InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Requiem of Souls ❯ Prolouge ( Prologue )

Normally fairy tales begin with “once upon a time…” well this one doesn't. It begins now. What once was a city with children playing in the streets is now just an ink blotch on a map. All that remains of a once prosperous and rich city is a single building in a mess of charred flesh, wood, and rubble. The only scent on the wind is smoke, and overcooked meat. There is only one thing about it though. A single building remains standing. From that building a single cry emerges into a wasteland of misery.

Something in the building is crying for it's lost mother. The cry awakens the birds. In a shrieking cloud they fly past a young man and his wife staring dumbstruck at the chaos. They had come to sell their goods at the market in the town center. They hear the cry and it breaks the stunned spell. The couple goes down to see if there were any survivors even though they felt like running. They had seen the house from the hill overlooking the destroyed town and thought a mage or something had put a really powerful fire charm on it.

They shiver in disgust as they pass the still smoking bodies of me women and even children. There were dead cats, dogs, mice and even a few snakes and lizards on the ground. The air hangs so thick with smoke that they need to breathe through their handkerchiefs. The husband whispers, “Look…” over the doorway there is a sign. It reads.

 

In this house, on midsummer's day a child was born to a pair of the luckiest parents in this the city of Aranth`ul, patron city to the goddess Ariune. A healthy…

The rest had been charred off by the deadly fire. The door creaked slowly when they opened it. On a bed in the corner of the ruined house there is a cloth bundle and from it came the heart-wrenching cry. When they go over to see what it was they listen to their own footsteps echoing off of the charred walls. The man picks up the bundle and lifts a corner of the light green material.

Inside is a baby, it's face distorted from crying. The couple stared agape at it. They called out to see if anyone was there. When they got no answer. The wife takes the bundle from her husband and stands on her toes to whisper something in his ear. He looked shocked and started to whisper in a fierce voice back at her. She just looks at him calmly and then starts to sing a song. The baby had stopped his shriek but he was still crying. She rocks him to sleep, and only when he started to snore gently in her hands did the man finally consent to what she asked him. “We will call her…Kagome.” The man only smiles and shakes his head. The donkey had shied away from the strange bundle at first but when it saw that the wife had no troubles the little donkey leaned it's shaggy head over the bundle to see what it was. Aiken, the little baby sneezed in its face when it got too close. The donkey snorted and jerked back. They laugh and start to lead the donkey back to the edge of the ruined city. As they are walking the wife trips over something covered in the layered ash and picks it up. It was a sword of the finest make only the king of the elves would dare use such a fine sword.

As they stared in shock at their good find Kagome laughs and tries to grasp the sword in her hands. She finally reaches it and cuts herself on it. The husband knew since the child had bled on it-it was hers to keep.