InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Welcome To The Machine ❯ Connections ( Chapter 8 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Ejecta2248586 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Suspense / Supernatural / Occult / Mystery | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 08.18.2004 | Updated On: 08.24.2004 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.2K | Visits: 211 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Suspense / Supernatural / Occult / Mystery | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 08.18.2004 | Updated On: 08.24.2004 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.2K | Visits: 211 | Status: Completed
Welcome To The Machine
Chapter
"Have you ever had that feeling, Inuyasha, where you're not...all there? Like you are observing, watching your body and mind work by itself, outside your control? The best word I can use to describe it is...surreal."
"You're fuckin' crazy."
"As I recall from my Psych. I class back when I was in school, it was called dis- dissociative depers- depersonalization. I often feel that way now. Ever since I consumed The Water and became their "Oracle." Now I must do things unthinkable just to make sure..."
The small stem of a flower rotated in her hand. She hoped maybe...maybe Inuyasha would see it and remember. Remember what he'd done to her six years ago.
"...to make sure I'm still real."
Then again, maybe it hadn't happened yet.
"I don't know why you're doing this, but I just want to go, be alone. I left you behind at the well. No. I left Kagome back at the well so far away, I don't need this and I don't want you. Especially now that you're a drone for some narcissistic old witch who thinks herself a goddess. Come down, you copy, and try and tell me Kagome's still in there somewhere."
"What did you call me?" Anger and curiosity flared simutaneously in her eyes. She was a dimly-lit head hovering the in darkness of the cave.
"A fake. You are not that girl that I sent home three days ago. You've gotten full of yourself now, and trained to be so. No, Kagome's not in there anywhere, you're a puppet."
"Am I, Inuyasha?" An acid smile crept upon her lips, almost gloating at him behind a veil of darkness. Perhaps she was right. Maybe none of this was real. "Am I a puppet, a stooge? I once loved a boy, almost a man. I left him, and he forgot me. Now, I will make you realize what it is like to be alone. But you will still have your friends...physically, to care for your shell. No, I will make you more alone than you have ever felt..." She crept closer to his face, anger lines on her forehead entrenched in shadows but her eyes burning with a fire. This fire, this anger, this emotion made her, for once feel alive. Life was not ritual anymore; her heart pumped at a pace matching those of the transcendental drums booming outside. The wild chant of the Ghost Dancers swirled in her ears, echoed haunting rhythms in her mind, bled through the calloused wall that had been erected around her soul. Emotions inundated her weak defenses and, for the first time in five years, she felt it. She felt it coursing through her. She felt- she actually felt alive!
"I," She snarled with surprising vehemence, "Will make you a stranger in your own mind. I will let you experience what I have felt in being abandoned by someone I cared for. My vengence won't be pain. It will be the lack of pain, the lack of feeling. You will be dead inside, as I have been for so long."
A small feeling against her neck. A low rumble from deep within her throat.
"Shall I use the back or front entrance?"
"The back..." She leaned back a little, Inuyasha leaned forward. The prick on her vein was still there. "The Ghost Dancers are having their little ceremony out front."
"The front it is, then." His claws came slowly away from her neck.
As he walked out of the ring of gentle light of a small candle/lamp, Kagome yelled after him.
"And thank you, Inuyasha."
He turned incredulously back toward the small glimmers of dancing light on her face. "What for?"
A wicked smile curled on her face. A mixture of envy, lust, loathing and gratitude.
"For making me realize what I am. For making me face my own mortality and my own reality. It's all very Existential, you know."
"You're crazy."
"I, that I am." Her distortedly mirthful laughter followed him down the great black corridors of stone.
*************
"What should we do about this, Suzume-san?"
"We've no choice, I suppose. All of the events I've seen in the fire-water are coming true, just too rapidly. Everything is leading up to a head, and we are forced to make our move. I fear it will not go as I planned.
"An aquaintence from another village says that Emi may be trying to invoke some kind of god by using what she calls the Ghost Dancers. But I cannot find her reasons. Maybe she thinks she will actually ascend to god-consciousness?"
"Perhaps, but I fear what will happen if her Ghost Dancers actually manage to invoke some form of god. If she angers a godform, it may do her harm. I know she is lost in her way, but I still don't want harm to come to her."
"Nor do I, Zatoichi-san, but we cannot take many risks, and we can't let her get her wish in this. This must be played carefully.
"It's our move, and we'd better choose wisely."
**************
It was a dreary day in Tokyo. Rain fell in slanted sheets against the great concrete giants, looming in the overcast sky above. Small streams of water formed on the streets, and all was as bleak as life in a city of this size could be. Or, at least, Kagome thought so.
Thankfully, school was over for a couple months, and she could enjoy her vacation time by burying her nose in books to try and catch up to the rest of the class. Fun.
She was also very grateful at that time that she didn't have to walk the whole way today. Her mother had given her money for the bus fare and she could only watch and sympathize with the poor unfortunates who had to walk as much as a mile just to come home from work or school. The bus stopped with a serpentine hiss in front of the shrine. She ran up the steps, her jacket over her head.
After dinner and a shower, Kagome settled down quite comfortably on her bed, thumbing through a book that her father had always read while he was still around. She had often spent hours fingering the yellowed pages, wishing she could read whatever language it was in. Her only physical connection to her father, meaning, something he used and touched on an everyday basis. Of course, she supposedly inherited certain facial features, but his face was a great absence in her life. She knew his voice. She could still hear him, with his unpleasant accent and broken syntax, as he coo-cooed her and sang gentle songs to her as a very young child. Was she, she wondered, like him in ways not everyone could see? Maybe he was actually born with or aquired some sort of power or awareness or consciousness or something that made him make her what and who she was today. Other than his genes, she felt that her life was not affected in any tangible way by this huge hole in her existence, this great void in her memory and life.
But today was the day that she would search out some formless bit of connectvity with him as a person, and not just a name. Her English grammer book beside her, and her English dictionary, she started, logically, with the front cover. Word by word, she deciphered the strange text as though it were some esoteric Enochian secret hidden behind obscure veils of metaphor and mysticism. She wrote it down on a notebook by her right elbow.
"R...Rita- Rites And Maj- Magickal Practices of Native American Shamans and Healers, Vol. II."
The words "By" and some crazy name with the abbreviation "Prof." in front of it stood below in bold relief. The words sounded alien to her as she sounded them out. Then she searched out their meanings. It took her a while to get the grammatical structure and related difficulties that always come of learning foreign languages, but by midnight, she had deciphered the first four paragraphs on the first page. Though it was only an introduction, she felt a foreshadowing of what strange and apocryphal secrets and rites were hidden within these pages. She flipped the pages, and stopped often to look at the obviously mystickal drawings and engravings that held innumerable meanings and guideways in the path of a shaman.
She was tired and her neck was getting tight, so she reached over to turn off the light near her bed. Before the knob on the lamp clicked the second time, the phone rang.
Should she answer? She had intentionally avoided the phone recently because of the strange call she received two days ago. But her mother would wake soon if she didn't pick up, and her mother had a hard enough time of it as it was supporting them.
Her hand trembled above the phone. It's ring once again seemed eerily distorted, as though she was hearing her own death knell.
Her fingers slowly closed over the receiver, and she lifted. She froze for a moment, wondering what she should say if it was the mysterious voice again. She pressed it to her ear, not saying a word.
"Kagome?" The voice was clear, now, and it sounded calm but intent. She breathed deeply and spoke in a soft voice.
"Hello?"
"Heh...It is you. I..." A pause. She heard a deep breath on the other end. "I'm sorry if I scared you last time. I don't know how to go about this. I've waited four hundred and fif-"
"Who are you?" Her speech was fast and nervous, and her voice quavered slightly.
"Well, I...I'm who you probably think I am."
"I....Inu...yasha?"
"It's been a while."
"Not that long for me. A few days."
You're right. I forgot. I'm the who's been waiting five hundred years to warn you."
"Warn me?"
"I- I can't explain this over the phone. We'll meet."
"Meet? Here? You live in Tokyo?"
"Yes, no, and yes. We'll meet at the restaurant two blocks from you, to the west."
"Yeah, I know the one."
"Well, I...I should be letting you go soon."
"Yeah, it was good to hear your voice again, Inuyasha."
"Er...your's, too, Kagome. And my name's no longer Inuyasha. It's Ai."
"Ai? Didn't spend too long searching, did you?"
"I was in a position where I needed to come up with a name fast, and it stuck with me. Inuyasha just got way too many strange looks."
"I understand. I s'pose I'll see you..."
"Tomorrow. Tomorrow night at 7:45 at that restaurant. There's some things you have to know."
"Okay. And you've a lot of explaining to do."
"Goodbye, Kagome."
"Bye."
And the phone clicked off.
*******************
Got a lot of things to say about things included in this and the next chapter(s), but I'll wait until I have a bit more structure to what I have to say before I put it up. Again, very sorry for the long, long, long delay between chapters. Been traveling, and had difficulty writing and thinking. Please, for my sake, have a very good evening/morning/afternoon/night.
And one more thing. A band, or rather, a conglomeration of a few very "conscious" artists, called Theodor Bastard, has come to my attention. Of course, their music is not for everybody, or even most people, but I think there may be a few souls who read this that may appreciate and be affected by their music and associated imagery. This isn't a plug, by any means; I just feel it my duty as a poet and artist and musician and general music lover to bring this amazing "band" to others' attention. To view their flash music video for the song "Pustota", go to http://www.kollaps.ru/film/film27.htm, or to their website, theodorbastard.com. Sorry for wasting your time, but I sometimes assume others will "get" what ideas and emotions and appreciations I try to convey, although that is rarely the case, most likely, of a fault of my own. Anywho, I'll get crackin' on a new chapter as soon as is possible, physically and conceptually. And again, have a good day, (w)ho/here/hen-ever you are.
Chapter
"Have you ever had that feeling, Inuyasha, where you're not...all there? Like you are observing, watching your body and mind work by itself, outside your control? The best word I can use to describe it is...surreal."
"You're fuckin' crazy."
"As I recall from my Psych. I class back when I was in school, it was called dis- dissociative depers- depersonalization. I often feel that way now. Ever since I consumed The Water and became their "Oracle." Now I must do things unthinkable just to make sure..."
The small stem of a flower rotated in her hand. She hoped maybe...maybe Inuyasha would see it and remember. Remember what he'd done to her six years ago.
"...to make sure I'm still real."
Then again, maybe it hadn't happened yet.
"I don't know why you're doing this, but I just want to go, be alone. I left you behind at the well. No. I left Kagome back at the well so far away, I don't need this and I don't want you. Especially now that you're a drone for some narcissistic old witch who thinks herself a goddess. Come down, you copy, and try and tell me Kagome's still in there somewhere."
"What did you call me?" Anger and curiosity flared simutaneously in her eyes. She was a dimly-lit head hovering the in darkness of the cave.
"A fake. You are not that girl that I sent home three days ago. You've gotten full of yourself now, and trained to be so. No, Kagome's not in there anywhere, you're a puppet."
"Am I, Inuyasha?" An acid smile crept upon her lips, almost gloating at him behind a veil of darkness. Perhaps she was right. Maybe none of this was real. "Am I a puppet, a stooge? I once loved a boy, almost a man. I left him, and he forgot me. Now, I will make you realize what it is like to be alone. But you will still have your friends...physically, to care for your shell. No, I will make you more alone than you have ever felt..." She crept closer to his face, anger lines on her forehead entrenched in shadows but her eyes burning with a fire. This fire, this anger, this emotion made her, for once feel alive. Life was not ritual anymore; her heart pumped at a pace matching those of the transcendental drums booming outside. The wild chant of the Ghost Dancers swirled in her ears, echoed haunting rhythms in her mind, bled through the calloused wall that had been erected around her soul. Emotions inundated her weak defenses and, for the first time in five years, she felt it. She felt it coursing through her. She felt- she actually felt alive!
"I," She snarled with surprising vehemence, "Will make you a stranger in your own mind. I will let you experience what I have felt in being abandoned by someone I cared for. My vengence won't be pain. It will be the lack of pain, the lack of feeling. You will be dead inside, as I have been for so long."
A small feeling against her neck. A low rumble from deep within her throat.
"Shall I use the back or front entrance?"
"The back..." She leaned back a little, Inuyasha leaned forward. The prick on her vein was still there. "The Ghost Dancers are having their little ceremony out front."
"The front it is, then." His claws came slowly away from her neck.
As he walked out of the ring of gentle light of a small candle/lamp, Kagome yelled after him.
"And thank you, Inuyasha."
He turned incredulously back toward the small glimmers of dancing light on her face. "What for?"
A wicked smile curled on her face. A mixture of envy, lust, loathing and gratitude.
"For making me realize what I am. For making me face my own mortality and my own reality. It's all very Existential, you know."
"You're crazy."
"I, that I am." Her distortedly mirthful laughter followed him down the great black corridors of stone.
*************
"What should we do about this, Suzume-san?"
"We've no choice, I suppose. All of the events I've seen in the fire-water are coming true, just too rapidly. Everything is leading up to a head, and we are forced to make our move. I fear it will not go as I planned.
"An aquaintence from another village says that Emi may be trying to invoke some kind of god by using what she calls the Ghost Dancers. But I cannot find her reasons. Maybe she thinks she will actually ascend to god-consciousness?"
"Perhaps, but I fear what will happen if her Ghost Dancers actually manage to invoke some form of god. If she angers a godform, it may do her harm. I know she is lost in her way, but I still don't want harm to come to her."
"Nor do I, Zatoichi-san, but we cannot take many risks, and we can't let her get her wish in this. This must be played carefully.
"It's our move, and we'd better choose wisely."
**************
It was a dreary day in Tokyo. Rain fell in slanted sheets against the great concrete giants, looming in the overcast sky above. Small streams of water formed on the streets, and all was as bleak as life in a city of this size could be. Or, at least, Kagome thought so.
Thankfully, school was over for a couple months, and she could enjoy her vacation time by burying her nose in books to try and catch up to the rest of the class. Fun.
She was also very grateful at that time that she didn't have to walk the whole way today. Her mother had given her money for the bus fare and she could only watch and sympathize with the poor unfortunates who had to walk as much as a mile just to come home from work or school. The bus stopped with a serpentine hiss in front of the shrine. She ran up the steps, her jacket over her head.
After dinner and a shower, Kagome settled down quite comfortably on her bed, thumbing through a book that her father had always read while he was still around. She had often spent hours fingering the yellowed pages, wishing she could read whatever language it was in. Her only physical connection to her father, meaning, something he used and touched on an everyday basis. Of course, she supposedly inherited certain facial features, but his face was a great absence in her life. She knew his voice. She could still hear him, with his unpleasant accent and broken syntax, as he coo-cooed her and sang gentle songs to her as a very young child. Was she, she wondered, like him in ways not everyone could see? Maybe he was actually born with or aquired some sort of power or awareness or consciousness or something that made him make her what and who she was today. Other than his genes, she felt that her life was not affected in any tangible way by this huge hole in her existence, this great void in her memory and life.
But today was the day that she would search out some formless bit of connectvity with him as a person, and not just a name. Her English grammer book beside her, and her English dictionary, she started, logically, with the front cover. Word by word, she deciphered the strange text as though it were some esoteric Enochian secret hidden behind obscure veils of metaphor and mysticism. She wrote it down on a notebook by her right elbow.
"R...Rita- Rites And Maj- Magickal Practices of Native American Shamans and Healers, Vol. II."
The words "By" and some crazy name with the abbreviation "Prof." in front of it stood below in bold relief. The words sounded alien to her as she sounded them out. Then she searched out their meanings. It took her a while to get the grammatical structure and related difficulties that always come of learning foreign languages, but by midnight, she had deciphered the first four paragraphs on the first page. Though it was only an introduction, she felt a foreshadowing of what strange and apocryphal secrets and rites were hidden within these pages. She flipped the pages, and stopped often to look at the obviously mystickal drawings and engravings that held innumerable meanings and guideways in the path of a shaman.
She was tired and her neck was getting tight, so she reached over to turn off the light near her bed. Before the knob on the lamp clicked the second time, the phone rang.
Should she answer? She had intentionally avoided the phone recently because of the strange call she received two days ago. But her mother would wake soon if she didn't pick up, and her mother had a hard enough time of it as it was supporting them.
Her hand trembled above the phone. It's ring once again seemed eerily distorted, as though she was hearing her own death knell.
Her fingers slowly closed over the receiver, and she lifted. She froze for a moment, wondering what she should say if it was the mysterious voice again. She pressed it to her ear, not saying a word.
"Kagome?" The voice was clear, now, and it sounded calm but intent. She breathed deeply and spoke in a soft voice.
"Hello?"
"Heh...It is you. I..." A pause. She heard a deep breath on the other end. "I'm sorry if I scared you last time. I don't know how to go about this. I've waited four hundred and fif-"
"Who are you?" Her speech was fast and nervous, and her voice quavered slightly.
"Well, I...I'm who you probably think I am."
"I....Inu...yasha?"
"It's been a while."
"Not that long for me. A few days."
You're right. I forgot. I'm the who's been waiting five hundred years to warn you."
"Warn me?"
"I- I can't explain this over the phone. We'll meet."
"Meet? Here? You live in Tokyo?"
"Yes, no, and yes. We'll meet at the restaurant two blocks from you, to the west."
"Yeah, I know the one."
"Well, I...I should be letting you go soon."
"Yeah, it was good to hear your voice again, Inuyasha."
"Er...your's, too, Kagome. And my name's no longer Inuyasha. It's Ai."
"Ai? Didn't spend too long searching, did you?"
"I was in a position where I needed to come up with a name fast, and it stuck with me. Inuyasha just got way too many strange looks."
"I understand. I s'pose I'll see you..."
"Tomorrow. Tomorrow night at 7:45 at that restaurant. There's some things you have to know."
"Okay. And you've a lot of explaining to do."
"Goodbye, Kagome."
"Bye."
And the phone clicked off.
*******************
Got a lot of things to say about things included in this and the next chapter(s), but I'll wait until I have a bit more structure to what I have to say before I put it up. Again, very sorry for the long, long, long delay between chapters. Been traveling, and had difficulty writing and thinking. Please, for my sake, have a very good evening/morning/afternoon/night.
And one more thing. A band, or rather, a conglomeration of a few very "conscious" artists, called Theodor Bastard, has come to my attention. Of course, their music is not for everybody, or even most people, but I think there may be a few souls who read this that may appreciate and be affected by their music and associated imagery. This isn't a plug, by any means; I just feel it my duty as a poet and artist and musician and general music lover to bring this amazing "band" to others' attention. To view their flash music video for the song "Pustota", go to http://www.kollaps.ru/film/film27.htm, or to their website, theodorbastard.com. Sorry for wasting your time, but I sometimes assume others will "get" what ideas and emotions and appreciations I try to convey, although that is rarely the case, most likely, of a fault of my own. Anywho, I'll get crackin' on a new chapter as soon as is possible, physically and conceptually. And again, have a good day, (w)ho/here/hen-ever you are.