Feudally Enchanting
By Eternal Angel
(stargazing12@hotmail.com)
Prologue:  The Riddle of Man or The Adventures of the Black Angel

	Upon earth, there are two dominant races that are constantly at a state of
war: man and woman.  Now, when we refer to these two highly complicated
races, we must always recall that both of them do have flaws (even though
it’s quite obvious one is more flawed than the other), and that they both
can be intelligent creatures (although one never uses their brain).

	Going in depth, we reflect upon these group’s attributes and flaws to find
out that the greatest flaw that women may have is love.  This love can cause
so many blind emotions: jealousy, insanity, and utter confusion.  Due to
these raging emotions brought about by love, many have created their own
destruction.

	Now men… men… Well, although women may only have one, men are riddled with
so many flaws that it’s hard to keep them straight, so we’ll just talk about
the main flaws that cause them to be the lost and lowly creatures that they
are.  You see, men were constantly lying, cheating, gambling, and losing
their hearts to any pretty young thing that looks good in a Kimono.

	Alas, that big factor of men’s uncontainable hormones finally turns us to
the point of the story of why the two thieves stopped in the middle of their
theft.  In all truth, they practically dropped their bags of goods as they
found themselves captivated at something much more interesting looking: a
woman.  And not just any woman, as they would later justify to themselves,
but a blonde haired goddess that sat on the table watching them with a
curious expression.

	“What are you doing?”  She asked, flipping her hair quite dramatically as
the beautiful golden locks bounced about.  The bigger man of the two let out
a groan and then a deep chuckle and pushed his friend aside, hard, and took
two steps closer to the maiden. “Nothing much.”

	He let out a dutiful simplistic sigh as he waved around his hand lightly,
“We’re just famous thieves.  We’re really good at what we do.”

	Flaw five: Inflated ego.

	“Is that so?”  Her shimmering blue eyes glinted with a bemused interest.
He puffed up with pride only to be struck in the gut by his friend.  He
groaned in pain, his dark eyes glaring angrily at the other man’s
disruptions of his ‘business’.  “Hai hime-sama,” the other man replied as he
ignored his pained friend, “We’re very wanted men.”

	Was fabrication a flaw already mentioned?

	“We have a couple of bounties riding on our heads,” The bigger one said
proudly, quickly recovering from his fallen state.  Revenge would come
later, he said as he shot a dark look to his friend only to turn his head
back to the beautiful maiden, “I bet we’re worth about 70 meccas.”

	The other nodded.

	The maiden grinned sweetly, her head tilting slightly as she calculated the
whole situation within her mind. “Well… 70 meccas…”  A silent pause filled
this space while she tilted her head some more, “I’ve seen better but… money
is money.”  With that she jumped off the table gently, smiled sweetly at
them.

	“Watashi ga Kuroi Tenshi. I’m a bounty hunter.”  They stared at her in
wide-eyed shocked as she formally bowed to them, “Nani yo?”

	Her sweet cavity giving smile increased it’s intensity of ability to decay
while taking a step closer to them.  “Hai, you heard me, a bounty hunter…
but then again…”

	She then took another step closer to them.  “Not just any bounty hunter but
the best.”  Now, we must return back to that flaw of egotistical manner that
are possessed within the male personality acting as a trigger that pushed
them to look at the petite woman, back to each other, and back at her only
to burst into laughter.

	She shrugged at their hysterical laughter and kicked one of the men in the
gut.  The partner’s laughter stopped at his throat.  She then turned to him,
a serene smile on her face and her hand slicing down at the back of his
head, striking him into unconsciousness.

	Sighing, she then stared at the two men who laid on the ground, “Men,
always the same.”


	*	*	*

	She gazed up at the sun indirectly.  She frowned at that while walking away
from her hotel with a quickened pace.  Her pace was a neck braking one which
a person took up when they realization that they were late.  Dragging those
two overgrown oafs took a lot more time than knocking them out cold.  She
frowned.

	She hated being late.  Not because it bothered her in anyway other than the
fact that her clients tend to get all prissy and bent out of shape.  They
were so damn annoying that all that she really wanted to do was kick them
and knock them out cold completely.

	But of course she couldn’t do that… not to a possibly paying customer.  Yet
that certainly didn’t make her stop fantasying about placing her fist in
their face.  She grinned wickedly at that.  There have been quite a few
lovely fantasies that she always had wondered what it’d be like in reality…

	“You’re late,” a deep voice greeted her as she entered, the cottage.  She
looked at the figure that spoke to see a tall and sexy silvery blonde haired
man stand casually against the wall.

	Wasn’t he certainly to die for?  She couldn’t help but think with a slight
cringe at his comment.  To be handsome and prissy? …that was a very
upsetting combination.  “And…?”

	“Well… nothing really, I mean, I’m glad it was you that was late…r… cause
well, I got caught up doing something…” He flashed her a heart throbbing
smile as she inwardly let out a sigh.  “My wife wouldn’t let me out of the
door until I tried her cooking… she’s a wonderful person, but a horrid
cook…”

	Well, she was now officially taking back that sigh.  Another woman’s
husband… that was just so tragic.  Why didn’t’ she ever find a guy that was
single, good-looking, rich… “So… what do you want done?  Whom do you want me
to find?”

	The man walked away from the wall and towards the table in the middle of
the room.  He slowly pulled out a chair for her (ACK!  Why did he have to be
married?!) and then sat in the chair across from her.

	“What I want you to do,” his gray eyes with light specks of green gazed at
her intently.   Another painful throb and another regretful sigh.
“Is...is....Well, I want you to find me the legendary prince.”

	“Legendary… what?”  She raised her eyebrow in all deep confusion of
sensibility.  Could she have heard wrong?  Certainly, he must've said
legendary prize or pin or price or something.  Not prince.

	“A legendary prince,” he repeated himself.  “It’s rumored that this prince
is locked away in the castle deep within the enchanted forest that runs
north of here.”

	She frowned.  The northern forest?  She heard stories of men entering that
forest and never returning.  And those that did return became forever
traumatized, filled with tales of the hidden shadows that danced upon the
darkness lurking behind them.

	But then again she also knew that men were foolish beings that were
incompetent.

	“Why do you want me to do this?”

	He smiled at her then, his eyes shinning with an insightful mirth as his
tone dropped deeper, “Because I’ve heard stories about you.  About your
capabilities and strength… and I heard you’ve never denied a job in your
entire career.”

	His eyes narrowed, as did hers.

	“Is this a challenge?”  She asked, her eyebrow raising at the man.

          He shrugged nonchalantly. “It all depends on how you interpret it,
Kuroi Tenshi.”

	A frazzled silenced danced upon the room as she mused about all the
possibilities… and each leading to the one important question: “How much are
you willing to pay me?”

	“10,000 meccas.”

	Her jaw dropped.  ‘Be still my beating heart!’

	“Deal.”

	He grinned and stood up.  “I’m glad you agreed.”

	The door opened then as a pretty girl poked her head in, tilting her head
with blinking dark green eyes.  “Shigure!”  Kunzite exclaimed, as he took
long strides to his wife whom grinned widely.  She gave a quick kiss onto
her husband’s cheek and stared at the guest with open curiosity.

	After gazing at her and taking her in, she was now able to decipher why he
had married her.  With her long cascading black hair was tied in a loose
braid, she wore a smile on her face as if everyday was the best day of her
life.  “Hi!  I remembered you had a guest today, and wondered if she’d like
to have supper with us!”

	Usagi let out a cough as she recalled notes about horrible cooking and this
petite bubbly female.  “Umm…”

	“Onegai?”  Puppy eyes, why did they have to be so green?  Why did she have
to be so damn cute?  Usagi thought as she nodded in reluctance.  Kunzite
shot her a pitiful and apologetic look.

	Ignorant of the exchange, Shigure jumped in glee as she bounced into the
kitchen.


	*	*	*

	‘The food wasn’t that bad,’ Usagi thought as walked back to the hotel that
she was staying at, the sun setting with every step she took.  ‘I mean, all
I had to do was plug my nose, put the food in my mouth and swallow…’

	She thanked the great Kami above for at least not making her stomach ache
from the food.  How Kunzite-san can eat that every day and still be strong
(and handsome) as he was beyond her comprehension.  Alas, maybe it was
because of love…

	Love…

	It was an interesting concept, love was.  A mindless emotion that
enraptures people and makes them do insane things (like killing their
stomach with acid food).  In the end love dies, life dies,and everything
just becomes black and bitter… not like being bitter was a bad thing… but…

	To love was to lose.

	And she hated to lose.

	No no, she wasn’t one of those bitter old maids.  In all actuality, she was
content being single.  Men were a hassle, they were, well, gullible and
completely weak.  How else could you define a person who was ruled not by
what was up in the head but what was …

	She let out a cough as she continued along the road.  Clearing her thoughts
of previous insanities, she tried to concentrate on her new job.  A mystical
prince - it sound pretty fabled to her.  Maybe there would be a dragon
guarding this ‘mystical prince’ that she would have to entice and slay.  She
frowned, slaying men wasn’t a problem for her… but a dragon?  That poor
Dragon must have suffered the insanity of a man that head was probably as
big as his ego.

	Why else would he be cursed?

	‘He was cursed… wasn’t he?’  She couldn’t help but wonder.  It didn’t make
a difference though, she refuted to herself.  She wasn’t supposed to do
anything other than take him back to this rich (and handsome) guy who would
give her the 10,000 meccas.

	10,000 meccas…

	Oh Kami, she could do a lot with that!  She could finally retire from this
tiring job (then again, she liked beating up men) and find a nice quaint
house in the middle of nowhere where she could live in peace with nature… OR
MAYBE she could buy that really nice sword she had her eye on and then
aimlessly waste the rest of the meccas on nonsensical objects and give the
rest to…
	She smiled.

	Yup, that sounded like a nice way to go. She could only conclude after
recalling how peace and quiet would only driver her insane.

	A loud voice then interrupted her thoughts and her walking.  A dark haired
man followed the blonde who walked in front of him with a huff.  She raised
her eyebrow at this unfolding scene as the sun continued to slowly descend
the sky.

	“Jin-Jin…” The man said as he grabbed shoulder to pull her back to face
her.  (Ohhh… an agenda… she wondered where she left her snacks in times of
such events happening).  She looked away from him, her eyes gazing down at
the ground.  He stared at her, confusion in his eyes, an aching within his
voice.

	“Tell me what I did wrong.”  His voice was deep and gentle like the water’s
wave upon the summer ocean.  Constant and beautiful, with not a single flaw
but the flaw of perfection.  But even the beautiful serenity of it all could
not satiate her anger.

	Her head then snapped up from its position from the ground, “What’s WRONG?
You don’t even know what you did?”  Her eyes were flamed with a wicked
flicker of the candle, causing a ripple to form at the drop of a melting
liquid tear of wax fall into the endless pits of deep coolness.

	He sheepishly shifted his feet, feeling the distant waves thrashing slowly
around him.  “Umm…”

	The waves slowly disappeared from the horizon, and all that was left was
the beautiful girl wearing the sheepish grin. “Neither do I,” she had
admitted, “But… you seemed so troubled back there… so I wanted to get your
mind off of your thoughts…”

	“JIN…” He growled as she gave him a gentle, apologetic smile.  “Gomen ne
Kamui.”

	She gave him a kiss upon the cheek.

	The ocean was whole again and…

	… Usagi sweat dropped at the whole show, finding it very… bemusing?   Alas,
the consideration of this girl towards her love was very… what was the
word…?  Demented…?  Ehhh, she’ll just stick with that bemusing word.  It was
so very strange, the blossoming of a rippling confusion that was brought to
her by these two.  Yet in the end, he forgave her, as he tightly embraced
her while calmly whispering sweet words into her ear.

	More confusion?

	But of course.

	Love.

	A fool’s game.

	She shook her head and continued her way back to the hotel.


	*	*	*