A Twist of Change
Chapter 002: Security Breech
She was finishing up the last bit of paperwork she had to fill out for Souta's next doctor's appointment. She kept up with his appointments, even though she knew that there really wasn't a cure for what he had. There wasn't even a "fix" for his "error". But the doctor's wanted him to continuously go in for possible signs of improvement. Of course, the only hope the doctors, as well as herself, had was the fact that he could move his hand, if only just a bit.
The doctors, plus herself, had reason to believe that he understood what was happening. He was able to smile at silly things and grunt when uncomfortable. Though, it was a little hard to decipher other feelings, they continued making progress.
Kagome stood from her desk and opened the door. "Hey, Sho, glad you could come in today," she said as she looked around for a pen to sign off on some other documents. She seemed to always be losing her pens...
"Yeah, I had to break a few hearts, but nothing major," he said, giving her a cheeky grin. After she signed away on the documents, she looked up and smiled.
"That's too bad," she said, just as flirtatious as he, "I'm sure they will all be happy to know that I'm number one in your life."
With a laugh as she walked around the desk toward him in the hallway, he grabbed her hand and twirled her around before bringing her into a dip. "You know, even if I were half way around the world, I'd still come to you." He said as he caressed her face in an affectionate manner.
"Oh please," she said with a roll of her eyes as he let her up, "you'd make sure you'd get your two cents first before coming to see me." The two of them laughed heartily before her held an arm out to her and walked her down the hallway to the main lobby.
Today, Sho was wearing long dress pants and a muscle shirt with a button-up checkered blue shirt over it, completely open. She could tell that he didn't have time to actually change from what he had been wearing so he had come in the most suitable thing possible.
Kagome made it a point for everyone in the household as well as in those visiting her household, to at least be decent. Not like a simple blue jeans and t-shirt sort of thing, but actually appealing to the eyes. Holes, no shoes, and blue jeans were the biggest no-noes in her book. Though, she did forget about the muscle shirts. She let it slide, though she'd have to amend the rules pretty soon for all of the employees of the house.
Sho was a tall, rather darkly tanned, male. He was well-built in all of the areas appealing to any woman. Hell, he probably made some men turn gay just for him. His shoulders were broad and he had a thick neck, but not so thick that it looked like a muscle-builder. His face was certainly lean, and the kicker to it all? He was French. Of course, he's lived here in Tokyo, Japan for long enough to speak their language fluently.
"Wait a sec," Sho said as he stopped them in the middle of the hallway. "Have you eaten yet?" He paused then took a look at her. "You're not even dressed."
He spun them around quickly and marched her straight to her bedroom in the family wing. "Kagz, I know you like your job and all, but you should at least looked prepared for it."
This is why she never called Sho in the evenings. Her job didn't require her to wear her uniform because it was the night shift, but they did require her to be dressed enough to run should the situation call for it.
"That's better!" He commented when she came back out of her room, her police uniform in place, her belt strapped on, and her hair pulled back. She felt a little depressed looking at her body in that uniform. "Now, try looking a little more cheerful and you will be perfect!"
"Does that mean I get to imagine my fist in your face?" She asked, honestly curious.
He frowned for a sec before he perked up once more. "Come on, your attitude will improve once you get some food in you! You're looking a little on the skinny side, anyway!" She glowered a bit, before the smell of food wafted towards her nostrils and had her stomach growling with want. "I gave Jacques a buzz while you got dressed."
"For your information, I was already dressed," she retorted, "but thank you for getting this ready for me." She walked into the dining room and not a moment later, the cook named Jacques brought out some breakfast foods, all of which she recognized as an All American breakfast. "Breakfast for dinner, Jacques?"
"It was a nice change of pace, no?" He asked. The chef was skinny, and because he worked in the kitchen in hot temperatures, she allowed him to under-dress, but she wouldn't allow it during the times she had actual guests in their home. After all, if she was a trillionaire going big, she wanted to give a good face.
"Hmm," Kagome said, nodding her head, "Good choice." She ate her breakfast, or dinner, and quickly tidied her small area for Jacques to pick up and take. "Thank Jacques, your food is always the best." She said with a grin. She knew Jacques back in middle school, but they had lost touch for a while. It wasn't until Jacques saw her in the news that he reached out to her and said hello. They caught up and he told her about how he wanted to become a professional chef, actually achieved that goal, and then was working on his master's before seeing her in the news. Once he graduated, he saw she was looking for a chef, he applied, and she hired him right away, no paperwork involved or anything.
In all honesty, Jacques's family owed hers a lot. Because the Shrine was big on donations and such, it was because of her family that his own was able to merit as much as it had. His family was in poverty for quite some time and relied on the Higurashi Shrine to help support them in any way possible. In fact, the Higurashi Shrine helped out many families, but it was because of them that he was even able to go to school.
"I better get going," Kagome said, taking a look at her watch. "It's going to be a long night tonight. Jacques, will you still be here early tomorrow morning so I can have something to eat before I knock out for a few hours of the day?"
Jacques gave her a solute and laughed, "I will be here, don't worry. I'll make sure you have something to eat before beddy-bye-time."
She laughed and said her goodbyes before rushing out the door, grabbing a jacket on the way out.
She already felt pretty tired and it was barely half past midnight. She supposed walking circles all night with nothing but a flashlight to light up creepy manikins and stuffed figures was one way to bore her out of her mind.
To be completely honest, she took the job of a security guard for the museum to give herself some sort of normalcy. She wanted a job where she didn't have to work too often, and she wanted a job where she could get away from the mansion and everything, if only for a few hours. She always thought about how far Souta and herself had come on nights like these. There were those times where she was called in during the day, but they were rare. She stayed on call and was always paid on the nights she came in because she worked around that schedule.
She enjoyed it, however. It made her forget things that had happened in the past fifteen years and made her think even further back. She didn't get to spend a lot of time remembering the things in the Feudal Era, but when she did, she was able to mourn properly for the loss of her friends.
As she passed the animal exhibit and went to her favorite section of the building - The Feudal Era - she began to hear a silence that was a little more defined. Her heart always sped up when she came to this particular spot of the building. It was chilling, honestly. It haunted her almost in a physical manner. And because she always got so worked up in this particular spot, she was always so exhausted when she got back home. "The birds, the bees, the trees, and the Earth," she sang to herself, mumbling most of it, "what does it you call home?" She saw the new statue they brought in. To her it look like a mold of sorts. Almost as if... four enormous mounds had gotten covered in some sort of sticky white glue and were just forever frozen. She looked at it a little closer, being careful not to touch it. She saw the face of a person, but just half of it. It was impossible to really make out the person's expression. Further down, a little closer to the ground, there were tiny hands. So incredibly small. Closer to the front, there was a hand outstretched, as if protecting a mass that was behind it.
It was an odd sculpture. As if... as if something had melted right on top of a family or something. Again, it was so hard to interpret the mold that she really didn't know what it was suppose to be. She looked down at the description and read, "This mold depicts a group of travelers that was caught in a volcano overflow that stopped them all in their tracks. The mold kept them frozen and indistinguishable from one person to the other. It is unknown who these group of travelers are."
With a shrug, she stopped reading and turned from the mold and walked around the corner. However, she heard a very small, almost inaudible click come from just where she had been at. She quieted her footsteps, holding her hand at the gun. She turned her flashlight off and let the pale moon flow in through the sunroof that was provided for the museum. She took her shoes off, setting them to the side so they wouldn't be heard.
She knew there was something in there. Things didn't just fall without cause. It almost sounded like a pen had fallen on the floor.
Ever so quietly, she walked over to the corner, her heart practically in her throat, before she jumped out from her corner, holding her gun in hand. "Freeze!" She said, pointing the gun at a figure in the dark. She clicked the light on her gun and it revealed a rather fancily dressed woman, standing right in front of the statue. "State your name and purpose for being here!" She commanded the woman.
The woman smirked at her. "Why, I am an art collector and a donor. My name is Freschia, and I made this beautiful piece of art here."
"Impossible," Kagome responded, "this sculpture is nearly eight hundred years old." She said, "Ma'am, I must implore you to set your cigarette down and leave the premises immediately or be reprehended by Tokyo Police for trespassing unauthorized."
The woman gave her such a maniacal grin. "Sure, I would be happy to oblige you. Kagome." She said she outstretched her hand with the cigarette, and dropped it. Right next to the statue.
For a moment, Kagome could only sit and stare as the woman dropped the cigarette. She stood entranced for a good few moments, even dropping her weapon and falling to her knees. Watching the woman as she smirked at her, turned away, and disappeared out of site.
The cigarette began melting what she assumed to be a wax mold. She stared as wax caught fire, then she heard crying and screaming as her vision began to blacken. Whatever the woman had done, it had paralyzed her. She hit the floor hard, snubbing her chin as impacted the marble floor. She watched as a figure rose from the fire, carrying two others. And right as her vision gave, the building caught fire.
Hmm, not quite the way I intended this chapter, but it's getting somewhere. Let's see where this takes us!
