Earthling dishes for they were going to stay longer than all of her previous missions. The summer festival lasted a week which was also the amount of time they were summoned for— and will be paid for, that meant a quite handsome reward. Not money, but resources points were enough for her to live decadently (more often than not, she had to buy a decadent amount of food to nourish an adult Yato, a giant Inukami and a Halfling). Besides, she spared some money and points; she didn't need a lot of dresses anymore for her puberty had come to its end a long time ago. Her closet was almost too small to contain everything (why the hell did she grow those heavy stuff on her chest?), and she hadn't bought any games lately.

Who would, when their life equaled to a video game's protagonist's one?

"Pancakes, pancakes, we'll go back to Earth!" she repeated in a sing-song voice, meanwhile the said pancakes were piling up akin to a growing mountain on saucers. Sadaharu must have understood her words, he was wagging his tail in an excited manner as if knowing he'd be soon able to put a certain silver perm's head within his mouth. "Strawberry pancakes~ Blueberry pancakes~ Banana pancakes!"

"She sings badly, doesn't she, Sadaharu?" Kei whispered conspiringly with the dog who, by the way, barked back as if agreeing.

Kagura turned slowly to face them with one of the creepiest smile they had ever seen on her rather cute face. "Ohhhh, is that so?" The fake-cheery voice of hers made the two males (because they were males, after all, from a different species) shiver, certainly, it didn't mean anything good to them. "No pancakes for you two then! Strawberry, blueberry, and banana pancakes are all mine, mine you hear? That shall teach you who the captain is, in this ship."

Immediately, the two ran up at her with shining, grossly cute eyes that pressed her to forget her last statement and Kagura chortled, because she knew she couldn't win against them; anyway. When they all sat down (even Sadaharu got his own chair; albeit one specifically made for him) and ravaged the sweet breakfast, Kei inquired about the Earth and what they were supposed to do there.

"Well, the tax-rob— I mean their police, the Shinsengumi, needed someone to take care of remaining rebels, you know. Since the Shoguness had been put well, on her rightful rank, there has been a lot of problems with people wanting her title, people that thought she didn't deserve it and so on," Gin-chan had talked about it on a long paragraph, in one of his letters. That never happened before, Gin-chan writing a lot! Of Soyo-chan getting all the hard work because she was young, she was a woman, formerly a little rich and naïve princess that suddenly got the power and people weren't just happy with the course of the event. "We're here to help them because people always get excited in the summer festival."

She licked the remaining cream on the side of her mouth and, with a silly grin, she changed of subject. "There will be candy apples there and lot of good things to eat."

"Is that because Earthlings are weak that you are so relaxed about this request?"

"On the contrary, they are strong so I know that they won't need a lot of our help. We'll be extras for once, besides I wouldn't miss the chance to visit Earth again. I had told you, right? It's my home, here, on this blue planet." Dreamily, she reminisces the Yorozuya days where they messed everything up every time, or when they crossed the Shinsengumi's path as if fate itself pushed them to do so. Of course, there were sadder memories that could be resumed in a few words; crows, immortal and hate. Deep hate of Utsuro to himself and his seemingly never-ending life, deep hate for the warrior races that were just too strong for humans to bear in mind. "We won't be very well welcomed, I think. We'll take our cloak just in case, the big ones because they might remember Kamui's red hair. I have the same tint as his and promise, we really don't need people pursuing and burning us to death by sunlight." She sounded so serious a minute, with her face all dull— so rarely dull— though in a flashlight, she looked very much like the reckless girl she had always been. "And Sukonbu— we need sukonbu."

"What is that again?"

"Food. My favorite!" She cheered again and got up to wash up the saucers has been just used. Fortunately for Kagura, she had a dishwasher and so, never had to do many efforts in keeping the ship clean. Sometimes Kei helped her if the machine ever broke.

"Last time you said your favorite was Tangyuan—" he made her notice, "And the last-last time it was the spicy giant sheep meat. And the last-last-last—"

"Oh fine, tight-assed brat," she was pouting as her arms were crossed over her chest and her head turned to the opposite direction of his stare. "It's my favorite from Earth. Happy?"

"Old lady like you," he remarked once again, "Will never get married if you continue to talk and act like a boor." After wiping out any remaining puff of cream from his face, Kei wore a teasing grin at his mentor and stuck his tongue at her. "Plus my royal ass has nothing to do with you, pedo!"

"What?!" A vein had just popped on Kagura's forehead, just as quickly as her hand when it caught one of the infamous highly advanced technology frying pan and tried to smack it against his face. Kei dodged, being advantaged by his height. His legs may be short (for now) but he could run fast, fast enough to hop on Sadaharu and escape more expensive frying pans used as lethal projectiles. "I'm not an old lady, I'm only twenty you tiny idiot!" She yelled louder, only making Kei laugh even more.

"That's what you say!"

"Hey, for your information I am a very attractive young woman. I could get any man I want and," she stretched across the table to catch a fork and throw right beside the boy— the iron had just caressed his cheeks— Kagura started to cry from hilarity as Sadaharu threw out Kei from his back. "Who's interested in who? You're light-years too far to ever catch my fancy, you should be grateful since I still accepted you."

Kei glared at the dog and murmured angrily, "Traitor." It was as if the bro-code going on between has just been broken. It happened frequently, though, Kagura was too strong and she could be really frightening and creative when it came to punishments. "It's not true, you accepted me because I'm cute and you liked me. That's what you said?"

"Oho, are you trying to flirt with me?" She winked at him and sighed, the kitchen was a mess again. She'll get both Kei and Sadaharu to tidy the room up as there were no reasons for them to escape the boring task. What with she and being an old lady, anyway? "I liked the look of your eyes. The others were very admiring towards me but you were the only one honest and motivated. I didn't want to drag a fan every day around space."

"So I'm not cute?" He was picking up the 'weapons' constituted of a fork and lot of flying pans (he never used this word this many times in such a limited amount of time, not even in his mind talking) and upon extending them to Kagura for he was too small to reach the shelf, hugged her.

"Hmm, perhaps you're cute. Yup, yup, maybe you'll be able to ask out this Kagura-sama on a date, one day. For now," she invited her not so loyal Sadaharu to join in, which the canine gladly did "It's me who take you two out! Before reaching Earth there's a space mall not far, how about going there? We need to buy stuff anyway, your pants' too short."

"Can I get…What do they call it again? Ice-Scream?"

"That's 'Ice cream', but sure, why not?"

Kei only crawled closer to his mentor and laughed. He liked doing missions with her, or training, because he'll learn more about his future job and plenty of other knowledge he deemed to be of his use. But the time where he was at the happiest was when they just finished one, and after discovering thirty-six new facts or technics, Kagura would take him out and they'd have fun together with Sadaharu. Kagura knew so— because Kei never smiled when they are out on a job, but he did smile a lot when it was this kind of trivial activity.

And she laughed and smiled with him.