Shadows in Shenkuu

     The Striped Xweetok smiled a bit. "You can count on me! I've been waiting for a good adventure!" The Xweetok brandished her iron fans, eager to find the assassin and bring him to justice. "Well, here I go!" She bowed to the Emperor before dashing out of the throne room.

     The Emperor sighed. "I really wish that she would be a little less energetic." He slumped down on his throne, hoping Miraja could find the thief.

     "Okay, if I were an assassin, where would I hide..." Miraja stood on top of a tall, narrow cone-shaped mountain, using her ninja skills to stand on the tip. "I don't think he'd be out in the open, he'd have to be a total moron to do that..." Miraja pondered a bit, and then an idea came to her. "The docks! There are so many places to hide there!" Miraja leapt off the small precipice and jumped from rooftop to rooftop, trying to get to the docks as soon as possible.

     As Miraja arrived at the docks, she sneaked around in the shadows of the flying ships, hoping that the assassin would be doing the same. She silently crouched down upon hearing a gruff voice coming out of a small, dark flying ship. Miraja remained quiet as a Grey Gelert stepped outside of the ship and covered himself with his cloak.

     "That's gotta be the assassin..." Miraja jumped on top of the flying ships, leaping off the tops of their masts so she could spy on the mysterious Gelert. "Now all I gotta do is trail him around in the rest of the city... That's gonna be kinda difficult." She sighed and leapt from the mast to a nearby pagoda, using her twin fans to provide a boost in her jump. "I'll try to stay up top as long as I can, then." Miraja continued to follow him as he ducked into the Shenkuu marketplace.

     "Harrumph. Of course they send me on a stupid mission like this." The Assassin weaved his way through the crowd, still with his cloak clutched tightly around him. "I hate it when they send me against children." He snarled as he heard a rustling from the top of one of the buildings. "And I've felt that I'm being watched the whole time I've been here." He looked up at the rooftop, catching a fleeting glimpse of Miraja. He smirked and ducked into an alleyway, knowing the Xweetok would follow him.

     "Well, now I have him cornered like a cornered Spyder!" She grinned, ready to leap down into the alleyway when a dagger was thrown right next to her head! "Yikes!" Miraja leapt down from the rooftop, readying herself for a nasty fight. She looked around, her confidence slowly ebbing away as she used her fans to deflect even more poisoned daggers. She was slowly tiring out before the Gelert stepped out of the shadows.

     "So this is the so-called 'Hero of Shenkuu'? Harrumph. I had a tougher time with a farm boy and a sorceress-in-training!" The Assassin then pushed Miraja onto the ground. "You're pathetic. I'd love to get you out of my way, but since you're such a weak little cub, I'll just leave you here." The Gelert kicked her while she was down and ducked back into the darkness. Miraja fell unconscious from the one-sided "battle" she was in...

     A few hours after the fight with the Assassin, Miraja began to stir and saw that she'd been unconscious long enough for night to fall. "Ooof... I feel like I've had been to a Wock Til You Drop concert..." She slowly got up, grabbing her twin fans off the ground. "For all I know, he could be at the palace by now!" Miraja scowled as she climbed back up to the rooftops, and jumped off, landing on Noda's fortune cookie cart and accidentally knocked it over before she jumped on top of someone's Neohome, promptly waking up and surprising the Cybunny.

     "I really got to get going..." Miraja continued to run and leap feverishly until she made her way back to the Emperor's Palace. "Okay, all the guards are wide awake – that's a good sign, I hope." She climbed over the walls to see if she could find any way the Gelert Assassin could sneak through. "I don't see any way, unless he managed to climb over the fen-" Miraja then realized something – when she was younger, she'd play with her friends in an underground tunnel that led to a trapdoor in the palace. She swiftly leapt back over the wall and found the trapdoor – unfortunately, it was locked on the inside. "Darn it!" Miraja tried to smash open the door with her iron fans, but nothing worked. "This is definitely not good." She dashed through the main gate past the guards and in to the playroom that she and any other children of the nobility used – she found that the trap door had been forced open, and she furiously ran up to the Emperor's room. "Your highne-"

     "Gah!" The Emperor woke up with a start. "Did you find him, Miraja?"

     "Erm... No." Miraja shyly scratched the back of her head. "I need you to call the guards and help me search every room in this palace, and I mean every room!"

     "He made it into the palace?!" The Emperor shot Miraja an angered glare, before he shook his head. "...Regardless of your attempt to stop him, I will summon the guards at once." The red Gelert got up, ready to walk to his throne room and summon the guards.

     Miraja, on the other hand, ran out of the Emperor's quarters and searched as many rooms as he can, before hearing a rustling on the tatami flooring coming from Princess Lunara's room. Naturally, she ran straight to the room of Shenkuu's crown princess and looked in, seeing the Assassin standing above her, ready to stab her with his poisoned sword. "Oh no, you don't!" Miraja used her twin fans to knock the Grey Gelert off balance, and it sent his poisoned sword out through the window of Lunara's room.

     "What's with all the noi-" Lunara woke up to see the Assassin facing off with Miraja. "Oh my goodness!" Lunara quickly covered herself up under the covers of her bed as the Assassin faced off with Miraja.

     "You REALLY should stop interfering with my business, kid." The Assassin snarled as he parried one of Miraja's fan strikes with one of his daggers. "You don't want to have another experience like you had in the market pla-OOF!" The Gelert stumbled as Miraja clapped her fans together, creating a powerful gust of wind that sent him flying into the wall!

     "Yeah, I don't think so!" Miraja jumped over to the Assassin and swiftly kicked him, sending him flying into another wall.

     The Assassin growled. "You just don't give up, do you?" He furiously dashed towards Miraja with a dagger in each hand, only to find Miraja had her twin fans ready to hit him with another gust... POW! The Assassin was sent hurtling out of the window into the Palace Gardens, where a large spotlight shined on him as the guards closed in...

     The next morning, Miraja woke up feeling refreshed – almost as if she hadn't even been in that tussle last night. She yawned before she got out of bed and got ready to see the Emperor, putting on her finest kimono rather than the usual ninja gear she wore.

     "Ah, Miraja." The Emperor smiled proudly at the Xweetok. "Once more, you have proven yourself to be an excellent warrior. I'm very proud of what you did."

     Miraja blushed and scratched the back of her head. "Err, thank you, your majesty!"

     "Hey, he's not in the jail anymore!" A guard ran into the throne room. "We were going there to feed him, but he'd broken out somehow!"

     Miraja frowned. "Well, that's just GREAT."

     "Wait, I'm not done. He left a note saying that he gave up on this one after how he got beaten up by you." The Guard nodded. "You're really good at fighting, you know that?"

     "Thanks!" Miraja smiled as she turned away to leave the throne room. "Now, if you can excuse me, I have friends in Meridell that I need to go back to. See ya!"

The End