Blood Echoes

'It's beating stronger today.' Naraku wrote down in his notebook after timing and counting the beats. 'It hasn't changed in size or appearance.' He let out a quiet breath. Some days it would beat weakly and Naraku would wonder if that was the end and other days it was strong and healthy. It didn't seem to do anything other than exist.

'I wonder if this is how it all started. This substance was formed in a specific environment and it found its way into a living creature. From there, it spread through the food chain, replicating whatever it touched.' he wrote that thought down, too. His phone vibrated and he unlocked it quickly.

'I know they reinstated you and your funding, but they didn't tell me why. They did tell me that I was to send a bi-weekly report of your findings. Since this is your project, I'll let you tell me whatever it is you want them to know and that can be their stupid report. So, send me some bullshit to send to them by Friday.' Bruce's email read.

'They claimed that a new lead scientist was the one who pulled the plug, but they replaced him with someone nicer who decided to allow me to continue since my project will help them. I believe that as much as I believe in unicorns. I do need to ask you some hypothetical questions.' Naraku replied. The email his sponsors sent him was insultingly short and sweet. He assumed his claim about melting the shard they sent him was what convinced them to reinstate him, but they never asked him how he did it and as long as he was being funded, he would tell them whatever they wanted to hear...except how to melt it. If he could do this much with a shard, he could only imagine what they would do with a larger piece.

'Bring your hypothetical questions to the lab. I have time.'

000000

"This is so exciting! Your aunt was really nice and funny, so I can't imagine what your cousin is like!" Kagome exclaimed. She leaned forward from the back seat of Jade's car. "Not that you're not cool, Jade. That sounded bad."

"Ah, it's fine. Lucy is...tough to impress." Jade explained.

"Soooooo, she's like you?" Sango asked slyly.

"I guess? She makes an effort to not be impressed, though. I let things happen as they will."

"Oh."

"She's into the dark clothes, make-up, and constant frowning stuff." Jade continued with a laugh. "She's really good at drawing, though. I'm tempted to ask her to draw my last project for me."

"Uh, no, you're going to suffer with me." Sango argued lightly.

"She can help us both. She'll probably want weed first, though."

"Do you just give off pheromones that attract other stoners?" Sango quipped with a laugh. "I mean, Koga, Ginta, Hakkaku, Naraku, and now your cousin,"

"Both of them." Jade corrected.

"You're making my argument stronger,"

"Hey, I haven't smoked since before the coma and I shared my cannabis chocolate."

"Is that why the last stoner you attracted is Naraku? Your pheromones have weakened?"

"Yes." Jade answered with a cheeky smile. Sango tried not to smile back, but it ended up making her laugh instead. "To be fair, my grandma passed the joint first, so this isn't entirely my fault."

"What?" Kagome leaned forward again. "Your grandmother taught you how to smoke?"

"Well, yeah. She said that if I was going to do it, I should learn how to do it the right way. She taught me how to roll, how to use hookah, bubblers, and then I taught Lucy and Lily."

"How does Rosa feel about that?"

"Of all things, weed is not one of her bigger concerns. She would prefer us not to, but she knows it makes us stay home more often than not, so she doesn't have to worry. As long as we don't do it in front of or with her patrons or while driving, she lets it go."

"That's fair, I guess." Kagome said. "I've never smoked and never wanted to, but you make it seem like a ton of fun."

"It's situational. When I'm with others, it's fun. Everyone says stupid shit and laughs. But when I'm by myself, it's relaxing."

"I see."

Jade pulled up to the airport baggage claim doors and looked around, searching for someone wearing black so dark that it drank in the light around it. She already sent her cousin a text, but didn't receive a response yet. Her eyes found a petite form wearing black from her head down and she smiled, stepping out of her car. Jade cupped her hands around her mouth and inhaled deeply.

"PUUUUUUUUUUUTAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Jade sang tauntingly. Immediately, the young woman in black turned to her and flipped her off strongly with one hand while the other held her phone up to her ear. She strode over to Jade's car and rolled her eyes dramatically while mouthing the word, "Mom."

"Yeah, she's right here! Talk to her!" Lucy shouted, shoving her phone in Jade's face. "Talk to her."

"Hey Auntie, it's me." Jade said while opening her trunk for her cousin.

"Oh good! You're sure this isn't a problem?" Rosa asked.

"It's kind of too late to turn back now, but it's not a problem."

"Alright. I love you both."

"Love you, too." Jade ended the call and sat in the driver's seat, handing back her cousin's phone. Sango apparently had moved to the back seat with Kagome to allow Lucy to have the coveted passenger seat. "She said she loves you."

"Yeah, she loves me so much that she wants to disown me. Fuck off." Lucy replied with mild bitterness.

"I'm sorry." Jade sighed. "Oh, that's Kagome and that's Sango; they're my roommates. Sango, Kagome, this is Lucy."

"Hey." Lucy murmured, holding her hand up briefly to wave.

The drive back to the apartment was quiet, which unnerved Jade. Lucy was small, but she packed a detrimental punch when ticked off. She couldn't quite blame her cousin for her mood, though. Aunt Rosa meant well, but her passion often got the best of her and she would wind up saying something hurtful when angered.

"You can stay in my room." Jade said, leading her cousin down the hallway to her room. "I hope it isn't too bright for you."

"Eat me, Jade." Lucy snipped playfully. She placed her bags on Jade's bed and turned around, shrugging dramatically. "Done."

"Cool. Are you hungry or anything?"

"Not yet. I'm just- is that a cat?" her cousin asked, pointing at the tan blur that flew from under Jade's bed to behind the door.

"Yeah, she's Sango's. Her name is Kirara."

"Aw, hi kitty," Lucy cooed as she made kissing noises. Kirara hesitated, but she decided to greet the dark guest anyway. The cat purred as Lucy's fingers combed through her fur. "She's the nicest cat I've ever met." Jade walked back into the living room, trying to think of something to do.

"Hey Jade, quick question," Kagome announced, raising her hand. She was seated on the longer couch with her chemistry homework in her lap.

"I have one for you; what are you doing? We're on break." Jade retorted.

"If I finish it now, I won't have to worry about it."

"Fair. Okay, what's your question?"

"So, I solved for both volumes, but I'm still missing a temperature. Is this a mistake?"

"No, Naraku's a dick. Use Charles' Law."

"This is the third equation I've had to use for this one problem!" Kagome groaned as she threw her head back with annoyance. "Is this what the final is going to be like?"

"Probably worse."

"Can you possibly...persuade him to be a bit nicer?"

"That would make it worse."

"Who're you talking about?" Lucy interjected, plopping down on the other end of the couch from Kagome with Kirara cradled in her arms.

"The guy I work with in the lab." Jade sighed.

"Oh." Lucy let the subject go as she was far more interested in Kirara. Jade sat on the arm of the smaller couch and fell backwards, yawning deeply.

"Alright, girls," Sango announced, walking into the living room. She was wearing her scrubs and fumbling with her purse. "I shall return later."

"Should we rent some movies or something?" Kagome asked curiously.

"Whatever you guys want." Jade said.

"I don't care." Lucy added.

"Oh boy. Don't get too excited there." Kagome's sarcasm made Sango snicker.

"I just finished a bunch of lab work for Sesshomaru and Naraku and I worked a double shift. I'm tired." Jade complained evenly with her eyes closed.

"I just got off a plane." Lucy stated in a similar tone. It was Jade's turn to flip her off and it actually made her dark cousin snort.

"Maybe today should just be a nap day, then?" Sango suggested, bidding everyone goodbye.

"Yeah, Luce, the sun is still up." Jade snipped dryly.

"Just because I look like a vampire, it doesn't mean I am one."

"Sounds like your last feeding was high in sodium."

"Ha, it sounds like someone else was exposed to a lot of sodium, too. Did your lab boyfriend shower you with it?" Lucy shot back with a grin.

"Maybe." Jade said flatly.

"Uh," Kagome paused, unsure of what to say. Suddenly, the cousins began laughing softly and pointing at one another tauntingly.

"I miss having you around, Jade." Lucy finally said with a heavy exhale. "Mom has been more high-strung than ever and after your whole coma thing, she got worse. I swear she's losing it."

"I just nodded and said okay. It's hard to get angry when someone validates you."

"I don't negotiate with terrorists."

"I didn't negotiate; I negated." Jade said, holding up a finger.

"Hm. I guess I can give it a shot. I feel like she wasn't that hard on you. Like, you're going to school, you have a job, you have an online following, and she wants me to follow you and be like you."

"Fair enough." Jade said. "I don't know why she's doing that."

"Come on, Jade. You know why." her cousin insisted impatiently.

"I don't think that's why."

"It's exactly why. You know how she gets when your mom gets brought up. First she's sad because her sister left, then she's mad because her sister left a baby, then she's jealous that her drug-addict sister's kid is more successful than her kids,"

"Luce,"

"You know what she did after your whole coma thing?" Lucy interrupted, raising her voice slightly.

"Uh," Jade wracked her brain. "Took you guys to a doctor? I don't know."

"Well, that, and she contacted a private investigator to find your mom." Lucy said bluntly.

"Cool." Jade finally sat up and looked at her cousin tiredly. "When was anyone going to tell me?"

"She kept it from us. We only just found out a few days ago through some papers she left on the table. Mama told me to tell you face-to-face."

"Okay."

"You're not mad?"

"Why would I be? I don't know her. I wish Auntie wouldn't do those things, though."

"I told you, she's unstable. Lots of baggage."

"I guess I should call her and ask her what's up with that." Jade scratched her head. "I mean, you seem pretty convinced that this has made her worse, so maybe if I talk to her about it, she'll calm down."

"I doubt it, but it's worth a try." Lucy shrugged.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to sit through all of that." Kagome finally said in a small voice. Jade looked over at her and saw her wide eyes and the uncomfortable wringing of her hands.

"It's fine. Nothing serious." Jade told her. "Auntie gets really stressed around the holidays. She means well, but she doesn't handle things like she should."

"Has she tried to find your mom before?" Kagome asked.

"Once that I know of. I was about ten. It led to a dead end."

"Oh. Well, I'm sorry to both of you. I kind of...my dad died and my mom and grandpa raised my brother and me. My mom got stressed out a lot. Having a hole in the family is never easy." Kagome said as she looked down at her lap.

"Yeah, it sucks." Lucy agreed.

"Well said." Jade laughed. Kagome smiled with them, but she couldn't help but hear a hollowness in Jade's laughter.

000000

"I inject peroxide in the bottles to dissolve the biological material and then when they stop bubbling, I suck out the peroxide and then inject distilled water to make its as clean as possible." Jade explained, pointing to each chemical and tool.

"Why?" Lucy quizzed with her arms crossed.

"It's easier to see whatever they're looking for under the microscope."

"So you don't use the microscope?"

"I have a few times. I found water bears once."

"What are those?"

"Ah!" Jade gasped, suddenly beaming with excitement. "Water bears are the best! Let's go find some!"

"Okay?"

After grabbing a petri dish and a plastic knife, Jade led Lucy outside to search for a nearby water source. She remembered the library being the closest one, so she walked in that direction. Lucy followed her with less gusto, texting on her phone.

"This is where I found some last time," Jade grunted as she knelt down.

"Oh hey, look at what Mama sent me," Lucy said, holding her phone out to Jade. Jade took it and stared for a moment, unsure of what she was looking at. "It's Nate's sheep. They got into the dogs' pen."

"How do they keep doing that?" Jade asked, now seeing the black specks as eyes. Their coats helped them blend in with the snow and hay.

"We still haven't figured that out."

"I'll set up a camera when I come home for winter break and see if I can catch them doing it."

"Cool." Lucy took her phone back from Jade and placed it in her pocket. Jade leaned over, looking for something to scrape. She spotted a small patch of moss near the edge of the water and dipped the dish and knife in.

"Ah!" her eyes saw the gray rock right as it landed in the water, splashing a small wave of nearly-freezing water up on Jade's face and chest as she gasped with surprise. His wicked laughter filled the air and before Jade could say anything, Lucy plucked a rock from the ground, stood, and launched it. Naraku barely dodged it, leaning away as it flew past his head. He blinked and looked back at Lucy with an arched eyebrow. She was armed with another rock and threw it with impressive speed, but Naraku was ready this time and caught it with his right hand.

"You're a feisty one." Naraku stated, sauntering towards the two young women. Jade was standing now, wiping the water from her face with her sleeve. "You have quite the arm."

"You're about to find out just how good it is, fucker!" Lucy growled, pulling a butterfly knife from her black coat pocket. She flipped it nimbly in her fingers, separating the handles and exposing the blade. Naraku stopped his approach, but his smirk was now a wide grin.

"Aaah! Lucy, what the fuck?" Jade hissed, grabbing her cousin's arm and pulling it down as she glanced around worriedly. "You can't have those on campus!"

"I'll just stick it in his balls and say it was his." Lucy retorted, pointing the blade at the tall man again.

"You didn't tell me you had a sister, Jade." Naraku pointed out before crossing his arms. He kept the rock in his hand, though.

"Technically cousin, but she's like my sister,"

"I'm about to be your worst fucking nightmare, asshole." Lucy bit impatiently.

"Stop!" Jade insisted, grabbing her cousin's arm again.

"Heh, I like her." Naraku chuckled. He began walking forward and Lucy gave Jade an annoyed expression before cursing under her breath, flicking the knife's double handles around to conceal the blade before stuffing it back into her pocket. Naraku made note of the fact that her hand also remained in her pocket. "What are you doing, Jade?"

"Looking for water bears." Jade said with a slight grimace.

"Ah." Naraku tossed away the rock he was holding. "Well, do be careful around the water. Hypothermia is no fun."

"I'm getting your name and address and I'll be seeing you again with my homies." Lucy said bitterly.

"Homies?" Naraku arched an eyebrow again.

"He's cool, Luce. And trust me, your homies can't fight if he sprays them with acid." Jade joked, but they must have had some mental connection, because her cousin seemed to take it seriously. She didn't back down, however. When Jade knelt down to scrape more moss, Lucy stood guard with both hands in her pockets, staring Naraku down soullessly without even blinking.

'I remember Bruce mentioning her aunt being aggressive, but it appears her cousin has learned well.' Naraku thought, staring back at Lucy and trying his hardest not to smile or snicker. He saw no relation between the two women whatsoever. Where Jade was taller with a straighter body type, Lucy was shorter, bustier, and curvier. Her skin was brown where Jade's was a much lighter olive tone. Her hair was black, cut to a short bob with a blue streak hanging around her face. She had two lip rings, a nose ring, and seven piercings in both ears. Her brown eyes had nothing on Jade's green ones, though.

"Alright, done." Jade announced as she began walking back to the science building. She stopped when she noticed the other two hadn't followed. "Really, guys?"

"I'm not letting him walk behind me!" her cousin snapped.

"You're the one carrying a knife, so why should I allow you to walk behind me?" Naraku said plainly. He was clearly enjoying the situation.

"Jade, tell him that his mom is a two-bit whore who had a worthless son!"

"Hahaha, you're adorable." Naraku cooed tauntingly.

"You, in front of me," Jade said to Naraku. "She'll be behind me. Since we're all seven years old now, we can be a choo-choo train of happy murder!"

"I'll run a train all over his business."

"Don't threaten me with a good time."

Jade tried her hardest to ignore the tension between her cousin and her mentor by focusing on finding her beloved water bears under the lab's high-powered microscope. Naraku was taking care of his thesis samples, holding every individual vial up at eye level to inspect them and check for reaction bubbles. Lucy sat on the other side of Jade, her arms crossed and her irritated stare keeping a close watch on Naraku.

"Oh, aw, false alarm," Jade sighed.

"How do you work with this guy?" Lucy asked her in Spanish, keeping her voice low.

"I don't give him the reactions he wants." Jade replied in Spanish.

"He's annoying."

"Yeah,"

"He's disrespectful."

"Yeah,"

"Awww," Lucy groaned with disgust. "You like him?"

"He has his moments. Before I fell into a coma, I went crazy. I was attacking people."

"What?" Lucy's expression and tone changed entirely.

"Yeah. I even totaled his car. Right as I was about to jump off the building, he saved me."

"Really?"

"Mhm. He has taught me a lot, too."

"Oh." Lucy pouted again. "Well still, fuck him."

"Hey, don't act like you're not friends with sketchy troublemakers, either." Jade scolded her cousin while keeping her attention focused on the microscope. She heard her cousin exhale defeatedly.

"I'm assuming you're talking about me." Naraku announced.

"Just about how hot you are and stuff." Jade replied dryly.

"I doubt your cousin thinks that."

"You're super hot, man. How do you keep the ladies off of you?" Lucy added sarcastically.

"My personality." Naraku said, glancing at Jade when she began giggling in agreement. "I want you to finish my other core before the break ends, Jade."

"I was going to do that after this."

"Say please, asshole." Lucy demanded coldly. Naraku inhaled through his nose deeply as he slowly approached Jade. He plucked his blue latex gloves off and removed his safety glasses from his face.

"Finish my core before the break ends or else I will steal your remaining assignments of the semester." Naraku then smiled sweetly. "Please."

"Let me stab him." Lucy pleaded in Spanish.

"He is going to one-up you every time." Jade told her calmly. She then turned back to Naraku and looked up at him. "I'll finish it today."

"Good girl." Naraku patted Jade on her head before turning around. She felt the force of her cousin leaping out of her seat. Jade latched onto Lucy's arms and pulled her back. Naraku turned and smirked.

"Let go!" Lucy spat.

"I agree. Let her go." Naraku teased.

"Luce, sit!" Jade shouted. "He's instigating you!"

"Fine." she relented and Jade let go. Her combative cousin lunged forward and swiped Naraku's black notebook from the table. His expression darkened as he tossed his safety glasses onto the table, striding towards her quickly.

"I am now tired of your games." Naraku stated icily. He watched as her hand left her pocket and flicked open a lighter. The orange flame danced at the corner of his notebook; his entire life was at her mercy.

"I'm not playing." Lucy growled angrily. "Apologize to my cousin! Nicely!"

"Lucy-" Jade began.

"I don't hear any remorse!"

"Jade," Naraku called out. She looked at him with shock. "I'm sorry for speaking to you like that."

"What about the water?"

"I'm sorry for splashing you."

"Now, kindly ask her to finish your core,"

"Would you finish my core before the end of break?" Naraku sighed with annoyance. "Please?"

"I accept your apologies and I will finish it!" Jade said quickly as she stood up. "Okay, he did it. Now give it back."

"Whatever." Lucy flicked the lighter shut and frisbee'd the notebook towards Naraku, who caught it single-handedly. Before he could say or do anything, Jade grabbed Lucy's hand and pulled her out into the hallway. Once they were a short distance away from the lab, Jade turned back to her cousin.

"What were you thinking?" Jade hissed in Spanish.

"He shouldn't be treating you like that and you shouldn't let him! If he's doing it just to annoy me and you're letting him, what am I supposed to think then?" Lucy snapped back as she pointed at Jade furiously.

"I can't stop him."

"Then you tell him, "Fuck your core!""

"It's my job! It's what he pays me to do!"

"Then quit! You won fifteen thousand dollars! You can do it again! What the fuck do you need him for?"

"That money isn't going to last much longer due to loans and bills, Lucy! What if I get sick again? What if I need a new car? And I can't take off whenever to go play in tournaments! I got lucky!"

"You can't-"

"Luce, I love you, and I know you have my back, but you can't do things like that. If I'm not working for an asshole now, I'm going to work for an asshole later. Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and hold out until you can find something else. This is me holding out." Jade explained, placing her hands on her cousin's shoulders. "You can't do things like that if you're wanting a job, okay? Schools won't accept that, either. Auntie is definitely not going to react the way you want her to if you act like this."

"I know, but you can't be a complete doormat, either."

"I'm not. Just because I don't fight back or yell, that doesn't mean I'm a doormat. I've tagged him back plenty of times in my own way."

"Fine." Lucy crossed her arms. "I'm not apologizing to him."

"That's fine."

When they walked back into the lab, Jade saw Naraku laying out foil on the table. His sediment core, which was held in a plastic tube, was standing against the counter behind him.

"I said I would do it." Jade walked towards him.

"I have time to kill; go back to your water bears." he told her.

"Please let this go." she whispered to him. He locked gazes with her and said nothing. Jade held her hands up and turned around.

Within a few minutes, Jade figured out why Naraku decided to cut the core himself; the smell from the decomposing biological material was atrocious. He was used to it, Jade wasn't as affected by it as she used to be, but Lucy had her nose and mouth covered and she was glaring at Jade, then at Naraku, and then back at Jade.

"How do you deal with it?" her voice was muffled.

"You get used to it." Jade answered. She smiled when she saw the familiar wiggling and eight chubby legs. "Found one!"

"It looks like a caterpillar," Lucy said as she leaned closer to the monitor to get a better look.

"Mhm. They can survive in almost any environment, including space."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Some think that they are from space because they can survive in such extreme conditions. Why develop the ability if they've never been there?"

"That's actually pretty cool."

"Their lifespan is only about a year, though."

"Can I...do the thing?" Lucy asked, pointing at the scope.

"Yeah!" Jade let her cousin take her chair to begin her own search for microscopic life. She pulled on gloves and walked over to Naraku. "Will you let me help?"

"I'm alternating knives, so you can clean them between uses." Naraku agreed. He lined up the blade with the meter stick and sliced through the jelly-like core. He scooped the half-centimeter section he cut into a labeled plastic bag and traded knives with Jade, who began cleaning the used blade.

"Is it me or does this have a purple reflection to it?" Jade asked, pointing at the remaining core. It was slight, but whenever she moved, the brown color seemed to have a purple iridescence shimmering across its surface.

"I noticed it, too." Naraku replied, saying nothing more. Jade rolled her eyes.

'You are such a baby sometimes. It's unreal.' she dried the knife off and traded with Naraku again.

"I found another one." Lucy called out. Jade quickly walked over to her cousin and nodded. "That one's bigger, too."

"I found a worm, too."

"If you click that icon, it will let you screencap." Jade pointed to the corner of the screen.

"Sweet. I can send these to Mom so she knows I'm learning."

Jade walked back to Naraku, who held his hand out for the knife Jade held. "What are you doing Thursday?" she asked him quickly.

"Working."

"All day?"

"That is the plan since I'm behind schedule thanks to my sponsors' ridiculous actions." Naraku stared at her. "Why?"

"I was going to invite you to my place for some food and Dank Souls. Sango and Kagome are going to their boyfriends' things, Lucy is stuck with me, and-"

"What time?"

"Uh," Jade paused. She didn't expect him to give in so easily, especially with his current foul mood. "Is three okay?"

"Three is fine. I will bring the weed."

"What?"

"You said you're having food and Dank Souls. What is Dank Souls if you don't have something dank?"

"You have weed?" Lucy asked eagerly.

"Knife," Naraku demanded. Jade quickly cleaned it off and handed it to him.

"Okay. I'm sold."

"He has weed?" Lucy repeated loudly.

000000

The door clicked shut as Naraku slid his coat off and hung it on a hook. Jade insisted he stay the night after their Thanksgiving weed binge, but he was feeling restless and motivated. It was difficult enough sitting with her when ideas were being born and refined in his head, but he did as she asked, and now he was doing what he wanted.

The crystal heart was beating faster than it was earlier in the day, so Naraku counted and timed them and recorded them in his notebook. He leaned towards the case and saw pieces of crystals that fell from the main cluster to the bottom of the case. They were pointed and slender, just like the shard he started with.

'I would open it, but the cluster has grown over the door I made. If these are as strong as the original shard, I probably don't have the strength to break them.' Naraku tried anyway, but as soon as he applied pressure on the door, he felt just how unyielding the material was. He would have to break through the bottom half of the case and he wasn't certain if he wanted to yet. 'I assume there is more of this out there, but is there another heart? If my lake cores are accurate, then the lake was contaminated with this about five-hundred years ago. If I could do this within six months, then what would five-hundred years look like?'

"I need seismic or radar data." he said under his breath as he opened his laptop. Japan was a volcanically active chain of islands and it sat on the boundary between two oceanic and two continental tectonic plates; there had to be plenty of data sitting around.

'If this attached to biological material, that material would likely sink to the bottom of the lake. The bottom of the lake should be full of these shards, which might be recorded with the equipment.'

While waiting for some of the papers' PDFs to download, Naraku began performing push-ups. If his body couldn't handle a full work-out, then he was going to do small bursts of simple ones until he regained his stamina. His body didn't look weaker, his weight and measurements hadn't changed, but something else was draining him.

'I need to take the possibility of my sponsors feeding me lines of bullshit into consideration. I've confirmed the obvious characteristics of the lake; there's no reason to lie to me about those because I can easily calculate them myself. However, the data from my first core doesn't match up with theirs. The difference margins aren't wide, but they are there and it has happened with nearly everything I've tested. Their results tell of an extreme, but still habitable, lake. My results fall below habitable.' Naraku flipped onto his back and began a set of sit-ups. 'Their sulfur measurements make the least amount of sense when compared to my data, so I should test the sulfur levels myself because it's probably much higher than what they've told the world.'

Naraku started with the oldest paper. It was almost as old as he was and the research was conducted by American scientists, which pleased Naraku. They were less likely to have made-up their data. They were measuring the swelling of the ground within their marked area in hopes of being able to possibly predict an eruption. The measured area included his lake and the study was conducted over the course of two years.

"Hm," Naraku suspected he wasn't going to find anything useful. Plenty of data, but nothing he could single out. He skimmed through the methods and saw they had created a different graph for a separate set of data. They recorded tremors, too, but admitted that many of the tremors didn't correspond with the swelling, which didn't help their mission.

'That's odd,' he noticed. 'The lower values are nearly consistent with each other.' The paper went on to discuss those particular values, pointing out that the equipment could have been sitting on unstable surfaces or these tremors could have been due to plate boundaries located in the North. Japan was very active and unstable, so the measurements could have been anything. Naraku felt there was more to the story.

The website he found the papers on listed the current emails of the researchers on all of the papers, as well as links to their other works. He took a moment to think his actions through.

'Obviously, I cannot come right out about what I'm doing and there's a chance he may not know or remember anything else. However, I'm not losing anything by asking him questions.' It was worth the effort. As long as he worded his email carefully, he wouldn't give away anything.

Reading the remaining papers kept Naraku awake until late in the morning the following day. He did gather a few more points of data that seemed to align more with his than his sponsors', which all but confirmed that they were lying to him. They knew more than they let on, but he was still certain that he knew a little more than they did.

'What exactly are they hiding? No one acts like that unless they have something egregious to cover up.' he gently rubbed his tired eyes. 'Perhaps it's time I return to Japan and investigate it myself.'

The crystal heart began beating quickly and Naraku stared at it. He wished he knew why it would randomly change pace. The beating was now frantic and the rhythm was off-kilter. Naraku started the timer on his phone, counting the beats while tapping his finger on his desk to match the rhythm. He wrote down the count when the timer reached a minute. A sharp, cracking noise shattered the silence of his office and the air thickened, almost like the summer humidity had returned with a vengeance.

"What...the fuck?" Naraku's body felt heavier, too, as if weighed down by some invisible force. He could still move and breathe, but it required more effort to do those things.

Suddenly, the heart returned to its default rhythm and the eerie weight was lifted immediately.

"Jade? Jade!" a concerned voice shrieked. "What's wrong? What're you looking at? Jade!

Naraku leapt out of his chair and looked down from his window. He felt his heart stutter before pounding against his chest almost as fast as the crystal heart moments before. Jade was standing on the sidewalk directly below his window! She was staring straight up with her head craned back at an awkward angle. Lucy was shaking her cousin by the shoulders, but Jade didn't budge or blink. Naraku backed away from the window with his hand clutching his shirt. He stumbled over his chair and caught himself, leaning against his desk.

"Wh-What the fuck?" he stammered, trying to control his breathing so he could think clearly.

"Someone help! Jade, please stop!" Lucy cried.

"No one is here," Naraku ran to his door, grabbing his coat where his keys and wallet resided. It was the day after a holiday; campus was dead. Naraku leapt down the staircases, skipping several steps and hoping that his body wouldn't betray him. When he burst from the doors to the outside, Lucy jumped, but she immediately exhaled.

"Oh my God, I never thought I'd be happy to see you!" Lucy exclaimed breathlessly.

"What happened?" Naraku asked her.

"I-I don't know! She was finishing something up in the lab and just randomly ran out! So I followed her, thinking sh-she heard something, and I found her like this!"

'Jade, what have I done to you?' Naraku now stood in front of her, but she didn't react. He checked her pulse and found it to be relatively normal. Her breathing was slow and deep, as if she was asleep.

"You don't think chemicals did this to her, do you?" Lucy asked worriedly.

"No. Also, don't pull a knife on me; I'm checking her reflexes." he answered, pulling Jade's right arm up. "Hold her arm." he ordered. Lucy held it at the angle he held it at. He grasped her arm at the elbow, pressing his thumb into the bend. He then flicked his thumb. Jade's arm jerked quickly and tensely. He frowned and did it again; the same result. The fact that it was reacting was fine; it was how fast and strongly it was reacting that intrigued him.

"What? Is that bad?"

"Not necessarily; more so strange."

"No shit? None of this is normal!"

Naraku cast her an impatient glare, but he bent down slightly, pulling Jade's arm over his shoulder and scooping her body and legs into his arms. Lucy followed him into the science building, cursing and crying. Naraku placed Jade on the couch and then strode over to the sink, grabbing a beaker and filling it with cold water.

"Is that going to work?" Lucy pointed at the beaker.

"I don't know. Let's find out." Naraku slowly poured it onto Jade's face. Immediately, her eyes blinked and her entire body cringed and coiled up in reaction. Her arms tried to wipe the water from her face, but they dropped with the rest of her body, seemingly exhausted.

"What the fuck, Naraku?" Jade groaned.

"Jade!" her cousin screamed, leaning down and hugging her tightly. Just by looking at her face, Naraku could tell she had no idea what just happened. Though, he wasn't too sure either, and he was conscious for all of it.

"Did I pass out? The fumes weren't that bad."

"Dude, you fuckin'...you went zombie on me!"

"What?"

"You ran out and then stared up at the sky and you wouldn't look at me or talk, and Naraku kept fucking with your arm, and-"

"I heard her screaming, so I investigated." Naraku interrupted calmly. "I checked your vitals and reflexes; that is all."

"Well, you carried her in here and poured water on her face,"

"Indeed." he agreed, refraining from rolling his eyes.

"You were here?" Jade asked him while rubbing her head.

"I was in my office."

"All night?"

"Quit deflecting." he scolded her. "How are you feeling? Nauseous, tired,"

"Like I just woke up," she shrugged. "I feel fine."

Naraku glanced back at the table and saw his samples that she had been rinsing and her keys. He swiped her keys and held them out to Lucy. "Can you drive?"

"Y-Yeah,"

"Take her home."

"Naraku, I'm fine. This is probably-"

"If you don't go home with your cousin willingly, then I will take you to the hospital forcibly; your choice." Naraku crossed his arms and inhaled. "I should just take you anyway. It has been a while since you've told me to go fuck myself."

"I'll go home." Jade relented. "And you can go fuck yourself anyway."

Naraku turned to Lucy. "When you get her home, make sure she stays there."

"Fuck you." Lucy bit.

"I'm glad we settled this civilly." he said with a grin, turning around to finish rinsing his samples.

"You can't even be nice when you're being nice." Lucy complained.

"He doesn't know how to communicate his feelings." Jade told her, standing up slowly. Lucy reached out to hold and steady her.

"I'm about to communicate my feelings of impatience if you don't stop talking about me as if I'm not here."

When the two women closed the lab door behind themselves, Naraku let out a breath that he hadn't realized he was holding. His pulse quickened and so did his breathing. Naraku bent over the table to rest his head on his folded arms. Starting from the beginning, he walked himself through what happened.

'That feeling...the air thickening and weighing me down...was it...communicating with the portion of itself residing in her bloodstream? I'm no longer going to ask myself if it's possible, because it clearly is. What else could it have been?' Naraku straightened his posture. 'I swallowed a drop, so why isn't it affecting me?'

An hour later, Naraku finally finished rinsing his samples and began writing down a new project plan. He was going to have to check sulfur and oxygen levels since he suspected his sponsors were lying. Jade was going to have to stay away from his office and the lab, but how was he going to pull that off? She rarely visited his office, but the lab was where she spent most of her time on campus. With a begrudging exhale, Naraku accepted the fact that he couldn't stop her without telling her why.

'Is what I'm doing more important than her?' he asked himself. The logical part of his mind gave a resounding, "Yes!" Of course this was more important than one woman. She was smart, resourceful, reliable, and kind to a fault, but she was one person. She didn't outweigh the other lives Naraku could save with his research. On the other hand, he didn't truly care about saving those people; he wanted the credit, the authority, and nothing more. That one woman meant more to him than the billions of other people on the planet. Unlike them, she knew his worth without needing an extravagant project to prove it. 'Not even Kikyou wanted me to pursue this life. She wanted me to settle, to be content with her and whatever life we made together - I don't settle. That isn't me.' He had his answer.

"I must push forward with this. If the universe is kind, she will be fine."