If you are not comfortable with blood and gore, read at your own risk! (I've always wanted to say that).
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha and I certainly do not own or know Jack the Ripper.
Summary: It's 1888 and the Anatomy Law is still in place in England. With time passed, the only thing a certain demon lord can do is blend in and take up a career in the new world and try new things. Sesshomaru is a doctor in London and he encounters a person he believed to be dead for more than three hundred years under the most shocking circumstances: the dissecting table. After reuniting with his past, vast gruesome murders plague the East End of London. Can they discover who the murdered is before the murdered finds them?
Silence
Chapter I: The Body
Sesshomaru had never been pleased having had to leave Japan behind to begin anew in a city that took him a long time to understand, but it had been necessary considering what had driven him away. The only trinkets he had brought back with him were his memories and Rin. Rin had quickly adapted to her new surroundings and spent most of her time socializing, shopping, attending operas, concerts, or helping her father with his work.
Even as the years had converted into centuries, Sesshomaru could not forget why he had left. He tried, but no matter how hard he tried, the truth never left him in peace. It was somewhat ironic that he had become a doctor as his remorse was linked with the dead. As life would have it, today he was expecting a body to perform an autopsy, but the body that was soon to arrive at his office on Cavendish Square, had been discovered in peculiar circumstances that even had him baffled.
The hospital he conducted business with had hardly given him any information concerning the cadaver; only that they could not fathom what had caused the man's death. Sesshomaru had agreed to perform an autopsy to see what he could learn. Just as Sesshomaru was preparing his operating theatre at his estate, his vigorous daughter Rin came running into the room holding a note for the young doctor.
Sesshomaru looked up from the many beakers holding the necessary chemicals to use of the coming cadaver, to frown at her. He laid down the glass instruments on his glass covered cabinets.
"Rin I've told you many times not to come running in here when I'm expecting a corpse. It's dangerous and not something a women should see." Sesshomaru reprimand his illegitimate daughter. Rin stopped before him and smiled. She threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek in a daughterly manner. Sesshomaru sighed and pried her off him, but not before patting her head.
"I'm sorry Sesshomaru-sama, but I could not spare a second longer to inform you about the most amazing news that's swept through London!" Rin cried zealously. "There's been another murder in the East End and Scotland Yard is just as bewildered as the first case! What do you make of it Sesshomaru-sama?"
Sesshomaru lifted a beaker of arterial preservative and injected a syringe into the mouth of the glass and extracted the chemical to use during the autopsy. As he did this, he glanced up at his daughter and remarked blandly, "Another murder? I'm surprised Scotland Yard hasn't solved these eccentric murders by now. What are they waiting for, another four victims?" he put everything down and wiped his hands clean on a towel.
"Since they cannot figure out whom the murderer is, Rin I want you to be home before the gas lamps are lit. It's becoming too dangerous for you to stay out late." Sesshomaru declared to the young lady. Rin frowned dejectedly; she sat down on his stool and placed her chin on her hands.
"But Sesshomaru-sama, please you're being unreasonable. Nothing bad will happen to me. We've been living here in London for a long time now and we have never experienced any difficulties since we've arrived…well save for the French Revolution, and some other uncalled for events. But nothing will happen." Rin pleaded desperately. She gave him a look that even Sesshomaru could not hope to disobey.
He turned away before her gaze compelled him to yield to her pleads. He shook his head and argued sternly, "No Rin, my mind is made up. It's for your own well-being. These are not times to taunt death; you must keep in mind that the new century is drawing closer to us and with it there are sure to be new things awaiting us."
Rin pouted innocently, but she knew it would do her no good to continue pleading. He had already made up his mind and when he made up his mind on something, Sesshomaru was inexorable. Sesshomaru stole a look at her and sighed inaudibly under his breath. He did not like to see her frown, but she had to understand he was only doing this for her own welfare.
"Rin is there any way I can make it up to you? I know you do not like this, but I…perhaps an outing to the opera could lighten up your mood? Will I have the honor of taking you to see whatever is playing tonight?" Sesshomaru offered to her as a means of seeing her smile. Rin looked up and smiled weakly at him. She stood from her seat and went to him. She embraced him lovingly and kissed his cheek again.
"You forget father that you are expecting company tonight. A Mr. Cadaver if you recall is coming tonight. How about tomorrow night when you are not busy?" she reminded him of his affairs with the corpse that should have arrived by now. Sesshomaru frowned forlornly and released her.
"I'm sorry Rin I forgot about tonight. Tomorrow night will be fine, just please promise me you will not go outside after dark alone?" said Sesshomaru.
Rin smiled at him before disappearing out the door from which she entered before he could call her back. He did not need to look after her to know where she was going. She always left the house while he was going to perform dissections and autopsies because of the horrendous putrefying smell. Which contradicated what he had just said to her. Sesshomaru returned to setting everything up and at the stroke of eight the door bell rang.
Sesshomaru answered the door and was greeted with the corpse he had been waiting for all day. He paid the person who had brought him the body and carried it to his small anatomical study to perform his appointed duty. The lifeless cadaver was wrapped in white cotton sheets and had a thick yellow cord that sustained the sheets from falling apart.
The cadaver was surprisingly light as he hauled the body through the door and placed it onto the table. Everything was set, but the only thing that needed to be done was to unwrap the sheets then he could begin. He reached out and pulled the yellow cord and allowed the white sheets to slide off the body into a heap of fabric on the floor. Long dull white hair, that appeared to have once been brilliant silver, hid the face of the dead man. Sesshomaru scrutinized the corpse carefully, and gently pushed away the disarrayed tresses concealing the face.
It was one thing to fear nightmares and know they could not possibly come turn and it was another concept altogether to live them out those very same nightmares. The body that had been brought to him was straight out of his bloodiest dreams of chaos. That cadaver laid out before him covered in only a thin sheet of white fabric was the reason why he had fled from Japan in the first place. Seeing him again was enough to make Sesshomaru go insane, but he clenched his sanity and muttered only one word that said all: Inuyasha.
Sesshomaru pressed his index and middle finger to the cold side of Inuyasha's neck and snarled. He was indeed dead, but how? In fact just how had he arrived here in London if he had already been dead and buried for nearly three hundred years, to begin with? No something was tremendously wrong with this spontaneous turn of events.
Inuyasha had died during the final battle against Naraku and all had ended with his death. Naraku perished, the jewel refused to bring the hanyou back to life and it was the end to one chapter and the beginning of another. The miko had nothing more to do in the Feudal Era since he wasn't alive, the monk and demon slayer had left them unwillingly, but there was nothing they could do. Even the kitsune had decided to start a new life without the half breed around.
After he had expired from the world of the living, everything had changed. As the years drifted away with the breezes of unsustainable seasons that were forever perpetual, Sesshomaru had never forgotten how his stupid sibling had died just so he could save his friend's lives at the risk of his own. Sesshomaru stopped himself from remembering any further. Once was enough to relive the past, he didn't want to remember anymore.
"How did you get here Inuyasha? You've been dead for more then three centuries. It's impossible for you to be here when I myself saw you meet your miserable death...and yet you were always one to defy logic." Sesshomaru mumbled to his dead brother. His cold pale hands clenched the side of Inuyasha's face and he examined it. He pried open his eye lids and examined his hollow golden eyes and sighed.
In frustration Sesshomaru rubbed his temples and cursed. His past would never allow him to forget. He looked intently at the still figure on the table and remarked sharply, "Even in death Inuyasha you manage to disrupt my life. No matter how much I run, you always manage to find me and make me remember why you aren't alive anymore. Even in death your silence tells me I could have saved you, but time and time again I tell you I…" he did not finish.
It was foolish of him to chastise a corpse and especially his worthless brother who was as adamant as him. And there he was observing his brother's dead body and caught between defying Inuyasha's corpse by dissecting it or allowing it to rot. Either option in his opinion was welcoming, but if Rin found out…
Sesshomaru threw the sheet over Inuyasha's pale face and left him in his anatomical study to deal with later on in the night when Rin arrived and was fast asleep. He turned off the lights and closed the door behind him with an unintentional force. Sesshomaru walked down the hall unevenly and threw himself onto his comfortable armchair, only this night he found no comfort sitting in it like the other long cold nights in the past.
He began to contemplate carefully; he had his dead brother's corpse just down the hall and was in the first process of decomposing, he was expecting Rin to come running through the front door and discovering Inuyasha's body and her screams once she saw him. The only thing he could do to ward off the excruciating headache he felt coming to harass him, was contained within a crystal vial encasing small white pills that were made to relieve him of the pain. He reached out to the small side table and pulled out a vial containing capsules. He unscrewed the cap and took two aspirins.
Sesshomaru set aside the vial and poured a glass of water to drink the capsules with. With a toss of his head, he swallowed the pills and forced himself to swallow them. As much as he tried, he could not bare the taste the pills produced on his sensitive senses. The weary doctor slouched further into his chair and released a suppressed sigh. He had no idea what he was going to do with this new ordeal now presented to him.
I could always just dispose of the body and say it never arrived. Sesshomaru formulated, but the concept had its flaws. There were witnesses after all who could testify that the body had indeed been delivered to his estate and the least thing he needed was going to court. Another sigh. Then what am I going to do? I can't under any circumstances have him here where Rin can easily see if and think the worst. The further he mused and tortured himself about the cadaver, the less he became aware of his surroundings and his muffled thoughts.
Slowly his thoughts were askew and made no sense; they were mere clumps of meaningless words, that, if he had been alert, could have possibly meant something and been something of use rather then a waste of energy. The glass which he had held slipped from his thin pale hands and shattered to the fine solid oak floor. In seconds Sesshomaru was fast asleep. Perhaps, had he paid closer attention to the vial he had grabbed, he would still be awake and have noticed the creaking of his anatomical door opening and the heavy footsteps that had once been light, approach him? And if he could indeed praise himself over his audacity and alertness, then he would have seen his brother standing in front of him, alive and but not at all well. But alas he did not.
A/N: I'm not sure what to say, only that I'm back with another story, this time it's decorated with large portions of gore, blood, murders and violence, and if you look hard enough, a small pinch of romance— though it will be coated with blood and organs. Before you turn away from what I just said —okay I'm not sure how I'm going to convince you all to stay—but please give it a chance. The idea seemed…I can't say pleasant, so I'll substitute the word 'pleasant' for 'enthralling' instead. The idea came to me after I finished reading this book about body snatching and dissection and the 'cholera morbus', a disease that ran ramped during the early years of the 19th century. It seemed like something that could be turned into a suspenseful story, but I'm not sure right now. I'll leave it to you all to make the decision. Please tell me what you think and if I should continue…
