"Hey! Look what I found!"
"Ooooh! Lemme see! Lemme see!"
"Calm down, all of you. Let me see that." The teenager waded into the pile-up of small children and extracted the heavy book they were squabbling over. He smiled slightly as he read the title, and the dates on it. "Well, you guys have quite a find. I was sure I'd lost this. That, or my mom threw it out."
"What is it?"
"Memories."
"Whose?"
"Team Urameshi's."
"Really?" A multitude of small voices cried.
"Mmhm. Where did you find it?"
"Here." One boy said, pointing at the small hole in the floor that shouldn't have been there.
"I'd completely forgotten about that hiding place." The youth knelt down on the floor and reached into the space between the floorboards. In a few minutes, he'd collected a pile of books, all identical to the one he held. They were huge books, all at least six inches thick, the size of a large encyclopedia, bound in leather and stamped in gold. "Lets see…one, two, three… they're all here."
"How many?"
"Twenty-five. Twenty-five volumes."
"Wow!"
"Yes, wow. And there are five in each volume here. This is currently the group's set. Each member made one, and they're each this long."
"So what are they?"
"Scrapbooks."
"Where did you get them?"
"Well, seeing as Kurama is my grandpa, and he was their keeper, they were part of my inheritance when he died." The children became quiet.
"How did he die?"
"He was shot."
"By a gun?"
"No. He took an arrow, right through the heart. He did it to protect Hiei. They were the closest friends you can imagine."
"Can we see?"
"Well, what do you want to see?"
"What do they have inside?"
"A lot of things. Stories, mostly. Pieces of the past."
"Stories about what?"
"Battles. Wins, losses, ties. Victory, and defeat. Failures, discoveries. People they met, friends they made. Jams they got into, and how they got out. A good portion of their lives is in those books."
"What else?"
"Things they picked up. Reminders of things that happened. Pictures."
"Pictures of what?"
"Of them. Of things they did, places they went, people they met. Pictures of the past. Things they saved, or destroyed, or helped build. Battles they fought, injuries they got. Things like that.
"Can you pick one?" The little ones were dazed by the treasure they had found. That many stories could keep them all happy forever!
"Weeeelllll…I don't know. What do you want to hear about?"
"How did your grandpa and Hiei meet?"
"I'm sure you all know that one."
"Jake! What are you up to?" Everyone jumped as the door slammed open. Jake groaned and stood up, casually approaching the female in the doorway. Her tail twitched in annoyance. She stood eye-level with Jake's chest, making her about 5 feet 2. Her chestnut hair was braided and coiled in a complex series of loops at the back of her head, and her startlingly blue eyes glimmered in anticipation of a bit of fun. She was a slender creature, slender but strong, like a porcelain doll molded around a core of steel. Placing her beside Jake was like parking a kayak beside a super tanker.
"They found the scrapbooks." Her eyes went wide and her ears flattened half down to her scalp in shock.
"No way!
"Yes way."
"Well, bring them downstairs! We can all see." Jake nodded.
"Okay. Everyone follow Erin downstairs. Erin, can you carry a couple of these?" Erin nodded and accepted five volumes. She left, trailing a line of kids, all between the ages of five and ten. Jake followed, the rest of the books in his arms. He made quite a strange picture. 6 feet 6, with fiery red hair that hung to just short of halfway down his back (pulled into a ponytail), black jeans that fit like a second skin, green t-shirt that said 'I'm with the band', sparkling green eyes, and a build that screamed 'football player!', carrying a stack of books. What a sight! He managed to navigate the stairs without mishap and got into the living room. Once there, at least a dozen small hands reached out to take the books and put them on the coffee table.
"We saved a place for you." Erin said, indicating a spot in the middle of the oversized couch. Jake sat, and was immediately covered by kids, all vying for the honored seat in his lap.
"Hey! Knock it off! You all know the rules. Youngest gets my lap." Reaching into the crowd, Jake extracted a tiny boy of five, who was calmly sucking his thumb, and plunked him down in his lap.
"What were you going to tell them about?" Erin asked.
"Well…they wanted how Gramps and Hiei met up, but I know they know it already."
"Not that one!" someone yelled. "What happened after that? Did they just live by themselves until Yusuke happened?"
"Oh. That story. Hand me the fourth volume someone." Jake opened the book, yelped, and closed it again.
"What is it?" Erin asked.
"Ouch. I forgot that these can only be opened by someone with at least half demon blood. I'm in human form, so it zapped me." There was a quiet 'pop' noise, and Jake's ears and tail appeared. He tried the book again, and it opened. "I'm gonna have to move ya small fry." He said to the child in his lap. The boy moved, transferring himself to Erin's lap. Jake put the book in his lap, with the covers resting easily on his knees. He flipped through the pages until, finally, he came to a bright picture, one that featured Hiei and Kurama when they were teenagers. They were on a lawn, with a gorgeous flower garden behind them. Kurama had Hiei in a headlock, and was tickling him mercilessly. Hiei was laughing so hard that tears were running down his cheeks.
"Wow. All the pictures I've ever seen of these two are serious. I didn't even know if they were able to act like this!" Erin commented.
"Yeah, they could. Gramps did, right up to the day before he died. Apparently, as a way of calming himself down, he de-bugged all of his rose bushes and put the bugs in the other three's beds. Kuwabara nearly had a heart attack, and Hiei had to be restrained so he wouldn't try to strangle Kurama."
"Well, aren't you going to read it?" Someone asked.
"No."
"NO? Why not?" they chorused.
"It's going to read itself. Watch, and listen." Jake snapped his fingers, and his index finger lit up with a faint green light. He touched his finger to a small black dot on the top outside corner of the page. Just like that, they all saw and heard the tale.