A/N: Ahem, I'll give you guys that it was an evil cliffhanger, but you only
had to wait a week for the last update, which was the same length as all my
other updates.
Thanks for the reviews. See, I didn't leave you hanging too long, did I?
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.
Synthetic Emotions
He saw Kikyo. Kikyo, who had been dead for more than fifty years. Hadn't she? And even if she hadn't, she'd be in her mid-seventies if she were still alive. He couldn't deny that he saw Kikyo, though. Her face hardened as it had been toward the end, her eyes watching him without the luster they'd once possessed. It was a sight that tore at his heart.
But he didn't smell Kikyo. He smelled polymers, oil, silicon and the chemicals that went into making a youkai. He smelled electricity, and the faint, burning scent of friction.
"Kikyo?" he repeated uncertainly.
Kagome's shoulder tightened as she flinched, drawing Inuyasha's attention momentarily to the girl leaning against the doorframe. Her face was scrunched up, and her cheeks, which had been blushing not long ago, were now pale. He felt her begin to tremble.
"What'd you do to her?" he demanded, turned back toward the stony image of Kikyo.
"Inuyasha. . ." Kikyo said softly. "Is that what you care about?"
"Kikyo, I--" he cut off when he met her hard gaze. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking," the Replica replied with a vague gesture which may have included Inuyasha and Kagome, or the room, or the whole goddamned world. "This was mine once, you know. But it's all changed now."
"What's the matter with you, Kikyo?" the hanyou asked with a spark of impatience. "I don't understand you."
She sighed, and for the first time since Inuyasha had seen her, the revenant actually was Kikyo for just a slit second. He knew that sigh so well, had heard it so many times when the world was too much for her to bear. Hearing it again hurt now, just as it always had. "You never did," she said. "You never did."
"What's going on?"
"Don't you know?" She asked, and the sad sort of half-life that had filled her faded away. Her dark, tarnished eyes met his briefly, before they began moving over him in long sweeps he could almost feel on his skin. The sensation made him uneasy. Finally, her study lingered on his hand.
Inuyasha looked down. The numbers. He had forgotten them entirely.
Kikyo cocked her head to one side, then smiled. It was not a smile the hanyou recognized, not the resigned contentment that had usually characterized her smiles. Instead, it was an emotionless expression, like the smile painted on the face of a porcelain doll. With slow, measured strides, Kikyo crossed the space between them and plucked the piece of paper out of his hand.
"This," she murmured, no longer paying attention to Inuyasha at all. "Is he still after this?" The humorless smile flexed, growing wider for a moment, as Kikyo shook with nearly inaudible laughter. Shaking her head, she tossed the scrap of paper carelessly over her shoulder.
"Until next time, Inuyasha, remember me." She said, and stepped around him. Inuyasha watch her go, more confused than he could ever remember being.
'Remember me?' he wondered dazedly as he watched her leave. 'What the hell does she mean by that?'
". . . Inuyasha. . ." Kagome whispered, just before her knees gave out. He barely caught her before she hit the floor.
*~*~*
Kagome felt as though a hundred thousand pins had pricked each pore, drawing blood out of her body instead of sweat. Her ears were full of nonsense, nothing but white sound, like cotton and static. Her vision dissolved--it looked like the pixels of on a computer screen, but they were pulling apart. The edges of her sight turned red, then white, drawing in. She blinked, but nothing changed. All the strength deserted her legs, and the world suddenly canted at an odd angle at the same moment the ground fell away from her feet.
Vaguely she was aware of a pair of strong hands stopping her own descent, then everything went black. . .
The fist thing that came back to her was the feel of something blissfully cool pressed across her forehead and temples. Next was the sensation of someone smoothing her hair gently. Someone, probably the same person who owned the fingers that stroked her hair, was talking to her, but she couldn't piece out what the words meant.
Finally consciousness returned to her. She opened her eyes, and found herself lying on the couch with Shippo's green eyes fixed on her from one side, and Inuyasha's amber on the other.
"Are you alright, Kagome?" the little fox youkai questioned her earnestly.
"What happened?" the girl asked, pressing her hand to her aching head and finding a cool washcloth.
"You passed out," Inuyasha said. "You okay now?"
"I think so," Kagome replied, carefully sitting up.
He looked at her skeptically, disbelief clear in face. Then he nodded. "What happened before I got back?"
Kagome shook her head. "Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"I got home, and the door was unlocked. She was inside," she explained. "That's it."
"You shouldn't have gone inside if the door was unlocked," the hanyou scolded her, frowning. "You should know better than that. Anyone could be in there."
'Anyone was in there,' the girl thought sullenly. Aloud, she said, "I don't need a lecture Inuyasha. I know it was stupid."
"Why'd you do it if you knew it was stupid? How am I supposed to protect you if you make it so difficult?"
"If you had been there like you should have been, it wouldn't be a problem!" Kagome snapped in a flash of frustration. She regretted the words almost as soon as they were out of her mouth.
Inuyasha recoiled as though from a physical blow. He was a study in shocked guilt, eyes blinking dumbly, ears dropping. Then he grunted his usual "Keh," and turned away from her, folding his arms across his chest.
"Inuyasha," she began, but he just shook her attempt off.
"No, you're right," he said, voice bitter and rough. "I should have been there."
"I didn't mean it," Kagome protested. "I just--" He wasn't listening to her though. She could see it in the stubborn slump of his shoulders, the tight profile of his clenched jaw.
It was a long moment before the phone rang, shattering the tension. She stood up and walked over to the phone, trying to disguise the wobble in her legs.
"Kagome! You're finally home. Where in all the gods' names have you been?" Miroku shouted as soon as she answered.
"Hello to you too," Kagome said. "I was at my mom's house. Why?"
"Kagome, how soon can you be here?" the young man asked, ignoring her question outright.
"Pretty quick, I suppose," she told him. "Miroku, what's this about?"
"I think I know what he wants."
"Naraku?"
"Yes."
Kagome bit her lip, casting a glance at Inuyasha's sulking form. He could get them their in only a few minutes, but she wasn't sure she wanted to ask him to. 'So moody,' she grumbled internally. This was important, though.
"Sango's already here," Miroku said, interrupting her thoughts.
The girl pushed down her concern for the hanyou. She'd tried to apologize. If he couldn't accept them, that was his problem. She nodded firmly.
"We'll be there as quickly as we can."
*~*~*
Naraku's mind was spread throughout his network of youkai when he felt something disturb the chamber where his puppet body rested. Drawing his attention in from the youkai he controlled throughout Japan, and scanned the dark room for the cause of the distraction. What he found appeared to be a little girl, her skin and hair as devoid of pigment as an albino's, but her eyes were an ambiguous shade of dark.
"Kanna," he acknowledged her. Unlike his other youkai, he could not upload information directly from Kanna via their link. While he was able to give her directions and data, even to him the childlike youkai's mind was a perfect blank.
"Someone has been trying to access the Inutaiyoukai files," Kanna told him in a breathy deadpan. "The same person has been searching for information on you, and the Kazaana Corporation."
"Who?" Naraku asked, smiling with a deep pride. Kanna herself was nearly useless, until he had found a purpose for her.
"Iijima Miroku," she answered him in the same inflectionless tones. She didn't move any more than was necessary to speak. She didn't even blink.
"Iijima Miroku?" he asked, trying to remember if he had ever encountered a person by either of those names before. Nothing came to him. "Bring up his records."
Wordlessly, Kanna obliged, holding her mirror up for him to see. The glassy surface wavered and Naraku's reflection was replaced by names, dates, and numbers. There was an address, a phone number, personal idenification, schools, driver's license, small business license. Naraku's skimmed it, watching for some clue as to why this person would be snooping around sensitive subjects. Adoption records and change of name notification.
"Stop," the youkai commanded, and immediately the screens stopped scrolling. "Open these," he commanded, and pointed to each of the files with one clawed finger.
"Yes," she replied. "Houshi Miroku, adopted by his godfather, Iijima Mushin at six years of age. Father: deceased. Mother: whereabouts unknown, presumed deceased. Age:. . ."
"That's enough," Naraku cut her off. Rubbing his chin in an unconscious habit, he mused, "Houshi. . . I thought I had done with them. Hm. Perhaps Kagura should pay him a visit. That line always did have a weakness for pretty women." He sneered at the thought that the last Houshi might find Kagura attractive, though even he could not deny her aesthetic appeal. "I shall have to think about this."
"Yes, Naraku," Kanna intoned, lowering her mirror and allowing the screen to return to its reflective quiescent state. She turned away then, and returned to her haunts.
Kagura was certainly capable of handling Houshi Miroku, but he had other tasks for her. Perhaps there was some other youkai more suited to his needs. Though her appearance could be used to lure the man out, assuming he shared his family's vice, her powers were far more than would be needed for this task, and may well draw public attention he was not yet ready for. Kagura tended to be somewhat overzealous in using her powers, for all that she despised serving Naraku.
He wondered if she thought of him when she killed.
"Naraku," a chilly feminine voice interrupted his thoughts. Looking up, he found Kikyo watching him with a triumphant expression on her normally stoic face. "I remember what you wanted now. I remember."
"Remembering will do you no good," he said, meeting her eyes. "There is nothing you can do about it."
Kikyo maintained her undefeated air. "You think so? But how much do you think I remember?"
"It doesn't matter. Nothing you can do can interfere with my plans. I would not allow it. Now leave me, woman, you still have a job to do." The last was a command, both spoken and delivered along the connection he had created between them.
"Oh yes, and I mean to do it too," she told him, tilting her head at an angle of mock-humility, "Onigumo."
*~*~*
A/N: Alright, I worked hard to get you guys an update this weekend, because my 21st birthday is this Tuesday, and I'm not sure how much time I'll have during the week, since I'll have work, birthday stuff, and a couple of friends hell-bent on getting me plastered. I hope you all enjoyed this one.
Until next time.
Thanks for the reviews. See, I didn't leave you hanging too long, did I?
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.
Synthetic Emotions
He saw Kikyo. Kikyo, who had been dead for more than fifty years. Hadn't she? And even if she hadn't, she'd be in her mid-seventies if she were still alive. He couldn't deny that he saw Kikyo, though. Her face hardened as it had been toward the end, her eyes watching him without the luster they'd once possessed. It was a sight that tore at his heart.
But he didn't smell Kikyo. He smelled polymers, oil, silicon and the chemicals that went into making a youkai. He smelled electricity, and the faint, burning scent of friction.
"Kikyo?" he repeated uncertainly.
Kagome's shoulder tightened as she flinched, drawing Inuyasha's attention momentarily to the girl leaning against the doorframe. Her face was scrunched up, and her cheeks, which had been blushing not long ago, were now pale. He felt her begin to tremble.
"What'd you do to her?" he demanded, turned back toward the stony image of Kikyo.
"Inuyasha. . ." Kikyo said softly. "Is that what you care about?"
"Kikyo, I--" he cut off when he met her hard gaze. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking," the Replica replied with a vague gesture which may have included Inuyasha and Kagome, or the room, or the whole goddamned world. "This was mine once, you know. But it's all changed now."
"What's the matter with you, Kikyo?" the hanyou asked with a spark of impatience. "I don't understand you."
She sighed, and for the first time since Inuyasha had seen her, the revenant actually was Kikyo for just a slit second. He knew that sigh so well, had heard it so many times when the world was too much for her to bear. Hearing it again hurt now, just as it always had. "You never did," she said. "You never did."
"What's going on?"
"Don't you know?" She asked, and the sad sort of half-life that had filled her faded away. Her dark, tarnished eyes met his briefly, before they began moving over him in long sweeps he could almost feel on his skin. The sensation made him uneasy. Finally, her study lingered on his hand.
Inuyasha looked down. The numbers. He had forgotten them entirely.
Kikyo cocked her head to one side, then smiled. It was not a smile the hanyou recognized, not the resigned contentment that had usually characterized her smiles. Instead, it was an emotionless expression, like the smile painted on the face of a porcelain doll. With slow, measured strides, Kikyo crossed the space between them and plucked the piece of paper out of his hand.
"This," she murmured, no longer paying attention to Inuyasha at all. "Is he still after this?" The humorless smile flexed, growing wider for a moment, as Kikyo shook with nearly inaudible laughter. Shaking her head, she tossed the scrap of paper carelessly over her shoulder.
"Until next time, Inuyasha, remember me." She said, and stepped around him. Inuyasha watch her go, more confused than he could ever remember being.
'Remember me?' he wondered dazedly as he watched her leave. 'What the hell does she mean by that?'
". . . Inuyasha. . ." Kagome whispered, just before her knees gave out. He barely caught her before she hit the floor.
*~*~*
Kagome felt as though a hundred thousand pins had pricked each pore, drawing blood out of her body instead of sweat. Her ears were full of nonsense, nothing but white sound, like cotton and static. Her vision dissolved--it looked like the pixels of on a computer screen, but they were pulling apart. The edges of her sight turned red, then white, drawing in. She blinked, but nothing changed. All the strength deserted her legs, and the world suddenly canted at an odd angle at the same moment the ground fell away from her feet.
Vaguely she was aware of a pair of strong hands stopping her own descent, then everything went black. . .
The fist thing that came back to her was the feel of something blissfully cool pressed across her forehead and temples. Next was the sensation of someone smoothing her hair gently. Someone, probably the same person who owned the fingers that stroked her hair, was talking to her, but she couldn't piece out what the words meant.
Finally consciousness returned to her. She opened her eyes, and found herself lying on the couch with Shippo's green eyes fixed on her from one side, and Inuyasha's amber on the other.
"Are you alright, Kagome?" the little fox youkai questioned her earnestly.
"What happened?" the girl asked, pressing her hand to her aching head and finding a cool washcloth.
"You passed out," Inuyasha said. "You okay now?"
"I think so," Kagome replied, carefully sitting up.
He looked at her skeptically, disbelief clear in face. Then he nodded. "What happened before I got back?"
Kagome shook her head. "Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"I got home, and the door was unlocked. She was inside," she explained. "That's it."
"You shouldn't have gone inside if the door was unlocked," the hanyou scolded her, frowning. "You should know better than that. Anyone could be in there."
'Anyone was in there,' the girl thought sullenly. Aloud, she said, "I don't need a lecture Inuyasha. I know it was stupid."
"Why'd you do it if you knew it was stupid? How am I supposed to protect you if you make it so difficult?"
"If you had been there like you should have been, it wouldn't be a problem!" Kagome snapped in a flash of frustration. She regretted the words almost as soon as they were out of her mouth.
Inuyasha recoiled as though from a physical blow. He was a study in shocked guilt, eyes blinking dumbly, ears dropping. Then he grunted his usual "Keh," and turned away from her, folding his arms across his chest.
"Inuyasha," she began, but he just shook her attempt off.
"No, you're right," he said, voice bitter and rough. "I should have been there."
"I didn't mean it," Kagome protested. "I just--" He wasn't listening to her though. She could see it in the stubborn slump of his shoulders, the tight profile of his clenched jaw.
It was a long moment before the phone rang, shattering the tension. She stood up and walked over to the phone, trying to disguise the wobble in her legs.
"Kagome! You're finally home. Where in all the gods' names have you been?" Miroku shouted as soon as she answered.
"Hello to you too," Kagome said. "I was at my mom's house. Why?"
"Kagome, how soon can you be here?" the young man asked, ignoring her question outright.
"Pretty quick, I suppose," she told him. "Miroku, what's this about?"
"I think I know what he wants."
"Naraku?"
"Yes."
Kagome bit her lip, casting a glance at Inuyasha's sulking form. He could get them their in only a few minutes, but she wasn't sure she wanted to ask him to. 'So moody,' she grumbled internally. This was important, though.
"Sango's already here," Miroku said, interrupting her thoughts.
The girl pushed down her concern for the hanyou. She'd tried to apologize. If he couldn't accept them, that was his problem. She nodded firmly.
"We'll be there as quickly as we can."
*~*~*
Naraku's mind was spread throughout his network of youkai when he felt something disturb the chamber where his puppet body rested. Drawing his attention in from the youkai he controlled throughout Japan, and scanned the dark room for the cause of the distraction. What he found appeared to be a little girl, her skin and hair as devoid of pigment as an albino's, but her eyes were an ambiguous shade of dark.
"Kanna," he acknowledged her. Unlike his other youkai, he could not upload information directly from Kanna via their link. While he was able to give her directions and data, even to him the childlike youkai's mind was a perfect blank.
"Someone has been trying to access the Inutaiyoukai files," Kanna told him in a breathy deadpan. "The same person has been searching for information on you, and the Kazaana Corporation."
"Who?" Naraku asked, smiling with a deep pride. Kanna herself was nearly useless, until he had found a purpose for her.
"Iijima Miroku," she answered him in the same inflectionless tones. She didn't move any more than was necessary to speak. She didn't even blink.
"Iijima Miroku?" he asked, trying to remember if he had ever encountered a person by either of those names before. Nothing came to him. "Bring up his records."
Wordlessly, Kanna obliged, holding her mirror up for him to see. The glassy surface wavered and Naraku's reflection was replaced by names, dates, and numbers. There was an address, a phone number, personal idenification, schools, driver's license, small business license. Naraku's skimmed it, watching for some clue as to why this person would be snooping around sensitive subjects. Adoption records and change of name notification.
"Stop," the youkai commanded, and immediately the screens stopped scrolling. "Open these," he commanded, and pointed to each of the files with one clawed finger.
"Yes," she replied. "Houshi Miroku, adopted by his godfather, Iijima Mushin at six years of age. Father: deceased. Mother: whereabouts unknown, presumed deceased. Age:. . ."
"That's enough," Naraku cut her off. Rubbing his chin in an unconscious habit, he mused, "Houshi. . . I thought I had done with them. Hm. Perhaps Kagura should pay him a visit. That line always did have a weakness for pretty women." He sneered at the thought that the last Houshi might find Kagura attractive, though even he could not deny her aesthetic appeal. "I shall have to think about this."
"Yes, Naraku," Kanna intoned, lowering her mirror and allowing the screen to return to its reflective quiescent state. She turned away then, and returned to her haunts.
Kagura was certainly capable of handling Houshi Miroku, but he had other tasks for her. Perhaps there was some other youkai more suited to his needs. Though her appearance could be used to lure the man out, assuming he shared his family's vice, her powers were far more than would be needed for this task, and may well draw public attention he was not yet ready for. Kagura tended to be somewhat overzealous in using her powers, for all that she despised serving Naraku.
He wondered if she thought of him when she killed.
"Naraku," a chilly feminine voice interrupted his thoughts. Looking up, he found Kikyo watching him with a triumphant expression on her normally stoic face. "I remember what you wanted now. I remember."
"Remembering will do you no good," he said, meeting her eyes. "There is nothing you can do about it."
Kikyo maintained her undefeated air. "You think so? But how much do you think I remember?"
"It doesn't matter. Nothing you can do can interfere with my plans. I would not allow it. Now leave me, woman, you still have a job to do." The last was a command, both spoken and delivered along the connection he had created between them.
"Oh yes, and I mean to do it too," she told him, tilting her head at an angle of mock-humility, "Onigumo."
*~*~*
A/N: Alright, I worked hard to get you guys an update this weekend, because my 21st birthday is this Tuesday, and I'm not sure how much time I'll have during the week, since I'll have work, birthday stuff, and a couple of friends hell-bent on getting me plastered. I hope you all enjoyed this one.
Until next time.