InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Good Twin, Evil Twin ❯ Chapter Twelve ( Chapter 12 )

Chapter Twelve

The dungeon.

The pitch black void. The bitter, cold air. The ceiling was low, strutted by teak beams and buttressed by stony pillars. The walls - enshadowed - seemed to be as distant as infinity. And the floor was littered with an inch-thick layer of dust and debris. Sounds of ghostly straining and eerie settling echoed about the cavernous enclosure - the chambers were not part of the building itself, they had been carved out of an air pocket between the very base of the tower and the innermost regions of the earth.

A hatch upon the ceiling was opened and a shaft of white - but not bright - light seeped into the dungeon. It was the light of an obscure, secluded men's room that was the one and only access point into and out of the crypt. A hemp-and-wood ladder was lowered; its excess length piled upon the concrete floor and while it swung a spider crawled through its litter unaccustomed and afraid of the light. Odd that anything natural lived in that environment.

A man descended the ladder. Dress in a black, ninja uniform he could have blended into the scenery were he not under the spotlight beneath the hole. He was so tall - rather, the chamber was so short - his head was but inches away from the ceiling. He reached up through the hatch and from the floor of the rest room retrieved a lit lantern.

When the man turned - the lamplight washing his face - it could be seen that it was Kohaku. The eternally youthful human stepped away from the ladder of hemp and wood into the cavern's bleak and melancholic oblivion. He aimed the lantern toward the hatch and at once an object fell through the hole and landed upon the ground with a low, wet, thud.

Without another word - and as silent as death - Kohaku turned from the hatch and that bizarre nightmarish thing that squirmed and quivered upon the floor beneath it and walked, slowly and resolutely, to the rear of the cavern. There, between pillars, were teak walls adorned with metal doors. Some of the doors were shut. But most of them were open and through their yawning blackness hinted suggestions of their horrifying contents - rooms of unspeakable terror and passages of unfathomable extent that led into catacombs that eyes, human or demonic, had not explored for hundreds of years.

Kohaku stood before one of the doors - one of the shut doors - meanwhile that thing crawled through the litter toward him. Its arms, what could have been arms, with its hands and fingers clutched into the floor and dragged itself inch by inch. The front parts of its body seemed to be solid and sturdy. The back parts, however, were tattered like ripped and shredded flesh and left a trail of fluid upon the litter.

“I prepared the two myself,” Kohaku said. He unlocked the door - behind it a spray of a soft, orange light evolved and competed with his lamp yet did not over power it.

The two - the man and the creature - entered. Inside the antechamber was larger than was it seemed to be outside. It contained two large vats of glass filled with a clear liquid - tiny, shimmering bubbles struggling to rise through its volume implied a viscous substance more like gelatin than water. The glow itself emerged from sources - unseen - beneath the glass directed up into the vat through gratings.

There were two bodies suspended within the goop: those of Inukotsu and Kakotsu, naked, clean, and reconstructed as best as possible.

“Kakotsu was very badly mangled and will take longer to heal,” Kohaku continued. “But Inukotsu was not as badly injured. She will awaken before he.”

The thing - that remained near the man's legs - laughed low and dull.

The keys jumbled about Kohaku's waist as he trekked into the dungeon. So deep the lights of the vats were a distant, dim memory. So deep even the light of the lamp seemed to be swallowed up by the shadow. There was an other-worldly vastness about the cavern's bottomless darkness that space itself was infinitely brighter for the were no stars beneath the ground.

And the air was cold, too, not just physically but spiritually. It could have frozen the soul of anything unfortunate enough to be treading through it.

Another door - another key - it creaked, its rusty hinges peeling and dropping bit by bit onto the already-littered floor. Beyond it the entryway yawned into nothing until he shined the lantern into the chamber. The ceiling, walls, and floor were concrete and plaster painted and clean. At the center of the room was a column - also of concrete and plaster - with a figure chained upon it.

The figure, whose back was facing Kohaku, was propped upright, held still, by the restraints against its writs and its ankles. Its hair was black and shoulder-length. Its clothing was an old, kimono-like robe. First it leaned against the pillar - as if asleep - and then it `stood' - as if awoken.

Kohaku hooked the lantern onto a chain that dangled from the ceiling. The thing upon the floor lurched toward the light. The light revealed it to be Naraku. He was naked, his hair unkempt swept over his head, around his face, it dangled loose and limp from his shoulders to the ground. The spider-like birthmark upon his back was exposed as were, too, the outlines of all of his muscles, tensing and relaxing as he crawled and stood upon his palms. Below the arch of his back, where his waist would have been, the skin was tattered, the flesh was shredded. Bones and organs protruded from the gap, blood oozed from the wound and left a trail as deep and red as his eyes. He had ripped his torso off his body - two thousand feet above inside the office those discarded portions of his anatomy breathed and awaited reunification.

Kohaku circled the pillar and looked upon its prisoner - Kagura.

“Imagine the power you could have if only you cooperated,” he whispered into her ear. The hot breath of his body warmed her cold flesh.

She eyed his face with a sharp, pointed gaze and slithered: “I am Kagura of the Wind, I am free!”

Kagura stood, upright, with her arms wide-apart - her wrists and shoulders were bound onto a bar nailed against the column. Her ankles and knees were tightly-bound too onto the pillar itself. She verged into struggling against the restrains but reasoned out of it. It was not worth the fight, she knew, better to be struggling for control of her mind than her body.

The man drew back from the woman. “No one is, truly, free.” He brushed a hand across her cheek neither in a perverted nor sleazy manner but in a soft, tender way.

“Damn you,” she spat.

He smiled

Again he leaned into her body and planted a kiss onto her lips. “This, I know, it means nothing to you but it hurts. It hurts me,” he whispered. “You know that to be true.” He wrapped his arms about her body under her chest. Her restraints rattled. Her muscles stiffened. Holding her tight, he pressed his body against hers. “You force me, you make me, do it.”

He kissed her lips again - she kept her lips shut. He stroked her head - her hair, her neck that by nature of the robe was exposed - she growled like an animal and fought against the restraints.

She felt the growing heat and firmness developing between his legs.

Kohaku gasped and pressed his hands against her face, trying to stop Kagura's frantic motion.

“Fight it, Kohaku!”

A tear was forming in the corners of his eyes as he looked at her.

“Kohaku!” shouted Naraku. “Remember!” It was a word the echoed through the voices of a thousand vile and ravenous demons. Its force was strong enough to shatter stone but its effect was to bring the human onto his knees.

Kohaku trembled and held his face in his hands.

“Damn you! Fight it, Kohaku!”

He recalled a moment from his boyhood. It was Naraku's castle. It was the middle of the night - the moon was squirting its eerie, white light upon his face - when he was awoken by the scream. It was Kagura. He remembered the frantic pace with which he followed the scream. Against order, against better-judgment, he bolted through the rooms, deeper and deeper into the castle, until he reached the source there, in Naraku's bedchamber. He shouted `Kagura!' when he saw it - and reached out to the demon. She reach into him from the floor where she was pinned. And where Naraku savagely thrust his body into her.

`Kagura!'

But it was Naraku's voice that answered: `Remember!'

That voice and those eyes of blood red lust - and the world went blank and numb.

Kohaku stood and looked at Kagura. With his hands he undid the obi of her kimono and unwrapped the folds of cloth covering her chest, exposing her breasts. He shut his eyes and gulped; he shivered with excitement as though a virgin boy examining his very first adult woman.

“I've always treasured protecting you, Kagura. Keeping you, safe. But I couldn't help you - I - I couldn't help you.”

Again he wept and - tentatively, tenderly, like a shy boy approaching a beautiful woman - he eased his hands, his fingers into the space between her breasts. His cold skin was warmed by her intimate flesh. He massaged his palms into her round, firm buds, against her dark, sensitive nipples. He rubbed about her breasts, cupping them, weighing them and, lovingly, squeezing them.

He smiled, almost laughed, at the amazement of the contact; the bulge between his legs formed a tent along the front of his uniforms.

“Damn you, Naraku, do it yourself!” she spat at the demon upon the floor who look on in amused satisfaction.

Kohaku continued the peeling away of her clothing and exposed the space between her legs - her vagina and her short, stubbly hair.

He blinked and gasped as if overwhelmed by orgasm. Could it be that the mind of adult Kohaku had been transformed - by the power of Naraku - into the mind of child Kohaku? Could it be that he was not, in fact, a man five-hundred years old and knowledgeable of women but a boy ten years old and completely, utterly inexperienced? By abuse forced to mimic his master's act - an act he was not, physically and mentally, prepared for?

He stared at her vagina as if looking into something new and alien, as though wondering what to do with it. Her vulva looked like a pair of long, thin lips. He brushed his knuckles about her forbidden, private flesh: it was supple and smooth and felt just like lips. With his fingers and thumbs he parted and stretched the folds of her vulva. With his palms he patted about her stubble and rubbed into her vagina.

“I like how this feels,” he stuttered, sounding more like a boy than a man as he played fascinated with the flesh of her lips: pressing his fingertips into their soft, smooth - almost hairless - skin releasing his touch and watching their elasticity.

Kohaku looked up at Kagura. She was silent but the look of her eyes - those angry, evil eyes - spoke of ages of anger and unrepentant-rage.

“Naraku's hurt you - and dirtied you - Kagura. I know. You know, I know. And you know, I know about that dog-demon you love. But do you think he'll want you? Oh, Kagura!” He hugged her, crying into her shoulder. “You want him but he'll never want you. And why would he want you? You're dirty, unclean. And no one, not even your family, will take you now that you're tainted. You're one of us, Kagura! We're the dirty and unwanted. But we have each other, don't we?” Sobbing, he all but fell onto her, into another, deeper hug.

Naraku laughed, more excited now than before: “That's it, Kohaku, remember!”

With one hand he cupped her vagina; with the other hand he grasped her hair, her head. He pressed his lips onto hers and kissed, swaying his body around to conform to the shape of her struggle.

“Remember how it's done, Kohaku! Remember how this bitch's to be treated! Take her, take the bitch, use her like the rag doll she is and throw her away! She's useless, Kohaku, she's nothing! Remember what I taught you!”

And as the spider-demon spoke those words Kagura's struggle cracked. She shuddered. Kohaku's lips that had been warm with life suddenly chilled. And his hands that had been innocent like a boy's, inexperienced and overwhelmed by hormones, suddenly transformed into hard, vice-like grips.

His face drew back. And she saw that his eyes were not tormented: they revealed the nature of the winner of his struggle as they looked upon her with the lust not of a man but of an animal.

She trembled, for the creature that stared back into her eyes with a steely, sharp gaze of its own was not Kohaku any longer.

Snarling with carnal-lust, the figure of what used to be Kohaku dropped the front of its pants and revealed itself. With a move as fast as lightning, it launched itself into the air and landed atop of Kagura, driving its penis through her vagina. Kagura bit her lip as she looked into those eyes - dead and lifeless - as the figure grunted and heaved, thrusting its body violently into and out of hers. A trickle of blood formed between her legs.

All the while the spider-demon watched fascinated and laughed maniacally.

After telling Captain Takeshi his brother worked too hard and needed to rest, Detective Kenshin opted for a drive through the city. It would not be a relaxing drive - no body drove through the metropolis for a relaxing drive - it would be a different kind of drive. There was a coincidence about events and locations and he did not like that. He was a cop and there was nothing he did not like more than coincidence.

Happy coincidence.

Whatever his brother stumbled into, it suggested a deep and grand design - if only he had been more open about just what he saw and just what he learned.

It was not inconceivable that there would be crime syndicates working inside Tokyo - in any large urban landscape - but the way Kev reacted was just totally out of character. It was as if his own, entire world had been turned upside-down. And he started to wonder if he should have accompanied his brother home just in case

What was done was done. Kev needed to rest and Ken needed to dig deeper into that mystery.

It was about three that afternoon when he parked the vehicle at thirty-fifth and fifth and trekked through the streets within the shadow of the Kikyo Building.

Its façade was a white, metallic concrete very shiny and smooth. Almost akin to marble but without the patina. And as far as the eye saw that weird, other-worldly stucco gave it a rather beautiful yet ominous appearance.

Across the distance it could have blended into the skyline. Up close, though, it was fundamentally wrong There was no, one, singular lobby. No main entrance, no front door of any kind of importance. Such as it was, there were doors here and there manned by guards behind the glass. There were no windows for about the first, five floors - the first fifty-feet - above the sidewalk. And not only were there no doors and no windows, there were no shops: most of the larger, spacious buildings housed stores of one kind or another within their bases but that building was Spartan to the utmost degree.

He lived in Tokyo all of his life and he never knew such a building existed. He would have to ask Kev if New York City erected buildings that went unnoticed by its citizens. As improbable as it was it could have been possible.

After walking about the circumference of the base Ken randomly approached an entrance. Coming near, he saw it clearly: it was a pair of glass, sliding doors with a mirror above them and a pad beside them. The pad he did not understand but appeared to be functioning as more of a handprint reader than a keycard reader. The mirror was obviously a camera. Beyond the doors was a foyer adorned with a dark, rubbery carpet. Beyond the foyer the view emptied into a stub of a hallway - its light was bright and its white, plaster walls were unmarred by signs or labels naming the entrance or giving the directory of that floor. There, too, was a chair upon which sat a man - the guard - clad in a black uniform wearing a black beret.

He knocked but there was no reply. He knocked louder and there was no reply. Angered and frustrated, he reached into his coat for his badge - but - Hideki must have gone for his badge too and it did not take him far into the building. He thought about it and then pounded yet louder, unceasingly.

For the first time the guard inside the hallway turned and looked at the detective outside the building.

There had been times throughout his career when fear froze his blood. But never was there ever anything that equaled what happened right then and there. And it was caused by something so simple, so ordinary: just a head, a face, slowly turning as if like a machine within a dream to impress its gaze upon him. But what a gaze! And the look of that stare, the features of that face, it inspired queer, uneasy notions of things that were not human. As though before his eyes the figure that was once a man was now transforming, becoming a hideous, demonic monster.

He shuddered and although his eyes remained fixed upon the man, neither shutting nor wandering - yet - from one instant to the next he saw that the guard's face was turned away.

Clutching his chest - and pressing his jacked onto his body - he turned and walked defeated.

“What on earth was that all about?” he asked himself aloud and stopped just upon the verge of melting into the crows that filed by the building.

As he recovered from the shock of it more and more he felt himself wanting to exact a `revenge' not so much against the guard but against the building. He wanted to enter and see just what lay within that had to be that protected. But without a warrant, if a warrant could be obtained, the next best thing would be to wait and watch for somebody, anybody, inside to exit.

For what felt to be eternity he walked about the area aimlessly, crossing from one side of the street to the other in efforts to blend into the crowds. All the while he kept an eye along the various, miniature `lobbies' - those sliding, glass doors with its guards - making sure no one left the building without his noticing.

And at the point when it seemed like a hopeless cause - just as he crossed from the far to the near side of fifth - he caught sight of one, particular man leaving the Kikyo building.

Adjusting his coat he approached the man - he was clean-shaven, youthful-looking but obviously more than a little older and he walked with his head low, his shoulders hunched as if trying to blend into the air.

“Hello, sir?” he called, reaching out and touching the man's elbow. “Sir, hello?”

The man looked up at the detective and blinked. He was, it seemed to be, by his expression unused to getting stopped along the middle of the street. By the look on his face, in his eyes - the whole entire posture of the body, warped and twisted - it suggested a figure that was timid, too. And nervous. Unduly nervous.

He reached into his jacket and produced his badge: “I am Detective Kenshin, of Omega Squad.”

“You're a cop?” he asked, suddenly, his tone an odd mixture of interest and relief. For a moment the man's demeanor changed - a flash of something like understanding and determinism flickered through his eyes - and then his earlier, shy posture resumed. He looked back - Ken looked back, too, into the very glass doors he had had the encounter with the guard - but there was nothing amiss at the entryway through which the man exited. Its guard was out of sight though not out of mind. “My memory isn't what it used to be; but if you're here then I must've called the police and forgotten about it.”

Ken was stunned at the statement. “You thought about calling us?” he asked, imploring with a gesture for them to walk and talk along the street. “About the accident yesterday?”

“Accident yesterday?” the man asked sharply surprised.

Ken was confused more than he was stunned and stopped dead in his tracks. “Well, yes, a woman from your building fell to her death. That - that - was what you wanted to tell us about, wasn't it?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” he shook his head as he spoke. Wrapping his coat tight about his body - as if struck by a bitter cold breeze - he added: “I don't know about that - woman - falling.”

“Then?” Kenshin implored asking verbally and physically with the language of his body.

“I recognized you from the TV. You and that American cop -”

“Ah, yes, the murder at the park.” Kenshin smiled, nodded - the man gulped and blinked looking away from the detective toward the concrete, toward his feet. “You were going to tell us about the murder at the park?”

He sighed and gathered his thoughts - he looked as if he wanted to speak but hesitated.

“May I ask your name?” the detective asked.

“It's Zenku. Zenku Mishima.” Speaking his name his features gave the impression he could have been just easily confessing a terrible guilt yet coming across a blissful innocent.

“What do you do inside that building?” Ken asked.

“Like? What's my job?” Again he hesitated. The detective nodded. He grimaced, lost in thought and answered: “Security, I guess. They make me look at monitors all day long,” he stammered jokingly.

“Security?” Monitors. And he did not know about the death yesterday, Kenshin noted. “Alright, Mishima, what did you want to tell us about the murder in the park?”

Zenku stopped and reached toward Ken with a hand. A hand that wanted to draw back as much as it wanted to reach out. As though there were two minds in one body and all the world ever saw from moment to moment was the jumbled, mixed-up interference between them.

With a low, cautious whisper, he spoke: “I may or may not have information about those deaths you're investigating. I don't want to say anything, here, especially. If you know what I mean?”

“I do. And, it's, good of you to come forward,” he accentuated his words with a bow to reassure the man he, in fact, understood.

“I can't speak at home, either, my sister - she'd kill me - if she knew I spoke to the police about any of this.”

“Your sister worries about you, Mishima?” It was not difficult for Kenshin to be impressed by the apparently self-evident fact that Zenku was not a mentally-able man. And that, naturally, his family would be protective.

“You have no idea, detective.” Now Zenku turned serious, deadly serious. “My sister's always watched out for me, cared for me. She fights my battles, detective, the physical and spiritual battles. She loves me but her ideas about love can be very wrong.”

Detective Ken raised an eyebrow. “She can be over protective? Abusive?”

If Zenku was mentally-handicapped, even if he were an adult and were able-enough to be semi-independent, it was neither uncommon nor unheard-of that he could be abused by the other adults in his life. And more and more, as he noted the man's peculiarities, that ill-treatment explained so much from the posture to the behavior -

“Kuzen is unique. She - loves me - too much.”

Kuzen? he asked himself, again, noting that the man's name was supposed to be Zenku.

“There are moments when her love clouds her better-judgment.”

And then Ken's feeling that Zenku was `underdeveloped' was lifted as another side of the man's persona emerged into view: an aspect that verbose and articulate, like an island of sanity amidst an ocean of lunacy. And he concluded that maybe he was not mentally-disabled, per say, maybe he was just off of his medication.

“Moments when she's - when she's mad.”

“But she only does that because she loves you and wants to protect you.”

“Yes, detective.”

“Here,” Detective Ken stopped and turned to face Zenku, “why don't we talk about what you know, say, at the PD?”

“Oh, no, no, no, if I'm late she'll worry. I have to go home, detective!”

“Hm, if I gave you my number and you gave me your number, how about that?”

It seemed to be a good ploy. As unbalanced as Zenku was, he was a pair of eyes and ears inside the building. And that was more than what Kenshin had without him.

“Yes.”

The detective produced a pair of business cards. He gave one for the man to keep and another for him to write his information along its back. No sooner was the data exchanged than Zenku rushed through the crowds and melted into the throng right before Ken's eyes.

“What did I get myself into?” he muttered then looked at the back of the card the man filled out. “Zenku Mishima,” it was odd that he listed his name in that order, it was odder, still, that he wrote it in Romaji. “512 Macarthur Avenue, Apartment H. Tokyo. Japan.” No phone number was given. “Apartment H?”

Back inside the vehicle the remnants of the incense were thick and infused with fragments of musky, pelt-like odors. It was not unpleasant but it was different. Out of time and place. Smelling it again he saw his brother standing there haggard yet determined. And he wondered if Kev had been right all along about the nature of that killer Omega Squad had been tracking for the better part of a year.

“Security, heh?” he scoffed. He fumbled with the business card as he sat behind the steering wheel. After the wall of silence Detective Hideki faced and the guard he `met' it did not make sense that Zenku Mishima could be part of the building's security.

He speed-dialed into his cell phone - three rings later his brother answered.

“Kev, how are you feeling? Better? Calmer?” he asked; across the street he looked at the building as the building looked at him.

“Tired,” Kev answered. He sat up; the sounds of the chair grinding and creaking were broadcasted from one wireless to another. He leaned onto a desk in his apartment in his living room - that served as a kind of mini-office - and sighed and confessed: “I went to bed and I tried getting an hour's worth of sleep but I can't.” He moved the cell pone from the right to the left side of his face; his hands passed over two, framed pictures of Kano and himself. “Listen, Ken, I'm sorry about how I acted back at the office - ”

“Don't be, little bro,” Kenshin smiled and shook his head - although the gesture could not be seen by his brother's eyes. “Get this - wait - you've got a map?”

“I've got a copy of that map.” Kev opened a drawer and produced a map. He unfolded it upon the desktop. It was a copy - a tiny, color copy - of the map Kenshin tacked onto the wall of Omega Squad's main office.

“At the upper-end of the line of black dots ought to be the corner of thirty-fifth and fifth.” Within the car - isolated though upon a deserted-isle - the Japanese detective was as oblivious to the passing of the crowds as he was to the looming of the Kikyo Building. “Can you find it?”

“I see it.” The American detective tapped the location upon the grid-work with a finger. “I can't read the lettering, though, it's all broken-up - it's, something, building.”

“The Kikyo Building.” Facing left - through the passenger's side of the vehicle - he inspected the traffic while he spoke into the cell phone. “Get this, a couple of days ago a woman fell off the Kikyo Building and died in the street. Detective Hideki was supposed to investigate but he couldn't get inside the building.”

“He doesn't need a warrant to interview witnesses,” Kev mused. He sat back; behind his naked, clean-shaved head hung the picture of a dragon Kano drew years ago.

“It's weird, I know, but listen,” Ken's voice was excited -

And very much out of character that Kev noticed: “Hey, are you all right, big bro?”

“Yes, I feel better than ever! Listen: after you told me what you told me I searched the phonebook and found a firm named Onigumo that's located inside the Kikyo Building.”

“No shit - and you're there aren't you?”

“Half-a-block away. I came by a few minutes ago. I can't get through the front door; the guard won't let me. I was about to quit when a man left the building. I approached him and we talked. The guy was one, weird dude, he wanted to call the cops about our murder and forgot if he did or did not.”

“Our murder? Wait, wait,” he stood - invigorated - and rubbed the back of his head. “He wanted to call the cops about the death there?”

“No, about the murder in the park. About the serial killer.”

It became clear why his brother was anxious. And, neither dumbstruck nor bewildered by the `coincidence' for Inuyasha predicted the connection, he asked: “What's the man's job, anyway? He let you enter?”

“No. He said he worked security - hah - but he did not know about the falling-victim until I told him.” He heard Kevin's snort through the cell phone and continued: “He said he had information - about the investigation - but he was too scared to tell me there. Or to tell me at home. Said his sister would be mad at him for talking to the police about the murder of the teenage girls.”

“His sister? What's the man's name and address?”

“Zenku Mishima,” Ken found that he did not have to reference the business card though he looked at it while he flipped it through his fingers. “He lives at 512 Macarthur Avenue, apartment `H'.”

“Apartment `H'?” Kev, finished jotting the address, let the pen fall upon the note and roll about the paper. “It must be a new fad renaming Japanese apartments.” Ken laughed. “And what about his sister? Her name and address?”

“Kuzen Mishima - I suppose it would be Mishima - he did not say it but I gather she lives with him.”

“Zenku and Kuzen, huh?” Standing again, he leaned by the wall by the picture of the dragon - he stared not at the drawing but at the jotted-note, at the copied-map. “So - what's your thought about it?”

“From what he said - and, mostly, from how he acted - I got the impression his sister's a bit on the violent side. But I got the impression he's not all that balanced either.”

Unable to resist it Kev ran to the desktop: “No shit, Kenshin! The five-hundred block of Macarthur Avenue is right at the lower-end of the line.”

“No shit.” Ken suddenly straightened up and became aware - very aware - of the environment. “No shit.”

There was a moment of silence and then -

“What if you had been right about the killer being a woman?”

“I don't know; after what my source told me, I don't know. But you said the man seemed to be, crazy, too, right? Maybe you should call the boss. Maybe there's more about this Zenku and Kuzen Mishima that we need to know.”

“I'll call the boss.”

“And you stay put, too, don't sneak into that building without me knowing.”

Kevin hung up. Into the closet, out of the rack, he sifted through the contents of his jacket: that pocket with that weird, bizarre cell phone. It must have been planted by Inuyasha - and if true there ought to be a way of contacting the demon with it.

And you're going to watch just like I watched my Kikyo die.

Inuyasha shut his eyes and shivered - he braced himself through his red, his blood-red, jacket. Its hood covered his cap that corralled his ears. The scar across his flesh left by Kohaku had been mended and vanished but the rent through his coat had not been repaired.

He could not get Naraku's `promise' out of his mind. The spider-demon was a very patient - abnormally patient - he planned events that unfolded through the course of centuries. There was no end to his plotting. His scheming was intertwined ten-thousand times over. And if it were possible to thwart this, his latest, evil plan, what was to stop the monster from executing backups. And how many backups existed?

More and more he doubted and questioned himself and his actions. He fought Kakotsu and Inukotsu - but it would not be the first and it would not be the last encounter between them. He invaded Naraku's lair - but inadvertently revealed too much about Kagome. He contacted the police - but was that a mistake, too, as Koga predicted it would be? And what could the police do to help him, anyway, especially that American detective?

Kano trusted Kevin Markus and that might be enough. Given that his appearance curtailed his movement within that modern world he needed friends. If he were able to rely on that man - and that was a big if - then it might be that there would be even more eyes watching Kagome.

From the roof of that small, office building he watched the students file out of the high school. Minute by minute, face by face, he searched the mob of people for her. He knew by her scent she was there and getting closer. Coming nearer into the park.

And there - there - there she was. He sauntered into the corner to be nearer, closer, while his eyes and his ears focused the power of his senses upon her. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of her figure and the sound of her voice. She was surrounded by friends alive and happy. Something like a smile crept onto his lips - a half-smile, to be certain. Were he totally, truly happy still he would not be smiling. He could not be that happy if he could not hold that hand of hers. If he could not feel her hair through his fingers. Wrap his arms about her shoulders. That would be happy. The rest of the world was mere bitter substitute.

After so many years could it be? At the moment he wanted it he could not have it, ever?

The anguish of the torment and pain he caused her. What he used to call her, the way he used to treat her. And all of those `Kikyo-moments' of his immaturity and the humiliation it forced upon her. What five-hundred-year's worth of regret felt was beyond the power of language to express. And what he would have done to relive those long, forgotten days the way they should have been.

He followed her with his eyes; he moved only when she stepped out of his field-of-view. He was dead-set to trail her back home if he had to jump from roof-top to roof-top through the city of Tokyo. All the while he studied the people and the objects around her, triangulating the position of anything that could be dangerous. There were better ways of watching her but he dared not attempt them: were his scent mixed with Kagome's Naraku would be bound to discover it and her.

Then something happened. As fast as to be imperceptible even to a creature of his advanced and acute senses. Fifty-feet beneath a man rushed through the crowd and bumped into Kagome. The collision sent them falling back - and scattered the teenager's books upon the pavement.

Inuyasha watched as the familiar yet strange-looking man - who reeked of Naraku's miasma - arose onto his feet.

“I'm sorry, I - I'm sorry,” Zenku stuttered. He and Kagome were surrounded by a sea of black clad boys and green-white uniformed girls. But at the moment, at that instant, the crowd was thin and there was no body standing between them. “Let me help you.”

He reached a geometry text and grabbed a notebook.

“Oh, heh, that's alright, mister, it happens. Heh.” Kagome excused herself as she stood. She brushed the sides of her uniform and the length of her skirt then reached and grabbed another schoolbook that lay upon the curb. “You don't have to do that, you're in a hurry, aren't you?”

Zenku smiled as he took the item before she took it. Reality was a blur: he could not tell if they were alone of if they were surrounded. She neared - her hands, fingers neared - he stared and sighed. She was so nice and so kind, he asked himself how understanding she might be: If I asked her, say, for a date to make up for the awkwardness of this meeting, if she -

“Mister?” Kagome clutched her book - her fingers touched his skin.

The stranger's heart skipped a beat as contact was made flesh to flesh

“Are you all right, mister?” she asked with a hint of worry infused into her tone. The man, whoever he was, seemed to be slow and awkward like a child and she wondered if he might not be mentally underdeveloped.

“Your hands are nice,” he gasped. He panted and tried through desperate, jerky motions to hide it. “I mean - er - they feel nice.” He blushed. He sweated. He felt the blood rush out of his head into his body.

“Oh.” Kagome stood frozen. What did he say? My hand feels nice?

“I'm sorry, I mean, er, I mean,” he stammered, smiling while tapping the back of his skull. “Heh - a man would kill to be touched by hands like that.”

Kagome could have blinked if she were not dumbstruck.

The touch of their skin - as brief as the contact was - was electric. It urged him into breaking that `barrier' of shyness that always kept him away from the opposite-sex. And saying what he said, it was as if that last, great hurdle of his psyche had been breached.

Zenku could have died just being that bold with a girl - still - he could not be caught saying such things if his sister was around -

His sister!

“If you can see Kuzen, she can see you,” he said inside his mind as the world seemed to be going blank. He felt light-headed while a great, nervous weight formed between his legs and threatened, moment after moment, to reveal itself.

She wanted to run. Clearly, something was very wrong with the man. But she stayed-put because she sensed it. An aura clung onto the stranger - an aura that was not human

For Kagome Higurashi, this was not supposed to be a possibility. Only the Feudal Era of Japan was beset by demons and the like. The modern world was free - free of Naraku and, even, Inuyasha. And now, suddenly, to be unexpectedly confronted by a man with a demonic aura that was lethally familiar she was stunned frozen -

And what a perverted thing to say, she thought.

Again he apologized: “I'm sorry, I get nervous, you know, around girls. Pretty girls.”

He mulled over a series of mantras, yelling, screaming them out in his head. His body reacted along with the self, silent shouts. His knees shook. His back twisted. His hands trembled. And his eyes darted onto her face, onto the ground spasmodically.

Kagome put a hand over her lips - not so much to stifle a giggle but to mask a smirk. Nervous around girls? He was, what, thirty? Oh, god, what if he's related to Miroku? Somewhere along the line they kept their horniness but lost their playboy-edge.

But the meaning of the scent of the aura was not lost on Inuyasha - and when he was certain no one was watching he jumped from the roof to the sidewalk.

“Haven't I seen you in the newspaper?” Zenku asked; it seemed there was something familiar about the girl's face besides its similarity to his sister's.

Inuyasha crawled by the back of the car out of Kagome's line-of-sight. He saw Hojo exiting the high school. He thought about using the cell phone but opted instead to rush through the street and contact the teenager face to face.

Hojo, for his own part, caught a glimpse of Inuyasha - he was the only one out in the pavement who was aware of anything like an Inuyasha - at least anything like a half-demon within the modern-world. He allowed himself to be grabbed the elbow and taken aside.

“Get Kagome away from that man,” the fanged-demon said sternly.

Just the sound of the voice spurned Hojo into action - he knew when his godfather was that upset it was time for action.

As soon as Inuyasha melted into the row of cars out of sight and out of mind, the teenager shouted from across the street: “Kagome!”

Hojo waved at Kagome who only then looked at him; she took the hand away from her lips and waved at him to come over.

“Yes, Kagome Higurashi!” The shaking of Zenku's hands was replaced by the wagging of a finger as he recalled the photograph and the article “You won first place at your school's culture fest.”

“Yes. Yes, I did, mister,” she said, stepping back - Hojo was there and stood by her side. “Thank you for noticing, I guess.”

“You have been so kind, so nice - so - gentle.”

Something about the way he uttered those syllables - something about the way his eyes shut as he uttered those syllables - combined with the man's awkwardness in general inspired a sense of fear and foreboding in Hojo - and he teenager gulped.

“Let me walk you home, Kagome, you've been very ill lately,” he himself stammered as he held onto her waist and drew her back - she did not resist the tugging.

“Yes, Hojo, I think you should be walking me home,” Kagome said with a dense, monotone voice. For once he was right; that man was just way too strange and knew too much about her to be safe to be alone.

The highschoolers walked off and when they were far enough away from the man - who just seemed to be standing there looking at them, at her - Kagome whispered into Hojo's ear: “Promise me you won't grow up to be a pervert like that guy.”

“Promise you, Higurashi?” He blushed. “You are all right, yes?”

She nodded - and did not look back again.

Inuyasha remained behind the row of the cars, keeping his gaze trained upon the meek, bald-headed stranger. He smelt the scent of carnal-excitement about the figure. And he smelt the hand of Naraku, too, it was extremely strong.

Zenku - the stranger - stood and seemed to be talking to himself.

The demon adjusted his cap and freed an ear: he heard the man talking about `Kuzen.'

Kuzen this, Kuzen that - it did not make sense to Inuyasha that anybody would be talking that way.

Through the streets, for almost a mile, Inuyasha followed Zenku across Tokyo. The course took him along the sights in which Kano told him many of the look-alike victims had been found. It froze the demon's blood thinking Kagome could have been that close to death.

And then he realized why the man's face was familiar: he saw him when he was inside Naraku's lair.

He was the man who entered into the office with the `H' upon the door.

Now - again - the figure entered through a doorway: Inuyasha watched Zenku reach an apartment building and disappear into its lobby.

He waited - and when the coast was clear he approached. He snooped about the doorway as children - young boys mostly - walked by with their older sisters in tow. He could have sworn one of them uttered `samurai' as they filed past.

Entering into the lobby - which was not empty - he eyed the bulletin board. He scanned the notices posted by the residents as if to subdue the suspicions of uneasy-onlookers. He even pulled down his hood to show that he was not a menace - of course, he was careful he did not reveal too much.

He approached the mailboxes and stood before them with his arms folded.

“Kuzen, Kuzen, Kuzen,” he repeated to himself but there was no `Kuzen'. There was, however, a very curiously written `Zenku' labeled beneath the box of apartment `H'.

Kevin stood by the painting of Kano's - Shippo's - dragon. The immense portrait of gold and onyx was a gift from the man - the demon - he loved. Kano was always drawing things for him but that portrait was his most vivid and life-like creation. Every time he looked at it reminded him of his friend sitting before the canvas holding the brushes with the strangest, most quizzical look upon his face. And every time he felt the dragon's contour it was like he touched his friend -

What it might be like, he mused, to live through the centuries -

It was then, while lost in thought, that the phone rang. He turned as if shocked out of a trance. He saw that it was not his telephone it was the cell phone.

“Hello?” he asked, wondering who or what would be calling through that device.

“You there?” The voice from the other end of the line sounded more like and animal than a man. “Where are you?”

“I'm home, Inuyasha.”

“Damn it! A creep made contact with her and he stank of Naraku.”

“Where are you?” He sat at the desk, the map was still open upon it.

“I'm at - er - wait.” He stepped out of the lobby into the street and read the building's address. “512 Macarthur Avenue.”

“No shit!” Detective Kev took note and sat up. “Did you follow the creep into apartment `H'?”

“Whoa - how did you know about apartment `H'?” Inuyasha's ears - if they were not so before - now perked-up.

“My brother was casing what we think is Naraku's lair - a place called the `Kikyo Building'. It's at the corner of thirty-fifth and fifth. He stopped a guy who was leaving it, a man - um - head-shaved and nervous. Said his name was Zenku - er - Mishima.”

“Zenku, Kuzen, that's the creep. That's got to be the creep. Get your ass over here,” he barked into the cell phone.

“Wait - wait - now as much as I'd love to go gung-ho, remember, these crimes took place in the human world. Human rules need to be followed.” Inuyasha growled - Kevin looked into the cell phone. “We need evidence, proof, that sort of thing. And don't you want to know just what this Zenku was doing working for Naraku? My brother wants to sneak inside and look around that Kikyo Building. If it is Naraku's lair - and if you were inside it once - you can get inside it again and help my brother.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He growled again - softly - and realized it might not be a bad idea to know a little more about the situation before jumping head-first into it. “Hm, you want me to break into Naraku's lair and to help your brother snoop and that's what it means to be working by human rules?”

“If this Zenku guy is the killer - and if he is taken down - what stops Naraku from recruiting another killer to do that dirty-work? You said yourself he's patient and plans for the long-term. But if we knew more about what's happening inside that place, we could be able to anticipate a countermove and plan ahead.”

Inuyasha sighed - the American's idea was unorthodox as far as the Japanese legal-system was concerned but it was logical from his point-of-view. “Alright. I understand.”

“I'll go to apartment `H',” Kev said, holding the cell phone onto his ear with his shoulder as he donned the coat. “In fact, I'm going there now.”

“I'll get Shippo to come, too - and when he arrives I'm off to find your brother.”

“Thank you. You know what he looks like?”

“Yeah, I saw him on TV.”

“He's inside a car about a block away from Naraku's.”

“I'll find him - just you get here.”

“I'll get there and when I'll do I'll talk to that Zenku and his sister. Trust me, OK, I'll get to the bottom of it. One way or another.”