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"Wolves eat Rabbits."

The rabbit pulled out another small cup, pouring water and passing it to Lumine, since she had lost her cup to the curious Hanari, who listened intently to her words, both confused and skeptical. The Shinigami nibbled the peach, brightening up at its sweet taste. The rabbit was equally skeptic towards the shingami. 

She had fought many in her long age, and she had lived this long only because she never trusted them. The rabbit still sat down by the two, as Hanari had already sat leaning on her scythe. "It sounds like you knew a very nice wolf, the only one I know brooms me out of her garden, though to be fair, I probably shouldn't have tried to stolen some carrots the first time I met her."
"Of corse she would broom you out, she might be afraid of you stealing her food." The shinigami sipped the water.
"Oh really?"
"I am just sayin' " The shinigami hid behind her peach.
"Anyway... I guess you may be able to tame this wolf, "Ochiba said,"If anything, because of how this wolf you have already tamed at another time."
Hanari looked curious as if she was missing a joke here.

"Well Yeah, but now I can't even get very close... Seriously, sometimes she lets me close enough to knock the door and then blows the door open to blast me with danmaku." Ochiba sipped some water," Other, a knife comes flying from  the window. And I gotta skiddadle , but she seriously gives me no chance to apologize." 
"She is being skeptic I suppose..." Muttered the Shinigami.
" Bah, It's kinda fun to pester her anyway."

The rabbit nodded to Lumine pausing before drinking some more water," You have come  this far picking this right? So do what you want to do. If your make a mistake it's only the sentient thing to do, and at least you will have it in your heart you did what your heart told you."
Hanari looked from Lumine to  Ochiba,"Private jokes  are rude y'know?... What or who Are you guys talking about?" 
Ochiba sipped water,"Matters of the elders."
"I doubt it. The celestial's life span is a drop on the ocean your lengthy life has been." She  hid behind the past few bites of her peach while the rabbit turned a dark shade of red.

"It has kept you alive right? So it can't be that wrong to follow it." Ochiba said, grumbling a bit later about her age.

"Well,...I can sort of tell I suppose. It comes with the job.... The rabbit... is more than a couple centuries old... Mhm, and her soul is even older." Hanari said, "And our souls? ... Well yours is a couple cycles into Samsara. Maybe six or seven reincarnations? For at least, mh, say a seven hundred old soul?I know mine is five or six. "

Ochiba responded," I am about a thousand years old... nah, maybe closer to 950 years? ... I lost count long ago." The Rabbit said sullenly,"My master died long before the spellcard system, and when he found me, I was a few centuries old already."
"wow, that is old..."
"Yes, same goes for you kiddo, you are how old? Four Five years? We are polar opposites, neither is any good. Why do you think the shinigami have come after me? I am no sinner, they simply think I have lived for too long."
"I can see why they'd think that, but you aren't hurting anyone." the shinigami looked to the celestial,"And you are a very curious girl aren't you?"

Ochiba listened to the two younger souls speak. Like an old lady, she had the patience of a statue when need be. Hanari watched Lumine,"Yes, I think your soul may be a tad older than mine. By the way, most souls are really old! Making a soul is tough, so most souls have been around for eternity, since samsara stood, if not earlier."

She has quite a knowledge for a youngling like herself. Part came with the job of carrying a scythe, the rest from some, perhaps instinctual, part of her heart and mind. She had proceeded to pondering on the last question, pensively swirling the water and watching the moon's reflection on its clear surface.

Still deep in thought, the shinigami responded slowly. "When I woke up, I knew what I was, and what the rive that flowed next to me was... There wasn't much more aside from that. I do have vague visions, sometimes... Akira-sama said they will fade as I age. She says that past lives are a weigh a new being must not carry, because doing so will prevent the new being from living their own will and wish."
"Akira? That is not the usual, 'Shikieiki-sama' I hear." Ochiba interrupted, having let Hanari take the lead.
"Ah, that is because Akira-sama not long ago turned into a real Yama. She trained for many years apparently! Her a shinigami, Mizuki-sama, was given a different assignment, so I took her place."
"Makes you wonder how many of you are teeming in Gensokyo."
"Well, it's Onozuka-sama, Yamaxanadu-Sama, Hijou-sama... And there is a Shepard... Well they call her that, I only vaguely hear her name being Tebi-something. I have not met her personally, but those are the ones that I know working for hell in Gensokyo. Plus the occasional Shinigami looking for celestials."

Hanari sipped some water,"But... What I meant to get at is that I do have vivid dreams, which I think are my past life..."

"Death has been a large institution for quite a time, there is alot of workers in the work sector." The Shinigami nodded.


Hanari watched Lumine sketch on the sand, drawing back to her thoughts as she was asked what her dreams involved. "...Well, I see the mountain a lot, its what I see most vividly, since I recognize it. Mh, there is also a nice spring, with a very big waterfall, I think it is in the Mountian too. I have seen people..." the shinigami looked a bit to the side,"But faces are hard to remember, too many details get blurred from the transition of the dream world to the reaal world..."

Hanari leaned over to see Lumine's drawing on the soil,"Yes, odd being I have never been to the mountain. I should go some day..."

"Ah? You are leaving mh... "Ochiba took the cup,"Alright... Take care. I will keep this Shinigami in my sight." The rabbit stood, however, packing the thermo and cup.

"Of course!" Hanari sprang up,"I swore to take soul remember?! And I never break a promise!" She had a hand on her scythe's shaft, but she quickly relaxed,"But... That will be when the sun rises... Tonight I really don't feel like fighting..."
Ochiba pushed her glasses,"Good puppy. I will head home as well, it's late."
Hanari gave a small bow, unstabbing her scythe, pushing it with the arch of her foot so it swung over and rested on her shoulder, balanced by her hand. "Thank you."
With a pinkish red flash that ended with danmaku looking sakura petals of the same color, the shinigami was gone.

Ochiba stood there, looking to Lumine,"I suppose the answer was not what you expected?...."

Ochiba helplessly watched, her heart torn by watching the pain in Lumine's face. When the assault on the earth begun, Ochiba felt quite lucky that her years had solidly planted her on the ground, and though her balance was nearly thrown off, the old rabbit endured.

Finally she moved to Lumine quickly sliding to her knees infront of her. The rabbit , knowing how short she was, was clear on her, leaning up, when she took Lumine's face between her hands," Lumine! Listen to me!"

The old youkai stared right into the poor icy blue eyes,"Listen to me! It happens, Death happens. To all of us, it will happen. If your friends left you, it was because of their time, and I can assure you it pained them just as much to leave them. The pain of losing a loved one is far from pleasant, but if you continue to question why their souls will never find rest. Realizing one is dead is just as painful as holding their hands while they leave you!" Ochiba almost started to tear up to. She had long thought she had gotten over her own Master's death, but thinking of it out loud like this once more stabbed into the rabbit's heart. "Don't give them a reason to become pained souls. It hurts, but most of the time, its best to let them move on."

The rabbit leaned over and hugged Lumine,slipping her smaller arms around under the celestial's arm, and squeezing a bit, and burying her face into Lumine. This would probably one of the only times Ochiba looked and felt like a little rabbit, like back when her Master found her, and in his amazement, took her into his home, "I will not lie and tell you the pain will leave you completly, but I assure you, when the time comes, you will smile to remember them. But to do that, you have to stop seeing them leaving as someone's fault,.. or else you will always blame someone for something that is natural."

Ochiba wrapped her arms around Lumine returning the gesture. She patted and rubber her back in an attempt to subdue her a bit. The youkai's glasses had slipped to the tip of her nose, distorting her vision over their frame, but she ignored it.

"We all will follow them once we complete our mission in this plane, Lumine, they will be waiting for you, and guarding you through all your adventures. They would want you to be happy, and when you are sad they will be sad too," Ochiba responded," Death is not a cruel thing, it is a relieve to the old like myself, and to the sick as well. It is an end to the pain of the afflicted, but the start of the pain for those who loved them... Ending pain, to replace it with another one. For every action there is an equal reaction and that is the balance of the world. Cruel as it may be, it has worked for the eons we have existed as beings."

"Because your loved ones took some of your happiness with them, to light their way to their next life," Ochiba said, she had always thought of it like that. "You need to make your own happiness to make up for the one you gave them, but you have to live our life in order to do that"

"That wall that separates the living from the dead, you are never meant to cross," the rabbit said,still hugging Lumine," It is meant to be impossible to breach... Unless you join the dead, but that would sadden your friends."

It most certainly would have sadden Maemi, who had given her life thinking of protecting Lumine. It would have sadden Seijin, who always sought the well being of both her adopted daughters; the crow and the celestial alike. And now, it would also sadden the old rabbit , who wanted to help the tortured girl that seemed like a stray child to her. "When you smile, they smile too, because the time they spent with you in life has not been forgotten."