I stared at the date in disbelief. For how long, I'm no longer quite sure. I think I remember hearing the shopkeeper ask if I was okay, after I had been staring at the same date for a while. I grabbed some of the other newspapers in the store and frantically checked their dates as well. The same. There was no doubt. It had really been so long.

But the newspaper offered me no real answers, as I rifled through them in the shop, much to the annoyance of the shopkeeper. While I was going through them, he yelled something like "You can't do that!", at which I glanced in his general direction for a second with an intense glare. He cowered under my scowl and, noticing the sword in my hand, decided to let me continue. A wise decision. I would have hated to add another innocent to my list of victims.

I turned back to the papers. But as I looked through them, all I found were just the usual boring stories. Nothing about what had happened to the people I used to know. Nothing about her. Though, I suppose it did at least tell me that nothing much had happened lately, or at any rate, nothing that had caused much commotion.

But I would find no real answers there, and so, after thanking the shopkeeper for his consideration, causing him to inadvertently flinch in fear, I left the store and began to wander around town alone, searching the places I had used to live and work in for any evidence of the things I wanted to know.

First, I checked the places most likely to tell me whether the people I used to work with were still active, whether they might still come looking for me. The office for the Supernatural Disaster Countermeasures Division was my first stop. Considering the likelihood that they would have started searching for me again if they knew I was alive, I kept my distance, but from what little I could see, they indeed seemed to still be active. I would have to be wary of encountering them just yet, for fear of them imprisoning me before I had my answers.

My next stop was the Tsuchimiya family home. Her home (Is it though?). It didn't look abandoned, at the very least. Much emptier than it used to be, but that's to be expected, considering she's the only living Tsuchimiya now. I didn't dare take a close look and confirm this however, as the house was likely guarded somehow, and I didn't want anyone knowing I had been there. Especially her.

Finally, I went to the place I used to call home. Out of the places I visited, this was the only one abandoned. Considering every member of the family who owned this house died, or seemed to, I wasn't the least bit surprised. Though…an unbearable sadness filled me at seeing my home so desolate and empty. (More?)

Even so, the abandoned nature of my home was a boon to me as well, in a way. This house I could enter. I could use it as a base while I searched for my answers. Here I could hide, in this mansion of memories. Here with all the ghosts of my past, as the ghost I had now become.

I wandered around the house for a moment, visiting all those rooms once so full of life, now empty and full of cobwebs. My uncle's office, where I used to come find him when I was younger, where I would always find him sitting at his desk…the room where so much death occurred. My own room, left almost untouched those two years since my disappearance, now with a thick layer of dust over all of my old things. And finally, her room, now as empty as before she moved there. I can still clearly remember the day she moved in with us, a single picture of her dead mother her sole possession.

And then I remembered the time spent I here with her, all the times she came over to my room to spend time with me, all the tears of joy and sadness that were shed here, and all the things we taught each other. And my mind filled with the desire to see her, or at least to find out if she was still alive, if I had succeeded in keeping her safe…from me.

And so I left my old house. I would find no answers here either. Only whispers of a past best left there.

Yet as I reached the street outside, my Death Stone began to resonate. She was near. After all this time. Or at least another Stone's wielder was, if not her. In addition to…some other presence. A strange, almost calming presence. It almost succeeded in soothing my Sesshouseki as well. But only for a moment.

I dashed along the street as fast as I could, in my moment of freedom before the Stone took full control of my mind. But the street around me was empty, as far as I could see. As I had thought, it wouldn't be that easy. My mind would likely no longer be much my own by the time I found the other Stone's wielder.

And so, as I reached the end of the street, my Sesshouseki suddenly unleashed its full power, and blazing brilliantly, overwhelmed my mind instantly. I had just enough time to curse my bad luck before I fell to my knees in agony, an inferno igniting on my forehead. A moment later, I was almost fully under the control of the Stone, which forced me to head towards where I felt the presence of the other Stone and the strange presence near it.

The strange presence continued to attempt to influence me as I crept along, and soon began amplifying my feelings of hate towards its source. Still trying to calm me down even through my overwhelming rage and hate. In that moment, I resolved to at least be influenced by no more than one person's schemes, if I could help it. Calming influence or not, it was still an influence on my mind, and I would fight back against it. The person behind that odd presence…

…would not get out of this alive.

My legs moved where the Stone wanted me to go, and the presence of my two targets grew stronger and stronger as I moved along on swift, yet silent steps.

And as I turned yet another corner, there they were. Two people walking along the road a short distance in front of me. A man and a woman, it looked like. The presence of the other Sesshouseki felt like it was coming from the woman, while the strange calming presence seemed to emanate from the man.

The man was carrying a sword, one that seemed strangely familiar to my eyes, and looked like he had not noticed my presence. The woman, on the other hand, with long, brown hair that almost reminded me of someone, looked as if she was alarmed about something, looking around her with searching eyes.

I rushed at them, hatred filling every inch of my body. I decided to attack the man first, since he was the one carrying a weapon, and to remove that awful presence from my mind while I was at it. The woman could wait a moment.

Just before I struck my first blow, the woman suddenly yelled out "Behind you!" to the man walking beside her, causing him to turn around with his sword drawn just in time to block my blade. It seemed he had some measure of skill, at least, managing to keep his cool despite my sneak attack. I summoned Ranguren to watch my back and the woman while I dealt with the man, as my sneak attack had failed and this opponent felt like no pushover.

Though, as I soon realized, he severely lacked proper training, as his counter-attack was poorly executed, missed me badly, and would have been easy to parry even had it hit closer to its mark. Thus, my next attack easily forced him into a defensive posture, and I was able to push him back quite effectively. He was quite clearly no match for me.

The sword he used, now fully visible to me as I fought him, was indeed one familiar to me. It was one of the swords that she had once carried, or very similar in appearance, at least. How poorly he wielded such a powerful weapon.

Having gained the advantage, I kept raining blows on the poor boy relentlessly, and it was all he could do to keep from being overwhelmed. Meanwhile, as I glanced behind me for a split second while I had him at my mercy, the woman he had been walking with seemed somewhat shocked at my sudden appearance, and still stood, motionless, where she had stopped when I first attacked. She seemed to be at a loss for words, for some reason.

A moment later, the boy, apparently starting to lose strength from defending against my continuous assault, attempted another counter-attack, this time more focused yet also more desperate than his last. He swung in a wide horizontal arc, seeking to overpower me and knock me into the wall on our left side.

Yet thanks to his reckless attack, he had left his defence wide open, and I thus took the opportunity to end the fight, as he had so graciously given me such a chance, for free, as it were. I kicked off the wall with my left foot, giving me the height I needed to jump over his arcing blade, and kicked his blade into the wall instead, using the flat edge now facing me. With his blade out of the way, I then proceeded to pin his sword-wielding hand to the wall and smash it against the surface using the pommel of my sword, eliciting a howl of pain. The blow broke his grip and caused him to drop the sword clattering onto the ground.

Now unarmed and defenceless, he attempted to back away from me, clearly realizing just how out-matched he was. Too late. I stepped forward faster than he could blink, and soon, my blade protruded a few inches through his back. He coughed up blood and then went limp, his life quickly spilt out onto the pavement. That strange, annoying presence lessened too, though didn't quite disappear entirely. I supposed I would have to make sure he was dead to make it vanish for good.

A moment later I heard a scream from behind me, presumably from the woman. I released the man from my sword, watching him fall to the ground, surrounded by a growing pool of scarlet.

Then the woman uttered something I couldn't quite make out, but that sounded oddly familiar, like something I had heard once before, uttered with the same voice. A deafening rattle of chains rumbled out from behind me and Ranguren seemed to tense up, as if expecting a further battle. I realized I might have underestimated the woman, that she possessed power far beyond that of the man who now lay near death at my feet.

Ranguren seemed to spring into action to defend me from something, and so I turned around to see what the fuss was about. I had just enough time to see Ranguren clash with a large white snake-like wolf-thing in the air above. The creature was bound with many large chains to a seal on the woman's back, likely the source of the deafening clang earlier. In the same instant, I also saw the woman pick up the blade the man had dropped and lunge towards me. I deflected her charge with ease however, and she carried on right past me to stand in between me and the man soaking in a pool of his own blood. Tears poured down her face even as she swung towards me again.

But just then I got a good look into her eyes, and she into mine. Her attack, and my parry in response to it, both stopped mid-air, as if frozen in time. And the whole world seemed to stop in its tracks for a moment. The Stone's influence on my mind evaporated as if banished to the hell it came from.

…It was her. Right in front of me. Alive after all. Even with her changed appearance, I knew it was her the moment I saw her face. I very nearly dropped my sword there and then in shock.

"Kagura."

Post-story notes: So, here is finally the next chapter of this fic. I realize I may have said that I would try to finish the story by the end of summer, but as it turns out, this summer has been more draining and filled with many other things to draw my attention and use up my time than I thought at the start of it, and so I have found very little energy or time for writing. But even if, as is very likely, this story will continue past the end of summer, I will keep working on it as much as I am able will try to get it out as soon as possible. I hope you've enjoyed the story thus far and will keep enjoying it till the end. Much thanks to anyone reading (and especially to anyone who writes a review), and I'll try to get working on the next chapter as soon as I can!