"A month after you left, we received a letter. Asking for Yanagi and Fuujin. Of course, our answer was no, and for a while after that it was peaceful. Then, hestarted to send out his men."
"Who's he?" Fuuko interrupted.
"We do not know, neither does the letter states, but what ever few glimpses I manage to get from Eikai reveals a tall man, but he's always covered by the shadows."
"Few? What do you mean by few?"
"There's something preventing me from finding out who he is. I haven't managed to get more than one glimpse at a time."
"Are his men tough?"
"Yes, very. There were many times where they were all terribly injured."
"Why do they want the Fuujin?"
Kagerou looked uncomfortable as she shifted in her position.
"Raijin, and Fuujin, they're similar madougus. They're linked in a way."
"I already know that."
"Yes, but there is more to it. When the two oppose each other and both falls, a new, superior madougu will rise."
Silence filled the room. Uncomfortable, unwanted silence.
"What madougu?" Fuuko finally croaked out.
"It can raise storms. Dozens of terrible, destructive storms at a time. It controls the weather. It summons the weather elements. The Bofujin."
"It's a very silly name for a madougu isn't it?" she laughed.
"It's no laughing matter! The destruction it can cause; Japan can be gone within days if that madougu is used!"
"I understand. What does this... Bofujin have to do with Fuujin, and Raijin?"
"They have to be fused together."
"How can they do that?"
"With a natural power. Like Recca, Kurei and Yanagi."
"So that's why they want Yanagi?"
"Yes, as she is the easiest to get to. She just has to touch the two and Bofujin will form."
"Why don't you destroy Fuujin then? And Raijin?"
"They have Raijin. We can't destroy it. As both you, and Raiha, have been defeated, you have both completed the first part of the prophecy. Now both Fuujin and Raijin remain as they are, or Bofujin is created. Nothing else can interfere with that."
Silence domineered again in the room. Questions and answers becoming harder to ask and response.
Fuuko stared at the cherry wood table. Gazing at every grain in the wood. If she had just won the fight...
"It's not your fault. It isn't anyone's fault."
"I shouldn't have jumped at the chance. I should have practiced more. I could have prevented all this."
Kagerou sympathized with the girl in front of her. She had felt that very same guilt before. The heart-wrenching, dismal guilt.
Kagerou reached out to place a comforting arm on her, but Fuuko stood up.
"I have to go now. I'll see you later Kagerou-san."
Fuuko walked as fast and inconspicuously as she could out of the room. The guilt was literally pounding her to the ground. It was all her fault! If she had just stopped the fight. If she had just postponed it a year later. So many 'If's, yet none that she had followed. All her fault.
She stopped walking when she found herself in the backyard. Recca was there, Yanagi by his side, both talking quietly with Kurei and Neon . Kaoru was standing beside with Joker, expressionless, looking into some far-away space. Domon and Ganko were missing, and so was Mikagami.
A twinge of longing went through her as she wished that she too could have been with them. For them to see her, to know that she was with them.
Distant footsteps caught her attention as she turned and say Tokiya approaching; that was, before he stopped and turned to her direction. He remained there, staring at her, or through her.
'What's with him?'
Her wonderings stopped however, when a burning sensation passed through her again. She looked down to see what it was. An arrow. Or a glowing arrow, to be precise.
