Beautiful by Kougas Girl

Prologue

The group of high school students looked in awe at the beautiful painting in front of their eyes. It was large in size, and framed in a beautiful white gold frame set with pure diamonds. The painting held two people. One was a man of about six foot seven inches tall, but that wasn't the most amazing feature of him. He was exotically handsome, with long flowing snow white hair that shone a sleek silver. His eyes were frigid golden but melted the hearts of women who gazed into them. He was dressed in formal Feudal Era Japanese clothing of red and gold silk. His hands, while beautiful and manly, had clawlike nails. He was glancing with a slight smile down at a petite young woman with ebony locks that held a midnight gleam. Her skin was the color of the cream on top of milk, with the slightest hint of pale rose. Her lips were soft pink, her eyes a wild sky blue. She was dressed in a midnight-blue kimono dotted with sparkling silver stars and moons, with a silvery-black obi. She gazed up at the man with love making her eyes shine like the brightest stars in the sky. The background held a beautiful field of flowers and sunlight, and cherry-blossom trees.

"They're beautiful," a girl with long brown hair sighed.

"I wonder if there's a story behind this painting," her friend replied.

The guide said, "In fact there is."

"Would you tell it to us?" the students asked.

"Back in the Feudal Era, it was said there were demons that dominated Japan, if not the world. The man," she gestured to the silver-haired demon, "was the most powerful demon in the world. This woman was a miko, and an inu-demoness, which made her the most powerful demoness in the world. They disliked each other since birth, to the distraught of their parents. They found each other unpleasing. But one day..."

As the students listened with raptness, they did not notice a beautiful black-haired woman smile a secretive smile, and listen to the guide tell the story she knew so well.