InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Good Twin, Evil Twin ❯ Introduction ( Prologue )

I want to thank everyone who read and reviewed this story: emmet849, PhantomAngel, Seiteki and Tainted Dreams. And I want to thank the members of the IYFG for granting this story two awards despite everything.

 

“Foreword” as of April 16, 2006:

The story assumes as its premise that the demons of the Feudal Era survived into the modern world. Inu's gang and Naraku's `family' and the lineage of Miroku and Sango lived through the five hundred year `gap.'

Histories are explained throughout the story. Starting from the Feudal Era (let's say some time after the very last episode of the series) Kagome goes through the well to fetch supplies from her time but the well stops working and she doesn't return. Nobody knows why. Inu and his gang continue their lives. Naraku, too, continues plotting and scheming.

The jewel is not reformed but Naraku absorbs demons and gains power - to such an extent that his appearance keeps him from leaving his lair so he relies on minions to do his work. The rest of the demons, anxious not to be discovered by Naraku or by humans, live in the shadows. There they create a whole other `subculture' with its own rules and networks and whatnot. A few demons assimilate into the world through surgery but even they are forced to keep to themselves and do not trust strangers easily.

Naraku, just by being so powerful, controls the demonic world through fear. Not every demon likes him but few, if any, work against him. For reasons that will be clearer later he simply cannot leave his lair. He can (and does) walk around a little but the image of it is just too repulsive :) . Inuyasha, for his part, doesn't fall in line with the whole demonic subculture. He lives on his own by himself but maintains ties with Koga and Shippo and a few other humans. He keeps away from everyone especially Kagome.

Inuyasha knows Naraku's `watching' him and if he gets too close to Kagome Naraku will find her and kill her. Naraku knows Kagome exists but knows very little besides what she looks like. He wants her dead and has `hired' a serial killer who's certain to go after girls matching her type. As more and more teenagers who look like Kagome are found dead across the city, Inuyasha realizes what's happening and tries to find a way to thwart Naraku's plan.

And that, in general, is the setup of the story.

For a few specifics, the (important) new characters are:

Kuzen the cold, calculating killer. Her twin brother Zenku who's got issues but wants to be good and gets conflicted about how to stop his murderous sister.

Another related duo are the detectives investigating the murders of the serial killer, Kenshin and Kevin, one's half-Japanese the other's American (I wanted a counterweight to the whole Inuyasha/Sesshoumaru relationship.) they get along more or less.

Then the `Kotsu twins; they're minions of Naraku with muted back stories.

And then the Medics Kaede (who's related to Miroku) and Kano (who's got a secret that may or may not make him an OC after all).

About the sex and violence: there's a gay relationship between Kevin and Kano but there's no gay sex. There appears to be incest happening between Zenku and Kuzen but the truth is much more disturbing. There's a rape scene with Kagura/Kohaku where Naraku also seems to be raping Kohaku's mind.

Other points to keep in mind: I didn't write this story pretending that I knew a lot about Tokyo, therefore, although it's Tokyo in name its NYC in spirit. (The names of streets, the descriptions of buildings, that sort of stuff.) There are plenty of `Easter Eggs' so to speak, most were thrown in for laughs other were rather personal. Let's just say no little, tiny detail was `random'; everything's got its meaning whether explained or not.

 

“Afterword” as of May 5, 2006:

This story is ripe with the influence of films. All throughout there are echoes of `Psycho' and, at the end, there are visual and verbal quotes of `Halloween.' And there's a bit of a nod to M. Night Shyamalan, too, in terms of his weird and twisted revelations that inspire my own drive to throw curveballs at the reader.

In addition, there are cross-references to other stories I've written. My Inuyasha-based `The Loyal Servant' and `Shippo's…Dragon' might be the most obvious. But a more direct influence is my Thundercat-based `Good Twin, Evil Twin' (which was inspired by `The Sixth Sense'). There the entire focus centers on the psychopathic twins and since it's a short story, it's more solid and well defined. (I'm a short-story writer and not very comfortable with these longer, novel-like stories.) I like to play with the dark and disturbing aspects of psychology and though sometimes I retread `old territory', I always explore those ideas from new angles.

I wanted to do a lot here but I couldn't make it all fit into one coherent tale. I redid its outline twice, the last re-tooling being the most drastic, so to speak, with whole chapters and scenes dropped. (There were supposed to be twenty chapters.) What I omitted involved more of Kagura and Kohaku after the rape. There were scenes with Naraku and one of the detectives (chapter thirteen is a very scaled-back version of this side-plot). And there would have been more complex interactions between Zenku and the police (which I thought would be exciting but I feared risked revealing too much about what Kuzen was).

I opted for a tighter narrative because that appealed to the short-story writer in me. Like I said, I'm new to these long-forms. I knew doing that left certain aspects unfinished and I accepted that. It made sense, too, to me anyway, that it would be this way. If it feels like there should be more that's because that's the mood of uncertainly I wanted. Angst-like and tormented. There were two reasons that led me to think it was appropriate. First, the anime itself ends in the middle of things with Naraku not yet defeated and the jewel unformed. I wanted to capture that. Second, I withdrew finality because I wanted to leave those doors open for sequels.