Even though night had fallen, the Oppufurikku festival was still in full swing. The children’s games had slowly been replaced with more adult entertainment; ranging from gambling to erotic dancers and even a few kechi, who had been let out of the pleasure quarters, but were still trying to gain customers in the balmy summer evening.

Rei had gone out for the evening and was now chewing on a cluster of honeyed rice-wine infused ants and watching an impressive display of aerial silks.

A group of acrobats, tied with ropes danced and whirled high above the streets, their moves controlled by another group of entertainers that held the ropes, puppeteering their charges.

The criers had announced it as a performance of ‘The Lament of the Damselfly’, which was a common enough play to see performed, but in this form Rei could make little sense of it. Like most everyone in the Empire, she knew the story, but she could barely keep up with which of the lithe bodies was which of the over five hundred characters that starred in the full story.

Still, she enjoyed the bodies moving suggestively above her.

“Thought I might find you here,” a familiar voice said behind her, “Could have left a message, honey.”

Rei looked over her shoulder and smiled at Nana, pleased to see that her senior had decided to dress properly for the festival. A thin red silk dress that barely covered her thigh, but did cover her muscular arms in voluminous sleeves that danced with every move she made.

She had decided to carry the swords that signified her Giya rank, but the face paint she wore meant little to Rei. A band of green diamonds above her eyes and a similar band of blue ones under them.

“Who are you today,” Rei asked. Her disguise was clear enough as she wore the simple white silk common to children and the fiery teardrops that signified her as an adult, but still wandering, orphan “A Giya from the Muminoshi domain,” Nana shrugged, “Somebody that probably won’t be recognized this far south.”

Rei nodded. Muminoshi was on the other side of the country and, if possible, even more isolationist than the rest of the country.

“How’s the festival?” Nana asked, already looking for something to entertain herself with.

Rei swallowed a mouthful of ants before answering.

“I feel like it was more fun when I was little.”

She shrugged at her own words, then gestured to the acrobats above them, “Besides. I can’t make wings or stings of this.”

“Well…” Nana, who had some knowledge of the art form, started, about to explain, when she suddenly noticed something else above them. A barely perceptible shadow on the roof.

The shadow threw one, two, three fireflies into the air, then disappeared.

“...Well?” Rei pressed, eager to find out what was happening above her.

“Some other time,” Nana sighed, “I suddenly have a meeting. With me.”

Rei reluctantly pulled away from the acrobats, following her senior into of the many alleyways and throwing a venomous glance at some passing by pedestrians who were claiming a little too loud that she and Nana were young lovers look for privacy.

A stranger to Rei, but obviously not to Nana, was waiting for them. A soaked stranger that looked exhausted. They must have been in the water, because their clothes still squelched with the sound of water trying to escape the linen.

“Bad trip?” Nana asked, smiling softly.

“Don’t want to talk about it,” Kagami replied and retrieved a piece of parchment from their clothes. It was miraculously dry.

“This is what you wanted,” they continued, unfurling the paper to show the contents. Nana barely had a glimpse before Kagami pulled it back and rolled it back in her clothes.

“Payment up front.”

“Of course,” Nana said, “A fist, right?”

“I had some unforeseen expenses, “I’ll be needing two fists.”

Nana sighed and a few seconds of heated haggling followed. In the end they settled on one and half fist.

Kagami spat in the dirt, then nodded, “Fine. Go get the marubu, but I want to keep your little buddy here while I wait. Don’t want you trying anything stupid.”

“Of course you don’t,” Nana said, her tone yielding, “Mushi. Show the spider your place. I’d rather not walk into a web.”

Rei nodded, then mouthed a word to Nana, raising her eyebrows in inquiry.

‘Alive?’ she wanted to know

Nana nodded almost imperceptibly, shifted her blades till they were comforted, then headed to the city gates to get the valuables.

Rei sighed, gestured for Kagami to follow her.

Kagami nodded and a moment later had disappeared back to the roofs.

Nana rolled her eyes at the unnecessary display of skill and picked up her pace.

None of them noticed the shadows moving around them…

Nana quietly dropped herself into the pleasant warm water, holding the branch she had planted in the dirt as a marker.

With the water flowing around her bare legs, she felt with her foot until she found a sharp stick, firmly embedded in the wet sand. She knelt down, making sure not to cut herself on the branch, then pushed her hands into the sand until she felt the odd sticky sensation of forcing your hands into a marubu.

She clutched her hand tightly until she had as much as she wanted, ripped it free and tossed it onto the shore. She did it again, then, against her better judgment, took a third. It wasn’t hers, but she felt the merchant could miss a little more. In fact, she justified to herself, his taxes were what financed her salary, so she might as well take a bonus for keeping him and his family safe from another civil war, or worse, foreign predation.

She pulled herself out of the river, glad that the summer heat would dry her quickly, and collected the three marubu, which she put in the hidden recesses of her clothes. She stretched out, yawned, and headed back for the city.

“Maybe a massage,” she muttered to herself.

She had barely left the riverbed when she heard the sound of something heavy dropping into the water, followed by a hissed instruction to keep quiet.

“Well then,” she said to herself, turned on her heel and returned to the river.

Two shadows, one man and one generously endowed woman, were on the edge of the river. The man was in the water, looking for the marubu that Nana had hidden there. The woman just spurred him on to look faster, hissing as she did.

“You won’t find it,” Nana drawled, stretching again, seeming casual, but quickly sizing them up to see if they were carrying weapons. They seemed to have none.

The woman, a haggard looking creature, with wild hair that looked like it hadn’t seen a comb since it grew in, laughed.

“Stop me, girly,” she challenged Nana, then turned to her man, “Girin, keep looking.”

Girin continued rummaging through the mud, cursing when he pushed his hand firmly against the sharp stick that Nana had left there.

“That’s what you get,” Nana sighed, putting her hand on her blade’s hilt, “Come on, you two, go back to the city and get a job.”

The woman laughed again, snapping her fingers.

“Get her!” she called at the three shadows that appeared from behind the trees.

“Ah,” was the only dejected thing Nana had to say in response. She turned to face her opponents.

She wasn’t impressed with what she saw. They were typical street urchins who’d grown up to be little more than hired muscle. And, as far as Nana could tell by their combat stances, not very talented ones.

The first came at her, armed with a heavy stone axe that he swung at her head. Nana lazily sidestepped the weapon, then glanced to her side where the second was coming at her. This one was armed with the more common banditry weapon, the sickle. Again she simple stepped away from the strike,

half drew her long blade to catch his weapon on hers, then looked around for the third opponent.

They had disappeared, which Nana paid little heed. She dodged another clumsy swing of the axe and removed the short blade from her belt. She grabbed the sheath in her left hand, brought it to her chest and took the hilt in her right, now prepared to defend herself properly.

“You can still run,” she said calmly.

Axe came at her again and she caught his weapon on the still sheathed blade. The impact ring through her arm, but it was not forceful enough to bother her. She waited for him to pull her axe back, then sprang to life.

She dropped to one knee, drew the blade and cut it through his ankle. While kneeling, she turned on her axle and rose to her feet just in time to see sickle coming at her again. In what was still the same motion, she slammed the short blade back in its sheath, the sound of the cross guard against the container meant as a warning.

Sickle was hesitant to continue the act now that he had seen his ally stumble back with a deep gash in his leg. He lunged and feinted a few times at Nana, before screaming a proper challenge. He grabbed his weapon in two hands and brought it down with a manic overhead swing.

Nana simply took a step back and felt the back sweep pull through her hair.

“Going to surrender?” she asked, continuing her backwards walk as he continued his attempted assault.

“Nnrgh!” was the answer.

She tutted at him, as if she were a disappointed teacher, then suddenly held her ground when the sickle came from her side. She bared a slice of the black chitin blade and felt the impact of the weapon against hers, her sword cutting into the handle of his sickle.

Frustrated that he was having so much trouble with her, he pulled his weapon back and brought it up for an overhead strike. It’s what Nana was waiting for. She lowered her blade and raised her left foot a little of the ground. Right when his weapon came down, her foot returned to the sand, her other leg going up in a graceful kick. Her foot connected with the damaged wood of the sickle and a moment later the weapon’s blade embedded in a nearby tree.

He stared in wonder at the foot that still hung above him. She brought it down on her shoulder, sending him crumbling to the floor.

She lazily brought her foot down to the floor and wiggled her fingers.

“Are we done?” she demanded, “This is clearly a waste of my time.”

“Please!” he screamed, “My wife would kill me if I came home dead!”

For a brief moment Nana was amused by the odd statement, then realized it was meant to be inane on purpose. She turned her head just in time to see the third opponent coming at her.

It was a woman, dressed in wide clothes that swished as she came at her. She held her weapon behind her, her arms parallel behind her.

Nana turned around, kicked the groveling man’s nose with her heel, then prepared to defend herself against the woman that charged at her and…

...Suddenly stopped.

She brought her weapon to bear, which to Nana’s surprise was a pipe that was brought to the woman’s lips. It was a beautifully carved piece of bone from where a thick blue smoke danced.

After Inhaling deeply, she brought the pipe down again, then blew the smoke at Nana.

Nana instinctively tried to block the attack, realized it was stupid and tried to pull her blade back, but it was in vain.

The smoked swirled around the ornately carved sheath, then solidified. It tugged roughly at Nana’s weapon.

“Oh,” the dragonfly responded, mildly amused as she tried to stop the opponent from wresting the weapon from her grip, “One of those…”

The woman smiled coyly, teased the smoke that danced around hand and abruptly the sword in Nana’s hand became heavier.

Cursing, she let go of the short blade and saw it dancing through the air at her opponent. However, she did not stop to watch. She drew her longer blade and with a dash and an elegant slash brought it to the woman’s pipe.

The woman smiled, circled her finger around the smoke and Nana’s blade bounced of the impossibly hard vapor.

Glancing at the riverbank, the woman suddenly looked satisfied. She let go off Nana’s sword sword and inclined her head, as if she were politely greeting her enemy in the market, then disappeared into thin air.

The lingering sweet cloying smell of smoke was the only sign she had ever been there.

“That was…” Nana started as she picked up her short sword, “Unexpected.”

She glanced over her shoulder and realized the other four opponents had also disappeared.

“Oh,” she said out lout to herself, “Should have seen that coming.”

Slightly annoyed that she had lost the merchant’s money, she headed back towards the city, wondering how she’d explain the sudden increase in expenses to her adoptive father, the Gunari.