Once Upon A Time...

I.

The rain was warm. Each drop hit her forehead, and gently rolled down her cheeks, mixing with her dark red tears, making a light pink solution to drip off her jaw. Thunder boomed loudly in the distance. She tilted her head upward, facing the dark, stormy sky. There was more thunder, and a sudden flash of lightning lit her fair skin.

Slowly, she opened her eyes. The dark blue spheres moved in front of her where an angle drops ten stories to the raging mass of bodies below her. She took careful, balanced steps to the edge. Bright lights quickly swept both ways, creating an atmosphere that was both calming and threatening, but when added with the weather and her distance from solid ground, it was terrifying. Or at least, for someone who wasn't her. The noises from the cars beneath and the thunder above filled her ears.

She took a breath.

She felt like she was flying. Every moment of the fall seemed longer than it should; every second into a minute. She fell back into the wind-rain combination and her short black hair flew up into her calm face. Time slowed down even more. Her eyes focused on a group of people pointing and shouting, with horrified looks on their faces. She made her move. She pulled herself up; she was upright again. Almost there. Her trench coat looked like a cape. It all looked like something in a movie, or at least, a music video.

Her boots hit the concrete. Hard.

The group of people gasped and ran. She took no notice of them. She walked. The rain went full force, drenching everything. The last of her blood-filled tears had passed. Her black, jaw-length hair dripped with every step she made.

A glimmer fell from her short black skirt. It would've been lost forever, to slide in the wet, slippery road from a taxi going just a little too fast, and fall down into the sewer, never to be seen by anyone again. That is, if the pretty little black-haired girl hadn't have seen it. She picked it up in her small hands. It was a silver necklace. The little girl followed trench coat girl, until she disappeared behind two buildings. On the end of the necklace was a silver sphere, and engraved into it was the single name, 'Kikyo'.

A hurried-looking woman in a brown jacket and green umbrella picked up the girl. "Kagome, don't be running off like that! You know how much it worries me..." The little girl didn't pay any attention. Her mother's words drifted about, never reaching her ears. She kept her green eyes ahead of her. For a split second, she could have sworn she saw the trench coat girl on top of the building, staring at her. But then lightning struck, and nothing was there. The rain poured on.

II.

Inuyasha was a tall man who stood at the edge of the concrete sidewalk between the two brick buildings. He was alone. This damn rain just doesn't stop, does it? He thought to himself with a slight chuckle. A half-smoked cigarette hung out of the right corner of his mouth. The man was in a brown trench coat and a brown hat. He always joked (to himself, of course; he never really had any friends) that he looked like one of those old-school black-and-white movie detectives. But his intentions weren't to stop criminals from their acts of robbery, or murder.

He was the one committing those acts.

A flash of lightning struck a mile behind him, and he flicked the cigarette in the dumpster to his right. He took a look around, to make sure no one was near by, and walked down the dark alley. It was so empty at night, although if he were on a main road, he would be surrounded by cars, pedestrians, busy 24-hour stores, not-so-busy 24-hour stores, and the occasional prostitute. The main roads would have four lanes, and enough lights to make it look like day. But that wasn't the point. The point was to finish it. To get it done before the girl knew what was going on.

At the end of the alley, just before opening up to a small, dark road, was the man he was after. Bankotsu, with his black hair and his humor. Bankotsu, who knew everyone, who knew things, who knew too much. Bankotsu, who couldn't keep a secret. Bankotsu, who had to be silenced.

"So," Bankotsu said. He was standing by the back door of Purple Kittens, a strip club owned by Bankotsu himself. "why did you want to meet up? Is there...someone inside you wanna...you know...eh?" He chuckled some, not realizing how close Inuyasha's hand was to the pistol inside his coat, resting in a small pocket.

"I guess you can say that..." He let the sentence trail off. A smirk appeared on his face. He pulled the gun out, tossing it back and forth from one of his hands to the next, just playing with it, letting the idea sink into Bankotsu's thick skull.

Bankotsu knew what was going to happen. He felt his mouth going dry, his tongue swelling up. In the course of a second he could see him in his own grave, no eyes, worms crawling in and out of his- "Hey, you know, that's kinda dangerous. You can...eh...poke an eye out with that thing." He chuckled again.

"I plan on doing a little more than that." He stopped playing with the gun and pointed it at him. "I heard you've been talking to Naraku."

Bankotsu eyes widened. He backed up against the door. "Come on, it was just a joke, just a joke! I didn't tell him anything! It was just a joke!"

Inuyasha moved closer. "Well, I'm not laughing." He raised the gun toward Bankotsu, who had other plans.

Bankotsu turned the doorknob, and ran through the door. "Aw, fuck..." Inuyasha muttered under his breath, and chased after him.

He wasn't but six feet behind the clown when he shot his arm. Bankotsu yelled from the pain, and ran into the bar itself. A few of the dancers saw them and stopped, or screamed that one of them had a gun. Bankotsu jumped on one of the stages, and pulled out a gun of his own. He wrapped his injured arm around the thin neck of a redhead. "Stop, or I'll kill her!"

The redhead screamed. "No, oh please don't let him kill me!" She struggled out of her heels and pulled on his arm. "Oh, please don't kill me!" She started to cry.

Inuyasha ignored her. "And you think I care?" He shot her in the chest, and she screamed. Bankotsu let her go, and she slid down bleeding all over her lack of clothes, and she died.

"Oh shit!" Bankotsu yelled and ran for the front door. People in the room were screaming and running everywhere, and Inuyasha chased him down.

Just before Bankotsu's hand touched the handle to open the door, a security guard shot Inuyasha in the back. Inuyasha fell to his knees, dropping the gun. His eyes remained open, staring at Bankotsu, watching him yell and point, listening to everyone make their confused noises. The last thing he saw before he died was a pretty black-haired stripper's green eyes meeting his and then she ran outside though the door.

III.

Any other day, Sango Insunai would be at home, eyes glued to her laptop, looking for more information. She was the head of VIH, VIH meaning Vampire Informative Headquarters. Her job: to find out more about these creatures walking among them, to get to know their ways and understand them, but most of all, to keep them out of their city. But today was different. Today she was called in to discuss an important matter, the exact subject, sadly, she did not know.

Once an FBI agent, Sango's job went beyond research. On very rare occasions, she was called in to "solve" a small vampire problem. Never in their city, no. There had been agreements many years ago that another vampire will never step foot in their city again. These incidents were usually to the south, where a secret society of them reside.

She had always, always found a way to stop the problem. Usually, with a simple police-issue handgun, once a hand grenade. The problem would end, and she would be rewarded with a $1500 bonus.

But, still. Everyday was the same, until then. She had been in the office only three or four other times, but always to receive any information on problems she must "solve". There had been other meetings, sure, but she was never invited to attend. She was quite curious as to what the subject matter was, so she decided to go. It was at 7:42 am.

She was just getting out of bed at 8:07. Yet, she arrived, thankful she wasn't pulled over for speeding.

"Rin," she faced the secretary at the front desk. "Am I too late?"

She set down a stack of papers. Rin was young, and very pretty for her age. She did her work, and went home. If she had a social life, she kept it separate from her professional life. She shook her head and raised her right arm and pointed down a narrow hallway with a single door at the end. "Its in the conference room. They came out here a few minutes ago asking where you were."

Sango sighed. "Of course they would. Those bastards are so impatient...but hey, at least they waited for me." She turned her attention back to Rin. "Do you know what it's about?"

"Me? No, of course not. I'm just a secretary." A smirk slid across her face. "I wouldn't know anything." She went back to her paperwork.

Just a secretary. Sango thought. Of course she is. But with all that fucking paperwork, she should know more about what's going on than we do. Sango nodded and gave her a slight, friendly smile and continued to the meeting.

She opened the wood door to find the room completely empty. "What the fuck?" She said quietly. Every space at the large table was clearly marked. She went to the end, where "SANGO INSUNAI" was written in gold letters. A white envelope with her name printed across it in block letters lay just beneath her name.. She opened it, and pulled out a single sheet of paper. She took a deep breath, and read it.

Sango:

You have missed this meeting, just like you have missed the others in the past. With this in mind, we have come to believe that you are not VIH material. We know that you get your work before deadline, yet we still regret to inform you that you will be cut from the staff.

-VIH