November 10

Hello world. Miaka has been gone for almost a month now. Yui as well. I don't know where they could be. I've looked everywhere. Right before Yui disappeared she started to act strange. Stranger than normal. I suppose that with us, there really isn't a normal, but I'm beginning to worry. Miaka told me that she got sucked into a book. No one believed her, but now that she's gone missing again, and I'm starting to think that maybe she didn't make it up this time. She spoke of an ogre, of a clan called the Suzaku seven, and of a vain emperor. If these things are all true, and considering that I am the only one to believe her in any regard, I must be the one to rescue her and Yui from these heathens. Despite the impending term exams, I must find my best friend. Joumei Taisku to the aid of her friends!

Chapter One

Ring...ring.... Incessant ringing. It's early, why are people calling?

"Hello?" Joumei picked up the phone. "Oh, it's you. Yeah okay... I'm going to the library. Uh-huh, that's where Yui and Miyaka were last. I don't know, maybe there's some sort of clue or something. Kitsune, I have to go. Yes, you can come... meet me outside in two hours. Yes two, I have to take a bath. All right, bye."

Joumei pulled a brush through her shoulder length black hair, and walked, cold and naked into the bathroom across the hall. She turned the hot dial as far as it would go, and waited for the water to heat up. Considering that she lived in an apartment, that wasn't very hot, and longer than would be favorable. So instead she looked at herself in the mirror, peering unsatisfied at her green eyes and pale skin. She lived in Japan. She wasn't supposed to be pale, and her eyes were supposed to be dark as night. She hated her father for being American. All she wanted was to look the same as everyone else in the country.

Steam began to rise from the top of the shower, so Joumei pulled back the glass door and stepped in. She barely had enough time to wash her hair before her mother demanded the use of the bathroom in angry Japanese.

"I'm almost done mother." She responded and proceeded to wash her body.

As she reached for the handle to run naked back to her room, the door opened and in stepped her mother.

"Why do you refuse to speak Japanese in your own home, why do you run about naked, and what are you doing up so late?" She hollered in broken English.

"It's eight in the morning, I still consider that early." Joumei moaned and tried desperately to shut the door on her mother. "Just let me get a damn towel!"

Adorned with a towel, she was better fit to dodge the parent and run to the sanctity of her bedroom, where she promptly dressed, applied makeup, and tied back her hair into two low pigtails. Kitsune always teased her for her pigtails, but her hair was too short to pull all of it back into a ponytail. Kitsune had had long luxurious hair for as long as she and Joumei were best friends. Eleven years ago, when they first met, it was midway down her back, and was only trimmed a bit since then. It now hung past her butt and was often pulled into a loose ponytail near her shoulders, shimmering the darkest of black even under the sun.

It was Saturday, but Joumei wore her school uniform regardless as she started towards the kitchen with a small back sack in hand. Her mother was still in the bathroom, making a wonderful opportunity for Joumei to pack herself some food as well as makeup, clean panties, and various other extremities. She knew that Kitsune surely assumed that they would only be away for a few hours at the most. She might bring some money for lunch though. Would money be of any value in this traverse land?

Joumei left with a pop tart between her teeth, and a bulging pack on her back. Kitsune met her halfway to the library, wearing her navy blue uniform as well, the skirt billowing around her in the breeze.

"I thought you were going to meet me at the library, Sune." Joumei asked, regardless that she already knew the answer.

"I got there early, but I got bored, so I started off towards your house knowing I'd meet you at some point along the way." Kitsune smiled.

"Okay then." Joumei smiled as well. She did know the answer. "Oh, by the way, did Miaka ever give you a long speech about why she went missing the first time?"

"Yeah, she said something about some strange book, and that Yui got sucked into it because Miaka came out. I assumed that she's just weaving stories again." She sighed. "But somehow, she sounded afraid for Yui. She sounded... unlike her normal carefree self. I don't know, she seemed genuine, almost like she was telling the truth. But something as outlandish as that is hard for anyone to believe, yet I find myself almost thinking that we'll find this book lying open on the ground baring all that we assumed was lies."

"If Miaka is truly in another world full of beasts... than we are the only one's who can help her. I don't know what I would do if something we could have prevented happened to her. I would feel horrible." Joumei tried to smile again, but it just faded away. "if she just ran away, I will feel incredibly gullible."

"Me too."

The rest of the walk to the library was traversed in relatively silent. On numerous occasions, one of them would begin to say something, and stop before words could form. It was refreshing to step out of the humid morning fog and into the coolly air conditioned building. The faint aroma of old mildewed books met their noses. The smell of hundreds of year's worth of wisdom, Joumei always thought.

Joumei led the expedition up a narrow flight of steps to the ancient Japanese reference section. She had been down this hallway many times before with Miaka. No wonder it was the alleged area that she was 'pulled into the book'.

She could hear Kitsune's staggered breathing behind her, but she pressed on towards the feeling of being drawn. A red glow began to pulse from around the cracks of the door at the end of the hall, but Joumei just dismissed the color as her imagination. The closer they stepped, though, the brighter the glow became.

"You see that too, right?" Kitsune asked behind her, reassuring some of her fears, and raising others.

"Hai." Joumei answered in Japanese for once.

She would not allow her pace to falter, she would not let Miaka down. Not if all this was real. They continued until the glow was so intense that Joumei had to feel about for the handle of the door.

The door swung open...

...And the glow dispersed, constricting again around a book lying open on the floor...