InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Good Twin, Evil Twin ❯ Chapter Five ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter Five

Yet against his better judgment Captain Takeshi stood under an umbrella over the pavilion. All around the world was cast amid the spreading void of darkness, the flickering barrenness of shadows. With the neon-electric skyline of Tokyo behind him and before him the trees - rather the disfigured, distorted memory of trees - and with the subtle suggestion of the moon shining through clouds, it could have been a Romantic scene. A dreamscape, beautiful if it were not for the murder that had been performed just a few feet beneath.

Detectives Ken and Kev stood behind the boss looking nervously, wondering anxiously if it was the right thing to do as more and more it became too late to stop. Kev was jotting down a couple of telephone numbers for tips. Ken was going through what he could and what he could not say about the investigation.

Immediately before the crime-fighting trio were the reporter and the cameraman of `Channel 7' news. Behind them was another cameraman wearing an impressively large headphone and a dark, nylon cape. He looked at his watch and tapped at his headset simultaneously - suddenly he crouched, shouted `cue' and began the countdown.

The choreographed response of the entire news crew inspired a dull, fractious joke within the mind of the boss as it seemed to be that those predictable and tiresome creatures were more mechanical than man.

Still, the effect did not endear them; they, who as far as he was concerned, were the equivalent of vultures circling and feasting upon the carnage of inhumanity. In their own, particular way they were worse than the criminals he dealt with on a day-to-day basis. And he was not pleased to be in the position to answer their question. Especially since his superiors would not be aware of it until they turned on their sets and saw him in it - live TV. But if it helped to get answers and solve the crime, one moment of pain could be endured for a lifetime of pleasure.

"Hitten, I am live at the scene at the park. Just a few, short hours ago a worker found a body beneath the park's pavilion. It seems to be another victim matching a peculiar profile. Captain Takeshi, what can you tell us about the victim of this crime?"

The old man raised an eyebrow as he leaned into the microphone.

"I can't give you names because the next of kin have not yet identified the body. And I can't give you specifics because the investigation has not yet concluded. I can tell you the victim was a Japanese female, fifteen years old, black hair, black eyes. And she was dressed in her green and white high school uniform."

"Do you think she could have been abducted after classes ended?"

"I'm not at liberty to say that; we must wait until we gather more evidence from, family, friends, teachers."

"And what can you say about the cause of death?"

"The first impression of our medical technicians is blunt-force trauma to the head."

"Was she abused, sexually, before or after death?"

Again that eyebrow raised - and he stepped back wondering if children might not be hearing this.

"There's no evidence of sexual contact. Of any kind."

Captain Takeshi's shocked appearance at the blatant sensationalism was broadcasted from the scene of a crime of man to the scene of a crime of nature - into Naraku's office via Kanna's mirror.

"You know, of course, I can't talk about that. We can't talk about facts - and non-facts - regarding impending investigations."

"Any leads, any theories?"

"One wild and crazy idea had been brought up - that the killer could be a woman." - Just by his tone, his manner transforming from stiff-formality to lose-jocularity implied total, personal disbelief at the theory - "But I don't know and I don't speculate any further."

Trapped amid the darkness, no one could have seen the face of spider demon raise an eyebrow. And only the most careful of observers could have heard the lips of the monster issue a deep, resigned sigh. All that could have been deciphered of the mastermind's intentions were encrypted by those eyes - those deep, red eyes - that shut and remained shut.

Kanna flipped the mirror, silencing the interview, and embraced it against her body, her chest. The bright, white light pouring through blanketed her form in its glow and lent her cold, passionless face a demonic forbiddance as it was lit from beneath. Without further ado the silent girl in her silent ways exited the chamber.

"A woman?" Naraku chortled.

The figure who remained - the man dressed in the black ninja uniform - stood by Naraku. Like his counterpart, he retained a youthful face that obscured whatever emotions he could have possessed and masked a great, inhuman age. Were he entirely man he would have died many centuries ago. But as the spider demon's most trusted right-hand man, as the one and only individual who served him willingly, his physiology had been altered with the aid of a certain shard of a particular jewel.

"Captain Takeshi has failed for the last time. Perhaps he should be dealt with?" Kohaku suggested.

Naraku was neither standing nor sitting. The shape of his body was not a definite thing and at that stage of his life he did not require furniture to assume whatever posture he wished. He was, however, at the other side of the desk looking as if he were sitting. But behind that, where there appeared to be nothing but darkness and shadow, was that truth into which only Kohaku saw - because Naraku trusted Kohaku - that it was all carefully-constructed, well-organized illusion.

The parts of the monster that retained the proportions of a man smiled and a hand - bone and flesh superficially akin to a hand - reached up onto its chin and scratched it as if in thought.

"This could be interesting," he said. But up close, from Naraku's lips to Kohaku's ears, his voice was not one voice any longer. He had absorbed too many demons and had gotten too powerful to possess one voice. More often that not he controlled its unholy-unison and all of the voices acted together producing a normal, low-sounding tenor. But every now and then he let it slip and uttered sounds that even through whisper could have turned enemies into pallid, quivering shells.

"Hmmm." He thought and the machinations of his mind could be heard along with the breathing of his body that was not coming out of his mouth and the beating of heart that was not coming out of his chest. Those otherwise natural sounds of living biology were coming from elsewhere, from behind what could be seen of the spider demon. "Let it play itself out," he concluded. "If Omega Squad gets too close then we'll send Captain Takeshi a message that'll ring loud and clear."

Kohaku nodded, beaming through the look of his eyes. Naraku schemed like an arachnid spinning its web and it was beautiful, gorgeous to watch.

"And what about your ongoing search for Inuyasha?" the demon asked as his human guise appeared to be retreating into the enveloping void. The limbs, the lower body, the upper chest until, at length, only the head remained. The visage of the face floated as if disconnected.

"I have my two, best hunters tracking him as we speak."

The nothingness surrounding Naraku's head pulsated hinting of larger, unseen designs yet hidden from view.

"They will find Inuyasha and he will do the rest."

Naraku laughed through the shadow as his head was engulfed by the darkness like a flower retreating into its bud.

A couple, male and female, talking into their own, separate cell phones filed past Inuyasha along the sidewalk in front of an electronics and technology supermarket. The rain stopped but the respite from the storm came too late - almost near eleven - as there were few people out in the city enjoying it. The streets were deserted. And it did not make sense to the half-demon that the two should have been so close as to brush his jacket as they strode by, arm in arm, yet conversing with others. Or could they have been conversing with themselves all along?

He hardly gave it a moment's notice; night always brought the freaks out it seemed and not just the social outcasts. The other outcasts. For when the sun's life giving rays were extinguished by the dead of night and normal, everyday people went to bed and slept, another parallel world emerged. Like the ebb of tides retreating, revealing the bottom of the oceans then and only then was the civilization built by the demons unveiled.

In a sense night was when he was safe and at peril. Naraku, after centuries of plotting and scheming, placed himself atop the apex of that demonic empire, commanding from on high, from where no one, demon or human alike, dared reach let alone imagine its existence. And Naraku was looking for him just as he was looking for his brother and his friends and her.

He grunted - at the moment the odd coincidences and ill feelings were quenched yet something aired through the TV sets aroused his attention.

"But, Captain Takeshi, this is the fifth girl to die this year?"

Thanks to his super-human hearing, he sensed what was being said through the glass despite the blasting, maddening techno music played even into that hour.

"Yes, it would appear to be the fifth slaying of a young, teenage girl this year."

"The fifth in a series. Captain Takeshi, the public had a right to know if there's a serial killed on the lose, stalking high school age girls. From what we gather from those close to the families all of the girls were found in their green and while uniforms."

"I would not be too quick to judge - and without rock solid evidence - at this juncture it would be fruitless -"

"Feh!" He grunted and returned to his pacing.

I must contact Hojo at once, he thought to himself as he rounded a corner. I want eyes watching her all the time. All the time.

He stopped at an intersection to wait to cross and spotted that same, weird couple. The male wore bleached hair; the female wore bright-pink spiky-hair and two-toned contact lenses. And there was something peculiar about their ears, something that could not be ignored though they tried to hide it with their cell phones. Wanting to look `normal' himself, just as quickly as he noticed he slowly, smoothly turned his gaze back onto the streets ahead and crossed, marching ever-onward from a simple walk to a brisk jog.

When it was clear Naraku gained too much power demons feared showing themselves openly lest they be consumed by him. Collectively they put aside their differences and created their own, parallel existence between Naraku's and the human's world. To blend into society they formed communities and networks, usually inside well meaning temples, where there would be the equivalents of law and medicine, school and religion.

Marriages would be arranged, ceremonies would be held. The telltale features of demonhood would be excised through infant surgery - and every now and then, if a child was born too monstrous to be let into the world, it would be humanely euthanized to protect the safety and security of all demonkind. Affiliated temples throughout the country and later throughout the world made it possible to cover up for a demon's naturally slow aging process: there demons vanished to and returned from a fifty or a hundred year exile when all humans who might have remembered them would not be alive any longer.

A great many demons emigrated abroad; usually into America where there was plenty of space to be free and open. But Naraku was there, still, always forever there. Nothing in the universe escaped his grasp. He had conquered the demon world and Inuyasha wondered how deep into the human world that spider's web encroached.

That night, along the waterfront district, Inuyasha fled into an old, abandoned warehouse. He scaled a ladder, sprinted the catwalk and reached the upper most portions of the building's rafters. He stood directly under what appeared to be one of many circular ventilation shafts - and he remained silent and still, imagining that for a moment he beheld a fragment of Naraku's next, grand design.

Naraku must have known Kagome existed in this time. But though he knew when she was, he did not know where she was. And it would be too exhaustive for him and for his agents to actively seek her - by that era he had too much power and responsibility. The ancient spider was too smart to waste that much time and manpower on a task that would be revenge. It was not his style. Would it not make sense that he let one of his minions loose into the world with explicit orders to kill anyone resembling Kagome's profile?

He crouched and waited, his eyes adjusted and became familiar with the vast, untamed environ. Fifty-feet below the warehouse stared above. Its platforms thick with dust, its shelves decorated with cobwebs. Desolate like a wasteland. To one side were the garage doors where once trucks loaded and unloaded their cargo; to the other side - comprising three stories within the building - were the facilities and office space of the now-defunct Ja-Rin Exporting House.

The doors through which he entered creaked and a pair of interlopers crashed into the building. They split and cased about, one hugging the wall, one lurking through the aisles. The warehouse was unlit but he knew light meant nothing to those creatures. Every now and then they looked up - but he was so down, low against the catwalk that he could not be seen.

Inuyasha waited until the interlopers ambled far enough away that they could not see themselves. Like a cat he jumped into the vent directly above; like a bullet he pierced into it cleanly, smoothly. He did not even gasp and was thankful neither he nor his clothes touched the sides of the aperture.

And by the silence that echoed Inuyasha knew the unwanted guests were oblivious to what he had done and where he had gone.

Nevertheless, he stayed by the vent with his sword out in his hands, waiting for that sign of danger.

When the feeling passed he crawled deeper through the pitch black passage until it terminated into a cramped little room. He shut the passage and lay against its hatch. Panting and sweating, he rested with his sword between his legs.

It was a close call but he survived and it was over for now. And for now he would be safe. There, amid the refuse of industry, within the chambers carved through unused attic and roof space, Inuyasha was home.

The air within the bedroom was odd. It was difficult to pinpoint why, though, there was not a reason but a myriad of weird, contradictory impulses. And it was as if his head was burdened with not one but two minds, each vying for control of his every last emotion.

On one level the air was cool - mostly because of the open living room window and the open bedroom door letting the draft inside - on another level the climate was warm, comforting. Maybe it was the smell of the fresh rain it carried, the sense of complete and utter cleanliness. Maybe it was the sense of the security it brought about invoking memories of the past when he was younger and at peace with the world.

Smelling that cool, night air brought it back.

Yes - Zenku remembered - there was a time the world was a small, well-ordered place. A happy place where nothing bad ever happened. For the most part those memories were about him and his parents. It was always about him and his parents walking through the city. His sister just simply did not appear.

He loved it - and it was strange that those peculiar, fragmented visions were more fresh and alive than anything recent.

And then there was the light. The indigo of the alarm clock that glowed upon the titles of the books from shelf to shelf. The gray of the TV set that washed itself into the chamber through the door between the living room and the bedroom. The skyline of the city that shined across the distance.

He sighed, suddenly and unexpectedly relaxed, as he stared, as he looked onward into the infinite. The lights of the buildings looking so far away as if from another world. Tiny little pinpricks of light coming on and off at will. It was better than a million starry-skies and he wondered how a night could be that perfect.

“The sad fact is that these crimes,” spoke a man through a heavy, American accent, “have left little evidence about the perpetrator. One would think, whatever this killer is, he or she has almost super-human ability.”

Zenku gulped as the memory of what he saw that night returned His eyes blinked, his stomach tightened as his body reacted. He turned aside and his face brushed the back of Kuzen's head, her hair falling into his mouth. The two were together cradled into each other's fetal positions, naked and touching flesh to flesh. And if it was not obvious then it was now: everything about that chamber, its wide, elongated shape, its slim, narrow opening, it was like being inside a womb.

He brought the blanket onto his face and buried his head into his pillow. There was a wonderful contrast between the warmth of the bed - the warmth of his sister - and the cool, night air.

“Which is why we ask,” the man with the accent continued, “that any one with any information regarding these serious crimes report what they know to the authorities.”

“And what number can the public contact you at, sir?”

Another voice answered, enunciating Omega Squad's tip-line. Although in clear and perfect Japanese, its manner seemed to be utterly familiar with the voice that spoke before.

“Kuzen is not dead but gives death.”

He recalled another sick feeling when he noticed the thing inside his pocket. When he saw it - seductive, sideways glimpses of it - as she dropped it within the box. That box! She was always leaving him things, little mangled trinkets dropped here and there for him to find and be shocked by. Almost like a cat dropping `gifts' for its master. And then she took it back into her box never to be seen and known-of again.

“It wasn't supposed to be this way.” He whispered as the number broadcasted through the TV settled into his brain. “If only I had been stronger, Kuzen.”

He blinked - her hair was out of his mouth, away from his face. She pressed her hand against his lips. Her hand - by god - he was at once aroused and at once repulsed by her hand. The hand that pleasured him and killed those innocent, unsuspecting girls. He grew an erection just feeling that hand, its fingers, touch him.

“Please, don't, don't,” he stammered through tears.

“Don't what? Zenku?” she asked - or did she ask?

“Don't forgive your weak brother! The things you do - for me - stop it. Just, stop it.”

“My sweet, kind brother. You are mine and I will have you. I will have all of you.”

“Is there no end to your love?”

She kissed his lips, forcing her flesh into his.

“You don't need this world. But I need you.” She brought his head onto her breasts. “Let me care for you, little brother.”