InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Killer Inside ❯ Chapter 2: Impressions ( Chapter 2 )

EDIT!!!

 

“Kikyou?” He whispered.

He was stunned. She could have been Kikyou's double; she had the same delicate features, the same dark hair. But no, there were differences, definite differences. Her eyes were warm brown, not cold grey, and her hair was a shade or two lighter, as well as shorter and not as sleek and professional. Her skin was pale as well, but dotted with freckles, a testament to her time spent in the sun. And her scent was completely different. Where Kikyou had smelled of perfume and paper and chemicals from her lab, this girl smelled of flowers and earth and… something else that seemed to be uniquely her.

The girl frowned at him, her previously pleasant expression turning sour. Well, the frown is the same, that's for sure, he thought.

“I'm Kagome,” she replied icily, “Kikyou is dead.”

“Kagome, forgive me for not introducing our guest,” Kaede interrupted. “This is our neighbor, Inuyasha Tai. I thought you might recognize him from pictures Kikyou sent home of her fiancé.”

“Kikyou never sent any pictures home,” Kagome replied. “In fact, the first time I'd heard she'd been engaged to a hanyou was after her death. I was surprised. She'd never trusted youkai much.”

“Ain't that the truth,” he muttered, darkly.

“Excuse me, but I'd like to come in and clean up. I'm a bit dirty from my work in the garden.” Quickly, he moved out of her way, his eyes following her figure as she moved towards the staircase.

“Inuyasha will wait, my child. Go clean up.”

“Excuse me?” he asked Kaede as soon as her niece was out of hearing range, “Did I just hear you tell her I'd wait for her? Again?”

“Yes. Patience is a virtue.”

He glared at her darkly. “If I didn't know that you were a humorless old bitch, I'd have to believe you were making fun of me. And why the hell didn't you tell me she could be Kikyou's twin?”

“I am not humorless, Inuyasha.”

“Tell me another.”

Kaede grunted. “Believe what you choose. In all honesty I did not think her looks would make much difference. While she bears a passing resemblance to her cousin, they are as alike as day and night.”

“Same frown.”

“Yes, but with a different motivation behind it.”

“Yeah, she was offended by me. Kikyou frowned when I offended her, too.” His left ear twitched, betraying his agitation. “She got something against hanyou?”

“Not that I know of. Many of her friends seem to be youkai but she appears to bear no grudge against any hanyou.”

Inuyasha frowned. He did not like the way things were looking.

***

The stairs seemed longer than before. Or maybe it was just that her heart was beating at ten times its normal rate. She had not expected Inuyasha to be at her door. And she had not expected him to look like… well like he did. Part of her feared that he had killed her cousin and she had been fully prepared not to like him. But things were not going to be that simple for her.

The first thing she had noticed about him was his aura, it was tinged with gold and seemed to flare and flame around him. It was almost like a sedative to her, like watching a fireplace on a dreary autumn day. Then she had seen his eyes. His eyes were what did it. Somewhere in their depths she'd seen just how lost he was. He was haunted. Someone had hurt him badly and she suspected it was her cousin.

“Damn Kikyou,” she muttered. “What the hell did you do to this guy?” It had been tough growing up regarded and treated as a miniature Kikyou, although Kagome had never really seen the resemblance between the two of them. Kikyou had been polished and poised. Kagome had been wild and unruly. Looking in the mirror over the bathroom sink she supposed she could see a slight similarity in their features. They shared genes after all, their great great grandmothers being sisters. But to mistake her for Kikyou? Kikyou had been nearly eight years her senior. She sure as hell hoped she didn't look twenty-nine!

Through it all though, Kikyou had never been cruel or unkind to her. It was impossible for Kagome to hate her cousin she'd been so… nice. The letters and e-mails she'd received from the older miko over the years had been encouraging. She'd urged Kagome to explore her powers and to follow her instincts in her studies. The younger girl had looked up to her but part of her had still been slightly jealous. Kikyou was older and had been discovered as a miko at a very young age. She had trained diligently becoming one of the youngest priestesses in the family's history. Kagome had always felt somewhat left out.

Kagome sighed and undressed for her shower, trying not to think of her cousin's former fiancé. It didn't help that he was probably the most attractive man she'd ever met. His ears were just too damn cute and looked like they'd be soft to the touch. She wondered what would happen if she ran her finger along the outside of them. Would they twitch and try to flick her fingers away? Her brother's dog had done that, as well as her cat Buyo, every time she'd stroked their ears. She giggled as she turned the water on. That would be very interesting. Oh, how she wanted to touch those ears of his!

His eyes were pretty mesmerizing, as well. She'd been hard put not to stare at them. Their color was so unique. And she'd thought she'd caught a glimpse of fangs when he'd spoken to her. Ok, so she had a thing for guys who were a little out of the ordinary. She'd dated a wolf demon for a month before deciding he was too possessive. Why not a dog demon, as Inuyasha obviously was.

Kagome shook her head as she washed the dirt from her body. Bad idea to start thinking of a hanyou with a reputation for violence as a potential love interest, Kagome, she told herself. It could only lead to trouble. Not only that but he'd been in love with her cousin and her aunt had assured her they'd lived together for the month before her death. They'd obviously had sex. It was just kinda… creepy.

Finally clean, she turned off the shower and headed to her bedroom. At some point along the way, some ancestor had papered the room in green with small pink roses. Kagome found it a bit saccharine, but better than most of the other rooms, which hadn't been redecorated since Kaede was a child.

The house was over a hundred and fifty years old and had only been owned by their family. The majority of the entertaining rooms down stairs were closed now, as were most of the family bedrooms upstairs. When she was a child visiting the manor, Kagome had explored most of the rooms. Several of her older cousins had told her that there were secret rooms and hidden passageways scattered throughout the house but Kagome herself had never found any of them. Kaede would never confirm or deny the rumors of secret passageways but she would tell whom each room had belonged to.

Kaede had lived in the same room for nearly seventy years, spending thirty years of her life in another room down the hall. The room Kagome had claimed had belonged to Minako and the one Kikyou had stayed in had belonged to Naomi.

Minako had been Kaede's younger sister. She'd had six children, including Kagome's great grandmother, Kira. Her oldest son had been Natsu, Kagome's grandfather. Grampa had only one child, Kagome's father, Ronin, who had died when Kagome was still young. Naomi had been the older sister; she had also had six children, the eldest of which had been Kikyou's great grandmother. The family had grown exponentially over the generations and Kagome thought there might be fifty or more cousins in her generation alone. She was quite aware that the next generation of her family had already begun. Five babies had been born to her cousins in the past two years and a few had even been born before that. Naomi was the matriarch; she ruled the family and even at one hundred and ten years old, she was still a force to be reckoned with.

Kagome shook her head, scattering the names of relatives she couldn't quite remember. She had a guest downstairs and needed to walk down and be presentable. Part of her was still struck by how handsome he was and sneered at most of what was in her closet. It was too hot for pants so she pulled on a pale green sundress, simple but pretty, and headed down stairs to see just how trustworthy this Inuyasha was.

***

Inuyasha groaned and put his face in his hands. This was turning into a long week. He had two hours to talk to this Kagome before he had to head back to his mother's house and meet a Mr. Miroku Hoshi, Buddhist monk. Hoshi was renting the recently refurbished carriage house on the property. He moved in today. Hatchi Minoko, a tanuki friend of his, had set up the arrangement but warned Inuyasha to encourage his female friends to steer clear. Apparently the man was a lecher as well as a monk.

God, I do not need this, he thought. Sesshomaru had called early that morning as well, an unpleasant surprise to be sure. He'd wanted to know if human women were opposed to youkai meat as a main course. After firmly responding in the negative, Inuyasha had hung up, not wanting to know why his human-hating half-brother was suddenly concerned about what human women found acceptable for dinner. Hoping he hadn't just helped his brother with his bizarre love life, he had left the house as soon as possible after that call. But things had still not gone his way. One of the stones in his front stoop had come loose as he'd walked down the stairs. Had he not been part demon, he'd have landed flat on his face and possibly even killed himself. And now the person he was asking for help finding his fiancé's murderer looked a hell of a lot like her.

Twenty minutes and three glasses of Kaede's blackberry iced tea later, Kagome came down the stairs. Inuyasha stood and watched her. She definitely did not look like Kikyou now.

Kikyou had been slender and willowy, like a strand of spider silk in the wind. Kagome was more robust; she was still slender but her limbs appeared to have strength to them. He could see the play of muscles under her skin when she moved, something he'd never seen in Kikyou. While Kikyou had kept her pin straight, jet-black hair back in a low, neat ponytail, Kagome left hers free and wild. Her hair curled and waved, highlights of red-gold appearing and disappearing. It was all he could do not to stare.

“What took you so long, wench?” he sneered at her, feeling he was covering up his fascination rather well. Kagome raised an eyebrow and Kaede snorted. “I've got shit to do, I can't sit around and wait for your slow ass all damn day.”

“I've got `shit' to do as well,” she replied, warningly. “If you're going to be rude, I don't have to listen.”

“Inuyasha will refrain from being too rude but I'm afraid he's always been a bit coarse, Kagome,” Kaede interjected. “He called me `baba' when he was only four and has not become any more refined in the intervening years.”

Kagome glared at her aunt as she walked into the parlor and sat down. This was not how she'd planned to spend her lunchtime.

“Feh,” was Inuyasha's only comment. Kagome raised her eyebrow again and watched him warily. You idiot, he thought, yeah, insulting and belittling her is really going to get her to agree to help you, dumb ass. He debated internally a moment before speaking again. “I'm sorry, Miss Kagome,” he growled, none too pleased with his situation. “Please forgive my- lack of etiquette.” He tried hard not to grind his teeth on those last few words but he was pretty sure Kagome could tell he was annoyed. “I have a favor to ask you.”

“A favor?”

“Yes, a small favor, but still,” he replied, ungraciously, “I would be in your debt if you would assist me, Miss Kagome.”

“Please, just call me Kagome.” He nodded his assent, somewhat relieved. Proper names were not his forte.

“Kagome, could you do me a favor? I need your help,” he said again.

“I see,” she replied, tentatively. “What was it that you needed from me, Inuyasha?”

He looked into her light brown eyes with some trepidation. The favor was larger than he'd implied. It doesn't matter, he told himself. You need her help to find out what really happened! He looked away from her, not trusting himself.

“Kikyou once told me that she trusted you, that her cousin Kagome would help anyone and was as trustworthy as a human could be. She told me that you were her favorite relative.” Inuyasha turned back to look her in the eye again. “I believe she might have sent you something important just before she died. Did she send you a notebook? Perhaps a journal or a diary?”

Kagome's forehead wrinkled in thought. “A notebook? No, she didn't send me anything physical just before she died.” She tapped her finger on the arm of her chair, trying to remember. “She did however, send me a list of names. But it was for a research project; she knew I had miko powers and wanted me to contact a few of her fellow faculty members who were experimenting with a mixture of mystical powers and science. She said they might be able to figure out where my strengths lay-”

“Child, you always knew where your strength lay,” Kaede interjected, “You would never have taken all those botany classes had you not felt the pull of the greening world.”

“That is true, Auntie.”

Kaede sat forward in her chair, making it groan and creak. “She was trying to get you out here, girl! That I firmly believe.” She thumped her cane on the floor and sat back. “She was powerful enough to know you should have been trained. We'd both been asking the family to send you here for years.”

Kagome nodded. “You may be right, auntie, but Mamma…” Kagome stopped, frowning, “Mamma wanted me to finish high school before starting any miko training. And then it was college…” She looked at her aunt sorrowfully for a moment and then turned back to Inuyasha. “Anyway, the e-mail came several weeks before she died. Other than a few typical, `Hey, cousin! How are you?' e-mails, there was nothing until we were told she was dead. She didn't tell me much about you and honestly the first time I even heard your name was at her funeral.”

Inuyasha gazed out the window. A list of names was better than nothing, even if they did turn out to be just colleagues, one of them might know something. “I don't think she would have said anything about me. Do you still have the list?” he asked.

She nodded. “It should still be on my computer. I save just about everything.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sure, I've got it set up in the upstairs library.”

***

Kagome could feel Inuyasha's eyes on her back as she led him up the stairs. It was not an entirely unpleasant sensation. Quit it, girl! she told herself, he may be a hottie but he's not for you! God, I hope he's not staring `cause he can see through my dress or something. She looked back behind her quickly, only to see her guest quickly and obviously turn his attention to a portrait in the stairwell. Smooth, dog-boy, she thought, like you couldn't tell I was about to turn around and look at you.

She led him down the hall past the family bedrooms to the last door in the hall and walked through. It wasn't a large library; in fact the main reason for the room itself was that it had originally been a small schoolroom for the manor's children. Many of the books were still from that time, though others had been added more recently and still more were brand new. Kagome suspected Aunt Kaede of being a closet Romance Novel fan. There were about sixty Jayne Ann Krentz books, several Elizabeth Lowell and even a few Christine Feehan. It would certainly figure that my old Aunt Kaede would be a closet Gothic Novel reader. Kagome smiled at the thought. Kagome herself was quite a fan of those gothic-type novels; the strong female heroines with the soft hearts and loving souls, the overtly aggressive and possessive males that weren't quite human…

Whoa! Kagome! Get a grip! She chastised herself. Like on that fine looking Hanyou behind you… NO! She shook her head slightly. Get a hold of yourself before he can smell something he shouldn't, girl. She inwardly groaned as she led him to her computer. It was going to be a long day.

“Here, have a seat,” she said, pointing to a chair near her desk. She'd found a nice comfy corner in the library, not too far from any of the windows, but not so close that she couldn't read her screen. She sat in her own cushy leather desk chair and let Inuyasha sit in the not so cushy or comfy green painted wooden chair she'd discarded when she bought the leather chair.

“OK, e-mail from three years ago…” She hit a few keys and clicked her mouse on a few different icons before finally finding what she was looking for. “Here it is! OK, Kikyou mail…” She scanned the screen. “Hmmm… She only sent me three things in the month before she died. See here?” She pointed towards the screen, indicating three highlighted files. “Number one is the list, none of whom I contacted. Number two is just asking how the family is and how school is going. And Number three…” Kagome stared at the open file. “Huh. It's empty. I wonder why I saved it.” She looked closer. “That's odd. It was sent the day before her body was found.”

“She was already dead.”

“Really?” Kagome snuck a glance at him, slightly preoccupied. “I didn't know that. That's kinda weird.”

“Don't delete it. Can you copy it to a disk?”

“Sure, I don't see why not. But there's nothing there, Inuyasha.”

“Feh,” he snorted. “Just save it and give it to me.”

“OK. Whatever.”

Kagome saved the file and handed him a blank black disk. She then got out one of her silver permanent markers and handed it to him. “Mark it so you don't forget,” she said.

“Feh,” he grunted. He looked at the screen curiously for another moment and Kagome watched him through the corner of her eye. “What about that list? Can I see it?”

Kagome pulled up the list. Seven names graced the page, some of them Doctors, some doctoral candidates, others were just professors. Each had a phone number and an address attached.

“Wanda Sammer, Kaugra Kazu, Heiko Gano, Robert Hesh, Naraku Shinwa, Kanna Nara, and Andrew Venti,” Kagome read. “Recognize any names?” She glanced over to see him apparently deep in thought. When he frowned she raised an eyebrow. “Inuyasha?”

“Heiko and Wanda are mikos,” he finally said. “Naraku is a hanyou, like me… I'm not sure about the rest.” He sighed and looked at his watch. “Can you save this for me too?” She nodded and took the disk back. “Thanks, Kagome.”

“No problem,” she said. “It's not like I was doing much more than gardening today. Hopefully Shippo comes over. He- ah- livens things up a bit here.” The both smirked. Inuyasha knew of Shippo but only remembered him as a young infant. A few years could make a kid into a real energy burner and being a kitsune, Shippo was sure to be a handful.

“So… Why are you so interested in what my cousin sent me three years ago, anyway? It doesn't seem to be related to anything.”

“Because,” Inuyasha mumbled, not quite thinking, “I need to find out what happened. I need to know who killed her so I can rule out-” Inuyasha stopped abruptly. He lowered his head and growled. Too much, his mind screamed at him. “I need to know what happened.” He got up and started pacing behind her.

“You need to rule out who, Inuyasha?” Kagome whispered. Suddenly she felt a chill run down her spine. I so do not like the sound of that, she thought.

The hanyou collapsed back into the chair he'd vacated and let out an explosive sigh. His ears folded down and he rubbed at his eyes with his fingertips, mindful of his claws. She could help him, he was sure of it. He needed her to help him. But most of all, he wanted her to trust him. He had to tell her the truth.

“I need to rule out myself, Kagome.”

“What do you mean, yourself?” Kagome asked. Her hand clutched at the edge of the keyboard. She didn't want to look at him. She didn't want to see his face. “You'd know if you'd killed her. And you didn't kill her. Kaede swore to me that you didn't kill Kikyou…” Kagome forced herself to turn and face him. Golden eyes met with warm brown and Kagome felt something crack inside. There was so much pain in his eyes, so much uncertainty.

“Kagome, I don't remember. The whole fucking three days I was missing are just a god damned blank.”

 

 

Edit: Again, working on changing a few things. I feel I've got a good opportunity here to re-hash and re-work, so I'm taking it. The main change came in the family history… There needed to be some changes and some clarification. Thanks for sticking with it, guys!!