Kyuden Shika

"Huh? I guess." She chuckled. "What about you any idea with who you would share a Tanabata festival with?"

He shook his head. "I don't feel that I've connected with anyone yet who would wish to be my betrothed."

"I know that you like puzzles... Have you met Bayushi Liuxian sama?" She sighed. "She is quite the puzzle. I even ask myself if she is even human."

"She felt I might be cursed." he shrugged.

"Ah because of what happened to your betrothed? Fortunes work in mysterious ways and we cannot let incidents like those keep us from what is right." Oubaihime shrugged. "I wonder what really hides behind that mask, not the oni one but who she truely is."

"To be fair, it wasn't just my betrothed." he said. "My mother died of illness when I was young. A student I studied beside in the dojo was caught in a fire. My father and sister were lost in a landslide. And, one of my mentors was killed by bandits. Bayushi-sama is not the first to think that I'm cursed. But, I have been told that I am not."

"I see you are an emissary of Emma-O." The girl deducted rather quickly. "Did you ever thought of that? Just like Ame kun is an emissary of rain."

"I've been called that, but I've never considered it literally." he responded. "My belief has ben that these tragedies are not unusual by themselves. It is simply that I have had so many losses in a relatively short period of time, that makes them seem suspicious."

"Having Emma-O's blessing is troublesome at times. It is not something to consider as curse rather as a means to an end." Bai nodded. "It a mystery that you should find out why you have such blessing or do you know why Emma-O follow's you?"

"It would be a mystery to me." he answered. "I suppose that is true about what any Fortune may do."