Laws of Nature
Grains. He could feel the grains shifting and falling beneath his feet, through his toes, almost as if the sand was trying to absorb him. It was dark over the ocean; flickers of white and blue dancing between the black clouds. Still, though, it was unbearably hot ashore. Naraku could feel his skin tightening, searing, almost screaming to be shaded. He stepped forward once, twice, and then he was waist deep in the dark, icy water. It crashed against him and pulled him in roughly. He didn't care. It was better than burning. He heard a whisper and dug his feet into the murky silt and looked around. No one was around, in or out of the water. But still, he could hear a voice. He closed his eyes, straining his ears to make-out what the voice was saying or who it was, if it was a man or woman, adult or child. His entire body turned ice cold and the voice became almost completely muffled.
Naraku woke slowly. The grogginess he felt was so heavy he was unsure if he was truly awake or not. He kept his eyes closed, trying to kickstart his brain by asking himself questions; what day was it, what time was it, what is on the schedule today?
'My meeting with Bruce,' Naraku realized that was the answer to the last question. He was supposed to meet with Bruce at noon. He grabbed his phone and unlocked it, feeling his blood turn cold. He had thirty minutes to get ready and drive to his meeting! He slept through his alarm for five hours?
"Damn!" he hissed, stepping out of bed and striding to his bathroom in an attempt to make himself look presentable. Naraku saw he had a message from Jade and opened it.
'Did you break the slides again? I know you're mad at me, but you're ruining your own stuff.' the text read. Naraku responded with, "No," and reached up with his left hand to open the cabinet, his eye catching the bandage on his palm. It had almost turned red entirely. He exhaled heavily and loudly.
Naraku brushed his teeth so harshly, he was sure his gums no longer existed. He wrapped his hand in a clean bandage and he threw on jeans and a T-shirt. Strangely, his hair was rather tameable and despite a few tangles, it looked fine. He pulled it back into a high ponytail anyway. Naraku walked into his office and grabbed his bag and a folder off his desk. He leaned down to examine the sealed glass tube holding the gem and his blood. He added more to it by cutting his palm open. The blood was still bubbling, though less violently like it had the previous day.
"If I didn't know any better," Naraku trailed off, noticing that his blood looked darker. It was hard to tell in the dimly lit office, so he activated the flashlight on his phone and held the light at different angles. Sure enough, the blood had turned darker. Naraku glanced at the time on his phone and cursed. He didn't have time to figure out why the color had changed.
Naraku parked behind the Science Building, which was not allowed for anyone other than professors when classes were in session, but Naraku didn't care. He had three minutes to find Bruce, hopefully in his office, and then he had to calm down enough to be able to discuss his plans without sounding unsure or anxious. He walked down the hall, dodging between students leaving from and arriving to their classes, and ducked inside the department office, finding the narrow hallway.
'That's a first.' Naraku saw Bruce's door was opened and the light inside was on. He didn't even knock; he walked right in, and saw Jade sitting in one of the two chairs in front of Bruce's desk.
"Speak of the Devil," Bruce announced, motioning at Naraku, who sat down in the chair opposite of Jade. "We were trying to figure out who broke your slides."
"Sesshomaru." Naraku said. He looked up when another thought hit him. "Or one of the other students who allegedly work in the lab, but never seem to show up to work."
"It wasn't you?" Bruce quizzed, rubbing the thin, peppered beard on his face. Naraku rolled his eyes.
"When have you known me to not admit doing something? I wanted those slides done yesterday so I could start looking at them today."
"Oh. Well, then you-"
"I'll do them again. I need the practice. I have class, though, so I'll do them after." Jade said as she stood up. She gave Naraku a small wave and he nodded back at her. Bruce waited to hear the department door close to indicate Jade had left to open his mouth again.
"It's bad enough she has to deal with you, but Sesshomaru, too?" Bruce waved his hand dismissively.
"He doesn't care about her. He's aiming for me."
"His aim is shitty. He keeps hitting her instead of you."
"He knows exactly what he's doing, but tell that to him on his time, not mine." Naraku remarked, unable to stop the bitterness from seeping into his tone. He pulled a small stapled packet of papers from his folder, handing them across the desk to Bruce.
"I'm just going to hold a lab meeting so I can bitch at all of you at once." Bruce sighed, slipping his glasses onto his face. His eyes darted from the papers to Naraku's hand. "What happened to your hand?"
"Voodoo ritual." Naraku replied dryly.
"Oh my God, one of your torture dungeon victims escaped, didn't they?"
"I don't wish to make a career out of this meeting, Bruce."
"Aw, someone's cranky. I guess you and Jade aren't really fucking after all." Bruce said with a grin. Naraku grit his teeth, but he held back any comments to encourage Bruce to read his schedule so they could discuss it and end this meeting quickly. The older man hummed approvingly at the first page and at the second page, nodding his head as his lips silently recited the words. Naraku pulled his phone out and saw another message from Jade.
'I found Bruce. I'm holding him in his office.' It was from twenty minutes prior to his arrival.
'I think she deserves a free gram of weed from me.' Naraku locked his phone and placed it in his lap.
"This sounds good, but I don't see you having the time to do everything you've listed. I'm not implying that you're not fast or that Jade isn't good help, but,"
"Well, I'm not going to examine every single sample I receive. For example, the sediment core from the main lake has been cut in half-centimeter increments, but I'm not going to examine every half-centimeter. It's unnecessary. The same goes for the soil samples."
"Every one and a half centimeters sounds reasonable enough, even though you listed every centimeter. You could probably push it to every two centimeters."
"I am, for the conference in October, at least."
"What are you looking for in the sediment samples? That's usually more of a geological approach, isn't it?" Bruce asked, looking up from the paper.
"Yes and no. I'm not interested in the grains themselves as much as I am interested in the microbes."
"The only things left in there are diatom skeletons. You dissolved the organic material with the peroxide."
"The diatoms are indicators of what is in the lake. Each species represents a different nutrient." Naraku crossed one leg over the other, catching his phone before it fell to the floor.
"Fair enough. Will you even look at the samples with the organic material intact?"
"Yes. I don't think I will have it all completed for the conference, though."
"That's not a big deal. As long as you have something and a plan to explain, they won't care." Bruce waved his hand. Then he looked up again. "What about Jade? She can do the extractions on the side while you're counting your silica cretins."
"Jade doesn't know how."
"Teach her. Choose a weekend that you both can sacrifice and bulldoze your way through the first two or three fractions."
"The trick is convincing her. She has already refused to give up her weekends." Naraku sighed. Bruce stared at him for a moment, blinking. Then, he screwed his face up as if disgusted with that statement.
"Since when has that stopped you from threatening someone? Buy her a case of beer or give her pot or another portion of cash. Slash her tires, I don't know. Whatever it is you usually do."
"I'll tell her you said that when I do it." Naraku said back.
"I'm sure you will. Anyway, my question to you, and you don't have to have an answer now nor do I expect you to have one, is what is your end game? You have your hypothesis, you have your ideas, your plans, but if this turns out the way you expect it, what do you plan to do with the information? Additionally, what will you do if it doesn't turn out how you expect? What if you are completely wrong? That isn't to say your research won't be useful or interesting, especially to those currently observing this area, but you have to remember that even though you have your ideas, your plans, science and nature don't care."
"I've already learned." Naraku said smoothly, flexing his left hand.
"Then I have nothing more to teach you. You're in the driver's seat now." Bruce scribbled his signature across the top of the front page before handing it back to Naraku.
000000
"Jaaaaaaaade," Sango cried out breathlessly. She wiped tears from her face with one hand while pressing the other against her aching abdomen. A few other students from their class had turned to look at them, curious about why one girl was trapped in an endless loop of hysterical laughter and why the other was frowning at the floor.
"I told you I wasn't good at this stuff." Jade whined back, her face pulled into a full pout.
"I can't," Sango panted, placing both hands over her eyes. "Turn it in! I can't stop!"
"Look, I know her face is messed up,"
"It's two dots and a curve! Why is the rest of her realistic?" Sango asked with wide eyes before falling back into another painful fit of laughter.
"I didn't have time!" Jade shot.
"Give her a nose, at least!"
"No."
"Ahahaha, Jade, please take it away," Sango begged as she waved her hand dismissively at Jade's drawing. Jade grumbled curses under her breath as she stood from her desk. They had a live model to draw this day in class; some random chick sitting on a stool. Jade was able to make the shape somewhat-human and was able to sketch in the details of her clothes and hair, but Jade was so slow that she ran out of time and hadn't worked on the face at all. So, she ground two dots and a U-shaped curve onto the face and called it a day...until Sango lost her shit upon seeing it.
'Of course hers looks better than mine, so I can't even tag her back,' Jade lamented. She placed her drawing on the professor's desk. He took one look at it and snorted loudly before quickly covering his mouth and nose with his hand.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that." he said softly, his voice muffled as he looked up at Jade with his worried brown eyes. Jade shrugged.
"I've been listening to it for a few minutes now." she responded, jerking her thumb in the direction of Sango, who was now waddling towards the desk while wiping her tears away with the sleeve of her T-shirt.
The two roommates gathered their items. Sango was very organized and precise about which slots she stuck her pencils in and how carefully she slipped her sketchbook and notebook into her backpack. Jade unceremoniously shoved everything into her backpack before swinging it around onto her back. Sango followed Jade and huffed.
"I'm sorry, Jade. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." Sango said once they reached the stairway.
"It's fine. I have other things on my mind." Jade admitted.
"Is it that Naraku guy?"
"Actually, no," Once Jade said that, she grimaced. "Okay, yes, but he's not the main reason. At least he's funny."
"Want me to slash his tires?"
"Who do you think he'll take that out on?"
"Tell him I did it. I'll tell him myself." Sango stated proudly.
"My question still stands," Jade grumbled.
"Let's go grab some food and not talk about him."
Jade wanted to grab a burger, but Sango guilted her into a deli sandwich instead, and even then, Sango had to recite her usual spiel about carbs, fats, calories, and how Jade needed to go to the gym with her. Jade almost brought up Naraku being there, but she decided to just let Sango say her piece without interruptions. It would be over sooner that way.
"Am I annoying you?" Sango asked abruptly as they sat down at a random table in the commons area.
"No. Why?" Jade asked back, taking a huge bite of her ham sandwich to give her an excuse to reply slowly.
"You just have this look on your face," Sango pointed out. Jade chewed slowly while gently shaking her head. Sango waited a moment, but when she realized Jade was chewing slowly, she decided to drop the subject entirely. "I noticed you streamed the other night. Is everything settled?"
"Kind of. The branch leaders have agreed there isn't enough evidence, or reason, to punish me."
"Has he apologized?"
"Fuuuuuuuuck no. Are you serious?" Jade asked in a deep, goofy voice, but her tone was anything but sweet.
"Well, I think you should leave and start a different community, or just go solo."
"Totally. I can call it, "Girl Power," and everyone will flock to me." Jade replied sarcastically.
"I'm sure you have fans who will follow you."
"Some, yeah, but it's a small fraction."
"You should probably step back and weigh out your options,"
"Got it." Jade bit.
"You're really moody."
"I just read four articles discussing shit that I don't know about. There were words in there that I definitely recognized, but I don't know what the hell these articles were talking about, despite the titles telling me. I just made two hundred slides yesterday only for someone to drop the case they were in and shatter them, so I have to remake them before I leave today."
"I'm sorry." Sango lowered her fork and sighed. "I don't have to work today. Do you want me to stay in the lab with you and give you some company?"
"No. I have to discuss those papers with Naraku and he prefers that to be one-on-one."
"That sounds super fun. I can't imagine how well he treats you during those." Sango droned on sarcastically, stabbing her salad sharply with her fork.
"Actually, he's really fun during our paper discussions."
"If you say so."
Jade bid Sango goodbye after she walked to the lab with her. Sango waved and marched away forcefully, as if she really didn't want to. Jade imagined she had a hard time leaving her friend in what she considered a dangerous situation. She couldn't blame Sango, but she also wished she would have a little more faith in Jade's ability to handle situations. She pushed open the slightly-ajar door and spotted Naraku standing at the warming plate, tapping air bubbles out from his new slides.
"Uh, I said I would do them." Jade said aloud, gently placing her backpack on the small couch next to the dry-erase board.
"I'm faster." Naraku answered. Jade rolled her eyes, but decided to take it as a victory. She spotted the cooled slides on the table and they had yet to be scraped of their excess mounting fluid.
'I better not ask. He's wearing jeans, so he's probably irritable.' Jade slid down the table so she wouldn't be in his way. She placed the first slide on the glass plate and picked up the razor, scraping away the hardened, yellowish fluid. It almost reminded her of honey, but it wasn't as thick and it smelled awful.
"Did you read the articles I sent to you?" he asked.
"Yep."
"And?"
"Well, they uh," Jade giggled nervously, scratching her head briefly. "They definitely had words that I recognized, such as, "The," "and," "microbes," and, "lifespan," soooooo I give them a solid eight out of fuck me on a scale determining how smart I feel."
"You do realize dictionaries exist, yes?"
"Yeah, I used an online dictionary, the physical dictionary I have at home, and Urban Dictionary just for shits and giggles. I understand the words; I just don't understand what they were trying to explain to me."
"The titles usually do that."
"You are right. Those titles were really good at not English."
"Which articles did I send you?" Naraku asked quickly, turning to place more slides on the table to cool.
"The first one was the microbial lifespans in a nutshell paper,"
"Stop. So, tell me what you think that one is about?"
"I understand what it's about, but I don't understand how or why these things live. It starts talking about anaerobic respiration, which is divided into all these categories, and then it starts explaining the methods of how they observed this shit and,"
"I told you to skip the methods." Naraku interrupted.
"No you didn't."
"I did. When I sent those attachments, I also instructed, "Skip the methods portions of these papers.""
"Naraku, I can bring the email up right now. It didn't say that."
"Oh," Naraku turned to her and smirked. "Oops."
"I'll show you an oops," Jade responded harmlessly.
"So, you are now aware of microbes being able to respire using other electron acceptors besides oxygen,"
"I guess." Jade exhaled to her side to prevent herself from blowing the solidified bits of slide mount fluid off the glass plate.
"You are now aware of the existence of different types of microbes,"
"Water bears are my favorite, by the way." Jade chirped.
"Water bears are everyone's favorite. Why?" Naraku asked skeptically.
"Because they're chubby and cute and indestructible. I found a three-minute video of one walking on moss. I think I'm going to make a video of water bears. My viewers need to know about them."
"Do you have any questions that don't pertain to the methods of these papers?"
"Um, nooooo. I think that was the main issue for me, especially when they started throwing out deviations and differential equations. Fuck that. Water bear don't care."
"I suppose I should be content with the fact that you're inspired by something from those papers," Naraku lamented with a sigh.
"But you're not. What's your beef with water bears?"
"I don't have anything against water bears. I just find other creatures to be just as interesting. Water bears always seem to create an instant cult whenever they're mentioned in a room of people."
"It's because they're more swole than you, isn't it?"
"Yes, Jade. I'm highly jealous of a microscopic caterpillar's musculature."
After scraping the rest of the slides, Jade swept the debris into the trash and organized the slides into the slide case numerically. She noticed Naraku pulling all the items from his desk, organizing the papers into cross stacks on top. He tossed all pens and pencils into a cup and pulled his shoulder bag on, lifting the cup and the stacks of papers into his arms.
"Bring those with you." Naraku ordered, nodding at the slide case. Jade picked it up, quickly swiped her backpack, and followed him out of the lab.
"Did you get a new office?" Jade asked after she caught up with him.
"I did."
"Sweet."
Naraku left the building from the East side and walked across the curving walkways to the Science Building's neighbor, Lowry Hall. Jade poked behind him and dodged another student in the hallway who was focused on his cell phone. Naraku pressed the call button for the elevator and turned back to look at Jade, who was staring aimlessly down the hallway. They both stepped onto the elevator and Naraku hit the button for the third floor.
"What did you do to your hand?" Jade asked, pointing at his bandage.
"I cut it." Naraku answered simply. He saw her frown and then look up at him.
"On purpose?"
"Why would I do that?"
"I don't know." Jade sighed. "So, were you running late today because of it?"
"No." Naraku stepped off the elevator and turned right, counting the room numbers until he found his; 308. He unlocked the door with his uninjured hand and pushed it open. Lowry Hall was one of the older buildings on campus, so the doors inside the building were a heavy wood, possibly oak. The office had two bookcases; one against the North wall and one against the South. The desk was old, but made of a sturdy wood, too.
"Dusty." Jade said while coughing.
"Yes. I will have to clean it and bring my own chair."
"And a lamp."
"And my microscope." Naraku placed his desk items on top of the desk and turned back to Jade, holding his hand out for the slide case. She handed it to him and slipped her hands into her pockets.
"Anything else?"
"Yes. The first conference we will attend is in October. It begins the thirteenth and stretches until the sixteenth. We must attend two of the days."
"Where is it being held?"
"Colorado. Our tickets and hotel rooms will be paid for ahead of time and then whatever we buy to eat will be compensated when we return." Naraku explained, leaning against the edge of his new desk.
"Oh, okay."
"Also, you need to pick a weekend in September to sacrifice to the extraction gods."
"You're letting me pick?" Jade smiled.
"Don't push it." Naraku warned, frowning irritably.
"How about the second weekend, which is the weekend after next?" she asked, holding up two fingers.
"That will work. For three days, you will be in the lab with me. You won't have time to go home or go to work, so request those days off."
"I'll cry when we get there." Jade said, turning around to leave. "Bye."
"B-Bye," Naraku clamped his lips shut. He didn't understand why he felt the need to say it back.
000000
Kagome bit her lip lightly as she read the instructions for Step Four for what seemed to be the hundredth time. She had highlighted portions and taken notes from Naraku's lecture, but she still didn't trust if she was doing anything right.
"Sooooo, is this going to kill me?" one of her lab partners, a tall, lanky guy, Todd, asked Naraku. He looked down at the younger man's hands, which had blotches of black stains all over them and even a few spots on the arms.
"Yes. From the looks of it, you have about two and a half hours left to live. Conveniently, that's about how much class time you have left to finish the experiment." Naraku replied calmly, folding his arms behind his back as he walked away.
"Uh, I have a question," Kagome called out hesitantly. She saw him stop and wait a moment before turning around to face her. Kagome swallowed hard and pointed at the beaker in front of her. "After we stirred the silver nitrate into the water, we just drop the wire in there and that's it?"
"I would hope so. That's how I've been doing it for years." Naraku answered, turning around and continuing his slow prowl around the room.
"Ugh. A simple yes is all we need." Kagome grumbled, twisting the copper wire into a spiral shape and bending a hook on the end. She hung it on the edge inside the glass and gently pushed the beaker to the middle of the table to prevent any accidents.
"So, we just wait?" Todd asked, trying to push a strand of his sandy brown hair out of his face, but he was afraid touching it with his stained hands would stain his hair, too. Kagome reached over and flipped it to the side for him.
"I guess so. That's what it says." Kagome said, looking to her right at her other, silent lab partner. Jade had dubbed her as, "Rainbow Girl," and it wasn't inaccurate, but Kagome learned her name was Sara. Sara had already began answering the questions of the experiment, so Kagome decided to do the same.
"Oh, look! There's silver on the wire already!" Todd said, using the tip of his pencil to point at the tiny silver speck sitting on the top coil of the wire. Kagome and Sara leaned forward to get a better look. Kagome looked over when she heard Jade call Naraku's name. The man turned to her and lowered his arms.
"How much money does the department blow on this experiment? This can't be the most cost-effective way."
"At least six-hundred a class, if not more."
"Wow." Jade's eyes widened. "Couldn't we use any other silver compound?"
"We could."
"Wait," Sara said suddenly, causing Kagome to jump slightly. "This says to leave it for next week on the back page,"
"What?" Kagome and Todd asked simultaneously. They flipped to the page Sara was staring at and read it.
"I'll ask. It could be an accidental print job." Kagome said, raising her hand. She saw Naraku elbow Jade and point her to their table demandingly, which made Kagome sigh with relief. Jade quickly walked over, tugging at her lab coat's sleeves.
"What's up?" Jade asked, walking around to Kagome's side. Kagome pointed to the fine text stating to leave the copper wire for next week. Jade immediately smiled and exhaled. "Did you guys finish the first four questions at least?"
"Yeah!" the three students chirped.
"Alright. Go ahead and start cleaning your stuff. Put one of those glass plates over it to keep stuff from falling in and put it in one of your drawers." Jade said, striding away towards Naraku. Kagome assumed Jade was telling him they had finished. Naraku began walking from group to group, saying nothing. The other groups saw Kagome's group cleaning and began doing the same. This seemed to greatly amuse Naraku as he began chuckling.
Once the clanking of glasses and the sound of running water from the four sinks of the room subsided, Naraku walked to the front of the room and cleared his throat. The class quieted down, looking at one another curiously.
"As I'm sure some of you noticed, this experiment is a two-day experiment," Naraku began.
"So we could have left earlier?" a man asked, the irritation in his voice noticeable.
"I'm not stopping anyone." Naraku replied calmly, slipping his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. "Although, something tells me a few more of you will begin reading your experiment directions before class from now on. I might randomly decide to have a pop quiz every now and then, too."
"You guys should be able to answer the first four questions of your lab. The other four are next week's questions. So, if your wire is submerged, put it in one of your drawers and see you next week." Jade announced, noticing the tension and hoping to loosen it. She heard the grumbles and sighs of irritation. A few people slammed their books shut and cursed under their breaths. She mouthed, "Sorry," to Kagome, who nodded back understandingly. Jade glanced back at Naraku, who seemed to adore every look of frustration and anger students shot him as they left the room.
"I think they're mad." Naraku said once the room was empty.
"Nah, they're fine." Jade responded while waving her hand dismissively.
000000
Naraku pressed a button on his laptop to begin playing his music. He pulled his chair up to the smaller desk he commandeered from a hallway closet and looked into the eyepieces of the microscope he inherited. The department was selling off older microscope models because they received funding for newer models. Bruce promised Naraku could have the broken one for free if he could figure out what was wrong with it since no one else could or cared to fix it at that point. So, Naraku did, and now it was his to play with.
'The focus knob is a bit more sensitive than I would like it to be.' Naraku leaned back and dimmed the light of the scope before looking back at the slide on the stage. He could see the various pieces of silica, which just looked like broken glass, and bits of orange iron stains. As he continued to twist the coarse and fine focus knobs, another color caught his eye; one that shouldn't have been there. Purple.
"There is no way," Naraku whispered, finally able to see exactly what the purple material was. He saw the diatoms, but they were various shades of purple instead of of the transparent gray of the silica their cell walls were made of. Naraku leaned back from the microscope again, rubbing his eyes gently as he shook his head.
'They aren't stained because that requires biological material and these samples have been cleansed of that. It can't be how the light is reflecting through the microscope because they all wouldn't be the same color at the same time.' Naraku inhaled deeply through his nose and leaned forward slowly. He readjusted the light, just to knock that possibility out of the way, but no matter how the light changed, the diatoms remained purple.
"This is unbelieveable." he laughed. He had to once he realized that there were so many diatoms that counting them was nearly impossible, let alone identifying them. They were also of several different species and shapes; some shaped like lips, others shaped like cylinders, more shaped like sticks, pears, and the list went on, and they were all piled on top of one another. He had to count and identify nearly every slide and this was his first view at the very corner of the first slide.
"They can't all look like this, otherwise this lake would be dead." Naraku turned the gears to move the slide gently, just to get a look at the rest of it. It looked even worse in the middle than the corner. Naraku removed the slide and chose a slide from the middle portion of the sediment core samples. He placed it on the microscope and focused again, only to curse when it was more of the same. He pulled that slide off and chose one from an even deeper depth. Again, more purple and too many dominant species coexisting.
"No. That's impossible. They're contaminated." Naraku pulled his phone from his pocket and calling Jade. "They have to be."
"Hey, I'm on a delivery run right now. Can this wait?" Jade asked quickly.
"No."
"Okay. Talk fast, please." she urged.
"Did you use individual pipettes when you made these slides?"
"Naraku, you made that batch earlier."
"Still, when you made your batch, you swapped out individual ones, correct?"
"Yeah. One pipette for every sample. Two hundred pipettes." she recited.
"When you rinsed them?"
"Just the water. Sediment stayed in the bottles."
"Sesshomaru must have done something." Naraku was now slowly opening and closing his fingers on his left hand. He had squeezed his fist closed so hard he opened the cut on his palm again.
"What's wrong?"
"I'll explain later." Naraku hung up and placed his phone down on the desk beside the microscope. He stared at the green case where his slides resided, absentmindedly running his thumb across his bottom lip. They had to be contaminated. There was no way that many diatoms of different species equally thrived when living on top of one another. That was against the laws of nature itself.
"Why not?" he asked dejectedly, grabbing the very last slide in the case. It was the deepest depth the core had reached. He placed the slide on the stage, focused it, and nearly slapped the microscope off the desk at what he saw.
"Why is this one normal?" he hissed, looking back into the eyepieces. There were bits of iron and there were some diatoms. Some. And they were the translucent color that diatoms were supposed to be. Naraku checked the next slide up, and the next, and when he hit the seventeenth, some diatoms were purple and others were still clear, and they weren't overcrowded, either. But the eighteenth slide was a different story. It was the same crowded, littered, purple mess like the rest of the sides. He could only pull one conclusion from it; something changed drastically in the lake's past.
'Tomorrow I will look at the original samples with all the organic material intact. The diatoms should still be purple if this isn't sabotage.' Naraku locked his new office door and decided to call it a night. If his samples were contaminated, there was no reason to waste his time staring at them. He could feel the tension of anger in his body, though. He had to force his jaw open to prevent himself from chipping his teeth.
His drive home was quiet. The only noise was from outside when he rolled his window down. The humid streak of summer had finally broken and the evening was graced with a gentle, cool breeze. Naraku figured he would fix himself a drink and sit on his patio and enjoy it. He did exactly that once he walked into his apartment. He dropped a leaf of romaine lettuce into the guinea pig's cage before walking out onto his patio. Naraku took a sip of his drink, swished it around in his mouth, and then frowned.
'I could have been a little more generous with the rum.' He didn't feel like standing back up and going back inside to fix it, though. Naraku took a bigger drink and swallowed it quickly, tilting his head back against his chair.
"I finally have some of my samples, I can finally examine them, and they're a disaster." Naraku recited softly, a bitter chuckle pouring from his lips before he poured more alcohol in. Even if Sesshomaru contaminated them, it still didn't explain the purple color of the diatoms. Naraku tried not to compare them to the gem, but they did resemble it.
'It dissolved in my blood and it was one shard. There has to be more of it.' Naraku concluded. It made no sense for there to be one tiny fragment of that substance in existence. He hadn't read all of the notes the various scientists had written out in the field, but he wasn't sure if they had found other pieces or not. When he repeated the phrase, "It dissolved in my blood," in his head over and over, the thought of his samples being perfectly fine began to sound more plausible.
Naraku drained the rest of his drink and closed his eyes. The nighttime breeze was enough to help subside the physical symptoms of his frustrations and the alcohol was working on his mental symptoms. "It dissolved in my blood," it repeated again, and again, and again.
Naraku stood from his chair quickly, striding inside and placing his empty glass on his dining table. He walked straight back to his office and flicked the light on. Sitting on his desk was the glass tube and it was now reflecting a deep, dark purple color instead of the red from his blood. Naraku tilted his head as he picked it up and held it above his head to examine it with better angles of light.
"Crystals?" Naraku murmured when he saw them encrusted at the bottom of the tube. It wasn't bubbling or steaming anymore, so the reaction had finished. He placed the tube back in its holder and opened the top right drawer of his desk, pulling out an empty glass slide. He found a clean cover and turned around to his bookcase for his mini-microscope.
Naraku placed a tiny drop of his now-purple blood and mineral solution onto the slide cover and then placed it on the slide. He slid it into the stage of his microscope and chose the highest magnification it had, focusing it carefully.
"Crystals." he stated, looking up and holding the microscope to his abdomen. The liquid was hardening into a crystalline structure, which meant the crystals at the bottom of the tube were just an advanced portion of the solution, not the remains of the gem. He assumed it would all be crystallized soon.
'It doesn't make sense, though. How can a mineral replace organic material? A mineral can only replace a mineral.' Naraku wondered. It had been many years since he had taken his last Geology class, but he knew the basics. Moss, grass, lichens, bacteria; they formed on or around rocks. Trees would grow through rocks, splitting them, or simply absorb the rocks into their trunks. Living organisms could and would break down rocks, but it did not work the other way.
Naraku barely slept that night. He woke too frequently for him to have received any REM sleep. But, he felt fine. Determined. He didn't know what he had discovered, but whatever it was, it was disobeying the laws of known science. Naraku walked to the opposite side of the Science Building to find his former Geology professor. She had worked in mineral mines, on oil rigs, and was a consultant for properties out in the middle of nowhere. She was the best professional he had instant access to. He glanced into the rooms she usually taught in, but did not see her. He checked her office and there she was, sitting at her computer, silently cursing at whatever email she just read.
"Dr. Burress," Naraku called out, knocking on the opened door. She glanced at him and shot him a sly smile.
"What do you want?" she asked in a jokingly demanding voice. Naraku stepped inside the office.
"I have questions about the relationship between organics and minerals."
"Well, you've come to the right place. Sit. Ask." she insisted, pointing at the chair in front of her desk. She turned her chair from her computer to face him, adjusting her square-rimmed glasses.
"Can a mineral replace organic material? Hypothetically?" Naraku asked. Dr. Burress closed her eyes slowly, her face slightly contorted as if she was in pain. She brought her hands to her face and shook her head slightly.
"Did you learn nothing from me?" she groaned. Naraku shifted in his chair and lightly blew a strand of his hair away from his face.
"I learned that there is almost always an exception to the rule from you."
"Almost. When you find olivine formed with quartz, you let me know, because I will eat my desk if you do."
"Do fossils not count? Petrified wood?" Naraku listed off.
"No. The organism has to die and decay. When it decays, spaces form within the body and bones. Minerals will fill those spaces overtime. If there is no space, there is no mineral growth. Organics don't care if there is space or not. They break rocks down and make their own space." Dr. Burress explained, tucking her graying brown hair behind both ears. She clasped her hands together and waited patiently for Naraku's next comment or question.
"So, there are no minerals that can attach themselves to organic material?" Naraku pressed on, his leg shaking side to side. This wasn't helping him at all!
"No. Organisms invade and overgrow. They have a mission; survive. Rocks and minerals aren't alive, Naraku." she said with a frown. "Why are you asking?"
"No reason." he lied.
"Mm, that doesn't sound like you. Have you read something?"
"No. I just wanted to be sure that it isn't possible in any circumstances."
"Well, we can't count out the aliens."
"Of course." Naraku stood up, turning to her office door.
"Is it part of your thesis research? This, "no reason," you're asking about?"
"No. I was simply curious." Naraku said, looking back at her. Her expression had hardened; her mouth a thin pink line on her aging face.
"Naraku," Dr. Burress began, slowly taking her glasses off so she could rub her eyes and forehead with her other hand. "Whatever this is you're working on, stop while you're ahead."
"I told you, Dr. Burress; I was just curious." Naraku replied shortly.
"Don't mock me. I'm not Bruce. You're a smart man, possibly the smartest I've ever met, and it's a shame you weren't given impulse control, but just stop whatever this is for yourself at least. Focus on your thesis, your future, your family, friends,"
"I have no friends." Naraku said flippantly, turning around and walking out. His phone vibrated in his pocket, so he pulled it out. It was a text from Jade asking him about what was wrong the previous night. He ignored it and continued walking.
