Slumber Under The Cherry Blossom

Horses pounded across the field, as the knights upon them held up their shield and urged their beasts to run faster. They wore chainmail armour, with the insignia of a sword and beaver across their shields. Some knights carried swords, while some held battle axes.

A little ahead of them pounded the hooves of a chestnut brown horse carrying upon its back, a sage in his red and yellow long robes, and seated before him, the one kicking the horse to move faster was the sage's love. Dressed in a long blue robe patterned with designs of pink, sweat dripped down her forehead.

"Princess Kaguya, please! You can't run away from your engagement!" One of the knighted cried.

"I will, and the gods be damned if they come in my way!"

The sage Namiki meanwhile was focusing on his incantation. Muttering hurriedly under his breath while making strange signs with his right hand.
Meanwhile more and more soldiers kept joining the knights pursuing the princess.
"Make way! Archers have arrived!"
"Take down that chestnut!"
"We need that traitor sage alive!"

Two arrows were fired. Each piercing through both the hind legs of the beast.
"Asura, no!" Kaguya cried as the horse fell to its front knees and trembled as it tried to stand back up. She disembarked and so did the sage.
"No, no, no!"

Another arrow came streaming towards the beast.
"Lord of Lightning, Kirin! Protect us!" The sage finally yelled out, and a bolt of lightning fell from the sky, turning to scorched corpses the bodies of the archers and their horses.

"That would have done it for the knights that were initially chasing us. I'm afraid there's nothing more I can do, Kaguya," the sage looked towards the sky, "Only if I was born into a royal family..."

"Stop it with your moping!" Kaguya got up, now having compelled Asura to lie down on its side, "We aren't done. I'm marrying you no matter what father says."

The rest of the horses recovered and so did the riders, no longer wary, noticing the haggard state of the sage.
"He won't be a threat anymore. That's only offense sutra he knows, and he'd die if he casts it again."

The men all got off their beasts, forty in total number now, dropping their shields on the ground as they came forward and knelt infront of the princess.
"I'm sorry we had to injure your beloved beast, Princess Kaguya. But he will live. Please come with us."

Kaguya walked upto him, "Why? So you could behead my only love at noon today? "

"He was spotted talking intimately with you, Princess, forgetting his place of just a tutor for His Majesty's children."

Kaguya circled around the group for a few minutes, looking them up and down, and then...
"Arrgh!..."
A head rolled across the ground, and Kaguya returned infront of Namiki hurling a battleaxe.

The sage's eyes widened at the speed of her move.

"I, Kaguya Hatake, will return but only on one condition. As long as one of you manages to defeat me, I will go back to the palace. "

The princess walked over and placed a hand upon Namiki's shoulder, "Stop gaping, you dumbo. Begin chanting the Endless Sleep mantra. We shall die together and the way we want. I won't be able to defeat all of them."

"But that'll require for us to be in close contact," he whispered back.

"Just come grab me mid battle then," she winked and swung around to gaze intently into the eyes of the first challenger.

"Begin!"

Wrote this short scene inspired from the above pic made by Monanu of DeviantArt.