Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, not even a little bit.
Synthetic Emotions
Kikyo stood there with a smile on her face which Inuyasha had rarely seen. It was a pure, happy expression, and one that tore a tiny hole in his heart. Her eyes were squinting against an achingly bright, blue-skied day, and she had just a hint of sunburn across the bridge of her nose.
A young man was behind her with an arm wrapped possessively around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder as he smirked at the camera's eye. He was handsome, in a rather rough looking way. His deeply tanned skin, glossy black hair and dusky eyes were very much at odds with Inuyasha's own pale coloration, but the structure of the face was nearly twin to his own, down to the cocky expression.
'I wonder if he sighed often. . .' The hanyou's treacherous mind asked as he stared dumbfounded at the picture.
"How is that even possible?" Kagome asked, lending voice to the confusion Inuyasha felt. "I mean, that's Taisho's son?"
Kaede nodded in confirmation. "And my sister's fiancé."
"But. . . how?" Inuyasha asked inadequately.
"I can't say. As I said before, his name was Amori Ichiro, and he was Taisho's son."
"Was?" Kagome laid a hand on Inuyasha's arm as she spoke, squeezing it gently. "What happened to him?"
"He died," the old woman answered heavily. "He was very young when it happened. He kayaked, alone more often than not. He tried a river he never should have been on at that time of year, and never by himself. It was more than a week before his body surfaced. Kikyo was the one who had to identify him."
"I'm so sorry," Kagome said, sympathy thick in her soft tone. "That's truly awful."
Kaede waved away the girl's out of date condolences, though Inuyasha noticed that she rubbed surreptitiously at her eye. "It was a long time ago, and I never knew him well. He was just my sister's fiancé, and the boy who called me 'squirt.' But I do believe that Kikyo was very much in love with him. She cried herself sick when she had to see the body. I understand it wasn't pretty. . ."
"Why do I look like him?" Inuyasha growled, feeling that little hole rip slightly wider. "What the hell was I? Some kind of fucking replacement?"
"I really don't know, Inuyasha. I wish I could tell you." Kaede accepted the picture back from Kagome and carried it with her as she returned to the table. "I can only tell you what I know. I never met Ichiro's father, I can't tell you what he was thinking."
Kagome's grip tightened once more, Inuyasha felt it, but he hardly realized it was happening to him. A sharp, painful knot was forming in his throat, and something that 'hurt' but yet didn't was spreading out from that point. He didn't resist as she led him to a chair, where he fell as much as sat.
For a time, no one spoke. The hanyou's thoughts were spinning incoherently. Faster than he could identify them, they were gone. Over and over, there was only one thing he could pick out of the chaos in his mind: Kikyo had been engaged to a human him. Someone who had worn the same face cast in human colors, someone who would have grown old and died with her. Someone who she could believe when he said he loved here.
She had agreed to marry him.
"Does this mean Inuyasha is a Replica?" Kagome asked finally, breaking the brittle silence.
"No," Kaede replied quickly. "Of that I can be certain. He isn't Ichiro. Not like that thing is a copy of my sister. Not to mention that even if Taisho hadn't been one of the driving forces behind the Replica Act, Ichiro's body wasn't in good enough condition to try."
"That thing. . ." Kagome repeated. "That thing was a Replica of Kikyo. But who made it? And why?"
"I don't know that either. I wasn't aware such a youkai was in existence until today." The old woman's haggard expression became regretful. "Believe me, if I had known, I would have called the police. That Kikyo isn't my sister."
Kagome was chewing her lip again, Inuyasha noted distractedly. She was thinking about something. She always did that when she had something on her mind. "Kaede," she said, her voice rising a little at the end, as though she were asking a question. "I think I'm going to have to do a little research on Replicas. I don't know all that much about them."
The girl shook her head. "Was there anything else?"
Kaede nodded, but didn't continue. The hanyou barely caught the pointed look the old woman sent his direction. In his mind he was still seeing Kikyo smiling with that light he'd never seen while that familiar stranger held her.
"Inuyasha, are you alright?"
Inuyasha tried to shake off the picture. It didn't matter if Kikyo had been engaged, or who he happened to look like. It didn't matter if she had truly looked happy then. 'Yeah,' he thought acerbically. 'Tell yourself that enough and you might start to believe it. . .'
"Fine," he responded, forcing more conviction into his voice than he felt. Both women's eyes fixed on him. "What? I thought there was more. Get on with it."
"There is more, but not much. I was only ten at the time," Kaede explained, adding a wry curl to the end. "Most people aren't inclined to explain to much to a ten year-old. However, I do know that only a couple of months after Ichiro died, Kikyo got Inuyasha from Inutaiyoukai.
"Officially, she was evaluating a hanyou model prototype, but she said it was just Taisho salving his own conscience. That was a few days before she actually got you," the old woman added thoughtfully. Inuyasha grunted an acknowledgement and waited to see what else she'd say. "They both felt a great amount of guilt over the boy's death. Both of them had lectured him about how irresponsible it was to ever kayak alone. He never listened to either of them."
"Sounds like he had it coming then," Inuyasha said gruffly.
"In a way, yes. It was a risk he chose to take," Kaede said resignedly. "I see that now, but for them, it was a matter of what they might have done to prevent it."
Kagome bowed her head. "When people die young, it tends to be. You were saying?"
"Unfortunately, there's not that much more to say," Kaede told them. "Save that it was my belief until now that the reason Kikyo shut Inuyasha down and put him in storage was because of Ichiro. . . Now I'm not so sure."
"Why not?" Inuyasha asked. It made sense. She had wanted the human, and the hanyou hadn't measured up. It was only natural.
"The Replica seemed confused by some of the last events of Kikyo's life. I've heard that is not uncommon. Short-term memory doesn't transfer at all, and the most recent memories of the departed tend to be unreliable. That's why Replica's testimonies were made inadmissible in court. . ."
Kagome's brow furrowed. "If it's illegal to make a Replica, what's the point of disqualifying their statements in court?"
"That was before the Replica act," Kaede amended. "In any event, it seemed to me that my sister's last memories are jumbled in this thing's head, but she seemed jealous of Kagome."
"Jealous?" Inuyasha and Kagome said at once. The girl continued, "Why would she be jealous of me?"
"Because," Kaede told her grimly, "you have what she used to."
*~*~*
The bedroom was dark. Kagome lay in bed, watching shadows chase each other across the ceiling and listening to the hall clock tick on and on, counting the endless seconds as the night wore on. Rolling over on her side, she tried to ease the pressure of a spring digging into the middle of her back, but that put her neck at a weird angle. The glowing green number on the digital alarm clock proclaimed it 2:13am. 'Damn.'
"That's it, I give up," the girl said aloud, throwing her legs over the side of the bed and levering herself into a sitting position. Why was it that when she wanted sleep the most, it eluded her so effectively?
Oh yes, Kikyo. That was why.
And every time she closed her eyes, she was assailed by the image of a dark haired, dark eyed young man and girl who was obviously head over heels in love with him. The picture of Ichiro and Kikyo haunted her; a picture that easily morphed into Inuyasha and herself within her mind's eye. She almost wanted to cry thinking about it, or scream, or shout, "It's not fair." Life wasn't fair, though. She was old enough to have figured that one out a long time ago.
Kagome pushed herself onto her feet with a groan. Her body was stiff with fatigue, and a dull, scratchy throb had taken up residence in her temples. She swayed a second before finding her balance, then began to shuffle her way to the kitchen for a glass of chocolate milk.
The apartment was almost eerily quiet. Shippo was off, and Inuyasha had presumably suspended his functions until morning. There was the normal sounds that anyone who lived in a city became accustomed to: the sirens, the car alarms, and the occasional discordant thud of a stereo with the bass at maximum, but even these were subdued and seemingly far away.
The light that made it through the curtains served more than adequately as a nightlight until she opened the door to the refrigerator. The illumination from the tiny bulb hit her in the face when she opened the door and made her squint after hours of laying in the dark, and she was quick to grab the carton of milk and bottle of chocolate syrup before slamming it shut again. After rummaging through her kitchen in the dark for a glass and a spoon, she sat on the counter to drink her late night snack.
From her seat, she could make out the dark shape of Inuyasha sitting on the living room floor, with his back against the wall and one knee drawn up to his chest. 'I wonder if he's dreaming,' the girl thought wistfully. 'He was going to tell me about a nightmare before this all started. . .'
She watched his unnaturally still form as she sipped her milk. In the nearly colorless ambient glow, his hair was a swath of bluish white, and his clothing a dark blur. He looked lonely, sitting by himself on the floor.
The headlights of a passing car came through the window and caught sparks of amber off his open eyes. Kagome jumped, spilling milk across her hand and lap.
"Nice job," the hanyou said without bite. "What are you doing up?"
Kagome grimaced, and gave in to turning on a lamp so she could clean up her chocolate milk mess. "I couldn't sleep. What about you? I thought you'd be out by now."
"Got a lot on my mind, I guess," Inuyasha said, stand up slowly and moving to join her in the kitchen.
Kagome paused in her search for a dishtowel and glanced over her shoulder at her hanyou. His face lacked its normal life. She could almost imagine dark half circles written under his eyes, but whatever the material of his unique skin, it didn't discolor as human skin would. She doubted he would ever bruise, or burn. He would never have the bronze tan of the man in the picture.
"Care to talk about it?" She prompted softly; afraid she'd scare him off.
"You want to hear?" he said, surprised.
"Idiot," she told him, offering what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "Of course I want to hear. We're friends, right?"
Inuyasha blinked, his golden yellow eyes searching her face openly. Whatever he wanted to see, apparently he found it because after long moment he spoke again. "I suppose I'm just confused, you know?"
Kagome nodded her acceptance of his answer. "Yeah," she responded, "I know."
*~*~*
A/N: Another chapter out. I'm finally feeling like I'm back in the groove of this thing. Hope everyone enjoyed reading.
Until next time.
Synthetic Emotions
Kikyo stood there with a smile on her face which Inuyasha had rarely seen. It was a pure, happy expression, and one that tore a tiny hole in his heart. Her eyes were squinting against an achingly bright, blue-skied day, and she had just a hint of sunburn across the bridge of her nose.
A young man was behind her with an arm wrapped possessively around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder as he smirked at the camera's eye. He was handsome, in a rather rough looking way. His deeply tanned skin, glossy black hair and dusky eyes were very much at odds with Inuyasha's own pale coloration, but the structure of the face was nearly twin to his own, down to the cocky expression.
'I wonder if he sighed often. . .' The hanyou's treacherous mind asked as he stared dumbfounded at the picture.
"How is that even possible?" Kagome asked, lending voice to the confusion Inuyasha felt. "I mean, that's Taisho's son?"
Kaede nodded in confirmation. "And my sister's fiancé."
"But. . . how?" Inuyasha asked inadequately.
"I can't say. As I said before, his name was Amori Ichiro, and he was Taisho's son."
"Was?" Kagome laid a hand on Inuyasha's arm as she spoke, squeezing it gently. "What happened to him?"
"He died," the old woman answered heavily. "He was very young when it happened. He kayaked, alone more often than not. He tried a river he never should have been on at that time of year, and never by himself. It was more than a week before his body surfaced. Kikyo was the one who had to identify him."
"I'm so sorry," Kagome said, sympathy thick in her soft tone. "That's truly awful."
Kaede waved away the girl's out of date condolences, though Inuyasha noticed that she rubbed surreptitiously at her eye. "It was a long time ago, and I never knew him well. He was just my sister's fiancé, and the boy who called me 'squirt.' But I do believe that Kikyo was very much in love with him. She cried herself sick when she had to see the body. I understand it wasn't pretty. . ."
"Why do I look like him?" Inuyasha growled, feeling that little hole rip slightly wider. "What the hell was I? Some kind of fucking replacement?"
"I really don't know, Inuyasha. I wish I could tell you." Kaede accepted the picture back from Kagome and carried it with her as she returned to the table. "I can only tell you what I know. I never met Ichiro's father, I can't tell you what he was thinking."
Kagome's grip tightened once more, Inuyasha felt it, but he hardly realized it was happening to him. A sharp, painful knot was forming in his throat, and something that 'hurt' but yet didn't was spreading out from that point. He didn't resist as she led him to a chair, where he fell as much as sat.
For a time, no one spoke. The hanyou's thoughts were spinning incoherently. Faster than he could identify them, they were gone. Over and over, there was only one thing he could pick out of the chaos in his mind: Kikyo had been engaged to a human him. Someone who had worn the same face cast in human colors, someone who would have grown old and died with her. Someone who she could believe when he said he loved here.
She had agreed to marry him.
"Does this mean Inuyasha is a Replica?" Kagome asked finally, breaking the brittle silence.
"No," Kaede replied quickly. "Of that I can be certain. He isn't Ichiro. Not like that thing is a copy of my sister. Not to mention that even if Taisho hadn't been one of the driving forces behind the Replica Act, Ichiro's body wasn't in good enough condition to try."
"That thing. . ." Kagome repeated. "That thing was a Replica of Kikyo. But who made it? And why?"
"I don't know that either. I wasn't aware such a youkai was in existence until today." The old woman's haggard expression became regretful. "Believe me, if I had known, I would have called the police. That Kikyo isn't my sister."
Kagome was chewing her lip again, Inuyasha noted distractedly. She was thinking about something. She always did that when she had something on her mind. "Kaede," she said, her voice rising a little at the end, as though she were asking a question. "I think I'm going to have to do a little research on Replicas. I don't know all that much about them."
The girl shook her head. "Was there anything else?"
Kaede nodded, but didn't continue. The hanyou barely caught the pointed look the old woman sent his direction. In his mind he was still seeing Kikyo smiling with that light he'd never seen while that familiar stranger held her.
"Inuyasha, are you alright?"
Inuyasha tried to shake off the picture. It didn't matter if Kikyo had been engaged, or who he happened to look like. It didn't matter if she had truly looked happy then. 'Yeah,' he thought acerbically. 'Tell yourself that enough and you might start to believe it. . .'
"Fine," he responded, forcing more conviction into his voice than he felt. Both women's eyes fixed on him. "What? I thought there was more. Get on with it."
"There is more, but not much. I was only ten at the time," Kaede explained, adding a wry curl to the end. "Most people aren't inclined to explain to much to a ten year-old. However, I do know that only a couple of months after Ichiro died, Kikyo got Inuyasha from Inutaiyoukai.
"Officially, she was evaluating a hanyou model prototype, but she said it was just Taisho salving his own conscience. That was a few days before she actually got you," the old woman added thoughtfully. Inuyasha grunted an acknowledgement and waited to see what else she'd say. "They both felt a great amount of guilt over the boy's death. Both of them had lectured him about how irresponsible it was to ever kayak alone. He never listened to either of them."
"Sounds like he had it coming then," Inuyasha said gruffly.
"In a way, yes. It was a risk he chose to take," Kaede said resignedly. "I see that now, but for them, it was a matter of what they might have done to prevent it."
Kagome bowed her head. "When people die young, it tends to be. You were saying?"
"Unfortunately, there's not that much more to say," Kaede told them. "Save that it was my belief until now that the reason Kikyo shut Inuyasha down and put him in storage was because of Ichiro. . . Now I'm not so sure."
"Why not?" Inuyasha asked. It made sense. She had wanted the human, and the hanyou hadn't measured up. It was only natural.
"The Replica seemed confused by some of the last events of Kikyo's life. I've heard that is not uncommon. Short-term memory doesn't transfer at all, and the most recent memories of the departed tend to be unreliable. That's why Replica's testimonies were made inadmissible in court. . ."
Kagome's brow furrowed. "If it's illegal to make a Replica, what's the point of disqualifying their statements in court?"
"That was before the Replica act," Kaede amended. "In any event, it seemed to me that my sister's last memories are jumbled in this thing's head, but she seemed jealous of Kagome."
"Jealous?" Inuyasha and Kagome said at once. The girl continued, "Why would she be jealous of me?"
"Because," Kaede told her grimly, "you have what she used to."
*~*~*
The bedroom was dark. Kagome lay in bed, watching shadows chase each other across the ceiling and listening to the hall clock tick on and on, counting the endless seconds as the night wore on. Rolling over on her side, she tried to ease the pressure of a spring digging into the middle of her back, but that put her neck at a weird angle. The glowing green number on the digital alarm clock proclaimed it 2:13am. 'Damn.'
"That's it, I give up," the girl said aloud, throwing her legs over the side of the bed and levering herself into a sitting position. Why was it that when she wanted sleep the most, it eluded her so effectively?
Oh yes, Kikyo. That was why.
And every time she closed her eyes, she was assailed by the image of a dark haired, dark eyed young man and girl who was obviously head over heels in love with him. The picture of Ichiro and Kikyo haunted her; a picture that easily morphed into Inuyasha and herself within her mind's eye. She almost wanted to cry thinking about it, or scream, or shout, "It's not fair." Life wasn't fair, though. She was old enough to have figured that one out a long time ago.
Kagome pushed herself onto her feet with a groan. Her body was stiff with fatigue, and a dull, scratchy throb had taken up residence in her temples. She swayed a second before finding her balance, then began to shuffle her way to the kitchen for a glass of chocolate milk.
The apartment was almost eerily quiet. Shippo was off, and Inuyasha had presumably suspended his functions until morning. There was the normal sounds that anyone who lived in a city became accustomed to: the sirens, the car alarms, and the occasional discordant thud of a stereo with the bass at maximum, but even these were subdued and seemingly far away.
The light that made it through the curtains served more than adequately as a nightlight until she opened the door to the refrigerator. The illumination from the tiny bulb hit her in the face when she opened the door and made her squint after hours of laying in the dark, and she was quick to grab the carton of milk and bottle of chocolate syrup before slamming it shut again. After rummaging through her kitchen in the dark for a glass and a spoon, she sat on the counter to drink her late night snack.
From her seat, she could make out the dark shape of Inuyasha sitting on the living room floor, with his back against the wall and one knee drawn up to his chest. 'I wonder if he's dreaming,' the girl thought wistfully. 'He was going to tell me about a nightmare before this all started. . .'
She watched his unnaturally still form as she sipped her milk. In the nearly colorless ambient glow, his hair was a swath of bluish white, and his clothing a dark blur. He looked lonely, sitting by himself on the floor.
The headlights of a passing car came through the window and caught sparks of amber off his open eyes. Kagome jumped, spilling milk across her hand and lap.
"Nice job," the hanyou said without bite. "What are you doing up?"
Kagome grimaced, and gave in to turning on a lamp so she could clean up her chocolate milk mess. "I couldn't sleep. What about you? I thought you'd be out by now."
"Got a lot on my mind, I guess," Inuyasha said, stand up slowly and moving to join her in the kitchen.
Kagome paused in her search for a dishtowel and glanced over her shoulder at her hanyou. His face lacked its normal life. She could almost imagine dark half circles written under his eyes, but whatever the material of his unique skin, it didn't discolor as human skin would. She doubted he would ever bruise, or burn. He would never have the bronze tan of the man in the picture.
"Care to talk about it?" She prompted softly; afraid she'd scare him off.
"You want to hear?" he said, surprised.
"Idiot," she told him, offering what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "Of course I want to hear. We're friends, right?"
Inuyasha blinked, his golden yellow eyes searching her face openly. Whatever he wanted to see, apparently he found it because after long moment he spoke again. "I suppose I'm just confused, you know?"
Kagome nodded her acceptance of his answer. "Yeah," she responded, "I know."
*~*~*
A/N: Another chapter out. I'm finally feeling like I'm back in the groove of this thing. Hope everyone enjoyed reading.
Until next time.