Me: A series of tales from between the chapters of the Kamen Rider series. Most will primarily be one-shots and will vary in length and purpose, and will likely be out-of-order somewhat but never fear! I shall alert the time of the story before the one-shot can begin!

Bahamut: Oy, Corvus! If you don't hurry now, you're going to be late!

Me: Ack, gotta run, everyone! Enjoy the holidays!

DISCLAIMERS: Don't own what's not my own.

TIME: A few months after the events of Kamen Rider Daikaiju: "Ragnarok's End"

SnapShots

By Corvus no Genmu the Prince of Slumberland

"Miracle"

Snowflakes fell from the sky like gentle crystals, the cold strong enough to keep their form even on the warm earth. A slight shiver and a puff of heated breath came between slightly chapped lips as gleaming eyes of fire's light looked heavenwards not for the first time these past days of the oncoming winter season. A gloved hand carefully reached out, eyes watching the shapes of the frozen water melt back to its original form on the leather like material. A frown marked the face as heated breath came from the nose giving one the idea of an angered beast of flaming breath. Eiji Kusanagi was not unaware of the snow and the season of winter though such a thing had been forgotten on the world he and what remained of his family.

That thought made his frown turn to outright scowl that startled some passerby but were otherwise ignored by the boy in question. He had no love for the season, both the winter and the holidays; for he had no good memories to think back on these times. Eiji was a leader, more than that, he was a commander of a group of powerful warriors that had fought to survive in a world that allowed no sense of peace, a world that tore away any kind of happiness they had. They had moved on in their own ways, buried their pains to the graves under the emotions they preferred to voluntarily show the world at an excess.

Some memories though, were too big, too painful, to ever truly move past.

Children's laughter drew Eiji's eyes from the sky to a pair of children. One, the older, was a girl whose eyes shined with glee at a rather pretty unicorn doll sitting beside what her younger brother obviously emulated, a train set. Eiji was familiar with the store as it was one of the few that sold the 'classical' style of toy, original yet still a remembrance of something of the past, the present, and the possible future. The children were joined by their parents, and Eiji found his hands clenching tight at the sight of the mother; tight enough to have drawn blood were his hands devoid of gloves.

He turned away from the sight, thankful that his empathy was not active. To see was bad enough but to remember how it felt, a mother's love… It would have been too much to bear. His black coat hanging like a cloak from his shoulders, Eiji turned and walked away from the scene and memories.

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Morisato hummed happily alongside the old radio he had managed to salvage and repair to working order. It was by no means a work of technological greatness that he was familiar with, but the times supplied the tunes he wished to hear as he set about the finishing touches in his shared home with his fellow Riders. Grinning to himself, the scarred youth plugged in the lights and watched as rainbows shone brightly along the green pines of the Christmas tree, the shining gold star at its top sparkling.

Nodding in satisfaction, Morisato made to stand when his eyes fell upon a shining purple ball hanging from the tree's branches. It wasn't unique, truthfully it was one of five on the tree, but perhaps it was more in the way the light of the tree that shined upon it or even how he was kneeling before it that caught Morisato's attention. His dull yellow eyes stood out in the violet sheen of the orb, the scar over his left one even more so. He reached out to the ball, touching it lightly. Amethyst… just like her eyes.

"Espi-chan…" he whispered quietly. "I hope… that you'll forgive me… for not giving you the love you deserved." By his nature, Morisato had always been a flirt, teasing and poking fun at any girl that caught his attention, some more so than others. However, he never really loved them, at least not in the way he should have. Espiga Parker had been everything of his ideal woman and despite his flirtations with other girls, she loved him. So much, in fact, that she died.

Just for him.

The thing that really hurt the most was when Kiri Natchios had gone after Espiga, in hopes of bringing her back alive and well, while he, Espiga's so-called soul mate… did nothing. Morisato would love to blame the Crystals that had infected his mind, his personality, but he wasn't a liar, not anymore. Espiga died, trying to live up to expectations he didn't want her to hear and Kiri died bringing her body back to them, free of the Crystals. In her last moments, she cursed him for taking the heart of the one person whom she loved more than anything, for not being the kind of person Espiga had believed him to be.

It was times like these that Morisato wondered if he even deserved the life he had anymore, if the scar over his eye was enough of a reminder, or if he earned the right to be happy with his newfound love, Ami Mizuno. So it was, with a storm of dark and bleak thoughts that Morisato stood to his feet and made his way to the garage, to further drown himself in his work on rebuilding the K-Cycles, never once seeing the smallest bit of life falling down upon the Christmas ornament and watching in hushed silenced.

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Takuya hated a lot of things, as anyone who knew him could attest. It was even more obvious just what he hated most on certain occasions, or on a daily routine really, but sometimes, it took eyes like a hawk to really find what the Yashima heir truly loathed with all his being and even then, those eyes would still have to find the root, the why, of that hatred to fully comprehend it. With his heated glares aimed skyward, towards freezing gusts of wind weighed by flurries of snow, one could assume that it was the season itself that the redhead hated.

Being able to bend the winds to his beck and calling only stretch so far and, unlike the Urashima siblings, Takuya did not have complete control over nature and so had to allow the winds their natural course. More than that, flying was an activity made all the more fun on warm sunny days, where the winds could keep his body cool despite the hot temperatures. In the middle of winter, such a thing was taken to the extreme and beyond and Takuya held no joy in repeating the experience he had once before.

However, if one were to look more at what surrounded Takuya and knew more of him, they'd change their opinions drastically. The swordsman was standing before a large lake, frozen over several times with several ice skaters glided gently across its pristine surface. A particular pair that he had been watching just moments ago, was having a difficult time of it made more so by the gentle teasing of the eldest. The young girl, possibly a year or two younger than Rini, had not gained the proper method of balancing on the thin blades and though he was there to help and teach her, her elder brother still found humor in her fallings painful though they were.

Takuya uttered several choice words as to how he felt about the snow, the ice, the whole season, nature and holiday, as a whole that, had he been heard by polite company… well, let's just say that said company would not be so polite any longer. He turned and started walking away, his crimson trench coat billowing in the wind. It had been some months since the whole thing with the "Dark Riders" and the cause of the Crystal Incursion, and though he had, at last, properly avenged his younger sister, Takuya did not feel at peace with himself as he expected to be.

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It was strange for him though one wouldn't think it so. After all, he had it for several years and the replacement for but a few. Perhaps it was the strangely foreign familiarity of feeling blood flowing through warm flesh than oil through cold metal that made it seem so odd to him but he knew that wasn't the case; not entirely at any rate. No, what Shiro could not overcome was the loss of Asagi's watch, the very same watch that he had grafted onto his artificial hand and had marked to forever remember his promise to his first love, Asagi, and his cousin, Gabriel, both lost on that same dark day.

It was the last thing Shiro had of Asagi on the physical plane and he had lost it in the expanse of the Void, the plane where Shiro and his fellow Riders combated against the Terror King and had emerged victorious, Ghidorah destroyed for all eternity. Thanks to the BioMerge System, the Kamen Riders had won that fight, but they were not without their own wounds. They had been changed, slightly in some cases, graphically in others. Shiro himself had been granted not only his right arm, whole and active, but also…

Vibrantly bright green eyes narrowed as fists clenched tight before a pair of blades made entirely of bone burst forth from his wrists along the outer side of his hands. The blades extended over a foot-and-a-half, and were curved like the blades of the samurai. Shiro looked at them with disgust before sighing and relaxing the muscles in his arms, allowing the blades to retract back into his wrists without a scratch. How cruelly ironic that he, the pacifist, be the only one armed twenty-four/seven…

Perhaps the gods were trying to tell him something in this but for the life of him, Shiro could not tell. If there was but one message in this strange transformation of his body, it may well be that he was forever doomed to walk the path of the warrior, never to find the peace he's strived for despite the future he helped save.

Shiro's head rose at the sound of voices from downstairs. His eyes gained a molten glow as he looked through the fields of mana and he smiled at the familiar auras. He rose to his feet and made way downstairs where, for now at least, he could be at peace with the family he had left.

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Ushiwaka Urashima was, by nature, a very dangerous individual. Raised and trained in the art of ninjutsu, the art of shadow killing, the boy was a trained killer before he reached the age of ten, the very age he was chosen as the wielder of the K-Zector containing one of the Guardian Beasts, Varan of the Sky. With the added abilities granted to him through the biomechanical device, Waka became something of a legend in his own right during his time serving under Gojira and the elder Riders, including his own two older siblings. No longer was he limited to kill through steel or fist, now the open sky was his hidden home, poisons his closest ally, and the wind his blade. Add on top of that the changes brought by the BioMerge and Waka had become a living killing machine, able to kill with the smallest touch.

With all this in mind, it wasn't too hard to imagine how difficult it was for the young boy to adapt to a world of peace, which was, at best, interrupted only by the random youma from a so-called "Negaverse". By his blood Waka was a predator and a killer, but somehow…

A gust of wind blew him skyward, his cloak held tight in clawed hands as he glided on the snow-driven currents of the winter season. Frost covered the spiky orange locks of his hair but Waka paid it no heed. Having been dead once before, the boy felt entitled to push himself past what limits he, or rather his sister, had set, but more than that… he wanted to see.

He wanted to see the shining lights of the yuletide season, the creatures carved from snow and ice sparkling in the rainbow lights of the evening, and the people so innocent and carefree that a smile was as common as the sun rising on the horizon. His first days being in this new world had been hectic and rushed with adrenaline born of an apocalyptic threat created from the hands of traitors, Waka had no real chance to see the world that was to be his new home.

At first, he denied the change and tried to remain as he was but slowly, ever so bloody slowly, he had begun to change perhaps for the better. He landed atop one of the many skyscrapers and gazed down at the many (so many!) people down below. This world would never be home, not for someone as bloodthirsty as him, but perhaps he could allow his rage to wither just enough that Waka could let his poisoned heart begin to accept this strange concept of peace.

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The fire burned brightly, the logs creating a pleasant scent from within the stone fireplace. Eyes of clayish red gazed into the embers listlessly as faintly pointed ears twitched from the occasional sound in the kitchen. Issun Urashima, elder brother to Waka and younger to Kushinada, sat almost listlessly before the warm fireplace with a large thick quilt wrapped tightly around his person. He sniffed, not truly sick but feeling rather despondent with the cold brought on by the season of winter. Holding the power of Baragon of Earth made Issun's tolerance for low temperatures quite small, even more so when one took his fire bending into account as well.

True, he was by no means a master of fire bending, not like Shiro, but Issun was, by habit, used to warmer climates than this having not actually seen snow outside of old pictures and videos. His eyes narrowed slightly and Issun pulled his head more out of the quilt before blowing a stream of fire into the fireplace. Satisfied that more wood was burning nice and proper, Issun sat back in his chair with a contented sigh. He yawned tiredly and closed his eyes for another light nap. 'Stupid… hibernation… instincts…' And with that, Issun was out like a light.

Kushinada looked out from inside the kitchen and sighed, shaking her head with a faint smile on her face. She knew that the winter wouldn't be easy on Issun, being both unused to the cold and connected to elements that are weak against the ice and snow of winter. She too would be feeling the same if she wasn't "cheating" by using her electrical abilities to provide more energy to her body. Housing the power of the Water Guardian, Manda, made her both strong and weak in this climate. Surrounded by water, solid or otherwise, made her quite the deadly foe to any youma that dared to enter this plane.

The tall young woman returned once more to the task at hand of cooking her share of the meal for that evening. She was by no means the ideal chef but Kushinada knew her way around the kitchen better than the boys. She still remembered the effects of Waka and Takuya's last attempt at making food. Needless to say, none of the Riders would ever look at PB-n-J sandwiches ever again.

Washing her hands clean, Kushinada thought once more n the strange twist of fate that had brought her blood-family together again. She wasn't a firm believer in faith, not like Shiro or Sensei, but what Kushinada didn't believe was coincidence. There had to be more to her family's resurrection than Serizawa's twisted schemes. She refused to believe that she and her brothers were brought back to life for that one battle alone. There had to be more to it than that.

There had to.

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That Christmas morning had been quiet though many wondrous gifts were exchanged between the Riders. With the day still young, those with a sense of family outside of their own they shared with each other left to find those missing pieces of their heart while the others made way for their own methods of celebrating the holiday. The Urashima siblings had left for a walk across the city, taking in the festive cheer of those around them and taking in the sights of the Christmas decorations in their fully glory.

"Who'da thought there'd be so much cheer around this city?" muttered Waka, keeping his normally foul mouth clean, as a part of his Christmas gift to his sister. He was dressed in the same cloak he wore yesterday but wearing heavier clothes to dissuade his siblings of his desire to fly despite the cold.

"They have a lot to celebrate for this year," yawned Issun, tugging at the scarf he had gotten from a… friend… of his at school. It was kind of itchy and he had taken note of the kittens that decorated the ends of the scarf. He was glad for his insightfulness in sending for her gift so early. She'd be receiving it right about now, and he sincerely hoped she liked it as much as he liked his scarf, despite Waka's teasing.

Kushinada nodded in agreement with her brother. "Considering they nearly experienced the apocalypse, it is not so hard to disbelieve." Hardly anyone gave her a second glance for which she was thankful. Being tall in Japan was not necessarily a bad thing but seeing a teenage girl as herself nearly pushing seven feet, well… she was bound to get a few stares, especially when people noticed she wasn't a foreigner.

"Ahem, pardon me," the Urashima siblings stopped and saw a man dressed in a long red trench coat, his black hair tied back into a loose ponytail. He was holding a small wrapped package in his hands which he now held before the Urashima's. "I think you dropped this."

Kushinada hesitantly took the package from the man and glanced down at it along her brothers before looking up, "I'm sorry but we—Huh?" The man was gone, the snowy wind blowing away his tracks in the white expanse. "Where… how did he do that?" she whispered, snakelike eyes narrowed in obvious distrust.

"Uh… Sister?" muttered Waka. "You should see this."

She looked at her brothers and saw their eyes laid more on the package in her hands. Taking a look for herself, Kushinada felt her breath halt in her lungs for there, written in cursive script were their names, whole and complete, on the small parcel.

"Should we… I dunno know… open it?" asked Waka, a senbon already in hand.

"Put that away before you poke your eye out," grumbled Issun, pushing his younger brother's hand down. "It's not a bomb; I don't hear any kind of mechanisms inside it." Kushinada looked up and saw that Issun held an earmuff off one his ears, which was aimed directly at the parcel. "It sounds safe."

"Perhaps we should wait," whispered Kushinada, holding the package carefully lest it turn out to be a bomb despite Issun's assurance, "and have Sensei look over it."

Waka snorted and snatched the present from his sister's hands and started tearing into it. "I'm surrounded by worrywarts."

"Waka!" scolded Kushinada, bopping the young boy on the head. "It could be dangerous!"

"Please, like something dangerous could be in something so small." A whap to the back of his head. "Ow! Issun-no-baka!"

"Just open the thing without any wisecracks, brother mine." Issun sighed.

Waka grumbled a few nonsensical words, holding to his promise to keep his mouth clean on this day, before continuing with opening the small present. Gazing into the package, the youngest Urashima nearly dropped it in shock as his brother and sister openly gaped at the object within.

The item was ancient both in appearance and in actual age. Made completely of gold, the plaque was a little over the size of a large dinner plate and was depicted with eight distinct symbols along the outer and eight colored gemstones clasped in the mouths of all eight heads of the Orochi. The gems held in the jaws of Earth, Air, and Water shone brightest while those of Fire, Poison, and Lightning were just dimly lit. Darkness and Light remained motionless, allowing only the light of the sun to give them any kind of shine.

Issun hesitantly reached forward and gently touched the gems of Earth and Fire as Waka pulled the plaque out from the package, listlessly tossing it over his shoulder for Kushinada to catch more out of reaction than anything else. All three of the Urashima siblings knew the object that was there before them. It had been in their family for generations, passing through to the eldest son to the eldest son for nigh over several thousand years. They had thought it lost to them, gone forever in the remains of their old world but no, it was here before them in their hands once again.

"I… I don't believe it…" whispered Waka, completely stunned as he held up the plaque to his brother to hold. "Is it… is it the real thing?"

"Of course it is, foolish baby brother," muttered Issun, his usual gruffness absent from his voice. "But… how did…?" he trailed off, thinking perhaps, in this instance, it was better not to ask.

Kushinada herself was gazing into the depths of the package, where her ocean blue eyes fell upon the note left for them to see. She took the small slip of paper with trembling hands and read the curling script written in the serpent's tongue, the language of the snakes that only they, the Urashima's, could read.

"Don't cry… you should be happy because you are alive and life… is wonderful!"

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Shiro couldn't keep the smile off his face. The last several hours spent with his beloved priestess was time well spent. Being with her was a refresher on Shiro's tired soul, but more than that, her company alone was enough to cause the sun to shine even on his darkest of days. That and her no-nonsense attitude would not allow him to feel grief more because she didn't believe that he deserved to feel such a thing. So deep in his thoughts of his love, Shiro never took notice of the man in the large red trench coat sliding towards him on a particularly large patch of ice until it was too late and they had collided into each other.

"Oof!" Shiro mentally berated himself for his inattentiveness and sat up to offer his apologies only to find the other man already gone with a bouquet of roses resting in his lap. Surprised and more than slightly unnerved by the sudden disappearance of the man and the appearance of the flowers, Shiro stood to his feet, bouquet in hand. He blinked in surprise at the weight of the flowers. He tilted them in his hand and started as a small silver object fell into his free hand, his right if one need be specific.

He blinked once, twice, three times, gaping openly at the small silver pocket-watch etched with the symbol of a rose on its cover.

"It's… no, it couldn't be…" Shiro hastily placed the roses in the crook of his elbow and undid the latch. The flowers fell to the snow with a soft thump, the watch nearly joining them. The emerald-haired youth felt something wet running down his face but he didn't care for the tears that fell from his eyes. No, what he cared about was what the watch that rested gently in his open palm and the inscription written in pleasantly familiar handwriting underneath the rose decorated latch.

"Vive Ut Vivas" or, in the words of the Olde English, "Live, so that you may live."

"Heh…heheh…" Shiro laughed, tears falling down his face as he looked heavenward, clutching the watch tightly in his right hand. "I hear you, Asagi… I hear you…"

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Takuya stood atop Tokyo Tower with no fear as he stared down at the white expanse, feeling particularly lonely. Mina was off in England visiting her family and wouldn't be back until after the New Year and with the approaching blizzard, Takuya would have to wait a few days more before attempting a flight across two continents. He'd probably make it if he left now but having flown through a blizzard once before… He shivered, drawing his long trench coat tight around his body. That wasn't an experience he was willing to repeat.

Suddenly, somewhere out of the blue, a small square-shaped something landed atop his head. Despite nearly falling off the Tower and yelling several words that he was sure Kushinada would reprimand him for, Takuya had sense enough to catch whatever it was that had fallen atop his head. Rubbing the bump on his noggin, the Yashima glared down in disbelief at the flat, square shaped package in his hands. "How in the hell…?" He looked skyward for a sign… of a plane of course! No way would he see reindeer or anything of the sort, no freaking way.

Looking down at the present once again, curiosity got the better of Takuya and he unwrapped the present, allowing the blowing gusts of the North wind to carry the paper away as he stared open mouth at the small framed picture of three familiar people it was obviously photoshopped, or something of the sort, it just had to be despite Morisato's complaints of the lacking of such technologies and advancements. How else could they be on this picture together like this?

A man with long red hair tied in a loose ponytail along his back, a scar running across his nose, and strangely nostalgic smile on his face with his arm wrapped around the waist of a woman with a long length of hair, the same shade as Takuya's brown locks, and a pleasant smile on her own youthful face with a hand gently resting upon the shoulder of a young girl, no older than eight years with a bright jubilant smile on her face and a bouquet of lilies in her hands. Takuya knew them instantly but he denied them there being together like that. The man was gone before the girl had celebrated her first year of life and the woman followed him in the child's fifth and the child herself… never grew past eight years.

They were dead, every one of them but then how… how did this picture come to be? Takuya didn't know, didn't dare to question it for there beneath the glass and wood of the picture frame… was his family. The father he barely remembered, the mother he recalled in his dreams, and the sister he couldn't protect… together in a way that made him feel strangely jealous.

Takuya hugged the frame close to his chest, a smile on his otherwise scowling face before confusion marked it. He pulled something loose from behind the picture frame, a small business card of some sort. Before he had chance to read it, Takuya vanished from Tokyo Tower, nay the city, the country, the entire continent. He shook his head, startled by the sudden change from afternoon to late evening of the previous day, the card vanishing into snowflakes on the wind. The door to the home in front of the boy opened and a familiar blonde-haired girl looked out first in shock than in loving surprise as she ran forward and embraced Takuya, knocking him onto his back and into the snow.

"Takuya!" Mina yelled, placing a quick kiss to his lips. "I thought you wouldn't be here until Saturday!"

"I…" He looked past for, to spare a quick glance at the photo in his left hand. "I wanted to surprise you…"

Had Takuya not allowed shock and wonder to take control of him, he'd have noted the fact that the kimonos of his family were done in the style of those whose fate rested in the hereafter. In other words, in the style of the dead.

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Had he Takuya's or even Waka's skill of the foulmouthed arts, Morisato would have been cursing a storm at so-called modern technology. Thus far, he'd managed to rebuild four of the K-Cycles, having now just completed Shiro's own, but it'd be some time until he'd finish the rest. Sighing tiredly, Morisato ambled past the bathroom, silently grateful to have spent the few hours he could talking with Ami and causing her to blush a total of fourteen times. That was a record right there but still… it wasn't the same as having her there in his arms, their mutual warmth shared between them both.

With another tired sigh, Morisato pushed open the door to his room—and somehow managed to repress the urge to scream. One would, upon seeing the room for themselves, think it was perhaps the sudden accumulation of cobwebs resting above the desk where Morisato's laptop desk but they'd be wrong. If one were of Morisato's stature and standing just as he was in the doorway with the afternoon light shining just so through his windows, they'd see for themselves the true meaning behind the web hanging gently over Morisato's desk.

"All… is Forgiven…?" he whispered, his amber orbs wide in disbelief as he stared at the writing spun into the silken strands. A faint breeze blew into the room and Morisato saw the thin string that fell from the web to the top of his closed laptop and again the short teenager repressed the urge to cry out in shock. Instead, he moved slowly, disbelief weighing his footsteps, to the desk and hesitantly, lest it perhaps disappear in front of his eyes, touched the silver chained necklace bedecked with a trio of amethyst crystals, all carved in a long crystalline shape. He recognized it for what it was and knew for whom it once belonged to but how… how did it end up here?

Morisato thought it perhaps a cruel trick delivered to him by Takuya but even the temperamental Yashima would not stoop to such a level as this… and the webbing alone was unexplainable, almost as much as the pair of curved sabers resting in their leather sheathes beside his desk. Not daring to blink, Morisato leaned down and, with a small gulp, pulled a blade free and gasped at the familiar jagged edge of the weapon.

He looked rapidly between the web, the necklace, and the blades before stumbling back and sitting on his bed before stiffening and looking down beneath his right hand to see a book. He picked it up and looked to its cover and blinked in surprise before a familiar twitch began to play on his lips until, at last, Morisato began to laugh quite uproariously as he fell back onto his bed, tears flowing down his eyes.

After he regained his breath, the scarred youth sat up, still chuckling as he looked not heavenwards, but to the webbing that hung gently above his desk. "You've a strange sense of humor, the both of you, but… I think I got the message… thank you… Espi-chan… Kiri-chan…" He looked to the book in his hands and chuckled once more, "I suppose Water-Sprite will enjoy reading Charlotte's Web as much I have."

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"Eiji…! That tickles!"

"Ah, but you enjoy it, no?" Eiji Kusanagi chuckled, pressing another kiss to Lita's neck, a hand playing with the ornament tied in her ponytail. "Your own fault for putting mistletoe in your hair. I'm afraid my lips will be too busy kissing you for the res o f the evening my dear heart."

Lita laughed, leaning back into Eiji's embrace. "You, my darling, take things far too literally at times."

"Hrmm, perhaps." Eiji sighed, letting his head resting gently on her shoulders and glancing down at the base of her throat. "Do you like your present?"

Lita smiled, her hand reaching up to clasp the heart shaped pendant with her name inscribed on its golden sheen. A picture of herself and Eiji rested inside it. "I do…" She blushed and looked up at him with demure eyes. "But I think I liked your second one more…"

Eiji blushed but couldn't resist smiling. True, he'd keep to his word of waiting until the night of their honeymoon but that didn't mean they couldn't find… other things… to do that didn't go to that length. Needless to say, both were exhausted afterwards and were now resting on the couch in Lita's apartment, a quilt wrapped tightly around them both. "I can't help but agree, Sweetheart." The Kusanagi's eyes drifted down to the table and he blinked in surprise. "Lita… did you forget to open a present earlier?"

"Hmm?" Lita sighed, her eyes closed as she leaned further back into Eiji's chest, twisting her head so that she rested her face on his shoulder. "No…"

"Is that for me then?" asked Eiji, looking at the package with a bit of suspicion in his orange eyes. He did not recall seeing the package there but considering he had been… busy… it wasn't too unexpected. Lita opened her eyes and looked for herself, quirking an eyebrow in confusion.

"That's not one of mine." She whispered. Eyes now narrowed, Eiji gently moved her off his lap, ready to toss the package out the window if it proved dangerous. He carefully opened the paper one fold at a time until both he and Lita found themselves staring at the blank cover of a photo-album. Surprised and, admittedly curious, Eiji sat back and opened the cover of the book and nearly dropped it off his lap. Lita leaned over, looking down in confusion at a man that looked remarkably like…

She gasped, "Eiji! Isn't that—"

"My father… and my…" Lita's eyes drifted over to the woman standing beside Raijin, dressed in a shining white wedding dress of the western style of marriage. Raijin himself was dressed in a rather smart looking tuxedo, that Lita was sure to look just as good on Eiji. "Mother…"

"Is this their wedding picture?"

"I… I guess it is…" whispered Eiji, gently touching the bottom edge of the photo. "We had to move around so often… we couldn't always take everything with us…"

Lita looked into her beloved's eyes and saw the strange blend of remembrance and despair in them. "Turn the page," she whispered. "Maybe there's more."

Eiji nodded wordlessly and turned the page and stifled a sob. "Asagi…"

"Your sister…?" whispered Lita, looking down at the image of a girl not much older than Haruka or Michiru, with long hair the color of the forests with the same eyes as Eiji's own. Though she knew not why, Lita felt as though she was looking at a rose given human form. "She's beautiful."

"Yes… she was…" Eiji turned the pages back, to look behind the cover of the book to see if there was anything, a note or an inscription, to give him some sort of clue as to who had given him this gift. There was nothing there save for a glistening black feather and the sound of a crow's laughter echoing in the horizon.

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Merry Christmas

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