[color=6ecff6]"Hmm, I never took you for an equestrian girl, Hanazono-san."[/color]  Reluctant though, Tohru rode alongside Asuka, the two horses matching in pace.  [color=6ecff6]"Someone as busy as you are, I would've never thought had the time for school clubs."[/color]  Asuka smirked, [color=ed145b]~"Nor would I think someone as popular as you would have time either, dear Prince."~[/color]  Ugh...the way she uttered that title, again feeling akin to the hot venom of a snake spat into her eye.  Tighter Tohru gripped the reins of her horse in her leather gloves, suppressing the urge to kick Shear-Breeze hard and send the muscular beast into a dead sprint away from this menace. She grit her teeth under her lips in reply, [color=6ecff6]"So tell me, what is your reason for following me here, Asuka.  It's no secret you have hated me since our days at Sabre Academy, and that even to this day our families remained locked in a vendetta most foul.  So tell me....is it Chizuru?"[/color]

At this both horses were halted in their steady stride, a cold, grim silence befalling both women.  Asuka, her face had lost all solace, her trademark smirk...now nothing more than a blank slate of dark, welling emotions.  Her body tensed, joints and muscles locking tight.  She barely moved an inch....except for,

[color=ed145b]~"....How DARE YOU!!"~[/color]  Suddenly her hand smacked Tohru across the face, nearly with enough force to dismount her from her saddle.  Her pale, porcelain flesh, it was marred deeply by the scarlet mark burning upon her cheek.  Asuka now seethed with rage clenching tight her fists, every word she spat at Tohru blazing with the fury and intensity of Hellfire, a sharp finger pointing in her face as though the tip of a blade, [color=ed145b]~"Don't you DARE speak that name to me again, Itagaki Tohru!  Chizuru, my dear sister, I loved her more than any of my cherished family!  Sure she was timid, weak even, but that didn't mean once I was ashamed of her!  I cared for her enough to protect her from this...this ugly fray, but that didn't stop you from dragging her into the middle of it!  What a fool she was, following you to her death!  She died because of you, Tohru, and that's why ever since I've despised you with all my heart!  You...you will pay for insulting me so!  Here!  At sundown!  Bring your blade....and I shall bring mine!"~[/color]

The pain...the tears welling in her fierce blue eyes, Tohru could see in crystal clarity the enmity, the long burning grudge she has held for the other girl for so long, a black maelstrom raging in her heart....and threatening to devour every inch of her being.  But before Tohru could even speak, Asuka was away, a swift kick to the side of the black stallion she rode upon and far from her she galloped away.