Equilibrium: a state of rest or balance due to the equal action of opposing forces.

Compare birth with death, compare death with life;

compare what is possible with what is not possible

and compare what is not possible with what is possible;

because there is, there is not, and because there is not, there is.

-Chuang Tzu

Chapter One: The Beginning of the End

The streets of the small Japanese city were busting about with people that all had somewhere to go and somewhere to be—and they appeared to be quite in a hurry to get there. Except on this particular day everyone, despite their hurry, took the time to spread the fresh gossip. The lately abandoned home was to be occupied by an American doctor, Doctor Eiji Okayame, and his family. It was said that Doctor Okayame had actually been raised in this town but had gone to America to study abroad and had fallen in love with a Wild West journalist. Yet do to the recent departure of his mother, the family had come to attend the service—home sick he soon after decided to pick up his family and return home, to spend time with the remains of his family who he hadn't seen since he left for school.

Most gossip was embellished specks of truth that had been rubbed raw to be able to glint and shimmer—trick the eye to make something mundane appear exciting. Yet, unlike most gossip this was in fact true. To prove the whispers, in front of the abandoned house was a moving truck—a rather large obstacle that was causing traffic to be redirected, much to the annoyance of other commuters.

It was at about this time that a shinning, brand new, black Mercedes pulled up into the drive way. The man that came out of the car wasn't exactly screaming doctor, yet then again if he did he would have emerged in his white coat which wouldn't have been exactly typical. Rather disappointed most people continued on their way until Doctor Okayame opened the passenger door. Out of it came a woman with such pale skin that it seemed she hadn't seen the sun once in her life, upon her face were many freckles and peeking out from under her large black hat were wisps of fiery red-orange hair. This was the foreign, wild west woman that they had been eagerly waiting to see. She certainly looked out of place as she waved to the movers and then slipped into the house out of sight. She was such a distraction that the people who got out of the car after her were almost missed.

Two girls emerged from either side of the car—thankfully they had their father's tanned skin but they also seemed to have their mother's freckles across their nose and cheeks. Their hair on the other hand was a mixture. It was a deep red, so dark that in the shade it could be mistaken for a dark shade of brown. The sibling traits were impossible to miss yet when they were standing side by side at the same height that people realized they must be quite close to the same age. It wasn't until one got closer to see their faces that what was brushed off as sibling similarities could now be identified as identical traits. They stood in front of the large towering house with contemplation, looking quite out of place but in a much more subtle way.

The only visible physical distinction between them, besides clothing, was the fact that one of the girl's eyes was rimmed in red. Sniffling, the girl slid her hand into her sisters, intertwining their slender fingers.

"Naoko, what on earth are you doing?" The other girl asked not looking at her crying sister. Her tone seemed to be hesitating out of the uncommon gesture but slight irritation resided in her voice as well.

Using her free hand Naoko raised her hand to wipe at her eyes lightly, "Nyoko…please just hold my hand a little bit longer."

Nyoko sighed impatiently, yet despite her tone she made no move to remove her hand from her sisters, "Oh Nai, it's not that bad."

"It is that bad!" Naoko said firmly—her voice wasn't as soft as her sisters and despite the crying it seemed she was used to changing her mood quickly unlike her docile sister. "How can you be so calm about all this?!" Naoko said dramatically sweeping her arm towards 'this' meaning the house and living in Japan.

Now Nyoko used her free hand to run her hand through her hair, "I guess I just handle change better?" She offered lightly looking at the foreign country they had only recently started to visit—meeting people whose names they heard frequently but faces they never saw.

"Change?" Naoko mimicked bitterly. "This is a bit more than change. This is a complete upheaval!" Again Naoko's voice was more dramatic, "We're in a new country for crying out loud Nie! We don't even speak Japanese! And what about all our friends?! What about senior year, graduating from our high school? What about college?"

Chuckling quietly Nyoko answered calmly, "Think of it as an adventure, besides there are easy solutions to those problems. We'll learn Japanese—being around so many people who already know the language should make it easier. There are people here too, if you haven't noticed, and I'm sure that you're bound to be friends with one of them. There's still school, and we'll still have a senior year, unless you ignored when Father explained all of that to us."

"Let's just go inside." Naoko said in defeat releasing her sister's hand and moving towards the house. Right inside was already a littering of shoes and farther on in was the disarray of moving—boxes and random pieces of furniture.

"Girls! Girls!" Their over dramatic Mother said waving at them frantically. "Leave your shoes there. Put those ones on, and then hurry up in here. I have lots of boxes for you to take to your rooms."

"I can't take my shoes to my room? Why not?!" Naoko said in exasperation. She had decided early on after the announcement of the move to make it as hard for her parents as possible—to somehow force the feelings of what they were doing to her onto them. It had put her on rather thin ice with their patience. "What is the point of all these rules anyways?!"

A hand fell on Naoko's shoulder and her dark chestnut eyes looked up to see her father looking at her pointedly, "Just follow the customs dear…we've already gone over all of this." His tone showed that he was tired, the flight here had been long, and by his expression she could tell that he was not in the mood for her complaints.

Nyoko smirked coming to Naoko's rescue like she so often did, "Come on Nai—if you don't hurry up I'll be picking my room first." This of course got Naoko to move quickly to follow her sister. Taking one box each the girls climbed a flight of stairs to find the pair of rooms connected by a bathroom. "See we get our own rooms now. Positive thoughts." Nyoko winked.

Naoko just grumbled as she left the box in her designated room, to the right, to head back down the stairs for the next box. This process was repeated in respected silence for the next hour or two before both girls collapsed onto Nyoko's mattress lying on the floor.

"Now what?" Naoko asked blinking as she stared up at the ceiling.

Nyoko laughed, "What do you mean? We lay here—I'm exhausted."

"I thought you were the one who said this should be an adventure?"

"I did?"

"You did."

"Damn."

"Yep, so I reiterate my previous statement—now what?" Naoko asked sitting up on her elbows allowing her long hair to cascade over one shoulder.

Using one hand to hold her head up Nyoko looked at her sister, "We could just walk around outside…"

"That sounds rather boring." Naoko said giving a disappointed look, "That's the best you can do?"

Narrowing her eyes playfully Nyoko responded, "Oh sorry, my adventure isn't good enough for you? Perhaps since you so desperately want to get away you should read one of the millions of books we brought with."

Naoko opened her mouth to give a reply but then stopped and paused glancing at the few boxes that were falling apart—the boxes weren't meant to hold the weight of the books within them. "That's actually not a bad idea. I mean sounds lame but why not? I could go for that old fairy tale one."

"You mean the red one? The book that had all the twisted, dark, and original fairy tales and that Dad read to us every night?" Nyoko asked her own interest peeked now.

Grinning Naoko nodded her head, "We haven't read that in forever. I wonder how long it will take us to find it."

"Well there is a reason God made two of us." Nyoko chuckled with a wink pushing herself up off the mattress and walking towards the boxes of books. "Whoever finds it first get's to pick the first story." Nyoko declared in a competitive but smooth voice. Laughing Naoko dove for the nearest box to her, not bothering to walk towards it, and began to shuffle through all the books.

Half an hour later six, rather large, boxes were discarded on the other side of the room and about the floor were littered all the books. Both girls looked perplexed and irritated, "Where on earth could it be?" Nyoko finally asked aloud.

"I know we packed it…" Naoko tagged on sighing at the pile of books.

"Let's ask mom. Maybe she put it with her journalism things." Nyoko offered standing up and stretching the kinks out of her back from being hunched over.

"Good idea." Naoko said, already out the door and calling, in that typical teenage fashion, "Mom!" It echoed across the house quite loudly compared to their old one.

"What?" Their Mother answered, unwrapping trinkets from newspaper, on the couch. She didn't bother to look up at her seventeen year old daughters and didn't need to as Naoko continued.

"Do you know where that old red fairy tale book went?" Naoko asked looking for the box labeled 'Mom's things—Do Not Touch'.

"It wasn't in one of your boxes?"

"No." both girls answered.

"We thought it might have ended up with your things by accident." Nyoko suggested picking up one of the heavier boxes with the large bold writing. Disregarding the words on the box both girls opened it and began to shift through the things inside.

The ruffling of papers caused their Mother's attention to be directed towards them, "Hey! I said don't touch that stuff! It's all filed!" She yelled putting down her old task and rushing to the box. It is not in this stuff."

"Well how do you know if you don't look?" Naoko asked her hands on her hips.

Glaring their Mother replied, "Because I barely have enough room in these boxes for my own work things let alone your fiction books." It was something that rifted the daughters against their Mother. They both loved writing and reading…it was just on completely different genres.

"Do you think Dad has it then?" Nyoko sighed, clearly getting frustrated with how long such a small task should take. She was also attempting to avoid another blowout.

"I have no idea where your fairy tales came from and I don't know where they went. Frankly I don't care. I have a lot more important things to get done." Their Mother answered putting the box back with the others.

"Well what are we supposed to do then?!" Naoko asked back bitterly.

Sitting back on the couch and folding her legs in their Mother continued to unwrap trinkets again. Absent mindedly she waved them off saying, "Go look for it at the library or something."

With disbelieving expressions on both girl's faces Nyoko asked, "Where even is the library?"

"A couple blocks away…you two can walk can't you?"

Clearly it was a rhetorical question. "Want to go to the library?" Nyoko asked clearly unenthused.

Disappointed Naoko looked towards the door, "Oh why not…maybe they have translated stories. Better check now to save time later." With that the two girls walked back into the entry way to put on shoes and head out to the streets of the foreign country they were now calling home.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Why are so many people staring…?" Naoko whispered uneasily while on their walk.

"Well red hair doesn't seem to be common…so that's my guess." Nyoko replied looking at the people about her who mostly possessed black hair like their Father. "We're also speaking English…we probably look weird and sound weird. Even so, it is rather unnerving the way they keep staring at us." She tagged on quietly. Nyoko had never been one to have attention drawn to her—usually Naoko did that all by herself.

"Is the library much farther?" Naoko asked glancing around at the crowd of people and trying to read the building names despite not knowing Japanese.

"It…shouldn't be. But what do I know? I've never been there either." Nyoko commented.

"Oh please. You have like a sixth sense for these kind of things." Naoko said rolling her eyes.

"You're referring to the camping trip last year when I lead us both back to camp after being lost in the woods aren't you?"

"Ya."

"I knew what direction we came from. This is completely different, I don't know the direction of the library so I have no idea if we're even going the right way. I can tell you though that we're going North."

"I don't see how it's not the same thing."

"Of course you don't."

"What is that supposed to mean?!"

"Nothing."

"Nie!"

"Oh look!" Nyoko said pointing across the street.

Naoko rolled her eyes, "Don't you think you're a little old to be using that tactic. I mean please, I'm not going to just let you off the hook so you can try to get my attention on something else."

"No, we're actually here." Nyoko laughed lightly.

Now glancing in the direction of where Nyoko had pointed Naoko looked skeptical. "How do you know? That sign is some weird symbol…for all you know it could mean fire."

"See the windows?" Nyoko asked sighing.

"Ya?"

"See the books in the windows."

"Oooh."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"What's the use of a library if you can't read any of the books?" Naoko asked bitterly pulling books out randomly to then replace them in a hurried manner at seeing the Kanji symbols.

"Nai, were in Japan—were you expecting everyone to read English?" Nyoko asked sighing not bothering to look at the books but vainly trying to put the books back to their original place as Naoko shuffled them.

"As a matter of fact yes, I was thinking they would have some English books too."

"I'm sure they have a couple…"

"Really? Cause I'm not finding them. Are you? Hey! You're not even looking!"

"I'm trying to fix the mess you're making, now stop it and be quiet we're still in a library you know."

Rolling her eyes at her sister Naoko glanced towards the back of the library. "I bet they're in the back."

"No harm in looking I suppose." Nyoko said putting back the last book and leading the way. She headed to the last row of books before Naoko grabbed her arm to stop her. "What? I thought you said we should look here?" Nyoko asked irritated.

"No, I mean back there." Naoko said pointing to a door. "It makes sense don't you think? They wouldn't keep the English books out if no one reads them."

Nyoko looked at the foreign sign on the door, "I'm not so sure Nai…"

"Well I am." Naoko said confidently pulling the two of them towards the door. Just as she was about to reach for the door knob it opened. Startled both girls let out a small shriek of surprise and clung to each other.

On the other side of the door a girl—about their age was standing with an, incredibly hot, man. She was dressed in the school uniform that both girls recognized to be identical to the ones now hanging in their closet.

She then said, in Japanese so that neither of them understood, "Oh! Haha, hello. We-uh…we weren't doing anything."

"Way to sound suspicious Miaka." The man sighed rolling his eyes.

"What are they saying?" Naoko asked her eyes still wide with shock and slight confusion as she glanced at the two.

A third person joined them then. She too was in a school uniform but her hair was blonde—which was a shock to both girls. "Miaka they're speaking English. They can't understand us. Did you find the book?" she asked.

"I…have no idea." Nyoko said blinking in surprise. "She's acting like we're not even here." She said this with annoyance.

At this comment the blonde turned to face them. "Sorry. My name is Yui. You are?"

"You know English?!" Nyoko said in shock and her face turned light pink. This was incredibly embarrassing.

"Some of us actually pay attention in school, so yes." Yui chuckled. It looked as if the comment was directed for the brunette but apparently it went unnoticed.

"Yui, it's not here…how could it just up and disappear?" Miaka asked worriedly.

Naoko, who seemed oblivious to the conversation said, "Wow Nie. If all guys look like that here, maybe moving wasn't so bad after all."

"Naoko, shh." Nyoko said clearly flustered.

Yui chuckled at the girl's comment uneasily then replied to Miaka, "We're going to have to find it. Are you sure it's not at your house? I mean you could easily have left it there and just overlooked it. It's not that big of a book…"

"It's not at my house!" Miaka said stubbornly glaring at her friend, meanwhile the twins looked back and forth between the two confused.

"Don't worry Miaka. It'll turn up. Besides…the book had all four priestesses. What harm could it do?" The man asked smiling reassuringly and kissing the top of Miaka's head.

"So…what were you two going to do in the restricted section?" Yui asked turning her attention away from the couple as if uncomfortable.

"Restricted? Oh…we didn't know. We're sorry. We're trying to see if there's a section with any books in English. Preferably not research ones." Nyoko said laughing uneasily.

"I can't say that there are many…" Yui said though now seemed in thought. "I'm pretty sure there are some over in the corner." Yui said pointing across the building. "The advance English classes sometimes have to read the stories. I'm afraid they're not novel lengths though…" Yui said.

"Oh well…thank you for your help." Nyoko said taking Naoko by the arm and trying to walk in the offered direction as quickly as she could. In the background the three could be heard talking again as they walked as if to leave the library. "That…was embarrassing. I hope we don't see them at school." Nyoko sighed now safe within in the 'English Department.'

"Why not?" Naoko asked scanning the titles of the books quickly. "That guy was cute. He might have cute friends too." Naoko grinned. "Hey I think one of these books was put in the wrong section." Naoko announced pulling out a small book. She looked annoyed as if she hadn't been just reorganizing books a minute ago.

Sighing Nyoko took the small red-brown leathered book from her. The kanji were in gold. She opened the first page to see a few lines and then flipped through the book to reveal blank pages. "Who needed an entire book just to write on the first page?"

"Really? I wonder what it says? I bet it must be pretty good if it only needed one page." Naoko said now glancing over at the book too.

Tilting her head to the side, a habit Nyoko had when thinking, she said, "We could translate it…it would give us something to do." She offered the idea with a nonchalant shrug.

Looking at the other books Naoko nodded, "Sounds better than reading some of these…I mean these aren't even the good books." She laughed before taking the leather book from her sister. "Now we just need to find a translation book…"

"I bet it's in this section…that girl said this was where students usually read English books." Nyoko offered scanning the shelves. She then grinned seeing some at the bottom. "This should do." Nyoko said pulling out a small, but extremely thick, translation book out. "Now we just need to rent it out…"

"We don't have library cards." Naoko suddenly said with a frown, the excitement that was previously on her face now gone.

"Oh yah." Nyoko agreed.

"We…could borrow them?" Naoko suggested in question format.

"You want to steal them?!" Nyoko hissed.

Shaking her head Naoko replied, "It's not like we won't bring it back…"

Nyoko looked as if she were going to disagree but stopped herself. "Fine…but we have to bring them back first thing tomorrow!" She said nodding her head as if to confirm this for both of them. "Just put it in your bag…" she whispered sliding both books into the book bag Naoko had thankfully brought.

"At least they don't have those detector things like they do at home." Naoko grinned mischievously clearly enjoying this new idea.

"Don't be so sure yet…we could get caught other ways…" Nyoko, always the cautious one, offered. "Let's just get out of here though…" And with that, the twins talked nonchalantly about not being able to find anything—just in case someone was listening—before slipping out the door, undetected.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

At home the two went up to their new rooms, not even coming across their parents, but by the sound of it the two were in the back of the house putting together their Father's office. "Find some paper…I'll get a pen…" Nyoko said as she began to dig through some boxes of old school supplies.

"Be right back." Naoko grinned before dashing out of the room.

"Don't take Mom's stuff!" Nyoko called after her sister but knew it was too late anyway. Naoko didn't take long to return and by then Nyoko had found a working pen, scribble marks now edged on the side of the box from where she had tested them out.

"Let's lay on the mattress. It's more comfortable." Naoko offered though then helped herself to collapsing upon her sister's bed. As Nyoko lay beside her she looked questioningly at the book, "It looks really old…reminds me of the fairy tale one we couldn't find."

"That's what I was thinking…it almost looks like a journal of sorts too." Nyoko offered opening the translation book and scanning the Kanji slowly. "This might take awhile…" She sighed seeing the complexity of the designs.

"Here give it to me." Naoko smirked taking the book from her sister and now scanning, "You were always the better with names and I was better with faces."

Confused at her sister's comment Nyoko chuckled, "What?"

"These symbols are like faces…I'll probably find the matches faster than you will…see!" Naoko said this triumphantly placing a finger next to the word and it's matching kanji.

"Wow…" Nyoko said impressed. She then scribbled down the word onto her paper. Thirty minutes later both girls looked at what Nyoko had scrawled onto the page. Universe of the Four Gods. "That's an interesting title…but, did we grab some religious book?"

"Sounds like it, but it's way too short for that." Naoko said shaking her head.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because there is no way that someone can only write one page about their beliefs…I mean look at the Bible!"

"True."

Both girl's laughed at this, and with a new found interest began to decode the first page. It was a slow process but Naoko seemed to be catching on the farther that they went. "Girls!" Came the shout of the their Mother from down stairs. "Come down for dinner!"

"Wow…we spent all afternoon doing this…" Nyoko chuckled.

"Ugh, and we finally finished! I want to read it!" Naoko said exasperated.

"Just leave it. Dinner won't take long anyway." Nyoko reassured her jumping up from the bed and heading downstairs.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"We're not going to be eating rice every night are we?" Naoko sighed as the two girls trudged up back from dinner.

Nyoko laughed, "I doubt it but rice is popular here…so I guess it's possible."

"There is only so much rice I can eat." Naoko said holding her hand to her stomach.

"At least it's better than the Chinese take-out at home." Nyoko laughed. "And now…we finally get to read all of our hard work!" She grinned before sitting on the mattress and picking up the paper she had scribbled on.

"What's it say?" Naoko asked eagerly.

"Well early when I was writing it down it sounded like it was the beginning of a story but I was paying more attention to you than I was what we were writing so…"

"Nei, ha-ha, just read it."

" Okay, okay. This is the story of those who gathered the stars in the sky, and acquired the power to make every wish come true. The story itself is an incantation. Whoever finishes the book shall receive this power. As soon as the page is turned, the story will become truth and begin..."

"What?!" Naoko said exasperated. "That's it?!" She sighed and looked at the book they had just spent the last couple of hours translating. "I mean…you can't have a cliffhanger beginning—not to mention some crazy idea about the book coming true."

Nyoko laughed, "Maybe that's why it's blank—it's impossible."

"Ya I guess so…" Naoko sighed picking up the book and looking at the foreign kanji. "Wouldn't that be cool though Nei? I mean…that would be a real adventure." Forlornly she turned the page, thinking she would be looking at the blank pages of what could have been an amazing novel. Instead, the world erupted with simultaneous light and darkness.

The room fell back to normal, now empty of any presence. The book lay open and the words began to scrawl themselves onto the blank page…thus the story of the beginning of the end began to unfold.

Hello there! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. I know that many things need to be answered and that it probably seemed to take forever for the girls to even get to the book. Don't worry though you did not read in vain! There were many things that needed to happen to set up the story and where the girls came from will become rather important when relating to how they experience and react once inside the book.

I'm sure that right now it appears like many of the other fanfictions you have read on this site. How could it not? After all so far all that has happened is they were sucked into the book! The similarities should end there though. I have worked hard composing a plot that is original and took extra time to make sure I could answer all the questions for the changes I'm going to present--for example as to why the girls are twins and American.

I hope that you enjoyed the beginning and that you will read the next chapter--which actually gets into the plot of the story. Thank you so much for reading! Please review, I am looking for constructive criticism and feedback so that I can make sure that the story is interesting and fun for you and everyone else to read.

-Miracle