Senran Kagura: Heart of Fire

Chapter 16: Eiku the Shadow Reaper

The man who has been ordering the women to hunt Tokei emerges from a dark room, shadows covering his face. A woman walks up to him, she has long, purple, undulated hair, she had a face mask and dark, ninja-like clothing. She kneels before him and then looks up as a helicopter passes, shining a searchlight. The light coming from the windows shines on her eyes, revealing wine-colored, angry eyes. She stands up and tells the man she wants to go on a mission outside of the Dark Zone, in sign language. The man says he was just about to go get her and offer her one, then hands her a letter. She opens it and nods, then puts it away.

Tokei is walking outside with a nurse frantically following him. He asks her if he can sit down and catch some fresh air, even if she follows him. She shakes her head in agreement and they keep on walking. Shizuku, Rei and Naraku go outside and see Tokei in the distance sitting on a bench below a tree, talking with the nurse. Shizuku stares for a while and then decides to go up to him. 
"Tokei, do you have a moment?" she asks.
"Yes, (to the nurse) I must go, it was nice talking to you."
After that he knocks out the nurse and turns to Shizuku.
"It's about time we left, I'll find those answers out myself, I don't know what was wrong with me."
Shizuku looks at him with a surprised look then smiles. She looks back to Rei and Naraku and calls them over. They all leave at once and return home.

Along the way, Tokei and company notice things start changing around them. They stop and notice they are put inside a Shinobi Barrier. A woman rises up from below Naraku, covered in black. She holds up a curved knife up to Naraku's neck, but she is interrupted by Tokei passing through everyone at a blinding speed and trying to punch the mysterious woman from over Naraku's shoulder. She disappears again just before getting hit and re-emerges alone behind them. They all turn around and she starts deforming for them. All of them start hallucinating, each seeing different distorted objects. Tokei starts breathing faster and he starts looking around him paranoically. Shizuku tries her hardest to not be confused by the hallucinations, but Rei starts breaking down, falling down to her knees. Naraku begins hyperventilating and she quickly starts losing consciousness. Tokei summons his black sword and starts running, he jumps and swings his sword, breaking the Shinobi Barrier unusually easy. He falls to the ground outside the Barrier and it disappears. The hallucinations stop and Shizuku notices. She goes up to Rei and starts comforting her. Tokei keeps looking around and tries to find the person who caused it, but fails. After looking for a few seconds, he runs up to Naraku. 

"It's okay Naraku, they were just hallucinations, they're done." he tells her.
Naraku opens her eyes and starts slowly breathing normally again. Tokei turns to Shizuku and asks her how Rei is.
"I don't know, she's calmed down, but she still needs a few minutes." she says.

"Um... Tokei, people are looking at us weird." Naraku whispers to Tokei from over his shoulder.
"Let's go back home, we'll have her rest there." Tokei explains.

Tokei picks up Rei on his back and they walk away to stop drawing attention to themselves.
The group reaches the apartment and they set Rei down in a couch. The woman that attacked them is across the street in the roof of a building in front of the apartments, looking at theirs intently. She disappears from the rooftop and seemingly teleports to their front door, and she slides a little card-looking object from under the door. She then puts on a wrist gadget which opens up a little screen on it where she can control it, the object slightly lifts off the ground and starts moving to a place where it cannot be seen. After that she closes the screen and takes off the gadget.
At night, Naraku leaves and returns home. Tokei and Shizuku are awake, while Rei is asleep in the living room.
"This is getting out of hand, various people have tried to capture me, and even kill me, and you all are getting involved. I don't like this." Tokei says with a pained expression in his face.
"Don't worry, we'll find who is causing all of this, and we'll take him down." Shizuku tells Tokei.
"I hope so." Tokei answers.

The next day, Rei wakes up and she hears the shower running, she goes in the bathroom and starts brushing her teeth. Shizuku walks in after her and taps her on the shoulder, then asks her how she slept. Rei tells her she had a weird dream and that it felt very realistic. Shizuku smiles lightly and leaves the bathroom. Rei continues to brush her teeth and then Tokei comes out of the shower with a bath towel. Rei looks to the side and sees him, then she looks away covering her face and blushing. Tokei keeps walking faster and leaves the bathroom. Rei keeps looking at the floor embarassed and when he finally leaves, she looks at herself in the mirror and notices her hair was really messed up and so was her face. She brushes her hair and washes her face and then comes out of the bathroom. She sees Tokei making breakfast and stares at him for a while, Shizuku notices and chuckles. Rei snaps out of it and blushes again while looking at Shizuku. Shizuku stands up and heads to her room. When she comes out, Rei was watching TV and Tokei was finishing up breakfast. She sits down to eat and tells Rei to take a shower and change so they can go out.