Monday morning saw Eva trying to watch herself sweep the grounds. Try being the keyword. While she had rather quickly managed to figure out how to project herself into her mirror, she was making no progress in keeping her body from falling over unconsciously. At least she had wisened up after the first half dozen tries, sat down and leaned against a fence post before trying again.
Though as she had started quite early, and lost all sense of time due to the repeated jumps of consciousness between her body and her mirror, Eva was quite surprised when she saw Ms. Unagi walk up to the donation box for her morning prayer.
Of course when she noticed the slumped over form of Eva’s unconscious body, she immediately ran over and began to shake Eva, saying something the young Kami couldn’t quite make out from inside her mirror.
As she reached out to return to her body before Ms. Unagi began breaking her ribs with CPR or call an ambulance, Eva noticed a rapidly growing black form descending from the clouds. When the figure had descended far enough for the young German to notice the raven wings growing from the humanoid's back, Eva was still trying her best to return her consciousness to her body.
By the time it was closing in on Hanako and Eva’s body with a naginata in its feathered hands, she was still stuck in the mirror and gave a last lurch of desperation.
That was when Eva felt herself stretch, and she could feel her body again. Though her perception of the world was making her stomach revolt.
As she grabbed the other woman’s shoulder it was akin to an old videogame split screen. When she dragged the both of them to the side to avoid the descending Tengu’s weapon, it had morphed into something Eva would later describe as a picture in picture vision.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Her mind had fully returned to rest in only her body by the time her shoulder hit the grass. A second later the blade of the naginata was stuck in the fence post Eva had been leaning against, mere millimeters, if that, above where her head had been.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Eva shouts, the sound of metal splitting wood still echoing around them. “And with an outsider around as well.” She continued while pulling herself and the shocked Hanako up.
“Silence, priestess, your goddess has stolen away my daughter, I am here to reclaim her.” The tengu screeched while his clawed hands slowly pulled his weapon out of the fence post.
“And that could not have waited until the clearly unrelated human wasn’t going to be involved?”
“She came to worship her, so clearly this mortal has witnessed the treacherous goddess perform miracles.” He declared while gesturing towards Ms. Unagi with his polearm. “Now bring me to my little star.”
“What is that thing talking about?” The office worker asked as she shied away from the naginata pointed at her. “I am coming here because it was my grandmother's favorite place, not because of some miracle.”
“I’ll try and explain in a bit, okay?” Eva said as she turned to her. “And you, when did you last try to interact with a mortal? That’s not been why they pray at a specific shrine for hundreds of years by now.”
“Well, I think it was around the time I watched this young Nobunaga fellow raise an army. But that wasn’t that long ago.”
“Oda Nobunaga has been dead for over four centuries” Hanako chimed in. “How is that not long ago.”
“I’ll “Eva began as she pinched her nose. “I’ll see if Komaki can find a moment to explain to you what you clearly missed. Let’s sort this all out indoors, before more people see you.” Eva said as she glared at the polearm wielding Tengu. “You wouldn’t want a hunter to think your wings make a nice trophy would you?”
With that, the Kitsune grabbed onto Ms Unagi’s wrist and the tengu’s weapon and began to lead them away from the honden.