InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Good Twin, Evil Twin ❯ Chapter Six ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter Six

Electric eyes opened and deep, long breaths followed - a stretch, a yawn - Inuyasha blinked and little by little the world came back into focus. He was inside his attic lair, on the floor by the hatch, attacked by the cold, bitter air. The hideaway was and would be always unheated - un-cooled - the price to be paid for complete and total anonymity. It was bright, too, as along the walls of the room the slit windows were aglow with the redness of the predawn sun.

And it was quiet, impossibly quiet.

He stood, holding the scabbard and sword in his left and right hands. The Tetsaiga. Totosai sharpened its blade that way it could be used like an ordinary samurai weapon. Useful through changing times, it was the best of both worlds: able to dispatch enemies with the least amount of unwanted attention and able to wield all of its attacks when necessary.

He walked into the bathroom, a mess of sheetrock and tile. It was supposed to be an abandoned warehouse and the haphazard lair did not escape that unfinished `look'. He splashed water onto his face, into his eyes. He looked at his reflection through the shattered glass of the broken mirror: despite the five hundred years since he met Kagome he looked, more or less, unchanged. Maybe a little older around the eyes. Maybe. Demons did not age as fast as humans but half-demons aged twice as fast as full-demons. One feature was different: he kept his hair shoulder length and spiky because it masked his ears.

Finished, relaxed, he donned a baseball cap and another, red jacket - he possessed a closet full of red jackets and black outfits, endlessly repeating the same uniform time after time.

Inuyasha was momentarily safe-and-sound. The thugs that followed him into the warehouse, who or what ever they were, had not been smart enough to locate the entrance of his den. Nevertheless, just by observing him entering, that simple small act lead invariably into danger. Even if the two were not demons it lead inexorably into disaster. Naraku's influence extended, however marginally, into the human world and he was not beneath exploiting zombies, drug-addicted and mindless, using them to do his dirty work. He knew what they knew thus he felt it would be necessary to find a new, private lair and soon, too, he imagined there would be little time.

Inuyasha understood too well the art of blending, of hiding out in the world. He had spent the better part of his life keeping away from demons and humans alike who hated him because he had been born different. Then and now he kept a low profile but this time it was for another reason all together: to protect Kagome from what contact with him wrought. Naraku's eyes watched everything; with agents and minions that patrolled everywhere throughout the city and the country. No one could be trusted except, of course, friends whose families he knew and protected for centuries and other demonic allies whose identities like his own were tightly-guarded secrets.

And there was a time he could have been allied with his brother, Sesshoumaru. But after the war, when he could not find Rin - whom he kept alive through less-than-natural means - he, too, vanished. Maybe he grew tired of the world demons and humans destroyed and followed her out of it; maybe he dwelt within it, still, hoping for her return and searching for her spirit among the land of the living. But for the past sixty almost seventy years he battled without him, not that even when they were together they were the best of friends. They had two, very different views about the world and how to deal with it and they clashed with each other more often than with their enemies.

He was alone, that was that, and he functioned well alone. He could have been happy alone were it not for Kagome. If they got anywhere near each other it would be doom. In feudal Japan he was free to do what he wanted when he wanted. But in modern Japan he was restricted. Activity curtailed. Movement chained. Thanks to his appearance.

Eyes could be tinted, ears could be cropped, claws and teeth could be filed. Tails could be amputated. And other, subtle imperfections could be masked through surgery. But he would not be changed to conform to general notions of beauty and desirability. Accepting himself the way he was had taken a great deal of time and courage all of which he had gained from his love of Kagome and her love of him. Now the things about himself she fought him to accept were the very things that impeded him from saving her.

Kagome! he thought and sighed.

Inuyasha produced a cell phone. It was an instrument Shippo created and guaranteed to be untraceable. From memory, for it was imperative not to leave records of any kind, he dialed an automated answering service through which he communicated with Hojo.

He checked and found there were no messages - the last he heard of Hojo it was about Kagome not coming to meet him for a movie-date but he checked with her parents and she was at the temple sick, uneasy.

“Hojo, if you watched the news last night you know about a killer who's stalking girls fitting Kagome's description. The killer's after Kagome - I know it - keep your eyes on her.

Don't let her out of your sight. But - just do what you do. It's important. Also, I'm changing my address, I'll keep you informed.”

He removed the cell phone.

The half-demon knew Hojo's ancestors and, mostly because of Kagome's insistence, kept close ties with them through the years. As with Miroku's lineage, familial relationships were passed down from one generation to the next. After Kagome - the Kagome of the past - was no longer a part of his life he was comforted by the idea that in the future they were fated to meet again. But when Naraku's power became a thing to be avoided, his human allies - and Hojo's family in particular - became his best, most direct link to the Kagome of the future.

Of course, he did not tell his friends what he knew about the future - really, after that day when Kagome did not return and he could not go through the well, what he knew about the future was painfully very little. And he did not tell Hojo just what was happening inside the temple. What he said was that he promised her father to protect her and watch her. But, for obvious reasons, he could not be following her. That was why he asked him to keep an eye on her when she was at school. When she was not at home.

Inuyasha knelt by the hatch and listened - the warehouse was so cavernous, so empty, the slightest noise within seemed to be impossibly magnified by the silence that enshrouded its facilities like a kind of fog. He opened the vent. He crawled through the passage on hands and knees, his weapon clutched by the grip of his teeth. He reached the end of the tunnel and saw from above the catwalks and the platforms of the interior of the building below.

If those two thugs were there he was going to deal with them.

“Alright, alright already, you don't like my theory, I get that, but what's yours? Just because most serial killers have been men does not make this serial killer a man too especially when there's no evidence to prove it.”

“The evidence? The evidence is the young, teenage girls killed all over Tokyo!” said Detective Ken. He tapped the map unfolded over the table. There, scattered about the schematic diagram of Japan's capital, were fifteen colored dots. From one to five, they were numbered by the order of their discovery. The five black dots - locations of bodies. The five green dots - locations of schools. The five white dots - locations of homes. There seemed to be no consistent, logical pattern - a mathematician had been inquired and concluded the dots did not extrapolate a center. “All of them killed by blunt-forced trauma. Quick and dirty. The victims did not see it coming.”

Detective Kev stood, planting his tap onto the map. “My point exactly. These victims did not feel threatened by their killers - until too late, if ever. What would be less threatening for a female of that age? A man or a woman? And what about the lack of sexual contact?”

“Meaningless.” Glaring, rising a little, Ken pounded at the map. “The killer's taken items from the victims. At home he can use them whatever way -”

Captain Takeshi frowned at the thought.

“The facts are: no penetration, no semen. And that's not all of it. The victim's bodies suffered trauma after death. Medics Kaede and Kano prove the damage suffered to the ears was post-mortem. Now, a man may kill his victim to sex her before or after, but once he's done he's done. This killer went out of her way to scar the body after death.”

“So? So - he's nuts,” the boss added.

“All murderers, by definition, are nuts. But this one's special - I think - she's motivated by jealousy.”

Kenshin grunted his displeasure and flung his hand about as he sat.

“The killer is female and older than the victims. Were she school-aged, she just would not have the time to be all over the place like this map suggests. No. She waits, she watches with infinite patience. She picks the victims well - the girls that arouse the rage within. Maybe, when she was younger, all the pretty girls thought she was ugly. Maybe the rest of her school mates treated her like that too. But now that she's older and wiser, she uses what power she's got to seek revenge.”

“Revenge against the pretty girls. Kid, it sounds like the plot of a half-baked detective novel.” Captain Takeshi drummed his fingers across the map; he was starting to understand Detective Kevin's theory. “Markus, Kevin Markus, remember, you're a cop not a pedestrian psychiatrist.”

Kev bowed and sat, arching his back against his chair.

Looking at his detectives, Takeshi - Captain of the Omega Squad - sighed. Though they had different fathers and different cultures, they were cops. And besides that, they shared many of the same personality traits - especially stubbornness - and even a few, physical features here and there were remarkably identical. “I'm sorry, truth is there's just very little evidence. It's almost as if - demons - were involved.”

Kev laughed: “Demons, boss?”

At that moment Medics Kaede and Kano appeared - the technicians were talking to themselves about their cases.

“I know you're not going to like it, Kid, but you're going to accept it. Until we get something we work with Ken's theory.”

“OK.” Kev sat upright. “What about increasing the patrols about the schools?”

“My superiors will not agree to it,” Captain Takeshi answered.

Kevin's eyes refocused away from the boss to the medics. While no one watched - no one but the American - the young, almost boy-like Kano tapped his wrist. The detective smiled and turned back toward Kenshin and Takeshi - but the boss left.

“What? What happened?”

“Earth to Kevin!” Ken knocked at Kev's clean-shaven head. “The higher-ups think it'll start a panic. If parents see cops patrolling their schools they will get nervous.”

“The killer will get nervous, too,” Kev countered, standing. “There is nothing like a nervous killer.”

Ken grunted. Kev looked back - the medics were gone.

“You know, my Ramen is DOA. There's hot water in the break room, isn't there?”

Kev jogged across the hallway into the break room beyond the front desk. Ken noticed it - but did not speak it - that his brother left his bowl of Ramen atop the desk unopened.

“Oh, heh, there you are,” Kev whispered, his English slow and deliberate.

“Kevin-san.” Kano greeted his friend with a sly restrained smile.

Without wasting another moment they hugged and kissed.

Kano was the first, real friend he knew in Japan. They met while at a language school: Kano was learning English and he was learning Japanese. Together they taught each other things like all of the bad words and vulgar expressions that would not be discussed in the classroom. But that child-like behavior was just a mask for a deep and growing bond of affection that otherwise lacked a way to express itself. Until that day Kev showed Kano kanji he wrote: it was supposed to be `I love you' but how badly his awkward and untrained brushstrokes mangled the words he did not know. Yet - as they sat side by side - they blushed like kids and it felt alive to be hugging suddenly, unexpectedly kissing.

“You're so beautiful Kano Sozaburo,” he remembered he whispered into his friend's ear that day after that slight and fleeting intimacy. “There's just something other about you, like you're not a part of this human world.”

That was the start of the love affair. A love affair consummated through secret gestures and coded words. For five years they invented all sorts of indirect ways to make love to one another distantly anonymously out in the open. Every now and then they shared heavy, intimate encounters that yet did not go beyond hugging and kissing as Kev did not go faster than Kano wanted - it was clear that his lover had had past negative experiences and he wished to be completely and totally understanding.

“I missed you.” Kano's head leaned against Kevin's shoulder - the medic's light brown mane brushed against the detective's hairless face.

“I missed you, too, a lot.” Kev inhaled Kano's scent - he loved the feel of that hair against his face. “Let's get together again.”

“Yes,” he said drawing back yet holding onto his lover's elbows looking into his eyes. Kano appeared to be like a boy in his teens and not a like man much older than Kevin. “I need it, I want it.”

“Tonight? My Home?”

“Tonight - Kaede and I work tonight - heh heh, we've got autopsies to start, reports to finish.”

“Sounds like a blast, heh heh. What about tomorrow night?”

He smiled almost tearing. “I want to trust you.”

He hugged tentatively yet tightly. “You can trust me - I know - I know, this, must be kept secret.”

“Yes and not just this.” He kissed his lover's lips, cheek and bit - lightly, lovingly - against the naked, soft flesh of his ear. “A movie then a walk.”

“You foxy thing.” Kano blushed at Kev's words. “To see those eyes, to hear that laugh.” Kevin kissed him and rubbed against the side of his head about his ear. His ear. Why did it feel rough as if there was a scar?

Kano backed away a bit.

“Tomorrow night - anyway - I have to go.”

“I know.” Kevin tried to reach to touch that face but resisted the temptation. “Be safe, Kano Sozaburo.” He watched as the man he loved walked out of the room.

Peeking through the vent's aperture, Inuyasha could not see them. Were he an average, ordinary mortal simply by the looks of it he would be led to believe they were gone. He seemed to be surrounded by emptiness but he knew better - he smelt them their trace weak yet detectable.

With a fearsome cry he surged, jumping from the ceiling to the floor of the Ja-Rin warehouse, landing feet-first the scabbard tucked into his waist, the sword gripped by his hands.

“Well, well, well” a female voice taunted from the cover of the aisles. “Look who decided to drop by.”

“We didn't expect you to show this soon, Inuyasha,” another voice, male, jeered. “It's almost like you've grown a spine.”

Inuyasha growled, brutal fangs utterly prominent, and stepped aback. The female and the male approached from opposite directions; they must have thought they could have lured him into a trap. But he was not up for playing games that day - he was in the mood to destroy them.

By the light that filtered through the building's windows, the half-demon saw the two thugs for the first time. They were twins: the woman with short, spiky hair tinted pink, the man with shoulder length, stringy hair bleached blinding white. Wearing denim and leather, they adorned their bodies with various, masochistic elements. And they were armed, just like he was armed, with swords.

“Inukotsu and Kakotsu,” he sneered. “And you want to speak of cowardice!” He lunged at the female, erratically and violently swinging his sword whose every stroke was met by hers. The sound of the metal-on-metal action was furious and loud. The cutting of the blades sent currents of air about to prick and flutter the cobwebs.

Inukotsu was about to strike with a kick just as her brother Kakotsu ran into the scene. But Inuyasha was faster than them and withdrew. He stepped aback far enough to be safe from their weapons but close enough to be near their bodies and attack. He elbowed the male's ribs and with the same arm, the same hand, beat into his body as if it were a rag doll.

“If I didn't know better you'd almost pass for human!” the half-demon scoffed as he, again, lunged after the woman. And, again, his strikes were met, each and every one of them, by her blade before any contact could be made.

There was a great deal of rage within Inuyasha - controlled, harnessed rage - more than the last time he encountered the Kotsu Twins decades ago. He did not think Inukotsu noticed; if she did she did not realize how he maintained that strength. Inukotsu did not fight for what she loved and therefore could not understand the source of Inuyasha's strength.

She was a lackey of Naraku and like all of his lackeys, except one, she fought for him not because she believed in him or in his cause but because she feared him. All of them feared him. Despised him. His children, too, wanted to be free of the spider demon.

But Inuyasha's motives were pure and possessed the power to call upon inner reserves so deep and so bottomless that he could be unwavering forever simply because he was fighting for Kagome.

He was driven by single-minded determinism and showed it by eerie silence. He let the female expend her energy, time and brainpower, coming up with cheap insults. He knew how much the taunts distracted the taunter having used the tactic himself when he was younger. But since then he learned the best fighters keep their mouths shut. Besides, he did not want to insult her, he wanted to kill her.

And he did not want to fight the twins together, rather, it would be easier to attack them one at a time. Part of the plan was to force Inukotsu to retreat out of the warehouse into yard behind the building. The other part of the plan was to beat up Kakotsu every time he threatened to be near. She might sense the danger, but he was not the brightest swordsman in Japan and the half-demon hoped he would be oblivious to the danger until too late.

Again, Kakotsu struggled and lunged at Inuyasha. Again, the half-demon averted disaster - by jumping up toward a raised, makeshift platform and jumping down behind Kakotsu. The demon was fast and able to dodge the Tetsaiga but the swinging of the sword proved to be distraction only and Inuyasha pounded into his chest, his ribs. Kakotsu coughed blood and staggered back onto a pillar. Inuyasha did not have a moment to lose: he jumped onto the platform - missing Inukotsu's surge - then jumped into the fray. He resumed the duel, making her loose ground, forcing her to retreat through the doors at the back of the warehouse where out in the open he could do a real, demonic attack.

Just then, before either of them knew it, they were enveloped by the twilight. It was a bitter, cold morning, typical of autumn and unlike yesterday the climate was dry with gray and cloudy skies. It was not blue but blinding bright white compared to the environment within the Ja-Rin warehouse.

Inuyasha and Inukotsu circled each other, keeping enough distance between them and the building. He aimed the weapon at her who then aimed her weapon at him. Their blades me and for the first time he was dragged aback by the force. A surge of demonic power followed - his eyes seemed to be changing from yellow to red - and with a yell that could have broken stone he flung her away. She soared and fell against her back, her sword slipping through her grasp - perhaps he would not have to use the trick, after all, perhaps a quick slice through the neck would be enough.

But just at that moment of victory Kakotsu emerged and struck Inuyasha's sword with such strength that it, too, was thrust out of his hand. Enraged, the half-demon grasped the man's wrists as if to crush them. For endless moments they were locked, virtually hand-in-hand, pacing a small, tight circle vying for control of the weapon. Suddenly Inuyasha let go and tore into Kakotsu's neck. A gush of blood sprayed into his face and blinded him as his enemy fell away through his arms.

Inukotsu screamed at the sight.

Without another thought Inuyasha dug his hands into Kakotsu's chest, splitting it apart. The demon collapsed still alive and gasping but it was impossible to get air into and out of his lungs that like the rest of his innards were fatally exposed. The creature formed a pool of blood upon impact with the concrete of the yard and then and there died.

Inukotsu cursed through tears. Inuyasha flung away form his face streaks of Kakotsu's blood and shouted an incantation of his own. The blood formed parallel blades through the air as they rushed toward Inukotsu and she struck at them with her weapon.

Inuyasha retrieved his sword. Armed, again, he ran after her. But she was retreating toward a manhole that she and her brother opened the night before. And she jumped right into it.

Zenku though himself guilty for oversleeping until he remembered he dropped out of school ages ago. It was just that the sounds of the children filling past the apartment - the children and their songs - that brought him back into that time when he should have been but was not happy.

And then the merriment passed away and then the sounds of the city emerged into life echoing about the bedroom. That, with the sun shining through the clouds and the air wafting through the windows, induced yet another flashback. Of being a child, alone, before school was an idea. Of thinking the universe to be carefree and open into the infinite. It was the thrill of freedom.

What he would have done to get back that childhood and cleanse himself forever of those damn, detestable urges.

But Kuzen was right, it was too late for him and he could not go back no matter how much he wanted, no matter how hard the tried to fool himself.

At last he sat, breaking the intimate closeness he shared with his sister - he bid her good-morning and kissed her cheek but she did not reply.

On he went, though, naked into the living room and turned up the TV's volume - the channel was replaying portions of that interview with Captain Takeshi.

He turned into the bathroom, washed his face and looked at his image through the mirror. He appeared to be no different than yesterday yet he seemed to be ages older and wiser. Could there be anyone in the world attracted to such a face? He was not displeasing, he was sure of it, but he grew bored of seeing the same thing, over and over, static and unchanging.

He turned back into the living room and for a moment peered into the bedroom through the crack of the door. The mattress was empty; his sister must have gotten up and left in that short space of time he had been away, eyes-averted. But she could not be too far away, he reasoned, for he saw that box upon the bed and it was open

He looked away into the TV.

Upon the screen was the image of that American whose fragmented Japanese he had heard the night before. Now there was a face attached to the voice. Clean-shaven and youthful, the foreign cop looked familiar except that his eyes were not sunken in - as his were - and that his smile was bright and genuine. He rocked back and forth as he watched thinking such a man could get any woman he wanted.

And then the image of the victim was broadcasted - not the image of her death but the image of her life through a yearbook photograph.

“The victim's identity was made public upon notification of next of kin. Sonji Sakano, age fifteen, was found last night under the pavilion of J. J. Hideki Park by a groundskeeper. Her cause of death was blunt-forced trauma to the head. Captain Takeshi would not link her death to that of a series of other, brutal slayings.”

One by one pictures of Kuzen's previous, `known' victims appeared onto the screen, their names beneath their images.

“So many, so many, Kuzen!”

“The police ask that if you know any thing about these crimes that you contact them at Omega Squad through the tip-line number -”

Zenku lost track of how many girls ran into his sister. He doubled over, clutching into his stomach, crying and weeping, as he uttered mantras under his breath until the swell of emotion subsided. It killed him to think the families that would not have them anymore. He could see little brothers wondering where their big sisters were and who would be there to care for them as Kuzen cared for him. He could put himself in their position because for so long he did not have his sister as through she were dead too.

It was not supposed to be that way, but what could he do, what could he do?

Where was his sister? Where was she? Always vanishing at times like that between discontinuities. He knew she was there, he could feel her there, but she liked to be hiding.

How like a cat she was, jealous and possessive, fiercely independent.

It struck him that words alone - and certainly words from him - would not be enough. But if he could get the cops to speak with her sternly she would be responsive. She would be afraid, scared straight into stopping. That was the way to save her from herself! But how to arrange the encounter? How to do it without saying too much and being anonymous?

Of course, that number. That number the cops left for clues. If he called and said a few unimportant things - nothing that could be incriminating but something that could be used through interrogation - the experience of being the object of suspicion just might scare her from ever trying to kill again.

He stared at the phone that black and white model upon the table. Why did he hesitate? Why did he cringe at the though of it? The thought of mad Kuzen. Could he call the cops right then and there with her inside the apartment?

He reached for the phone, his hands shaking, his fingers trembling.

Oh, officer, I saw Sonji speaking with this woman inside the park. She looked dangerous.

It would be such a simple, little thing to do.

I asked around and I learned her name is Kuzen. She lives at this address - yes - at that Apartment H. Oh, I'm sure she didn't have anything to do with Sonji's death, but maybe this Kuzen saw something. Maybe she knows something. You know what I mean.

It would be perfect. Get Kuzen into the station to be interrogated by the cops. Scare her into quitting that hobby of hers.

With renewed purpose he reached for the phone - but wait - he could not do it while at home while she -

But it was too late to be strategizing for at that moment, at that instant the telephone rang.

Inuyasha looked into the manhole. It was dark and shadowy, its depth shallow and little more than twenty-feet deep. Rainwater flowed through its base. He could not see but he could hear the splashing of Inukotsu's feet as she retreated further into the maze of the tunnel-work.

He killed one of two, the weakest of the Kotsu Twins, but as long as the stronger remained alive it would be too great a threat.

When he thought the coast was clear he entered down into the manhole's shaft and shut above its heavy, iron lid. He did not jump, he descended its imbedded rung ladder from its tip to its base. There, at the end, he eased into the waters. It would be impossible to walk through the tunnels at a normal, steady pace and not make a sound. The sloshing of his feet through the rainwater would both announce his advance and muffle her position. Instead he treaded by lifting his feet into and out of the current advancing only though long, deliberate strides. The method proved to be considerably slow but it worked and he found Inukotsu's trail.

He was surprised she was not attacking him inside the tunnels. Maybe she was leading him into a trap but he did not sense other demons. Maybe she was shocked by the death of her brother and did not know what she was doing or where she was going but that, too, did not make sense. He opted for another theory, a mix of the two: she was shocked and was going back into Naraku's lair hence leading him into a trap if he followed.

Thankfully the tunnels sloped upward and after a while the current dried - Inuyasha was free to be as fast as he wanted.

Up and up the tunnels climbed - was he below ground any more? He could not tell. It was not a sewer - it was too bright and too clean to be that - instead the passages appeared to be conduits of massive communication wires. It collected rainwater only because of yesterday's storm and not because it was intended to be an auxiliary sewer. Naturally, what it carried meant it could not hold a lot of fluid and the passages were made to be sloped, getting steeper the closer it reached into the harbor, letting gravity transport the water from one place to another.

And then he stopped. The air was warm and reeked with Naraku. The stench of it was impossibly, unbearably powerful and he gasped. Even about those parts of Tokyo he knew to be strong with the ancient spider, the aura was not that strong. Could it be the universe was playing a game of tit-for-tat? Naraku had discovered Inuyasha's lair; had Inuyasha found Naraku's lair?

He unsheathed his sword and approached into a sideway passage that emptied into a parallel tunnel taller and wider than the rest of the tunnels. To the left and to the right the passage extended infinitely into oblivion - a sound was coming out of those depths but the source was so far away as to be invisible. To the front, along the floor, were tracks that appeared to be for trains. That was that, he realized, he was amid the city's subway, a portion of it that looked very clean and very new.

Without another thought he sprinted across the tracks onto the platform. All along the way, mixed within the gray, stony material of the tracks, were traces of things that once had been alive. Bones, pelts of dusty, matted fur, even the remains of roaches. Nothing, it seemed, survived that miasma.

Inuyasha looked at his hands for a moment - they felt funny and he thought he might have cut himself. But that was not it - when he dug into Kakotsu's chest he must have mangled off a claw. It did not matter, it grew back and did not hurt anymore through the throbs of adventure.

Atop the platform an archway beckoned. Beyond it stairs ascended above and sounds echoed below - through the shadows and the darkness it appeared to be leading up a hundred feet without rest. With his sword gripped by his hands he stood at the foot of the steps just as a train sped through the tunnel. It raced at breakneck speed and blasted its horn but he was not distracted. His eyes were too focused upon that tiny, almost imperceptible pinprick of light that shined at the head of the stairs.