When Izzy reached the library he had nearly been run down by a young woman who was running back and forth, following the orders of an ominous voice off in the distance. He walked up to the desk and waited until the woman made another trip back. When she did he tried to get her attention but all was for not. She hadn't even noticed his existence, she just kept running around the library with books piled high in her arms. But even though she hadn't noticed him, he sure noticed her.
Izzy admired the beauty of the young woman as she paced between bookshelves and sighed to himself. She had a personality that seemed to light up even the darkest of situations. To match her beautiful personality she had a beautiful appearance. Her hair was a bright golden color that seemed to wave and glow even without light or breeze, her eyes pickle green, her complexion a nice bronze, and the most wonderfully proportioned body he had ever seen. He couldn't help but to watch as she followed every barking order of the old man that actually ran the library, blistering her cute little feet in those high heels he had gotten her for Christmas the year before and begin to wrinkle the tight black dress that she always wore as a uniform for work.
"ehem," he interrupted, clearing his throat. "excuse me! Miss? Yeah, I have another fee to pay…"
Izzy flinched as he watched her body tense up and drop the books she held at the moment. He knew that that might catch her attention, the only downside was that he has had to pay for seven books in his career as a paper master and she was growing increasingly frustrated with him.
"another," she said, her voice cold and harsh. She turned on her heels to face him, her eyes seeming to be shaded by darkness though the library was brightly lit compared to the dull sky gray outside. She began walking towards him, her toes dragging and oddly appearing as though she was floating. "tell me Izzy…how many books is that now? I should suspend you from checking out any books at all! At this rate the Tokyo branch of the British Library will be empty by the time you reach fifty!"
As she came abreast to him, he was thrust into ecstasy as he caught scent of her sweet perfume. She looked up into his eyes and he into hers, however, her eyes were filled with confusion. She wanted to be angry with him for this was his eighth book that he had to pay for, but she also loved him. That's right, this young lady and Izzy were an item, a rather interesting one at that. They had met at the academy for paper masters in a small tournament between the houses. She was probably the most aggressive attacker he had ever encountered, and as she knocked him to the ground and readied for the finishing blow he had already made it. He had created two paper swords while her eyes were on his and aimed them right at her right lung and touched the other one to her jugular.
"well," he replied the scent continuing to intoxicate him, "I was planning on returning it, Miss Sasaki, but you see…there was this hold up on the train and well, I just had to play the hero…"
He spoke softly and slowly knowing that she was becoming less and less frustrated with him. She watched his lips now as he explained, occasionally moving from them to his eyes and then back, wanting a kiss from him. She drew herself closer to him, feeling his warmth and touching her hands to his baby smooth face, moving all the more closer to him. Izzy felt the urge to do the same, wrapping his arms around her, curling up to her shoulders and then it happened. Their lips needed touch only slightly and open the flood gates. He kissed her passionately his heart fluttering and racing as his blood rushed and body temp raised. He had surrendered to insanity, to the love that they shared and kissed her deeply and unrelentlessly. Everything was perfect, until of course the librarian caught them.
"this isn't high school!" he said after clearing his throat and walking to the desk. " that will be…lets see…fifteen dollars and forty-seven cents. I swear you two need to get it over with and just merry! You're like high school students, grabbing a kiss or two whenever you ca-"
"we are." Izzy said interrupting the old man. He quickly became silent as Izzy and Asami held each other, starring into the eyes of the one they loved. "we are to be wed on July fourth of this year. The same day that we met…"
The old man made no comment but instead of ordering Asami to continue the work he just smiled at them. He remembered when he had fallen in love, it happened only once but it happened. The woman was absolutely astonishing, but as he later came to find, it wasn't meant to be. She had been killed in an accident around the time of their anniversary. He watched with longing eyes, kind of day dreaming about love when suddenly he heard Asami scream and snapped back to reality.
She had touched Izzy on the back where the blood from the man had splashed. His shirt was still wet and as she drew her hand back she saw it. Izzy first thought that she had seen something like a spider or rat…or even worse, the thing he had seen on the train. The thought of that thing popped into his head and he instantly remembered that he was going to notify the librarian about it. Beforehand, however, he had to calm Asami down.
"shhhh…" he said holding her close, cradling her head on his chest as tears fell from her eyes. "its ok, its not my blood. Im sorry I didn't tell you. Shhhhh….its alright…"
Her entire body shuttered as the fear continued to run through her. She had not know about the fight and when pulling her hand back, seeing the blood, she thought that it was Izzy bleeding. Her breathing slowed gradually as Izzy held her and her tears dried up. The old man, seeing this ran around the desk and inquired about where the blood came from.
"don't worry, its not mine." Izzy reiterated, continuing to hold Asami. "I got it in a fight. The hold up on the train. Well that's not all that happened. We really need to talk somewhere not here, there is something strange going down…"
The old man nodded and lead them down several aisles of books before they came to an elevator. When they boarded it and the doors closed Izzy told him what happened. How he had captured the armed man and how as he was picking up the excess paper he had forgotten to protect the man as he was attacked right in from of him. He told him how the thing first appeared human until Izzy took a look at the goat-like eyes and paper arm. Then Izzy told him that when he went to thrust his paper blade through the thing's torso it appeared as paper, opened up, and then assimilated the paper into it's own body. The librarian grimaced as if in pain and then said one name: Suketsune Kobayashi.
Izzy simply assumed that he was a friend or something, a fellow paper master gone bad. Izzy soon found that that wasn't the case as they left the elevator and entered a large command center. The room had to be the equivalent to maybe three city blocks with desks and secretaries all neatly aligned, and at the front of the room, one large screen that currently displayed an image of the globe from space. This wasn't where they were stopping though as they soon realized walking across the room to another door. It was the librarian's office.
"Sir," Izzy said. "Sir, if its ok with you I'd like to go change, I'm a little uh….messy."
The librarian nodded and waved him off as he shuffled through the files in his desk drawers. Izzy quickly found the locker room and began changing. As he was doing so he thought that he had heard someone, though everyone was supposed to be on vacation. As he pulled on his pants and tank top he left his boots and shirt on a bench to go looking around the locker room. The room itself was huge and whoever was in here could be anywhere, but he had to look. After seeing what he had on the train he couldn't help but think that someone was after him and he had to be cautious. He walked through the many aisles before giving up and going back to put on his other shirt and boots, then left the locker room.
When Izzy returned to the office the librarian had pulled out four folders, all pretty thin which meant that they had little information on whomever the documents concerned. Izzy also noticed that there were now three others in the room aside from Asami and the librarian. Two were the paper siblings Mitsuko and Tanjiro Yamada, they were the best in their class. Their skills relied on familiars and exploiting any weakness that an opponent might have. Then there was a young American who was only known to the Japanese as Luca. He was supposedly fairly skilled in all aspects of combat with paper such as familiars and weapons and was also very swift, not to mention he had already hacked the British Library's special forces main frame when he was twelve.
Asami sighed as Izzy entered the room, noticing that he wore the same style suite that he had just changed out of. The only difference was that this one was clean. "what?" he said, looking around at the rest of the paper masters and then back to Asami.
"these are the files I have on Suketsune Kobayashi and whatever sightings of these "Paper Humans" have occurred around the globe." he said spreading them out to the young masters. "I want you to establish any connection between any bits of information you can. I want to know how many of these things there are and I want to know a pattern of appearance. Report back to me tomorrow at noon with whatever you have found. From there we will begin dispatching agents across the globe to try and at least spot something. We cant let this go unchecked because I have a feeling that it has already gotten out of hand…well, you are dismissed until tomorrow."