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Kazuko stared up at the sky. Its was becoming dark now that the firey sun was setting. She looked behind her at the dark silhoutes of trees and many various shrubs.
I never thought my mission would have landed me here, of all places.
With one leap to the sky, she took off to the trees, half flying, half jumping, sword brushing up against her back with every movement.

Something blinked into existence out of the corner of her eye. She looked into the slihoutted abyss and a small light flickered about. Kazuko stopped on a nearby tree branch, placing her hand gently on the tree's rough bark to maintan a balance.
She pondered. Should she check it out? People would surely be there, it wasn't just some random fire. Looking up at the indigo sky with the stars reappearing after a day of rest, she closed her eyes.
Suddenly she leaped into the air towards the fire and found a young man sitting there with a harness nearby. Kazuko just stood in a high up tree a little way away. She liked to keep her distance.

Tetsu began his daily training session with his teacher at the temple. He drew his sword and began clashing blades at fairly high speeds. "Start out slow and keep getting faster until you can no longer keep up" was what he was told in the first session. He followed this and found it to be very effective for fighting different levels of skill. "So, how fast do you think we can get today master?" he asked, hoping they would progress even farther then yesturday, even though he took a blow from it. "At least as far as last time but If I wound you it may not end up as nice." he said, picking up the pace of the battle.

She glided up the walkway with grim determination.
Through her entire journey it felt like something was missing, like she was forgetting something, through all of her clouded, and confused thoughts only one thing made sinse; she was to kill the Empress Lyra.
Despite her long, cold slumber in the world of the dead her body, sheathed in black leather, was as limber as ever. Her amber eyes slid over the crowd off handedly, judging none as a potential threat she continued up the winding walkway. The best way to describe the way she felt about her mission was numb. She no longer cared about whether she lived, or died. It mattered not, it was as if feeling did not exist in her own pirvate world. This animated prison that was her body.
As she finally reached the last stretch, a column of soldiers spread out before her purposefully. At last they had guessed her true morbid intentions, and had made their move to stop her in her tracks... Or try at least. Any ordinary person would have been overwhelmed by the raw power of their numbers. Not Shavas. Even the most talented swordsman would fall before this stretch of clinking metal. Not Shavas. The sheer force of her unleashed power shredded the front line to pieces in mere moments, staining the white cobblestone red before she had even begun to use the full extent of her ability. The panicked yells brought forth a stream of yet more soldiers, pouring out of the barracks with fierce determination to eliminate their prey. Pandemonium broke out as soldiers charged at her, weapons raised, screaming in fury. She focused her magic into a blade of sorts, and swept it around herself in a circle, cutting the advancing men in half, a wet thump directly in front of her brought her gaze to the for, in time to see the torso of a young man roll limply to her feet. For a moment she gazed into the depts of those eyes clouded with the grey film of death. She had swiftly cut down over a third of the men. The remaining were hesitant to attack her directly, they held back as if in wait for some type of deliverance, while still presenting enough of a threat to stop her from escaping easily. A ringing whistle cut through the air, warning her a few split seconds before the blast of power reached its victim. She threw up a powerful sheild, and winced as the bolt of magic shattered on impact with the invisible wall.
Deliverance had arrived. A tall, black haired mage was bearing down on her with a grimace so fierce it would have turned her knees to jelly in her past life. The soldiers gave even more ground, forming a circle aroung the two mages preparing for battle. Shavas gathered her will, mentally preparing herself unleash an onslaught of devastating distruction. She never got the chance, a heavy clought to the back of her head sent her sprawling to the ground, she saw strings of blood dripping from her chin. The stunning pain of the blow had almost knocked her senseless. Having been preparing for a battle of magic the physical attack had caught her completely by surprise. The blood soaked ground swam before her eyes, as she blinked furiously, trying to clear her vision. Powerful hands gripped her arms, and a heavy boot on the small of her back sent her pitching foreward into the ground with a grunt. As she was dragged to her feet by a few burly soldiers, she spotted the youth who had dealt her the blow holding the dented remains of a lance pommel in his fist. He beamed with pride as his superiors clapped him on the back. Shavas's eyes narrowed, The dizziness, and fatigue gone for the time being. She pushed her magic foreward with such force that it made the surrounding commanders fall to their knees. The perpetraitor, however, had no such luck. He stared with horrifyed fascination at the melon sized hole in his chest for a few split seconds before his body's internal pressure caused his viscera to spill out of the hole onto the ground before her.
That personal battle won, she turned to face the mage, only to be met with a ringing blow to the head that sent her to her hands and knees groaning with pain. With grim determination she unleashed a firey infurno that engulfed the mage, and his stallion, the dying screams of man and beast melted together in a long horrifying cry before the blaze died out and all that was left of that troublesome mage was an oily smudge in the center of the street. She had finally tired of this pointless battle, and without pause unleashed her power in a great blast that stripped flesh from bone, and cleared her way to the castle.
Those fleeting impressiongs of emotion were gone along with the battle.
The walkway was stained with blood and reeked from the contents of ruptured organs. As she walked up into the castle she vaguely noted that red suited the place much better than that sparkling white. Or at least it would, once she was through with what she had come to do.

A distant commotion caught her attention.
Now that most of the guards had been disposed of there was nothing standing between her and the empress. Now if only she could figure out where to find the damn throne room. A simple tracer spell, conjured with a few muttered phrases and an offhand twitch of her wrist, solved that minor issue, and she resigned herself to following the indigo ball of flame.
The few palace attendants she saw didn't notice just one more stranger wandering through the halls. A few choice spectators were a bit shocked to discover a tall red-haired woman in unseemly black leather striding boldly through the halls, and a few even moved to get help. A twist of their memory fixed that. It was a difficult spell to learn, but nce you got the knack it was quite simple. She left about a dozen slack jawed personnel wandering throughvthe halls aimlessly. The real trouble came when she unexpectedly encountered another mage. As a fellow mage, she could always tell when someone had the gift. By his surprised expression, she could tell he knew to. Not giving him time to act, she quickly pinched her magic around a few main arteries, and watched as the blood drained from his face. She shoved her power into his mouth as a gag, when he parted his lips to cry out in agony. The pitiful man toppled over onto the cold marble floor, his life gone. She hefted his body over her shoulder, and layed him on the bed, pulling the covers up to his chin. Innocent minded palace officials would readily accept the excuse that he died in his sleep, unwilling to admit the evils that lurk deep within the human soul.
She retracted her power from his motionless body and used a thread of it to lock the door behind herself. A nearbye maid winked at her warmly, probably assumng she was his lover. As if she, Shavas Yamagata, would ever have anything to do with a man as weak as that mage. Much less sleep with him, the very idea was so preposturous that she had to restrain herself from killing the women on the spot for her narrow minded ideals.
During the fuss she had lost sight of the tracer but the fait aura of magic it left in its wake was fresh enough that she had no problems following it.
Shavas vaguely wondered where Tsuki had taken off too. She was probably off causing mayhem somewhere in the palace...

*ding, Kado appears once again*

Getting impatient, Kado paced back in forth throughout the courtyard. He had been expecting word y now from someone on the prgress of the whole situatiion at hand. sitting down on the ground near a tree he decided it best to further occupy his time by relaxing which he has not done in a very very long time.

Shavas lurched with the wave of energy that shook the castle, and grabbed ahold of a beatifully ebroidered tapestry to keep her balance, it tore down the middle, She shoved it off to the side sorrowfully.
This part of the palace was empty, and her footsteps echoed in the halls,
She was following the dark aura of shadow magic that she had come to recognize as Tsuki. Imagine her surprise when it seemed as though her companion had suddenly split into two distinct entites, although one was not quite as concentrated as the other, indicating that the larger, more distinct aura would have to be Tsuki.
As she rounded the last corner she saw Tsuki facing another woman looking completely shocked, she also noticed that the younger disturbingly familiar woman had her hands encircling the shadow mage's neck with what looked like deadly intentions.
With a sudden burst of rage, she held her hands out before her, Shavas's mind was full of half finished threads of thought, but they came and left to fast for her to grasp any of them, so she surrendered to the one thing that made sense to her. Her magic.
Her eyes glazed over as she reached deep into the pool of magic that was always there, just inside her thoughts. A faint buzzing sound filled her ears, as she summoned the power forth, and allowed it to form in her outstretched hands, with a cry she unleashed the ball of fire towards the younger Shadow mage. In the brief second after it left her hands, some part of it tryed to call it back with nothing short of complete anguish Ankhe No, stop! but it was soon pushed to some deep, dusty corner of her mind like all the rest, something around her neck glowed red hot with a savage bloodlust, and she oblidged by once again delving deep into that pool of magic.