Shameimaru Aya woke from her nap and stretched her arms. "Ah..." she sighed. "Well, time to get back to work..." Pulling herself off the sofa, she noticed her daughter Hayate sitting at her table staring at the photographs strewn all over the surface. "Hey kid, what're you looking at?" she asked as she looked over her Hayate's shoulders.
"Did you take all of these, Daddy?" Hayate asked as she held up some of the photos.
"Yep!" Aya said with no small amount of pride. "Every single one of them!"
"Are you going to use these in the newspaper?"
"Of course...as soon as I finish sorting out which ones are fit for publication." She took some of the photos and put them to the side. "See these? These aren't as good as the others because of the blur lines here. I take a lot of photos at high speed and sometimes the spirit camera can't keep up. The ones with blurry lines can't be used, unfortunately."
"Oh..." Suddenly, Hayate frowned and picked up a photo. "Why do you have a picture of Miss Youmu in a sarashi? Is this one going to be published?"
"Ah, well..."
"Honestly, Aya..." The new voice belonged to Aya's wife Hatate. "It's because of photos like this that people think you're some sort of voyeur." She looked at the photo of Youmu before turning towards her sheepish wife. "What sort of article were you planning to write with this picture anyways?"
"Hey, hey, who said it was going to go into the newspaper?"
"What about this one, Daddy?" Hayate asked, holding up a picture of Suika picking a fight with a watermelon.
"Oh, that one? That watermelon was supposedly grown by Yuuka, so that one's probably going to be in the newspaper."
"You're skating on thin ice there, Aya," Hatate said. "What if Yuuka doesn't like the publicity? I don't want to be caught in a Master Spark..." She looked over at another photo and picked it up. "Isn't this that doctor and that were-hakutaku woman? They look like they're on a date or something...how did you get this one without them seeing you?"
"It's me, remember? The fastest tengu?"
A sudden shriek caused both tengus to whirl around; Hayate had dropped the photo back on the table and was starting at it with wide eyes. "D-Daddy! What...what is that?"
The photo seemed to be completely black with several eyes peering out unblinkingly; there also seemed to be many hands reaching toward the camera, ghostly hands of many shapes and sizes. Aya quickly flipped the photo over with a nervous laugh. "Ah...that one? Let's...let's forget about that one, alright?"
"I take it that one photo shoot didn't go to well?" Hatate asked, though Aya could hear the concern in the voice.
"Did...did that thing hurt Daddy?" Hayate asked tearfully.
Aya gave her daughter a reassuring smile. "I'm still here, aren't I? Something like that won't keep me down!" She gave a small mental sigh. ‘Damn it, Yukari; Hayate's probably going to have nightmares for a while...'