InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Dead Famous ❯ Gaining Equilibrium ( Chapter 27 )

Author's Notes: I'd just like to thank everyone again. I know that with me complaining about a couple of flamers it makes me sounds ungrateful and paranoid, but I really do appreciate everyone's feedback. I haven't forgotten that 99.9% of you guys are wonderful people and I'm honoured at getting 5,0 reviews! Let me go pass out now…

Oh, but before I enter a state of unconsciousness, let me just point out to a few people that Dead Famous isn't the original superstar/fangirl storyline. There are hundreds of stories that came before this and hundreds that will come after it that will all have the basic fundamental plotline: One guy/girl who's better than everyone else and another guy/girl who's not quite as good come together to make a story… and later on babies, but that's getting into a whole different territory. I don't claim to own exclusive rights to the concept since this idea has been done to death and even them some (Check out "A Date with Tad Hamilton" if you want further proof). So basically, the point I'm trying to get across is that Dead Famous isn't plagiarising anyone or any fic, and anyone else with the previously mentioned concept is not plagiarising me either. If someone has copied me scene for scene (rewritten/copied & pasted) that is plagiarism - but otherwise it's just an author giving the superstar/fangirl idea a new twist, just like I've done. False accusations of plagiarism don't go down well… so I caution people before they jump to conclusions. Always make sure you do your research before deciding whether or not someone has plagiarised - or better yet, go to the original author and let them handle it.

Dead Famous

Chapter 27

Gaining Equilibrium

"Hiko. I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to think very carefully about how you answer." Sesshomaru addressed the son who sat between his two brothers on the living room couch. He waited until the little boy had nodded before going on. "Why did you super-glue the casserole pot to your brother's head?"

Hiko glanced reproachfully at his handicapped brother beside him, who in turn swung to look at him… or would have, if the sides of the casserole pot had been transparent. As it was, the only sure way to know which direction he was looking in was to judge which way the pot's handle pointed.

Hiko directed his eyes to his father again. The casserole pot handle did the same. "Um…" he said warily. "I thought… it would be funny?"

"I'm not laughing." Sesshomaru told him. "Are you laughing, Jiro?"

The handle squeaked slightly as it moved from side to side. The last triplet raised his hand cautiously. "I laughed a little…"

"No one's asking you, Mo." his father said bluntly.

"Oh." He looked away, crestfallen.

"Hiko." Sesshomaru turned a condescending look on the central triplet. "You were born second of the three. You have been saved from the impatient foolishness of being the eldest and the naïveté of being the youngest. Yet you have been expelled from all seven schools I've sent you to. You continually blow up your mother's microwaves. You still try to put the cat in the washing machine, and I can't leave you out in the pool with your brothers for more than one moment alone before you start trying to drown them both simultaneously."

Hiko stared at his father.

"I'm going to ask you another question, Hiko." Sesshomaru narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

"Why…?" Hiko echoed.

"Why do you do these destructive, disobedient things?" his father clarified.

"Well," Hiko looked down at the floor. "If I'm totally honest, Dad… it's because of you."

It was Sesshomaru's turn to stare at his son blankly. "What?"

"Your cold, discontented nature, and your detachment from the people around you negatively affect said people." Hiko explained slowly. "Between two brothers who share my status and appearance, I have to vie for your attention and affection, and the only way to do that is that be more disobedient and ruthless than my brothers. And it's not just me either, Dad."

"Oh?"

"Your lack of enthusiasm, care, and affection towards your family affects us all, crushing our young, fragile spirits and diminishing our self-esteem little by little every day. We're all dealing with it in different ways. Mom treats you the same way you treat her, and refuses to accept responsibility for her children and her duties as a wife. Big brother deals with it by moving to the opposite side of the country to get away from you. I cover up my pain with humour and disobedience. Jiro deals by withdrawing into a shell, making him seem callous and uncaring about how his words affect us. Mo deals by pandering to your every wish, in hopes that you'll notice his obedience as compared to my disobedience and Jiro's apathy."

Silence stretched.

"And…" Hiko added. "The irony of it is that we all know what's going on… except you, who is the source of it."

Sesshomaru finally drew himself up. "Really?"

Hiko and Mo nodded. Jiro's pot handle wobbled up and down.

"I see." Without further ado, Sesshomaru stood and left the room, leaving the boys to sort out the problem with the casserole pot.

Jiro's handle jerked sharply towards Hiko, who ducked to avoid getting hit. "Is that what's going on?"He sounded surprised… in an echoed sort of way.

"Nah.." Hiko shrugged. "Saw it on some documentary about fathers last night…"

"Hey! Three stooges!"

Only one person called them by that nickname. The triplets swivelled eagerly to look towards the white French windows behind them.

Inuyasha stood there looking very bedraggled and wretched with a slightly less bedraggled Kagome draped over one shoulder. He rapped on the glass again. "Let me in!"

"Is that Uncle Inu?" one triplet mumbled from under his pot.

"Wasn't he just kidnapped?" another said.

"Maybe he's a look-alike coming to kidnap us next." the third said finally.

Inuyasha hammered on the glass more meaningfully. "Today would be nice!" he yelled.

"Sure sounds like Uncle Inu." Hiko pondered. "I think we should send Jiro to open the door… he has the head gear just in case he decides to punch him."

"Fair enough…" Jiro mumbled again as he slid off the sofa and headed in the vague direction of the French windows. "A little to the left, Jiro! The right! No - the other right! Left! Left!"Of course, none of the triplets knew their left from right anyway, so it was a case of the blind leading the blind. Eventually it became evident that Jiro wasn't going to find the window, and Inuyasha was beginning to look very impatient… and angry.

The last two triplets left Jiro to his search as they went over and opened the door for their uncle. "Weren't you kidnapped?" they asked.

"Yes." He said simply as he scooted past them quickly and headed for the sofa they'd just vacated.

"So you broke free?" They trailed after him.

"Gunfights, swearing, motor boats and car chases… the works." He said grimly, laying an unconscious Kagome down on the sofa.

"Cool!" the triplets chorused behind him. Jiro the pot-head finally found his way back to his brothers.

"Look, I even got shot as well." Their uncle pointed to his arm.

"COOL!"

Inuyasha frowned as he finally noticed Jiro's head-gear. "What's up with the… casserole pot?" he asked hesitantly and reached out to tug it off.

"Ow!"

"Oh… sorry…" Inuyasha pulled his hand back, looking sceptically at the boys. "Where's Kikyo?"

"Around…" They shrugged elusively until one of them got a glint in his eye. "I bet you don't know yet, do you?"

"Know what?" Inuyasha looked down at the boy passively, trying to work out which one he was talking to.

The other pot-free triplet took up the story thread. "Apparently, she burst into tears in Miroku's arms because she felt bad about you getting kidnapped."

Inuyasha snorted and shook his head. "Whatever. Keep an eye on Kagome. I need to go talk with my agent."He headed for the door, leaving the schoolgirl in the company of the three spawn of Satan (no offence to Sesshomaru).

"Do you think we could sell her on E-bay?" Hiro asked his brothers.

~*~

Kikyo paused in her paper-work to eye her watch impatiently. An irritated sigh escaped her lips and she rapped her nails against the desk. The new detective should have turned up by now… she had a meeting to attend in half an hour and if that guy didn't show up within the next five minutes, she would be leaving without him.

With a frown she turned her gaze to her papers and went back to concentrating on her work.

A knock sounded on her office door.

She glanced up a moment, mentally rolling her eyes at the detective's lateness before looking down at her work again. "Come in."

Intimidation technique rule number one: make eye contact only when you decide. Kikyo kept her eyes fixed on her work as the man entered and moved to sit in the chair opposite her. A tangy scent lodged in her airways… was that… was that seaweed? She wrinkled her nose but decided not to comment on it.

"Glad you could make it." She said drolly before slowly raising her gaze from her desk to look at him.

She froze.

Inuyasha raised a hand in the typical 'Hey' greeting. He didn't smile. He looked tired and dirty, and his ripped up shirt sleeve was stained a dark, rusty red. "So am I." He eventually said in return to her greeting.

"What the hell happened to you?" She narrowed her eyes, wondering if he even had been kidnapped. Maybe he'd just spent the last day or so in at some doped-up student party?

"Well… in a nutshell…" he began carefully. "I was kidnapped-"

"And Kagome?" Kikyo asked quickly.

"I brought her back too."

"So you escaped?"

"Can I tell the middle of the story first before jumping right to the end?" he asked rhetorically. She backed off and he continued. "So we got kidnapped. Kagome ate the drugged food… we escaped. The end."

"Who did it? It was Jinko Aida, wasn't it?" Kikyo demanded. "Wasn't it?"

Inuyasha shrugged. "Get the police out. Tell them to find a salt water lake about six or seven miles south down the coast. If the kidnappers aren't there then I'll write down the license plates of the cars they used. The police can probably find them that way…"

You're still not going to talk about it… Kikyo inwardly sighed. "Naturally. I hope Kagome's in one piece."

"They didn't touch her." He shrugged with one shoulder again.

"And what about you?"

"I didn't touch her either." He darted his eyes to the side and then back again. "Much."

"No - I meant; did they hurt you?"

He shrugged once more, gesturing mildly to his bleeding limb. "Decide for yourself."

Kikyo was already reaching for the phone to call the police. "And what about Fushira Hashimoto? Was he involved?"

Inuyasha stared at her blankly for a long moment. Kikyo paused halfway through dialling to regard him. She waited for him to respond.

"I killed him."

Kikyo slowly set the phone back down in its cradle. She didn't bother with the obvious questions anyone would ask when confronted with a statement like that. This was serious - there was no time to beat around the bush. "Tell me it was in self-defence."

Inuyasha shook his head very slightly. "Crept up on him and shot him three times."

"He was armed… wasn't he?" Dread began seeping over her.

"No. Harmless."

Shit… "Were there any witnesses?"

"About thirteen of them… none will be voting in my favour." He glanced down at the elephant shaped paperweight on her desk. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?" he said softly. It was a statement more than a question.

Kikyo could already see that the silly boy was going to let it go to his head. "No. You're the victim here, not that man. With a little bit of twisting, we can make this sound like self-defence. He came at you with a knife so you had to shoot him in order to save yourself - no court in the world will believe what a bunch of kidnappers say about a murder like that. The law's on our side this-"

"This time?" Inuyasha narrowed his eyes. "Is this all we do…? Just lie… scam… advertise, and hope that no one exposes us? Maybe it's time we stop lying about everything. We've never been honest or truthful to anyone."

Kikyo stared at him. "We can tell the truth next time, Inuyasha. But this time, a little white lie is needed. We can't let the court put you away for murder - not when you're the victim."

"You keep saying 'victim' as though I'm some helpless rape victim or something…" He rolled his eyes, but he didn't bother pushing the subject.

Kikyo took the phone back up in her hand. "I'll be damned if I let Hashimoto lord it over you even after his death…" She began dialling. "Go find Sango - she'll clean up your arm.… Hello, police?"

~*~

"Six hundred!"

"No - five hundred!"

"I say five hundred and fifty!!"

Kagome blinked her eyes open slowly, taking in the patterns of the ceiling tiles before hearing the voices arguing around her. She frowned slightly at all the numbers being shouted then carefully lifted her hazy head. "What… what's going on…?"

Two identical faces and a casserole pot snapped towards her. "Oh, you're awake!" the pot said.

Kagome had to blink a few more times to clear away the fuzzy edge around her vision… but even then, all she saw was an upside down pot. "Huh…?"

"We were just discussing how much we could sell you for on E-bay."One of the triplets told her. "About six hundred yen, I'd say."

"Five hundred!" his brother hissed dangerously.

"Five-fifty!"

That was barely enough to cover Kagome's weekly pocket money. Should she be offended…?

"Kagome!"

Obviously, she wasn't in the sharpest of moods; since by the time she realised someone had called her name from the doorway, they'd already arrived at her side. She peered up at Sango's face - a mixture of relief and concern filled the girl's expression. "Inuyasha told me I'd find you in here - are you ok? Did you hit your head?"

"No… just ate too many doughnuts." Kagome rubbed her head vaguely, wondering when that endlessly sleepy feeling would actually end. She felt like she'd been asleep for a few hundred years and was only just beginning to wake up.

"You should probably go lie down in your room. I'll call a doctor."

"Oh, there's nothing wrong!" Kagome slurred slightly. "I just had a lot of tranquillisers… and then this alien shot me with a ray gun… but I'm all right now."

"Of course you are." Sango said in the way that a mother spoke when her child had professed to being Superman.

Kagome's head spun as Sango helped her to her feet, so she decided that maybe she did need to lie down for a little while on a proper bed. They left the arguing triplets behind as they slowly made their way through the villa corridors to the elevator.

"I'm going to ring your mother and tell her you're back safely. " Sango informed her as they rode the elevator up.

"Oh good," Kagome sighed in relief. "I was worried about her."

Sango snorted. "That's nothing compared to how worried she was about you."

Once the elevator had stopped at the second floor, Sango carefully led Kagome to her bedroom door and unlocked it with her master key-card. "Just take it easy for a while." She told the younger girl as Kagome sat down on the bed. "You've been through a lot…"

"Not much… wasn't awake for the interesting parts." Kagome really couldn't remember much after eating the doughnuts.

"Are you sure you're ok?" Sango pressed. "They didn't hurt you or anything, did they?"

"No." Kagome shook her head assuredly. "Inuyasha got us out before anything happened…"

"Well the police are on their way to that cabin you were being held at. Hopefully those scumbags will get what they deserve." Sango said fiercely.

Kagome smiled weakly at her protectiveness. "Thanks, Sango…"

"Just have a little sleep." Sango smoothed her hair. "I'll come by and wake you up for lunch if you're up to it."

"Sounds good."

Sango smiled and headed for the door. "Glad you're back, Kagome."

"Me too." Kagome said quietly to herself as the door snapped shut again.

For a while, she sat on the bed contemplating on what to do. Sango's advice to sleep was good, but she was tired of being tired, and just wanted to keep her eyes open for a while and relish in being free again.

She'd been scared back then…

After Inuyasha had informed her of what was in store for them both, she'd begun to panic. She'd been sick scared, but now she was safe and sound… and she wouldn't be leaving those balcony doors open past six o'clock.

The need to taste fresh air and wallow a bit more in that renewed freedom got the better of her, so Kagome toddled over to the balcony entrance to push open the glass door. She leaned against the balcony wall, looking out at the calm sea and the clear blue sky with only a few fluffy clouds to finish that 'Thomas the Tank Engine' perfection.

A few boats were out there, sailing… quite a few yachts in fact. It reminded her of her abduction, and she paused for a moment to look down at the stone wall she rested on. Black smears on the otherwise pristine paint-job were all that marked the entry of the kidnappers. They'd taken her by surprise…

What a way to make her feel helpless and weak.

A movement out the corner of her eye made her look up with a narrowed gaze. She spotted Inuyasha a few balconies away on her left, in the process of lowering a cigarette from his lips and blowing the smoke into furling swirls above him. Kagome couldn't help but sigh… was he ever going to quit seriously?

It was doubtful…

Kagome also noticed that his arm had been pinned to his chest with another blue sling like the time he'd fought the Peach Man… or Mr Meatball, whatever his name was. She wondered why… had he been injured in their escape?

She was about to call out his name or wave to get his attention when he turned to look at her, and then there was no need. She smiled, but he didn't smile back. Obviously, he was either annoyed with her or still brooding about the kidnapping.

"What happened to your arm?" she called over to him.

A small smirk tilted his lips and she watched as he suddenly turned towards her and pulled himself onto the narrow wall. She wanted to shout at him to get down before he broke his neck, but she already knew his balance wasn't something to be scoffed at. In only a few leaps, he'd crossed the three balconies between them and hopped down beside her. "Tadaa!" he exclaimed upon seeing her face, and she realised how concerned she must have looked.

"Great. You should join a circus." she told him.

She was a little too tired to make conversation and stand, so she quietly sat down on the cold stone floor and rested her hands loosely on the bar-like stone slats of the balcony wall. She still had a good view of the nice day below.

Inuyasha sat down silently beside her.

"So what happened to your arm?" she asked again, noticing he was already stubbing out the cigarette on the floor. Either he was considering her personal comfort or it had burnt out.

"Got shot." He said simply.

Kagome glanced at him, eyes widening in aghast shock. "What, like with a gun?"

"No, with a koala bear." He answered sarcastically. "Of course with a gun."

"When did that happen?" she asked.

"When we were making our getaway, I guess. Turn your back for long enough and it becomes a tempting target." He shrugged his one good shoulder. "Rather my shoulder than the back of my head anyway."

Kagome shuddered. "I hate guns." She told him. "The world would have been a lot better if the 'genius' who had invented them just hadn't invented them."

Inuyasha didn't say anything to that.

"Although, I guess someone else would have just invented them instead." Kagome sighed and pattered her fingers over the stone bars. "It's just the people like Fushira Hashimoto who make the world bad… not guns."She suddenly looked over at Inuyasha. "How did we get out of there anyway?"

Inuyasha had taken another cigarette out of the packet hidden in his jacket. He slid it up and down between his index finger and thumb. "I madea distraction… got us loose… stole their boat, and high-tailed it. Then that crazy woman picked us up. She made me sign her shopping bag as a taxi fee."

Kagome smiled slightly. "Pity it wasn't that easy to get out when you were six." She said quietly.

"I wasn't seventeen years old when I was six." He responded flatly. "It's harder to contain adults than children… especially when the adult's friend gobbled up all the drugs."

Kagome smiled at the way he had unknowingly termed her as a 'friend' but she didn't make anything of it. If she drew attention to it he would probably just take it back. "So you could say I helped save your life."

"Possibly. I saved your life, too." In more ways than one…

Kagome only saw the obvious way of taking that statement and she smiled. "Yeah. Thanks…" Her gaze followed the slow path of another yacht in the distance. "I hope the police catch that Fushira Hashimoto guy… He deserves to be strung up by his heart strings and beaten with spiky paddles. Anything else is too good for him."

"The police won't catch him." Inuyasha told her quietly.

Kagome slid a suspicious gaze to him. "You sound sure of yourself."

"He's dead."

Kagome blinked at him. That was news to her. "Um…" she fought for something to say. "When… when did he die?"

"When I shot him this morning."

He watched her, as if waiting for some kind of reaction. He was tensed up and she could see he was anxiously awaiting her response…

But what did you say to something like that?

"I'm not…" she began, looking at the stone floor. "I don't think I'm sad to hear he's dead… but what about you?"

He shrugged, but he didn't seem to relax as he turned his eyes away from her, looking out at the horizon again. He seemed disappointed with her answer… maybe he'd been expecting her to come out with some wise and wonderful verses to justify his conscience. It was obviously bothering him.

It reminded her of that other time.

"Do you remember when that hijacker killed the limo driver, when he took us on a paper chase out of the district?" she asked him softly. He glanced at her shrewdly, nodding almost imperceptively. "When you fired off both guns, for a moment I thought you'd killed him… and I was scared…"

"What?" He exploded. "Even if I had killed him, I wouldn't have turned on you - what do you take me for?!"

"A guy who is getting eaten up over his conscience!" she snapped back. "And just listen for a moment before you start mouthing off at me!"

He made an irritated sound and turned his head away. He could have left at that point if he'd really wanted to… but he stayed.

"You scared me back then because you've already got so much excess emotional baggage it isn't even funny." She told him in a reasonable way. "I mean, if you were a character in a book, you'd be the guy that keeps to himself, doesn't talk to anyone, kicks ass and whom everyone fancies. If you actually went ahead and killed someone, I wasn't sure you'd be able to cope… you've already seen too much death."

Inuyasha stayed very quiet and Kagome glanced across at him cautiously. "I was scared for you then… and I'm scared now."

Their eyes met for what seemed like a small eternity… but Kagome couldn't handle the intensity and had to look away to the yacht again. It had travelled all of an inch to her perspective.

"Do you know what happened when I was six?" he asked her.

Kagome gave an iffy sort of grimace. "I know more than I probably ever wanted to…" She tightened her hands around the stone bars. "I'm sorry I ever wanted to know." she shuddered at the mere thought of someone separating either her or Inuyasha's nails from their fingers.

"I can tell you if you like."

Kagome shot him a startled glance. Oh now he decided it was a fine time to tell her. She shook her head slightly. "You don't have to tell me just to make me happy."

"But it won't make you unhappy, right?"

In that case… "Ok…" She turned to face him properly, determined to give him her full attention. This was what he needed. He'd probably been building up to this moment for eleven years.

"My father…" he began disjointedly, as if he wasn't sure where to start or where to go from there. "…he… his term of office was running out in 1992 and he wanted to get re-elected. Desperately."

Kagome frowned but let him continue without any of her confused interruptions.

"So he paid Fushira to kidnap me so that people would give him the sympathy vote. But then it went wrong. Fushira wouldn't take the money and he wouldn't give me back because he was having too much fun. My father couldn't tell anyone because then Fushira would expose his plan… I guess his reputation was more important than I was."

Kagome gaped at him. "Are you sure?"

"I only found out this week."

"That's awful…!" Kagome came short of pressing her hand to her mouth. "What about your mother? Did she know?"

"No one else knew. Just him." Inuyasha made an irritable sound. "And I was so fucking glad to see him when they found me!"

Kagome struggled to catch up. "How long were you… held by Fushira?"

"Three months… maybe more." He shrugged and sighed wearily. "He tortured me non-stop. I wasn't the same person I used to be when I came out. That's when all the trouble started… I didn't know what to do with myself."

"That whole identity crisis you were on about…?"

"Yeah…"

"But then when you were eleven… why did he kill your parents?"Kagome asked, not sure if she was treading on off-limit territory yet.

"A rumour was going around the villa that I was ready to tell the police the name of the man who kidnapped me. I guess Fushira must have been keeping tabs on me because that's when he came back and messed up my parents' car. He must have thought I was with them." Inuyasha shook his head. "I didn't say anything afterwards… I figured that if he was in jail for my parent's murder then me 'fessing up about the kidnapping would change nothing."

"Oh…"

"And I guess he's been planning to kidnap me again ever since he got sent to jail… he must have wanted revenge."

"What about Jinko Aida?" she asked. "She struck me as odd…"

"She was Fushira's girlfriend. He's old enough to be her father, but there you go. She only did what she did because she loved him." he scowled. "You should have seen her face when I killed him…"

"If anyone deserved to die, it was him." Kagome told him quietly, but firmly. "You had no choice, right?"

"I did." He corrected her. "I could have let him walk in on your hiding place and put the escape at risk… so I shot him. I didn't want to."

"Then you're in no way as bad as him." Kagome felt shaken, despite her brave and confident words. "He could have killed me - you practically saved my life! You shouldn't feel bad about that. That's about as close to self-defence as you can get!"

"But it wasn't though, was it?" Inuyasha snapped. "I all but shot him in the back!"

"But you didn't though, did you?!" she defended him. "You saved me - so don't try and back out on that!"

He sighed and looked out across the sea again. She reckoned he was probably watching the same yacht that she'd seen. "What do I do?" He sounded broken, completely defeated.

Kagome sighed deeply. She felt that she was partly responsible for his current suffering. If Fushira hadn't been so close to finding her hiding place, Inuyasha wouldn't have killed him. She could also say that if she hadn't begged to come back for another week, she wouldn't have gotten involved at all and she wouldn't have been there for Fushira to find.

But would Inuyasha still have been kidnapped? Would he have escaped alone if she hadn't been there to eat his share of the drugs?

"Fushira's dead." She said slowly. "Nothing can change that… and you shouldn't be sorry for it, either. But this is where it ends."

He glanced up at her, clearly confused.

"Fushira's dead, right? He can't hurt you anymore." Kagome watched those cloudy amber eyes darken slightly. "From what you're telling me, this has been going on ever since it started in 1992. He's been watching you and plotting against you for eleven years. It's over."

A short breath escaped him, but his gaze was still intense. "Kagome, you-"

The bedroom door crashed open. "Kagome!"

Kagome whipped around to face the bedroom and saw the last person she expected to see come striding towards her.

"Mom!"

AN: How many people saw that coming? ^__^