Album by razzaroo

Chapter One

Album

By: razzaroo

oOo

It smelled of must and paper in the cavernous library, the shelves lined with texts of old and new, each of them holding information valuable to someone. Footsteps echoed in the hallowed hall; fingers slid lightly over thick and thin spines, eyes skimming the titles before narrowing and moving on. His trek brought him to a room accessible by only him, the key, long, thin and cold, seemingly ten pounds in his pocket.

It slid into place almost as smoothly as the door swung open and he stepped inside, flicking the light on and making sure to close the door behind him. The shelves were not as numerous but the books that they sheltered were thrice as valuable. Passing by early books and scrolls, his hands sought a thick leather-bound choice and pulled it out of its place.

It landed on the small table with a dulled and resounding thud. He allowed a small smirk of triumph to quirk the corners of his mouth upward before he set about his task. Reverently, almost as if the book itself were a living being, he pulled the cover open and began to look. Unlike most of the items in the library, this was one filled not with words, but with pictures.

Black, white and grey; crisp digital color, faded hues of hand-drawn's and the smudged inks of painted pictures he flipped past. And in all was at least one person that remained the same, one who even though lived in all different periods of time and seemingly different worlds, who had appearances that varied in hair color to skin tone, even gender, which remained a constant.

"May 18th, 1926. Accomplished. I'm sad to leave, I loved him so much..." he whispered the caption aloud to himself, glancing at the young man standing beside the girl in the picture. He had dark hair lighter skin, seemingly tan though the black and white color base didn't differentiate between colors, and a bright smile. They were half embracing amongst what looked like a parade and She looked content in his arms.

Turning a page he came to a new picture, this one with the caption in basic Hiragana. The picture itself was of a peasant girl wielding a sword, slashing to pieces the oni that was leaping at her. In this picture, unlike the last, her hair instead of dark black was brown and her eyes green and bright. Again, it read accomplished and had a date in the 1530's.

And it continued on like this for hours. Her form varied from human to beings alien to his knowledge but it was always Her, no matter how she dressed or looked, it was always her and he could tell. Her apparent youth never faded, never aged and even though the images were on paper, he could see the same wise gleam in her eyes.

Beside him a notebook had been almost filled up, his hand darting this way and that across the pages as he recorded what he saw; behind him the small chink of light from the window slowly faded from bright yellow to a sultry gold to magenta and finally to silver.

Golden eyes narrowed when the last page, the last picture, the last clue came up. Focusing on the caption scrawled beneath it, he slowly read it aloud as if to confirm what he was seeing. "December 24th. Failed. No hope, no escape, nonexistence."

A short burst of panic spread through him before cold realization settled within the pit of his stomach like a stone. A frigid, calculating gaze stared pointedly at each small face that dotted the yellowed page, reading each caption aloud still.

"Sango, a taijiya, and her brother Kohaku. Dead.

Miroku, a houshi and Kirara a fire neko. Dead.

Rin, an orphan brought back to life by Tenseiga, and Shippou, a kitsune orphan. Dead.

Jaken, seemingly a toad demon who wielded the Staff of Two Heads. Missing.

Kouga, a wolf youkai and his pack members. Enslaved.

Kikyou, a dead priestess resurrected by malevolent forces. Traitor.

Inuyasha, an inu-hanyou wielding the Tetsusaiga. Alive. Enslaved. Unreachable.

Sesshoumaru, an inu-Daiyoukai wielding Toukijin and Tessaiga. Missing.

The Shikon no Tama, the jewel of four souls. Vanished.

Me, Higurashi Kagome, a miko. Failure."

Seeing 'missing' next to his name brought a frown to his face, a dark, ferocious scowl that shadowed his regal features. Carefully turning the last page over, a small note written on fraying parchment paper was folded haphazardly and wedged between the cover and the last page; he plucked it from its hiding spot and unfolded it.

There's no chance for existence. He will gain the power to breach time and dimensions and nothing will be able to stop him. Hope is pointless and I am at fault. The demon, who has so plagued the people of this time, the one cal-...... I... pr...nt... ime ..nd... do...t...an...

Smudged and stained, he presumed her tears had been the culprits behind the vandalism of the note. The spots where the words blanked out or smudged were oddly circular and small; she had been crying whilst writing it. But, as he gazed at it longer, he noted that the small droplets were tinged a rusty brown; 'twas not the faint aroma of salt that tickled his nostrils but the coppery one of blood.

Reaching into the pockets of his bag, he slowly pulled out another small piece of paper, and placed it next to the other. With a keen eye he compared the two and smirked: Pulling out his laptop, his fingers flew over the keys, searching through the databases of Tokyo high schools.

The screen did not lie to him as he read an award winning poem by an 11th grade student at Aoyama High School. They were a match, the characters corresponding to each other down to the hooks and tails.

"Daishippai a poem written by Aoyama High School student Higurashi Kagome has taken Tokyo by storm. Its moving expressions about giving one's best and still not being enough touched everyone's heart and her words on getting back up and trying again gave many the courage to go on. Posted on blogs, websites, papers and magazines city-wide, the young

Coming up from her own past filled with bad experiences, she defied all odds by acing the high school entrance exams and moving to the top of her class. The recipient of many academic and humanitarian awards, it's hard to believe she could have possibly battled cancer mere months prior to the start of her high school career..."

All the information he needed was there in black and white. The date of the article read 2001, six years ago. She was not dead and she had not vanished into the time stream. She was in Tokyo and alive.

And he was going to find her.

As he exited, a small red light in the shadows of the corner blinked rapidly before fading back into darkness.

oOo

"It was a success."

"As it should have been," he paused, pondering something whilst absently twiddling a piece of his hair around his long fingers. "Do we have the current file on hand?"

The girl nodded. "We do; in fact, the target is approaching a bookstore nearby as we speak. Do you wish for her to be brought in Sousateki-sama?" she asked, black eyes, instead of reflecting the fluorescent lighting, sucking it in. Her milky hair gleamed.

The man laughed as he spun away to face a large wall of windows; before him spread Tokyo's entire Shibuya ward, skyscrapers clawing at the sky like rigid, grey fingers. In the distance, northwest of his office the entertainment district glowed vibrantly, neon visible even over the large distance. He smiled.

"No, Kanna that will not be necessary. She cannot evade us and she is currently unaware of my presence in her time. I want it to remain that way until I deem otherwise," he said, caution in his voice as he calculated and deliberated in his mind.

"But," he said, snapping himself out of his thoughts, turning gleaming garnet eyes on his servant, "it couldn't hurt to play spy for one night. Send Hakudoshi and Byakuya and tell them to be observant... and discreet. The last thing we need is another one of Byakuya's toys ending up dead." He waved her off and she exited silently, no objection or motion of protest made as she slipped into the hallway.

Once gone, he turned to the laptop on his desk and began to scroll through the pictures that appeared on the screen. It didn't take him long and by the time he was done the catalogued and analyzed version had already been emailed to him. Eyes glinting smugly, he laughed, to himself, to the empty office because he was on top of the world.

His up until now fruitless efforts had finally come through. It had been simple. Even when he was nothing but a lowly bandit, pillaging the poor and keeping from the rich, he had heard the legends. Tales, farfetched and ludicrous, he had heard of a maiden who could travel time like a fish would travel the sea, doing nothing but good; the commoner's heroine. Her feats so superlative and her abilities so supernatural that she had been compared to the great gods themselves, her pedestal constantly built up by praise.

But only when the girl had appeared in his time did he really take notice of such legends and stories and make the connections to the bizarre miko from the future. It had taken him up until her disappearance when she wished on the jewel to piece together the shapes to complete the puzzle; it still wasn't done but he was all the closer to solving the enigma.

And he only had the arrogant dog to thank for his latest advancement. It had been child's play to infiltrate his "private room" in the library and it had taken mere minutes for the video camera's frequency to be found. After that, it was like watching movies on Saturday night.

He busied himself with menial tasks over the next few hours, checking on the various projects and allowing himself leisure time to simply relax and enjoy his glory.

It was Byakuya that finally brought him back from his reveries, materializing silently before the windows. Glancing at the clock on his wall, he saw that four hours had transpired while he indulged himself in his thoughts. Byakuya looked at him strangely.

"What is it, Byakuya?"

The man frowned and fiddled with a paper crane. "We found the girl like you told us to- perfection compared to the others you've had us chase down. But we aren't her only suitors," Byakuya remarked airily, tossing the paper bird up and watching it flutter around the room.

"I am not in the mood for games right now, Byakuya. Tell me what I need to know," he said with a hint of agitation at the other's playfulness. "And make it swift."

Byakuya smiled deviously. "I could, you know. This desk has a pretty large surface area and everyone else is downstairs," the man had materialized behind him, his hands rubbing his shoulders, his chest as they slipped beneath the collar of his shirt. "I could have you splayed out moaning my name... I could even lick you clean. I know how much you like it when I do," whispered Byakuya, his lurid syllables like sins as they poured from his lips.

The man, Sousateki, shivered involuntarily at the offer but steeled his resolve and shrugged away rather coldly. "The time for games is not in the office and you would do well to remember that," he commented stonily. Upon seeing Byakuya's miffed expression, he added as an afterthought, "The time is for behind closed doors."

The atmosphere had suddenly grown heavy and both men gazed at each other from their positions, but the passionate staring contest was soon broken.

"I presume your reason for being here is more relevant to the mission you were assigned to rather than whoring yourself out to me?"

Byakuya pouted playfully and took out yet another crane. "I wouldn't waste my time coming here if there weren't a reason."

"Enlighten me."

"I just thought you should know that you're not the only one after her," Byakuya chirped nonchalantly.

Grinding his teeth, he counted to ten before replying. "Where is Hakudoshi, Byakuya?" he bit out tersely, patience all but depleted.

At the mention of his partner's name, Byakuya's face became a mask of surprise. "Oh! He's back at the bookstore. Sesshoumaru decided to show up and won't give the girl up without a fight," he paused, his expression suddenly very serious, "and by the looks of Hakudoshi when I left him, a huge one."

oOo

"You cannot escape your past, woman," he hissed in her ear and she shuddered, her spine clattering as chills clambered down it. Her wrists burned as each twist or movement rubbed them a little rawer against the ropes that bound them; new blood was trickling down her forearms and old caked around the opened wounds.

And this was nothing compared the searing sensation that surged against her senses, bringing smoldering, pearlescent tears to prick at the corners of her eyes. Stumbling blindly over flat ground, she was lead to some destination, presumably one her kidnapper had chosen previously. Jerking on her arm, they took a sharp right and it suddenly felt cool and damp, relief against her seemingly scorched skin.

Almost tumbling down a flight of stairs, the scent of damp wood and rain filled her nostrils as she was pulled to a halt. Fear, unconventional and raw, welled up inside of her stomach, a heavy stone that slowly wound its way to her throat and made it near impossible to breathe. Something, her nonexistent vocabulary couldn't find the proper words to describe, pressed at the edges of her mind, hard and intrusive.

She winced and tried to keep it at bay, putting every ounce of willpower into keeping the invading force out. Sweat trickled in tiny rivulets from her temples.

She did not prevail.

It burst through whatever feeble barriers she'd erected and penetrated her mind without hesitation. At first it was just as if her head had been dunked in cold water and she was stunned, relief and a new sense of fear swelling in her chest.

But it persisted, the cool caress gone; she whined pitifully, the new sensation adding to her already throbbing headache, driving the chisel deeper into her skull. A guttural, feral growl assaulted her ears from somewhere beside her and her somewhat dulled sense of hearing picked up splintering wood.

The rest of it happened in a whirl of motion so fast she could barely piece together the tidbits she captured. A rush of air, accompanied by a caress against her senses that eased the burn if only slightly and then her feet met solid ground again.

"On your feet wench," was her icy command from above. His voice was cold and hard as the edge of a sword and cut through the pain to force its way into her ears. Shakily she clambered to her feet, willing her limbs to obey her so as not to embarrass or disgrace herself.

A hand, surprisingly gentle, brushed against her cheek and removed the blindfold. Still disorientated, she could barely make out what her eyes were showing her but her sense of hearing had not diminished in the slightest and allowed her to hear the symphony that played and swelled all around her.

The same hand gripped her shoulder firmly and spun her round almost in a circle. Her head ached now more than ever and she wished for nothing more than to curl up and let unconsciousness take her but she couldn't.

Not now.

Not now that she could see.

Her fair-haired captor extended his arms outward in a graceful sweep and she followed, ensnared by the sight. Slipping a quick glance upward, she caught a glimpse of his face: alabaster skin adorned with vibrant magenta and deep blue markings and those eyes, frosted amber that burned with such ferocity that she had to look away.

But he hooked a finger underneath her chin and forced her to look out again; gone was the previous care with which he handled her.

She almost choked on the sob that burst forth from the depths of her chest and echoed in her mind. Everything was too much. The sights, the sounds the smells... she couldn't handle it but she could not look away.

"Behold, wench, what you have created."

oOo

I hope you enjoyed the chapter (it was really hard to write, the second was easier). Any questions? Just message me!

Please drop a review on your way out! Thank you in advance!