Price of Memory--Part One: Wings of the Past by Rikayu
Prologue
By Rikayu
Story Summary:
He watched helplessly as a wave of tears rolled down her cheeks, her blue eyes flashing with fear. He banged his fists angrily against the barrier that kept him but a centimeter away from her, but even with all his remaining strength, the wall of pure energy did not give way.
He heard a whisper of his name as a black tendril wrapped around her waist. He banged his hands against the barrier desperately as he watched her being pulled away.
She struggled to break free, but the offensive limb had more strength.
He shouted for her as she disappeared in the darkness of the night, her eyes hauntingly calling for him.
Kagome sighed wearily and lazily opened her history book. She was tired from reading over a friend's notes from the night before, but with a determined look firmly plastered onto her face, Kagome was set to learn what she could in today's lesson. In the last semester, Kagome had gotten ill so many times she had missed so many of her classes. Now that she was back, however, she wasn't about to let herself fail her first year in college.
"Class, you may close your books for now. We won't be needing them today."
Everyone in the room closed their books, a large sigh of relief escaping many of them. After five months of burying their faces in their books during lectures, this change of plans was warmly welcomed. It wasn't so much that Ichihara-sensei wasn't a great teacher, but he did have a tendency to give a lot of work and a lot of take-home reading.
"We are going to focus on... legends," the redheaded Ichihara-sensei said as he casually leaned back against his desk, his arms crossed over his chest.
The class remained silent, quite happy that they had a long-wanted break from burning their eyes out with their textbooks. Kagome though, was still flipping through the last of the borrowed notes she had gotten from a classmate and was trying to cram the remaining bits of information in her head while also trying to pay attention to what the teacher was saying.
Are any of you familiar with the legend of the Demon and the Young Maiden of the Cherry Blossoms?" Ichihara questioned the class as he unrolled a scroll that he had picked up from his desk. His green eyes that were behind a pair of sleek glasses scanned his unresponsive class briefly before he let out a small sigh.
"I guess not..." he muttered, turning to the piece of long, tattered paper in his hands.
Kagome closed the practically filled-up notebook and looked up. She mainly ignored her grandfather whenever he told her his stories so it wasn't any surprise that she didn't know what Ichihara was talking about.
"This particular story," he began, "Most likely finds a setting during spring, hence the cherry blossoms of the story. We follow a young princess who gets a bit too curious, in my opinion, and gets herself lost in the forest near her village. That is where she meets the demon."
"But how did she get lost?" the male student who sat in front of Kagome asked, interrupting Ichihara-sensei from his story.
"Pardon?"
"How exactly did she get lost?" he asked again.
Ichihara crossed his arms again and paused briefly before answering. "Well, for starters," he said, "I don't think the young lady was very familiar with the area since she was mainly restricted to staying in her father's castle until she was married. Then, as it is today in trying to get into certain clubs, security can be easily distracted given the right opportunity."
"But someone must've noticed that she was missing," he same student replied.
"Clever..." Ichihara smiled.
For a long moment, Ichihara said nothing, staring at the ground. Then, he cleared his throat and shifted to a full standing position from his desk. He walked quietly along a row of students and tapped the scroll lightly in his hands.
Suddenly, he spoke. "Who here has snuck out in the dead of the night when their parents are fast asleep to go to a party or something of the sort?" he asked the class.
Most of the students raised up their hands, making a smirk appear on Ichihara's face as he walked back to his desk. He replaced himself to his original position and turned to the young man from earlier.
"You see, teenagers back then are still teenagers. They also have the sudden urge to explore what is not know to them or what was said not to do," Ichihara stated matter-of-factly.
The student from before shrugged defeatedly and sighed. He rested his arms on his desk and gave a sort of lopsided smile. "Aren't you going to finish with the story, Ichihara-sensei? They pay you to teach us, right?"
Ichihara shook his head exasperatedly and walked forward again, this time messing up the young man's unusual combination of black and white hair like he was a child. The class laughed while the young man brushed away his teacher's hand. Ichihara looked up and sighed.
"The princess," he said, "Had gotten herself lost after a few hours of aimlessly wandering on her own; a very dangerous and naïve move for those in a forest that was home to demons, might I add. It was getting quite dark and in her rush in trying to find her way back to the castle, she tripped on a protruding root of a cherry blossom tree."
Ichihara paused and looked out the window. He rolled the scroll up in his hand and continued. "Alone and injured, you can probably wonder what was going through her mind."
He turned back to his class, particularly at Kagome. "Higurashi-san, what kind of demon do you think chanced upon her?"
Kagome blinked as she heard her surname being called out. She had only been partially paying attention despite all of her effort. "Sir?"
Ichihara repeated his question, "What kind of demon do you think found the princess after she sprained her ankle?"
"Umm..." she bit her lip and thought back to the beginning of the lesson, where she was paying better attention to Ichihara-sensei, "It was a demon that could take a human form."
"Well put," Ichihara nodded, "The demon was most likely the kind that could take hold of a human likeness. I'm sure you all remember last month's lesson... But, let's not get off topic, shall we?
"The princess was, to put it quite simply, scared out of her mind's end when the demon of put story approached her, but all he did was examine her injury and mended it to some extent. After a while, the princess had fallen asleep because of her exhaustion. When she had regained her consciousness, she was back safe and sound in her father's castle."
Ichihara adjusted his glasses and walked back to his desk. He picked up and archaic piece of paper and handed it to the girl who sat in the front corner. She looked at him with a confused expression on her face.
"That," he said as he returned to his desk, "Is a piece of artwork inspired by this legend. It belongs to a good friend of mine and according to him, his family has had the painting since the late years of the Heian period.
"Is that it? That's the end of the story?" the girl he had handed the paper to asked as she looked over the ancient piece of ink art.
"No," Ichihara responded, " I just wanted you all to get a look at that before I continued.
Once the picture finally passed over to Kagome, she narrowed her eyes slightly at it. The painting was black and white and heavily aged that most of the detail was smudged, in a way. The scene was of a princess sitting on the ground next to a tree and a man kneeling on one knee next to her. Kagome blinked and stared at the picture again before passing it to the next person. She had a nagging feeling that she had seen something along that line, but she discarded it as her imagination.
Ichihara waited in front of his desk for the painting quietly. His eyes followed the paper intently as it was passed around the class and once it was passed to the last person, he collected it and placed it back on his desk. Then, he turned aroubd and sat himself on the windowsill with his arms crossed.
"The princess became smitten with the demon and snuck out every other night to the cherry blossom tree to meet with the demon. Eventually, her father had found out about his daughter's nightly rendezvous with the demon when a guard had followed after her one night. He forbade her from ever meeting with the demon she had fallen in love with. However, she disobeyed him and ran off with the demon, who had in turn, fallen in love with her."
"How romantic, " one of the girls sighed dreamily.
Ichihara smiled, "Yes, quite..." He looked at wristwatch then looked back up at his already starting to leave class. "Before you go," he said, "Make sure you start on your semester projects! It's forty percent of your final grade!"
Kagome sighed and stood up, stuffing her history stuff into her bag. She walked over to the boy with the black and white hair and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Here Shiro," she said as she handed him his notebook, "Thanks for letting me borrow them."
Shiro took the notebook from her and placed it into his back, giving her a small smile after doing so. "Anytime," he said, "My brother took a history course too so, I have lots of his old notebooks. Ichihara was his teacher too. In fact, the notebook I let you borrow was half filled with his notes."
Kagome smiled and watched as he waved goodbye before disappearing out the door. She too was about to go home until she heard Ichihara call out her name. She sighed dejectedly and walked towards his desk.
" Higurashi-san," he started, "I just remembered... You still don't have a project topic, do you?"
Kagome nodded.
"Well then, just pick a piece of paper from that bowl over there," Ichihara pointes at a tall shelf. "Everyone's already picked."
She muttered an okay and made her way to the shelf. The only bowl on the shelf was a small ceramic one on a high part of the shelf. The least he could've done was put it a little bit lower... Kagome reached up for the bowl tiptoeing and straining to reach the papers inside. After a bit more difficulty than she had hoped for, she stepped away from the shelf with a small folded paper in her hand. She opened it as she walked back to her teacher's desk and frowned as she read the words written down on it.
Ichihara noticed her frown from the corner of his eyes and looked up from the work he was doing on his desk. "Is something the matter, Higurashi-san?" he asked.
Kagome snapped out of her split second of anything but reality and shook her head, "No sir..."
"Are you sure?"
Kagome nodded and handed him the piece of paper. At this point, all she wanted to do was go back home. She wasn't in that good of a mood anymore and the added knowledge of her research topic just spoiled her mood even more.
"Demon Lord of the West, the Son of the Dog General... A very good choice... There are a lot of interesting things about him." Ichihara said as he wrote down her topic next to her name in his record book. "You may go home now, Higurashi-san..."
"Kagome sighed and then bowed politely. "Thank you, Ichihara-sensei. See you on Monday." With that, she walked out that door. She made her way down the stairs and toward the gates.
Maybe if the well hadn't stopped working she'd probably have an easier time with the project. Then again, Inuyasha probably didn't know squat about his older brother more than the obvious. Kagome knew little about the demon lord herself since she had only witness him a few times and that was mostly when he was fighting with Inuyasha for the Tetsusaiga.
But... Maybe, if the well hadn't closed, everything would be different. Maybe it was supposed to be this way, but nothing really changed her mind about the whole thing being completely screwed up. Maybe, if she had been able to say goodbye, it wouldn't hurt so much just thinking about it. Maybe, if she knew ahead of time...
Kagome let her eyes fall slightly on the ground as the other students passed her. She was about to drift into her own world again until a voice sliced through her senses and stopped her in her tracks. She quickly plastered a smile on her face and turned around.
"Kagome!" waved an overly enthusiastic young man as he ran towards her.
She wanted to runaway, but that would be too rude so she stood rooted to her spot. Someone save me...
"Hi, Hojo!"
To Be Continued...