Chapter 18
Rin guides Inuyasha, Kagome and Riku into a secluded room in the house. Sesshomaru made sure that the wall of this space is soundproof so that no one outside could hear them.
"Why didn't you pick up my calls, Inuyasha?" Sesshomaru questions his brother with a slight look of annoyance.
Inuyasha digs into his jeans' pocket to see that Sesshomaru tried calling him several times throughout the day. Even some text messages are the same with 'Call me asap.' 'Why aren't you answering my calls?' and a few others that were too much to bear.
"I was in my basement training Moroha. I thought that I made it clear to you that part of my house can't be reached because it's deep underground. No reception." Inuyasha gives his excuse calmly.
"You should know better. You are to be reached no matter. That's why I had Riku come get you." Sesshomaru narrows his eyes.
"Cry me a river. What do you want with us anyway?" Inuyasha growls as he takes a seat on the leather sofa with Kagome immediately next to him.
"Nuh huh, Kagome. You're going to be sitting over here." Riku spoke this time seriously. Kagome and Inuyasha glanced at each other before Kagome obeys Riku's requestion. Kagome sits in a lone chair by the desk where Sesshomaru is sitting in his extravagant black leather seat. Rin stands by his side, but a little behind the chair so that she wouldn't be in his way.
"Riku. Could you please…" Rin said to him. Riku nods and pulls out the files of the suspect. Sentaro Hutome.
"Sentaro Hutome. What does he have to do with this case?" Kagome asks him. Riku pulls out a new slide with a familiar face. "Saki. How is she connected to him?"
"It turns out that Sentaro is Saki's older brother. I had to go undercover to find out about his backstory. But little did I know that Dr. Jurino was there as well." Riku explains his research.
"Dr. Jurino? But she was taking care of Moroha. How is she involved in this?" Inuyasha is puzzled so far.
"It turns out that she's holding Saki hostage." Sesshomaru confirms it coldly.
"Tell me, Kagome. When Saki was with you when you were teaching, did she somehow give you hints about something about this?" Rin asks her.
Kagome holds her chin and thinks back at the times when Saki was whispering into her ear. More like her earpiece she was wearing at the time. "I believe she was giving me a code of some sort.
She goes into her bag to pull out her laptop that had the saved documents and footage and audio.
She clicks on the audio to put together the clues.
"She said the first day was that she's sick. But doesn't really know what it is." Kagome tells them. She plays the recording so that everyone else in the room could hear it.
"I'm really sick." Saki voice spoke weakly.
"That's strange. She looked normal to me. No signs of symptoms. Rin you had a run in with Saki while I was in the hospital with Moroha." Kagome turns her sight to Rin.
Rin nods. "Yes. She was bit surprised to see me instead of you. She was scared because she never wanted to tell me anything even though you and I are close." She reminds Kagome about that time.
"Maybe it's because she doesn't want anyone else to know about her situation. What else did she say?" Riku assumes to her seriously.
Kagome plays the next audio clip.
"I have a blood disease called leukemia." Saki said sadly.
That doesn't seem to surprise the group though. "Rin was teaching different blood types at the time. Maybe that gave her the courage to give another clue." Inuyasha said to Kagome.
"What do you think this implies though? We can't seem to figure this out." Kagome said to them.
Really, no one seems to think of any ideas.
"Do you think she's really sick to begin with? Inuyasha even though you were in disguised at the time, were you able to pick up anything unusual about Saki?" Sesshomaru asks his brother curiously.
"Saki wasn't in any of my classes at all. I would've been able to pick up a scent to tell the different. But there's this." He shows one of the footage that took place in his classroom during his time. At one point there was one student who very suspicious.
"Any idea who that student is?" Sesshomaru asks him. Inuyasha looks down in his chart to see which student that was sitting in that seat. "Sakura Gimona." He gives the name.
"Is there a record about that girl?" Rin asks Sesshomaru. Sesshomaru quickly types down the name in the school's system database. "No name exists." He gives his report.
So much for that part. But that doesn't stop him. He clicks onto the cameras to get a closer look at the girl. From the looks of it, the girl never entered the girls lavatory, but Saki did but she didn't come out. "Wait a minute. That made me think of Mihoko." Inuyasha calls out to him.
"What about her?" Riku asks him. "While I was visiting in the hospital while Moroha was recovering from appendititis, I had to investigate who it was that messed up our blood to see if either of us would be a match to help Moroha recover faster. But it turns out that the nurse who was doing this was Mihoko. One of Dr. Jurino's nurses.
"Himoko is in custody being interrogated by the police for a different charge." Rin tells him. Inuyasha looks a bit confused.
"A different charge of what though?" He questions Rin quicky.
"Tampering with the evidence." Sesshomaru tells him instead.
"But why would she do that?" Kagome asked Sesshomaru with worry.
Riku steps in and shows the footage he recorded in the classroom at the college where Sentaro was attending. "If I were to know any better. This is just a theory. I believe the Jurino is doing experiments on people based on their blood types."
"But why blood though?" Inuyasha asks as he is about to stand.
"Sit, brother." Sesshomaru demands him to remain seated. All Inuyasha does is growl.
"We all know the four blood types. A, AB, B and O. We were told that there are ways to help donate our blood to those who need it the most." Rin starts off. "For what Saki is trying to do is to give her brother enough time to find a cure for something that he might have."
"Riku were you able to pick up anything suspicious about Sentaro?" Sesshomaru asks him directly. Riku presents the boy's results. "Oh he's the one with leukemia, not Saki."
"But why the switch that Saki did at school?" Inuyasha asks him. Rin spoke to him "I believe that Saki sees Kagome as the perfect candidate to be her confidant."
"We're just making guesses at this point. Sesshomaru, what do you know about the two teachers who were killed at the school before Kagome and I were assigned.
"Mrs. Kohori-original science teacher and Mr. Benimoto-original history teacher. Turns out that one of them was going to be promoted and be a professor at the university." Sesshomaru puts up the file.
"Mrs. Kohori, possible. Because she once said that she wants to get improve her teaching skills to the university." Riku said to them.
"And how did you know that?" Inuyasha asks him suspiciously. Riku opens up a video file of him being in the interrogation room with Mikoho.
"I swear I never wanted Mrs. Kohori to leave the school. She's just fine for where she is." Mihoko said to him and another detective.
"And why is that?" Riku asks her immediately.
"Because she was pregnant with Mr. Benimoto's child, even though he was married. When his wife found out, she didn't want to be the one who killed them. She hired someone else to do the job without detection." Mihoko explains to them.
"And who was it that she hired to kill them?" Riku presses forward with his questioning. "The Purifier." Mikoho answers calmly even though she was shaking.
"And who exactly is this Purifier?" The other detective asks her this time. A bit more forceful. "I don't who it is. All I know that this person is meant to cleanse and purify any taint."
Riku pauses at that point. "So any idea who that Purifier person is?" Inuyasha asks him. "All we were able to do is to confiscate her cell and the records that could lead who this unidentified person is." Riku opens up the documents to show the records of Mikoho's phone number and another number that she's been with.
"I need you to find who this number belongs to. We should be able to know who it is." Sesshomaru tells Inuyasha and Kagome confidently. Kagome can tell for sure that they're getting closer to see who this Purifier person is. All that's left to trace the two numbers and find out. And for that, she smiles for real.