InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Good Twin, Evil Twin ❯ Chapter Thirteen ( Chapter 13 )

Chapter Thirteen

It was five that afternoon when Kev rounded the corner and parked the vehicle at the very first spot available by the metered-curb. It was late but not yet sunset - evening would be impending soon as it did earlier and earlier that autumn - and the climate verged upon another, unseasonable storm. Already droplets of water, like velvet dew, splattered against the windshield and echoed within the vehicle. Leaving the car, his jacket ruffled by the gusts of a breeze, he stopped and looked up. To the west, across the distance through the skyline - and that vivid red tower-top - the skies, clear and cloudless, were a bright and yellow hue and the sun, within it, was immense and distorted. To the east, the vista was framed by thick, black clouds as night crept over the Pacific.

He examined the business card, upon which he wrote the kanji, ambling about the sidewalk from building to building. Along the way, the lamps flickered as the sunlight died and the shadows stretched into the infinite. The area was so peaceful, so quiet, it seemed like a deserted island in the middle of Tokyo. He rushed - the environment was just too calm to be bearable - he bolted into the lobby of the building marked 512.

He half-expected to find Inuyasha and was caught off-guard by the fact he was alone.

Again that isolation weighted upon him: it did not make sense that in a city of millions, a city tiny and crowded by convenience, that there could be such a forgotten corner.

Where was everyone? he asked through his breath. He remembered Inuyasha saying he would be leaving the moment Kano arrived. “Shippo?” he asked aloud.

But his call was unanswered and to relive his stress he examined the contents of the foyer.

Along the far wall were notices and advertisements. There, more than anything, what caught his attention was a `missing' poster of a sixteen-year-old girl. She was not among the victims - the known victims - of the killer but she matched the profile He took the poster and folded the sheet into his pocket.

Along the near wall were mailboxes. And there were names upon the mailboxes. His eyes darted back and forth from the business card to the nameplates. But he did not need to know Japanese to read the label that stood out above the rest.

“Zenku,” he read - the name written in English.

Kevin tapped the lid of the mailbox above the green patina of its copper `H'. It felt to be hollow. There was a buzzer beneath the `H' and the name-plate and his finger extended outward - tentatively though instinctually - to press it -

At the moment he was about to ring he was startled by a knock upon the glass of the innermost doorway.

“Shippo.” The demon opened the entrance - the human snuck into the building proper. “How did you get inside?”

“I followed a tenant.” He tapped Kev's hand letting a smile come and pass his lips. “How have you been, Kevin-san?

“Better, Shippo.” He rubbed his finger against Kano's hand. The youthful-looking demon smiled - and he wondered what it would have been like to see those fangs pointing through those lips. How beautiful that sight could have been. And he could not resist kissing his friend's lips. Just for a moment, an instant. “Have you been upstairs into the apartment?”

The medic shook `no' and followed the detective onto the stairs.

Kano took Kevin's hand and squeezed to get the man's attention.

“Wait, there's something I have to do before we go upstairs.”

Kev turned about ready to ask `what' when he caught Kano raising a leaf onto his hair. The human blinked more than a little puzzled by the demon's act and asked: “What's that about?”

And just as he spoke those words his eyes glazed and he stepped aback - Kano vanished. “Shippo?”

“I'm still here,” he said.

Kev heard and felt Kano's hand again squeeze his own.

He continued: “It's an old, demonic trick I learned when I was young. It's not perfect and won't last but I figure it's an advantage.”

“Alright,” Kevin nodded. “Alright. It's said demons possessed super-human powers.” Standing upright, he reached out and felt about the veil of warmth that enveloped his friend. “But - but how?”

“There's a lot I have to tell you, Kevin-san, but now is neither the time nor the place.”

Looking nervous yet remembering why he was there - what he was there to do - he gulped and nodded.

“Apartment `H' is three flights above,” the medic whispered behind, right behind, the detective. “It's at the front of the building where the hallway is unlit.”

As they walked - slow and deliberate such that it would not seem by the sound of it that two people climbed the stairs - the ethereal misty trickle of rain thickened. The water fell drop-by-drop - also slow and deliberate - and crashed against the skylight fifteen flights above. And with its intensity the climate within the building cooled and darkened as if a shadow was thrust upon it.

At the third level, Kevin faced into the hallway. At the end of the foreboding, unlit corridor, he saw two doors. The left with its lights on and visible through the cracks of its frame. The right with its lights off - could it be that the onyx of space itself lay behind the façade?

For what must have been endless-moments, he stood, frozen and transfixed, while he stared through the void. All around, all over, was the calming, pleasing smell of the fresh, clean air. It was deceptive for his gut was tight and his body was tense. It felt as if he were standing upon the verge of disaster. Why did he think getting anywhere near those doors lead only to doom?

“The apartment is at the right,” Kano whispered into his ear - and the feel of that warm, living breath brought Kevin back into the real world. “The darker-side of the hallway.”

“That's what I feared it would be.”


The knock against the glass alerted Detective Kenshin. The shock of it brought the man out of the trance induced by watching too closely, too monotonously into the Kikyo Building. It was then and only then that he realized it was raining - heavily. The knock returned - even louder and more annoyed now than before - and he looked toward the right. His eyes met the image of the red, crumpled jacket the sight of which was mutated into an unfocused and indistinct blur by of the splash of the rainwater upon the window.

Ken lowered the window. He angled his head up while the seatbelt restrained his torso down. “Yes? Can I help you?”

“It's how I can help you,” replied the figure, whose face was cloaked by the jacket's hood. “Detective Kevin told you about me.”

“You're the source? You're the guy my brother said would be -” Kenshin did not give himself the time to finish the thought. He undid the seatbelt and got out of the car. “He didn't tell me your name - or - much of anything about you.” But the figure remained still and silent. The only hint that the wearer of the jacket was alive was the sight of his breath evolving through the cold, bitter air. “You've got a face under that don't you?”

“You want to go into the building or not?” Kenshin nodded - the figure stepped back and stated to walk away from the building.

“Hey, hey,” the man protested as he followed. “You know what you're doing?”

“Shhh!” the figure warned: “When we're inside the building we will have to be very quiet. Eyes and ears will be hearing and watching us at all times”

“Understood,” the officer said, turning up his collar.

The two walked into an alley. The lights of the nearby storefronts broke through the darkness. As too the sounds of their busy customers echoed about the shadows.

Inuyasha knelt by a manhole and reached into his jacket.

“What did your brother tell you about demons?” he asked.

“Demons?” Ken knelt by the manhole too. “Damn it, I should've taken my flashlight.”

“It won't be needed.” He removed his sword from his jacket. Ken leaned aback. “Don't get queasy,” he said through a voice that was neither human nor animal but a new and different mixture. “Your brother wasn't that afraid.” He eased the blunt end of the scabbard into the gap between the edge of the manhole and the rim of the tunnel it covered. With almost super-human strength he lifted the lid and slid it out of the way.

“Sorry, it's just that, it's just that you don't see a lot of folks with swords,” Kenshin explained - and recalled the conversation he had had with Detective Hideki.

“You don't see a lot of folks like me either,” Inuyasha added. “There's a ladder built into the tunnel's length. First you go then I follow.”

“Alright, alright.” Ken located the top of the ladder and eased himself into the manhole. “It doesn't seem to be deep,” he commented. And it was not deep: it led twenty feet into the ground and it ended at a very solid - yet very dark - floor. He stepped away from the ladder and the cone of the light - eerie and dark-blue - that oozed through the manhole.

Inuyasha stepped onto the rim of the manhole and dropped - he arose into the wash of that light, dim and weak, through which Detective Kenshin eked the features of that face, its profile.

“Follow me, I've been here before,” said Inuyasha. He took the detective by the elbow through a makeshift `tour' of the labyrinth. From the manhole to the entryway of a familiar, parallel tunnel. And through that into a wider, longer passage into which the city subway roared.

At that moment they stopped dead in their tracks as the trains passed.

“Don't be afraid - just follow me exactly.”


Kevin, without wasting another thought, walked the length of the hallway. He reached the door and paused to listen within. But the banter of the rain hitting the skylight deafened the sounds of the voices echoing through apartment `H'. About to knock, he was alerted by a sound coming from the side - from the adjacent apartment - he turned and faced the door of apartment `G' -

Was somebody behind it, listening, too?

No - it could not have been - Kano would have warned him if they were being watched.

He shook it off and dismissed it altogether - then he ruffled about his coat, unzipping and removing from its pocket to his hand a notepad and a pen. Then he knocked. And when there was no reply he knocked again.

Kev looked about casually, bouncing his head about trying to look cool and in-control.

A door - rather - the sound of a door opening was followed by the sound of a person walking toward the entrance of apartment `H'. A moment later the locks were undone. A moment after the doorway itself was opened just a tiny, little crack.

“Um,” Kev unfurled the right side of his jacket revealing his badge. “I'm detective Kevin Markus of Omega Squad.” It was so dark inside the apartment and so dark outside the hallway that Kev could not tell if anyone or anything was looking at him through the crack. “If you're Zenku - Mishima - I believe you've already -”

“Yes!” a voice shouted and cut off the detective's statement. It begged the officer to enter: “Come in, come in,” it added - it must have been moving its hand imploring him through gesture to enter but it was too dark to see.

Kevin reached for the door, cautiously, and pushed it open - open all of the way. Exposing more and more of the apartment's interior, with his eyes he explored what could be seen through the shadows and darkness. “You are Zenku, right?” he asked still looking, still studying the situation.

Within, the details of apartment `H' revealed themselves layer by layer. First were the windows, bare and open, that displayed the faraway, distant vision of Tokyo. Its skyline, its bright, twinkling lights, were like the stars of a manmade universe and seemed to be more like a painting than a reality. Then, surrounding the windows, was the apparent pitch black of the walls, of the floor and ceiling. Then, inside that void, were the suggestions of furniture here and there. Last was the television set - that was turned on that moment, that instant - whose monitor washed the chamber with its warm yet dim twilight.

And with that the detective caught his first, good glimpse of the resident: for it was a man who turned on the TV and there he was leaning by the set, stark naked and dripping wet.

“Yes, it's Zenku,” he said at length, stuttering the words like he was speaking to a crowd and not to an individual.

Kevin blinked and sighed - he looked back at the door through which he entered. It was ajar and suddenly, unexpectedly - as if caught by a breeze it alone felt - it swayed. He touched its knob - undid its locks - and shut the door.

“Aren't you cold?” Kev asked.

He noticed that at the man's right there were two doors. The first, near to the windows, was ajar but unlit. The second, far from the windows, was shut but lit. Yet as the detective - and as the man - looked upon it, it appeared to be swaying. It seemed to be opening, letting steam and light pour through it. For a moment, no more and no less than a moment, it was as if someone or something moved through the vapor within.

Of course, it was the bathroom and he must have caught Zenku in the middle of a shower.

“Not at all, you, ah, heh heh,” the man was nervous and jittery but every so often his speech would be clear and concise. “Where are my manners?”

“Yes?” the detective half-asked, half-commented as he flipped open the notepad.

“I don't get visitors,” he explained. “Sit, sit!” he pointed at the couch opposite the TV by which he stood. All the while his eyes alternated between the detective and the bathroom.

“What about your sister, um, Ken-zu?” he asked, scratching his head and chin as he approached the seat.

“Kuzen, you mean.” The man smiled, amused by the foreigner's butchering of the name. “No, she doesn't get visitors, too.”

“Where might she be now?” he asked, turning onto the last page of the book. “When you spoke to my brother about -”

“She's in the bathroom, showering,” he said, again cutting off Kevin in mid-sentence.


Passing the subway tracks, Inuyasha and Detective Kenshin climbed atop its unfinished platform. The area of the would-be station was as malformed and abandoned as everything they saw through the maze of the tunnels. The only solid, well-built structure was the stairway that led upward. There the half-demon approached the officer and pointed at the ascent; the man took the creature's hint and looked into the passage.

The path was higher and steeper than he thought it would be - could be - and there was no light at the end of it.

“Do you smell that?” Inuyasha asked Ken, whose steps he sensed were slower now than they had been before.

“I don't smell anything,” he answered - amid whisper - and stifled a cough. “But the air is hard to breathe.”

Inuyasha nodded - although within the darkness the gesture could not be noticed - and continued: “We're inside Naraku's miasma. We've got to be quick, in time the air will kill any human - any normal, living thing.”

“What is this Naraku? This, demon, business?” he gasped as he ascended. His pace was slow and labored as he arose one step at a time.

“You'll know, detective. You'll know soon enough.”

At the head of the stairs they found the door to be locked. But Inuyasha forced the knob and the restraints snapped. And the knob at the other side of the door fell to the floor.

“Shit!” he cursed under his breath. He jammed his finger into the hole left by the knobs and with his claw against the mechanism of the lock he pried the doorway open. “You want to see that creep Zenku's office?” Kenshin nodded, his face like the rest of his body was exposed by the light of the hallway behind the door. “I'll take you there - we'll go in and out fast .” And he warned again with a wagging finger - a clawed finger - “This is not a place for humans.”


“You shower with your sister?” Kev questioned, his expression revealed him to b more than a little dumbstruck.

“Well - you - shower with your brother, don't you?” But Kev's face did not change. “I mean you must have?” Kev was about to speak but Zenku interrupted: “Wait, that man was your brother.”

He nodded: “Yes, Detective K -”

“From another mother, is that how the saying goes?”

Again, there was that not-so-subtle suggestion now not only by his intrusions but also by his gestures toward the bathroom that led the detective to realize Zenku did not want things to be said openly

“Actually, the same mother,” he smiled. “Anyway,” he continued, leaning closer - and Zenku listened, also leaning closer. “When you spoke to my brother he felt he scared you. He thought that maybe, you know, your sister could be abusive to you.”

“Oh, no, no, no! Not to me,” Zenku whispered. “My sister loves me - too much, though, I admit - Ke-vin, is that how it goes?”

“Yes,” again he smiled, now at the hackneyed Japanese syllabification. “Anyway, I just wanted to calm your nerves, you know, maybe to talk to your sister. You know. Straighten things out between you two.”

Now Zenku smiled, almost teared up, and - still soaking wet - planted himself onto the chair before the American detective.

At that moment, at that instant, the door of the bathroom creaked. The two men turned to face it. Zenku's heart skipped a beat and Kevin heard it.

“There are things about your sister,” he whispered, “that make you nervous.”

Zenku shook back and forth; his skin, soaped and wet, made weird, slosh-like sounds against the leather of the chair. The pause seemed to be indefinite and was punctuated by the splatter of the rains hitting the windows.

“Violent things - maybe she gets angry - maybe she gets angry at you -”

“Not at me, Ke-vin, not at me.” He struggled to keep his voice down as the words poured out of his lips into the air.

“But,” Kev put the notebook and pen away, wanting nothing sharp and deadly about. “But. Maybe, you figure, if she were to be scared a little, tiny bit that she'll think twice about the things she does. And you figure, too, she'll stop.” He tapped the man's - wet - knee, trying to be understanding. As it was a picture was forming about the situation: of a mentally-challenged man living with a physically and sexually abusive woman. His sister no less. And more and more that image was becoming pronounced. Clearly, he could not be - and would not know anything about - the murderer. Clearly, he saw Kenshin's badge and wanted to be heard - to be saved - but because of his, problem, he did not know how to express himself.

“That would be -” a tear that formed along his eye welled and streaked across his cheek falling from his face to the floor.

And then another creak came from the door of the bathroom and he stood - erect and shaken.


“It was here that I saw Zenku,” explained Inuyasha as he snuck about the hallway.

At the end of the hallway Detective Kenshin peaked into the corner half-demon Inuyasha indicated. Beyond the ninety-degree, blind turn the passage continued deep into the building. The walls were adorned by doors - office doors - and there was a lobby with a guard sitting behind a desk.

Ken rubbed his eyes. Maybe it was the miasma - whatever that was - that infected the air that played with his eyes and his brain. And maybe it was the distance, too, that fragmented the image. But there was something singularly wrong with the man seated behind the desk. In almost all respects he seemed to be the twin of the guard he encountered earlier - back when he tried to get into the building through its front-door - but now that there was more light and now that it was clearer -

“Stay put,” Inuyasha growled and recklessly sauntered down the hallway.

The sound of his running was loud and intense - it alerted, Kenshin feared, everyone inside that floor.

“Wait, Inuyasha! What are you, what are you doing?” He stumbled, lurched forward. The bad air affected his thoughts and his movements. He reached into his jacket for his weapon but it was too late: through the seemingly endless moment in which he struggled with his body Inuyasha reached the guard and knocked the figure against the elevator. He had sprinted into the scene like a bolt out of the blue and the guard was unable to respond with more than a whimper. “I thought we're supposed to be quiet inside Naraku's lair.”

“We're supposed to be fast, too,” he replied and dragged the man into a room labeled with an `H'. “We'll be alone for a while,” he assured the human.

“How can you tell?” Ken asked. “There are so many, so many offices.”

He pointed at his nose; his features were half-visible by the light of the hallway and half-obscured by the excess of the hood.

“You can sniff them out, huh?” The detective stood and was about to speak when he noticed a queer peculiarity about the door. “A peephole?”

Inuyasha explored about the area of the door the man was indicating to - indeed, beneath the `H' there was a peephole but it was installed backward. He shook his head and shut the door, plunging the chamber into a weird, eerie glow. For the monitors upon their banks were on and displayed their forbidden contents.

“It appears to be a security office.” Ken mused and thought about something Zenku said. “Are you sure this is where Zenku went into?”

“I can smell him - he's - everywhere.” Inuyasha walked by a wall upon which were taped the images of females.

“Oh, shit.” Kenshin held back - and held Inuyasha back - from touching what he judged could be evidence. “Some of these are girls I don't know - but - some of these are victims I know too-well.” After all of the months spent studying the crime scene photographs the images would be burned into his mind forever. “He took them from newspapers and missing posters. Like, trophies -”

“Victims. Not all of them will be victims,” Inuyasha sighed, “I came to you in the knick of time, I know it,” through the fabric of his jacket he grasped his Tetsaiga. Gesturing with a nod he seemed to be leading the detective toward the largest of the images at the center of the wall. It was a young, teenage girl dressed in her high school uniform, green and white. The face was clear and undeniable though the features were warped as if they had been wet. “That's her. She's the one he's after.”

“Ah, my brother told me about that. You think Naraku's after her and the killer's just striking at random look-alikes -”

“Until he finds her - and he found her.” The half-demon bowed his head and wrapped his arms about his back - revealing those claws. “I watched him, encounter, Kagome after school. He touched her.”

“Kagome?” An awkward moment passed more because of the miasma than because of any lack of thought or compassion on the part of the detective. “She's important to you?”

“You cannot imagine how important she is to me, detective.” He held the man's arm - the human did not realize his balance was compromised by the bad-air. “And you can't stay any longer.”

Ken nodded and wondered: “You can't protect her?”

“I try,” he confessed. “But if I get too close to Kagome Naraku will see and know. He will sense me upon her just like I sense his presence upon the things he touches. As long as Kagome can be anonymous she will be safe.”

Ken raised an eyebrow. He was not being told much about the situation. And it irked him to be kept in the dark - but - he recalled what he himself told his brother, solve one problem at a time. It was at that time that the monitors trigged his interest.

“Those, views, those images aren't part of the building.” He walked toward the banks of the monitors with the half-demon holding onto his arm helping him keep his balance. “Doesn't that look like a school locker room And doesn't that look like a school gym?”

“It must be a high school with a security system,” Inuyasha reasoned. “And these monitors must be tapped into its signal.”

“A locker room - a bath room - someone, sick and perverted, someone went out of their way to keep this Zenku entertained.” Kenshin found himself weighing his words more heavily than normal. “As if to keep his, passion, stoked.”

And then, as they watched with a mixture of fascination and disgust, a group of ten girls - a sports team by the look of the uniforms - entered into a locker room displayed upon a monitor. They averted their eyes as the teenagers took off their clothes and prepared for their shower.

“Zenku has a taste for girls and this,” he paused to breathe - it was more and more difficult to breathe within that miasma - “Naraku, fed that. Gave him a job where got to see all of the girls he wanted. And let him kill those who struck his fancy. Those who met the mold and form of Kagome.”

“Kagome must be warned,” Inuyasha thought aloud. “I know a boy who can be trusted -

“There's time, I think,” Ken added his own, particular mussing. “My brother's with Zenku and his sister. If they try anything -”

A cell phone rang - but it was not Inuyasha's and he did not move.

Detective Ken rushed his hand into his pocket to reach and silence the device.

“Hello,” he whispered into the cell phone. “It's Detective Kenshin.”

“Ken,” it was Captain Takeshi. “I got the info you wanted about Zenku Mishima. There's not much, though, clean record. No convictions, no arrests. Bad grades, though, he's a high school drop out. Now, about his sister -”

“What do you mean?” Ken asked, suddenly struck by the force of the release of adrenaline. “Damn it, what the hell did Kevin get into?”


“I love American things, you know,” said Zenku proudly. “I watch all sorts of American movies - in English - I practiced the language a lot when I was younger.”

“Yes, I noticed your mailbox label was written in English,” the detective played along wondering what else the man could be wanting to confess.

“My parents were always thinking about going to America.” He crossed his arms and sighed. “Said they would be free there to be themselves.”

“And where are they now?” he inquired.

Zenku shook his shoulders and gestured `I don't know.' After a pause he added, verbally, “Maybe they escaped there - I don't know - one day they were, just, gone.”

“Gone?” Kev rubbed his chin and leaned back. “You and your sister were abandoned.”

“No, just, me.” He, too, leaned back and shut his eyes.

“Your sister wasn't with you?” He was curious - what if that Kuzen was not his sister but a stranger, taking advantage of his condition pretending to be his sister.

“My twin, my older, twin sister, she was out of my life for many years before that abandonment. But we always kept in touch.” He smiled and leaned forward: “You know, there's a special bond between twins. It extends even beyond death. When she came back into my life I was very happy.” He slapped his knee and leaned backward. “But, yes, I like American things.”

“Well, I understand, I like Japanese things.”

“Yes?” Zenku stood and faced the door of the bathroom.

Kevin could not tell if the `yes' was a reply to him or to someone yet unseen.

“I get that from my mother,” he added, looking up at Zenku.

“You know, a man like you ought to be very popular with the girls,” he said off-the-cuff, pointing against his own, clean-shaven head.

“Ah, the look,” Kev smiled and got up. “There's something about the look that appeals to me but I don't know about the girls.”

“I don't know about the girls, either, I wasn't popular with the girls when I was younger. I'm better now that I'm older. But my sister gets jealous.” He smiled - but it was not a smile that showed friendliness, it was a smile that hid fear and terror. And he added, through whisper, “If she knew what kind of girl I bumped into today she would be very jealous.”

“You bumped into a girl?” Playing along, Kevin also whispered and leaned into Zenku's space such that the words traveled from the detective's lips to the man's ears directly.

“Yes! A teenager from high school. She was wearing that tight shirt and that skirt with its easy-access.” Kev raised an eyebrow but Zenku did not notice and continued: “The way she lay there - `cause she fell back onto her ass - with those legs spread wide. God, what I would've done to feel up that skirt.” He gasped, his breath hot and fast; he spoke in near-perfect English and the detective wondered if it was just to keep his sister from understanding what he was saying. But he sounded so aroused and so child-like it would be impossible not to know what was meant. “Oh, I know it's wrong, detective, but I wouldn't have hurt her. How could I have hurt her? Something that good and awesome to feel, I would not have hurt it.”

Kevin paused; he did not know just how to respond. It did not - immediately - conform into the mold of his theory but, as he thought about it, it made sense. If Zenku was mentally held-back he would think of himself as no different from a teenager. He might, in fact, have the mental-capacity of a boy even younger. And therefore he would be prone to fits of sudden, overpowering hormonal-urges. Mind-bending immaturity.

“But, if you had touched it, I would have arrested you, Zenku.”

“Ke-vin, just for a feel of it - young and tender -”

Kevin saw the effect the talk of girls was having with Zenku - through the light that oozed out of the bathroom the silhouette of his erection could not be missed.

“But your sister would have been jealous and you can't have that.”

“No, Mr. Oni - I mean, Ke-vin - I can't have that. She protects me, you know, from myself and my urges.”

“Your urges,” the detective repeated.

“For pretty, young girls.” He smiled, laughed.

The detective wondered if he should have taken a few more psychology classes -

“How does she protect you, Zenku?”

The words - those words - echoed loudly within the walls of the bathroom.

“She can't be kept waiting.”

Again, as if caught by a breeze, the door of the bathroom creaked as it swayed back and forth.

“Do you mind waiting? We'll be finished with the shower -”

“Alright, alright.”

Zenku entered the bathroom and vanished through its fog - he did not shut the door behind him.

Kevin was left standing in the dark, asking himself what was going on inside apartment `H'.

He sighed and said - weakly - for the benefit of another's ears: “I've got to talk to that sister.”

He was about to approach the window - which was as soaked with rain as Zenku was soaked with shower - when the bedroom caught the corner of his eye. The bedroom siphoned off most of the light of the bathroom and that revealed tantalizing - almost erotic - glimpses of its interior.

He tried standing under the doorway outside the bedroom. But the bulk of his body only blocked the path of the light and plunged the chamber into darkness And, against his better judgment, he entered it and stood by its book-cluttered wall.

He saw the bed. Curious, he noted, that brother and sister shared a shower and a bed. But was it their bed or Kuzen's bed? Was it their room or Kuzen's room? It was not fit for a boy; it was decorated by all of the touches that would have been found inside a girl's bedroom

Especially that Hello Kitty box - whose color was masked by shadow. It was the type used by little, school-aged girls to stuff their jewelry into. A man as disturbed as Zenku still though of himself as a male and would not have possessed a female item. It must have been his sister's!

He knelt before the edge of the mattress and, with the aid of the pen, aimed to flip its lid but paused frozen. Upon that lid, written with a black ink, was the name - in English - `zenkuzen.' The first `zen' had been crossed out. There was kanji beneath the `name' also written with that black ink that shimmered like silver inside that onyx environment - the Japanese read: `death to those who open it.'

His heart raced and his hands shook - why was he afraid of the thought of what could be inside that box? Yet, he opened the box. He opened it with such force that it tipped onto its side and spilt its contents from the mattress to the floor.

“My god, my god,” he whispered and stood and staggered back -

There, upon the bed, were fragments of torn, shredded skirts. There, falling by his feet, were panties - eight, ten, twelve panties - caked in blood.

Reaching into his jacket for his gun, he stumbled back until he met resistance from a hand poking into his back.


“We have to get to my brother fast. It's going down, Inuyasha, you've cracked this nut for us.”

“Get down!” The half-demon shouted and removed the sword from his belt.

“What the hell?” Detective Ken stumbled back and reached into his belt for his weapon. As if on-cue the door was kicked and shattered - its pieces fell onto the floor into a pile. At the boundary, between the lighted hallway and the darkened office, stood a formidable, imposing figure. And though it was silhouetted only, he thought there was something very much wrong with the figure. “The ears - are - different,” he spoke as the miasma knocked the breath out of his lungs.

Inuyasha rushed toward the beast - but the stench of Naraku was potent and affected him too. As he raised his sword - slower than usual - the interloper took that opportunity to punch his jaw and fling his body against a rack of technical-parts. The half-demon struggled back onto his feet seeing the figure rushing into him. He let go of the sword and, with both hands free, clutched the wall and kicked the monster's chest with all of his might, knocking it back against Zenku's makeshift-shrine.

“This, is the Detective Kenshin of Omega Squad, Tokyo PD. You are commanded to stay where you are,” he shouted with his gun in his hand pointed at the intruder. As the figure was breaking out of the wall - out of the form-fitting hole his body punched into the wall - the man approached, dragging his feet for his ankles and knees were weakening and his balance was draining. Yet, despite the pain, he lurched and saw that the monster's ears were, in fact, different as were the fangs that pointed out of his lips. And the strength it showed throughout was not human.

The creature - known as Hitomi - stood and with a swipe of its hand knocked the detective against the monitors. The human, despite the attack - did not lose his grip of the weapon and did not squeeze its trigger. The demon - for now he understood, whatever it was, it was not human - again turned its attention toward Inuyasha. And Inuyasha was back armed with the Tetsaiga - but the fight with the monster eased his hood away from his head and revealed all of his features.

“But you're not human either?” Kenshin blinked seeing Inuyasha's ears. “What is all of this? Wait,” he recalled the gravity of the situation just in time as the Hitomi beast produced a weapon. “Put that down, whatever you are, put that weapon down, now!”

But the demon smirked and flung that object - a circular disk with curved, metal spikes - at the detective. The weapon imbedded itself into the man's chest where his shield would have been. And yelling in pain Kenshin shot Hitomi, knocking him back a few, meager inches.

It was the distraction Inuyasha needed -

“Kaze no Kizu!” Against his better judgment he used one of his tricks against the demon indoors

At once a flash of lightning surged through the length of the Tetsaiga and focused its fury onto the figure who was both lost amidst its bright, blinding plasma and sent flying through the wall by its force. There was a smoke, there was a scream and a sound so fierce and so terrifying the memory of it did not settle completely into Kenshin's mind. The events were lost forever only fragments of actions, vague and indistinct, filled the gaps of the missing time. Then, when next he was - fully - aware of what was happening, there was Inuyasha with the sword gripped by his hands, fully extended and larger than it seemed to be earlier. And there, where Hitomi stood was just a hole blown through the wall from the office to the streets - rainwater was trickling into the chamber as well as the cold, bitter air of the night.

“What happened?” Ken asked; he was not in pain but he was bleeding and his consciousness was waning.

“Shit!” Inuyasha said, looking at the wound. He pulled his hood over his head and placed his sword into his waist. “We've violated police procedure, haven't we?”

“I, I, I guess,” he laughed. He struggled - but succeeded - at tucking his gun into his jacket. “Curiosity killed the cat, huh? I wanted to know the truth. You tell my brother I loved him. No matter what I loved him.”

“Shut up and stop being so god damned melodramatic,” he scowled. “Here,” very gently, as gently as possible, he carried Kenshin with his arms and ran into the gaping hole. “Just you keep your eyes shut, OK? I don't want you panicking, alright, you're going to make it through this, alright?”

He nodded and shut his eyes as suddenly the air of the night cooled his body and it felt as if he were riding a roller coaster going down.


Kevin turned and sighed: “Shippo, you scared me,” he gasped.

It was Kano, his clothes hot and moist, the leaf crumpling into dust within his hand.

“I need your help to arrest those two,” Kev said and noticed his friend looked afraid. “Hey, what is it?”

“You did what, Zenku?” The detective and medic were stunned by the intrusion of the voice. The shrill, sharp female voice shouting through the bathroom.

“I - I - I only did it to help, Kuzen. You need help,” the male voice replies, broken and stuttered.

The conversation was followed by the sounds of the shower curtain being ripped and bodies being tumbled about.

Kevin reached for his gun and drew Kano away from the door of the bedroom. He shut it yet left it ajar enough that the rest of the apparent could be seen through its crevice. He saw into the bathroom - as far as its doorway allowed. Amid the steam and the bright, yellow light there were suggestions of a violent, physical, struggle.

“Stay down,” Kevin whispered at Kano, who nodded and inched further back nearer and nearer the bed.

“You betrayed me, Zenku, you betrayed me!”

“I'm trying to save you - you have to be stopped!”

“Kevin-san.” Kano's voice at that moment seemed to be a mixture of fear and calm, youth and wisdom.

Instantly the struggle ceased - the argument within the bathroom stopped - and the apartment was blanketed by the silence of death.

When next Kev looked through the door - “Get down! Stop! Stop!”

But before the detective aimed the weapon the figure - cloaked by the shadow - rushed through the bathroom. And by the darkness and by the speed with which it sprinted across the darkness he could not see its features fully. And he did not react fast enough - whoever it was reached the bedroom door - kicked it - and knocked him back. The officer fell against the bed and the box tumbled onto the floor.

“I'll be revenged! I'll show you, Zenku. You can't destroy me but I can destroy you!”

The figure did not follow through with its attack upon the detective - instead it fled out of the apartment.

Dazed, Kev stood with the aid of Kano.

“She was fast, damn it, we've got to follow her, Shippo. Where would she go? Where?” he wondered aloud as he approached the bathroom gun in hand. “That girl's house, you think? You know where it is, right?”

“Kevin-san!” Kano shouted and, with a strength beyond a human's, dragged the man away from the bathroom - its door was open and its shower curtain could be seen tattered upon the floor. Out of the apartment into the hallway, he confessed: “I went inside the bathroom and I saw something you need to know.”