AN:: hello everyone! Takara1991 here. Just wanted to let everyone know I edited the Prologue just a tad, just so no one's confused! Here we go, onto Ch. 2!
X. X. X.
-Ryuka *Present*-
"SO MUCH PAPERWORK!" Koenma loudly complained from behind his desk where he was seated in his huge, comfy office chair, "The next time I go somewhere, I simply must find a way to clone myself."
"I've heard that one before." I grumbled from across his office, seated in a much smaller office chair, watching as the talking toddler feverishly stamped paper after paper, snatching them from an enormous stack to his right. "So, I've been here for over 20 minutes, and I've been trying to tell you something really important, but you keep interrupting me every time I try to-"
"Ryuka, for goodness sake, can't it wait?!" The tiny prince snapped, cutting me off mid-sentence and proving the exact point I was trying to make, "Attending the Dark Tournament has put me so far behind on these paradise and punishment papers, I simply must get them finished or daddy will be so angry with me...!"
He always talked about his "daddy"; King Enma; An immensely powerful immortal who supposedly ruled the entire Spirit World, but I'd never seen him in my 180 years of existence. But, I never questioned Koenma about him, figuring it was sort of a touchy subject, and just let him carry on with his frantic, chicken-with-its-head-cut-off way of doing things.
I rolled my green eyes and let out a loud, frustrated sigh, before glaring at my pint-sized boss and replying sarcastically, "Yea, totally. It's only, you know, REALLY IMPORTANT, but that's okay. I'll wait."
Koenma didn't reply, and just kept stamping away at those papers, mumbling to himself like a crazy person. I sighed flatly, realizing I really was going to have to wait for him, and started spinning around in my chair out of pure boredom. Suddenly, the sound of the huge pair of double doors bursting open a few feet away from me caught me off guard, startling me and causing me to lose control of the wildly spinning chair.
"AH!" I yelped as the wheels jammed and sent me toppling to the floor in a crumpled heap.
"KOENMA, SIR!" A panicked voice cried out, and heavy, thundering footsteps pounded over toward the desk. I recognized the deep voice, and when my head stopped spinning I noticed that it belonged to George, Koenma's ogre assistant. "We've got problems!" The beast suddenly noticed me laying sprawled on the floor just a few feet away, and glanced down at me, "Oh, hello, Ryuka..."
"Hey, George." I greeted the ogre with a half-hearted wave, still trying to deal with the lingering dizzy-spell.
The Prince let out an annoyed sigh and grumbled in response, "Yes, I agree, we have a problem. He's big and blue and wears leopard underwear, and he never seems to leave me alone..."
I frowned as I straightened my school uniform and stood up on my wobbly feet, trying my best to smooth my long, chocolate brown hair back down. That was typical of Koenma; Hires an ogre to be his assistant, but bitches that he bothers him too much. Forces me to either work for him as an undercover agent in the living world or serve my 2,000 year prison sentence, but refuses to listen to me when I come to him with valuable information that could determine that fate of the human race.
But, hey, I wasn't human. Not my problem. It'd be his own damn fault for ignoring me.
"I'm serious!" George whined as he slapped a piece of paper onto Koenma's desk, "Just look at this intelligence report, it's BIG!"
That huge stack of papers sitting to Koenma's right slowly started wavering back and forth like an unstable sky scraper, and I instantly knew it was going down... This wasn't going to be good.
Just as I thought, one paper fell out of place, followed by another, and another, and soon the entire stack collapsed, fanning all over onto the desk and the floor. Koenma let out a wail, crawling up onto his desk and pointing his finger into George's face, "YOU WHITE HORNED NINNY! YOU JUST MIXED THE PARADISES WITH THE PUNISHMENTS, NOW I'LL HAVE TO START ALL OVER-!"
He leapt up and began to clobber George, who yelped and tried his best to yank the tiny prince away, but Koenma was like a leech as he clung to the ogre's neck and smacked him in the forehead repeatedly, screaming various insults at him.
I ignored the two of them and snatched up that report before it could get lost amoung the other papers, and quickly scanned over the typed print. As my eyes passed over the words, my heart sank.
"Koenma!" I cried out, my eyes growing wide in disbelief. My boss was still too busy quarling with George, so I raised my voice and called out to him again, "KOENMA!" This time, they both instantly froze, staring at me with wide eyes. I took that as a sign to continue, "This is what I was trying to tell you about!"
The small immortal looked at me with puzzled eyes, so I just shoved the paper in his face, "Just read it."
He snatched it and hopped off of George's back, who looked extremely relieved. Koenma landed back on his desk and quickly read the report over, his dark brown eyes filling with a mixture of fear and anger. Finally, he glanced up to George.
"Thank you, Ogre." He said to him, his voice sounding somewhat panicked but calm at the same time, somehow, "You may go..."
George first blinked at Koenma, then at me, before uncertainly nodding his head and turning to leave the office, "Yes, sir."
Slowly, I sat back down in my chair as I watched Koenma fiercely scan that paper over and over, pacing the top his desk as he did so. "This is not good, Ryuka. Oh, this is not good at all..."
"I told you it was important..." I mumbled in reply, swallowing hard. "At school, I saw these really weird bugs... But no one else seemed to be able to see them but me."
Koenma's wide eyes suddenly snapped up to meet mine, "Did you say bugs?"
I nodded my head, and the Prince began pacing again.
"Oh, no. That makes it much worse. Much, much worse."
"Koenma, what the hell's going on?" I demanded, furrowing my eyebrows together, "What do the bugs mean? I've never seen them before."
My boss plopped himself back down in his chair, leaning his elbows on the desk and cradling his head in his tiny hands. "Energy bursts. Demonic insects are drawn to them, and if they're being detected in the human world... It's not a good sign. Something bad is around the corner..."
"What?" I gasped, snatching the report back from his desk, "Let me see this... It says the sightings and strange energy readings have only been reported around my city... But look at all the deaths! That's one.. Two... Almost twenty humans in just a week! But how is that possible? Could it be because of those bugs?"
Koenma shook his head and let out a grave sounding sigh, "I believe they're just the tip of the iceburg... Ooh, I wasn't expecting another crisis so soon...!"
"Crisis?" I repeated, my voice raising an octave as my eyes snapped up from the report, "Koenma, what the hell are you talking about?"
"It's too soon yet to tell." The toddler replied seriously as he shook his head, "Listen. I need you to stay in the human world, and keep a sharp eye out for anything else unusual. I'm going to do some more research, and I'll send Botan for you in a few days. I fear something potentially devastating is about to happen..."
I stared at Koenma and gulped, nodding my head as I realized how serious he was. He dismissed me from his office, and as I stood up to leave, I had a very, very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach...
X. X. X.
-Hiei *Present*-
Something didn't feel quite right in this wretched human city... The air was thick with energy, a strange mixture of strong surges that I had never felt before.
I usually kept out of sight, staying as far away from the humans as possible... They were such annoying, pointless creatures, I didn't see why I wasted my time with them... I could easily eliminate them all, rid the world of their bothersome existence... But then I'd have gotten my criminal record cleared for nothing. Still, that damn toddler had me on probation, bound to this city until he said otherwise. It wasn't much better, but I'd take what I could get.
The clouds overhead were dark and threatening, and the smell of rain was heavy in the air as it whipped by my face. My boots lightly tapped against the rooftops of the cities buildings as I leapt from one to the other, staying off the streets and making my way to one of the usual areas I hung around in, an old abandoned construction site.
It was on the outskirts of the city, where humans rarely ventured to, so I was always alone... Exactly how I liked it. A skeletal structure made of rusted steel bars stood on the barren ground in the hollow shape of a skyscraper, reaching up toward the dark sky. It was deathly quiet, with just the whispering of the wind... And suddenly, a dull buzzing noise. And it was growing closer by the second.
I froze in my tracks, my senses heightened as I focused on the sound, quickly determining that it was coming from my left, about five inches away. I had it pinpointed, and quickly turned to face whatever it was. With just a sharp swipe of my fingertips, I severed what turned out to be some sort of insect...
Hn. Didn't even have to draw my katana.
With a glance down toward the ground where the insect's carcass was, I noticed it wasn't just any regular pest... No, this was something not of human origin... An insect from the demon world. That would explain these strange surges of energy... The demon insects were drawn out to it.
I narrowed my eyes at the squashed pest as its long legs stopped twitching, then leapt up the metal wrungs of the structure. Within seconds, I reached the top of the steel skeleton, and I had a vast view of the city. Miles and miles of trees, concrete and artificial light that made up my prison... I felt my lips turn downwards in a frown as I remembered just how much I despised this place.
I closed my eyes, feeling the Jagan Eye embedded within my forehead, hidden under my white headband, pulse with another surge of energy. It started out strong and invasive, but only lasted a few minutes before wavering out and weakening, ultimately disappearing completely. That was definitely what these insects where flocking to, like hungry sharks to an open wound.
Was this a sign of things to come, or is the danger already here, right in front of our faces? Hn... But then again, what do I care?
I opened my eyes, viewing the same dark sky, festering above me and growing angrier by the second. Another surge of strange energy pulsated from somewhere in the city, but whoever it was coming from did a good job of hiding their position... No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't pinpoint them... Demon or human.
But somehow, within these bursts of energy that I'd never felt before, I sensed something familiar... Something I still couldn't quite put my finger on, but knew that I'd come across in my lifetime.
Someone that had been part of my past... But it was still a mystery as to who.
X. X. X.
To be continued...
