The Methods of Apt. H: Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, I don't profit by this in any way, shape or form. This is written simply for my own, personal (disturbed?) amusement. This disclaimer applies to all chapters of this story.

2006-04-16 A/N
Now, yes, you’ll be tempted to call this AU but it is not AU. It’s true that its got the flavor of an AU, being set in modern-day Tokyo and being populated by OC’s, but it’s not AU because at its core its basis is the anime’s canon. The story assumes as its premise that the demons of the Feudal Era survived into the modern world. Inu’s gang and Naraku’s ‘family’ and the lineage of Miroku and Sango lived through the five hundred year ‘gap.’ Here, because there’s no evidence of it in the anime, I admit I took certain calculated liberties but the alterations I made I believe do not contradict anything (major) in the canon.

In general the necessary back histories are explained throughout the story. Starting from the Feudal Era (let’s say some time after the very last episode of the series) Kagome goes through the well to fetch supplies from her time but she never returns and the well stops working. No body knows why. (And, if anything, this fact is stated but not explained because it belongs in the sequel.) Inu and his gang continue their lives. Naraku, too, continues plotting and scheming.

Inuyasha knows Naraku’s ‘watching’ him and if he gets too close to Kagome Naraku will find her and kill her. Naraku knows Kagome exists out there but knows very little else besides what she looks like. He wants her dead and has ‘hired’ a serial killer who’s certain to go after girls matching her type. As more and more teenagers who look like Kagome are found dead across the city, Inuyasha realizes what’s happening and tries to find a way to thwart Naraku’s plan.

For a few specifics, the (important) new characters are:

Kuzen the cold, calculating killer. Her twin brother Zenku who’s got issues but wants to be good and gets conflicted about how to stop his murderous sister.

Another related duo are the detectives investigating the murders of the serial killer, Kenshin and Kevin, one’s half-Japanese the other’s American (I wanted a counterweight to the whole Inuyasha/Sesshoumaru relationship.) they get along more or less.

Then the ‘Kotsu twins; they’re minions of Naraku with muted back stories (that and the relationship between Kagura and Kohaku will be explored in the sequel.)

And then the Medics Kaede (who’s related to Miroku) and Kano (who’s got a secret that may or may not make him an OC after all).

About the sex and violence: there’s a gay relationship between Kevin and Kano but there’s no gay sex. There appears to be incest happening between Zenku and Kuzen but the truth is much more disturbing. There’s a rape scene with Kagura/Kohaku where Naraku also seems to be raping Kohaku’s mind (it’s material that starts the sequel).

I hope there’s plenty of action and stuff that’ll keep things moving along. The fight scene in Naraku’s office/lair is was one of my favorite parts to write, and, of course, there’s a lot of abnormal-psychology happening beneath the surface.


“The Methods of Apartment H”
By RD Rivero
March 14, 2006

Chapter One

The cloud cover, that poured out its unseasonable rain in the early morning, thinned and spread about the skyline of Tokyo until its once dense, foggy texture now attained a wispy and ethereal character. The great, fluffy masses that swirled about the city’s peaks from vista to vista were gray with traces of white and dull with only hints here and there of the brightness that could have been. Such as it was, there was just enough sunlight filtering through that shadows were cast across the streets but the effect was muffled by the pervasive, blanket-like darkness and all around, everywhere, the ambiance was lifeless, impersonal.

If despair had a style, if fear had an aesthetic, it was painted across the steely façade of the capital. Even the fluorescent billboards, the neon lights, the hustle and bustle of indifferent crowds, the sounds of life echoing through the vast, narrow valleys of the streets, it was not enough to quell the stupor of depression the environs inspired.

It was afternoon – although by its looks it resembled evening – and while it had been raining since sunrise and would be raining by sunset for that brief respite there was not a drop falling from on high. The air was dry, although the earth was muddy, the streets were wet and the trees were heavy with a shiny, silvery dew. The air was cool, too, unusual even after the rains at that time of the year but it was neither humid nor windy and therefore tolerable.

Indeed, everything under consideration, it was a perfect day to be outside for a walk – so Zenku thought.

Earlier, he had remained by the window, watching as the rain splattered against its glass, as the runoff trickled and streamed through the metalwork of the building’s fire escape. He was a born observer, gleefully watching anything – anything dynamic, his attention span did not extend into the realm of static – and the rain was perfect. Perfect. He loved it: he loved the look of the drops shimmering in the week, dim light, bouncing chaotically, randomly upon the ground, he loved the smell of it. That particular smell of autumn rain. And he loved the unpredictability of the lightning, the thunder – he was never afraid of it, though the same could not be said about Kuzen.

She did not share her brother’s appreciation.

But as soon as the rain stopped he donned his jacket and left his apartment. Immediately out of the lobby a drop fell from his window three flights above to his clean-shaven head as he stood at the sidewalk below. He looked up and another fell between his eyes, coursed down his cheek. He brushed it aside and continued.

Zenku walked through the cramped, crowded streets into a part of the city that was not tersely populated at that time of day. What could have been called Tokyo’s suburbs, where the apartment buildings were less than ten floors tall. And then, he treaded deeper into that sanctuary, past municipal offices and high schools, where enough trees were planted that it obscured the sights of any, leery, onlookers. Even the sights of the gods he knew stared at him through the crests of the ivory-crowned spire.

Was there nothing in that world those dead, red eyes could not see?

It was there – there – that he noticed the girl. Black-haired and slender, complete with that high school uniform. Looking at her – at her shape, at her features – his heart skipped a beat. Something stirred. Between his legs, something grew awkward in size, getting heavier and lighter in a paradox of sensations. Oh! he moaned, shutting his eyes for he could not stand the thought of the bouncing of those budding breasts, the image of the ruffling of that green, white skirt and all the pleasures of this world that lay therein.

“Kuzen does not have black eyes but she gives them to other people!” he stammered, smiling. The stir ceased but the feeling that something different was happing there could not be quenched.

So he turned and faced the park, standing at the curb as if waiting for cars to pass – cars that were not passing at that time. But he could not resist and turned, again, to see. To see – her fingers, holding a flyer, holding and taping it onto a pole.

Oh! he sighed, gazing at those fingers. What it would be to be held by those fingers!

“Kuzen does not sleep she waits!”” and he laughed. He did not always laugh at his own mantras but that time the thought of it caught his fancy. It almost made the sensations vanish.

He made a half-witted motion toward the street – toward crossing the street – when he turned, faced the girl. At last features were visible and for the briefest of moments their eyes met. But – they were standing so far away, really, he could not be sure if she even saw him, standing there, staring there like an ape between the cars. But he saw her, he saw her, her face framed by its locks. Her eyes – why were her eyes so sad? Why did she look so sad? Her lips curled as if caught in mid-tear. Why was she so sad?

Was he so repulsive even the slightest glimpse was that displeasing?

Stunned, he turned again toward the other side of the street, angling his head toward a windshield, a wet windshield, and caught his reflection.

His hairless head, clean-shaven face. It was not flawless although the moist reflectance of the glass obscured his blemishes. His eyes were wide and looked upon the world with a mature gaze that was more or less happy. His lips were pressed as if in a moment of thought. He was the model of beauty for a man of his age, there was little to be displeasing about his appearance, but – though he did not notice it, thought he could not conceive it – there was a fundamental disconnect between what was real and what he saw.

Zenku smiled thinking he could have that girl if he were so motivated.

In that vein he stepped away – tentatively – and turned toward the girl. But in that space of time in which he studied himself she had moved from the pole to the street and was now so close, so painfully close that merely by that turn his jacket and her skirt brushed!

Brushed!

He prayed the sound of his breath was muffled by the sound of the traffic.

She was beautifully, perfectly, shaped – they all were –

His mind was a blur – but it was not from the pleasures, secret and forbidden, coursing through his flesh. It was from something utterly new and overpowering. In a haze he remembered, as if like a bolt out of the blue, the memory of a dark, cold office, a large and panoramic window, reflections of a man with facemask looking like an armored ninja and of another man, laughing and lunging, looking like himself but not himself. Shocked, he stumbled onto the desk as if to get away until he was stopped by the visage – just by the visage – of the man sitting across it. The man whose face was clouded by the shadows and darkness of his flowing, black hair but whose eyes – blood red – glowed and pierced into his soul. It was the man who was holding pictures of girls.

Image after image flashed but only one was frozen, burned into his brain. It was that of a teenage girl – a high school girl by the looks of her uniform – riding a bicycle laughing as her locks swirled as the snapshot was caught.

And when Zenku opened his eyes he glared at the flyer at the pole: it was a missing person alert. And stared back into his face was the image of another girl encircled, highlighted. She resembled –

He gasped – and realized that was why she was so sad.

He rubbed his cheek and whispered: “Poor girl, poor young, sweet thing! Nothing bad should be happening to you! You should be on your knees on my lap giving this world its pleasure….”

As he continued into the park across the street, he walked aimlessly but not randomly. His eyes alternated between looking at the path and at the few, hurried people trekking through that area. Most of the people were teenagers; others were younger and kept in tow by their older siblings. Girls, usually, as it was the custom for older female sisters to care for younger male brothers.

It was routine for him to amble through the park amid the youth as school was letting out. It reminded him of a time when he was younger but not happier. He was a sad, lonely child. Always, as far back as he remembered, he felt as if he were alone, missing something. Something important. Something he could not be without. The rest of the children were not fond of him – strange though he did nothing overly wrong, he was studious and respectful. Perhaps it was a power innate yet repressed – a sense of sorts – particular to life that knew what offspring was alright and what was off. It was as if somehow, someway, they all knew he was missing something, too, and were afraid of him because of it. But he gave up on people and spent his youth away. Watching. That was how he learned to survive – watching – knowing and realizing when to withdraw, where to blend in.

It was a subtle existence

Now – now – it was not missing anymore. He was happy and determined to relive the past the way it should have been. And he walked the part when school let up. He walked by the schools, too, even for a time thinking about adopting just for the excuse it afforded to go back to school. He missed it, the idealized, perfect memory of it, and he yearned for it now that he could have it –

“And best of all,” he thought to himself, “this time I’ll get to fuck the pretty girls! I’ll get to have them ooh and aah as I kiss them and grope them!”

He would not hurt them – he could not, it was not in his psyche – but there was nothing he would not do for a girl’s special touch. Just the thought of one of them fumbling with his fly and reaching into his pants sent him into realms of arousal that overwhelmed his better judgment. He was walking – gasping and heaving – and the bulge between his legs threatened to reveal itself to the world.

“The chief export of Kuzen is pain,” he said as thoughts of that girl kissing his soft, shriveled penis – kissing it while it grew at the – caused that awkward heaviness to return to stumble his gait. “The chief export of Kuzen is pain,” he continued – but the high-pitched tone alarmed the impending failure of his mantra. The fantasy evolved: his penis was now overly long and disproportionately fat, looking more like a bottle of soda than an erection, it angled downward too fat and heavy to stick up – and the feeling of it filling with semen verging upon the moment of violent release it was too much for his legs to bear. He saw himself crouching unsteadily as the girl – on her hands and knees – kept kissing and suckling his over-swollen, point-like tip. And he wanted – at that moment, at that instant – to see himself splattering his white, hot seed like rain across her lips. “If you can see Kuzen, she can see you,” he stammered as a better vision – of him ejaculating a single, spasm over he face onto her hair – formed itself within his mind mimicking all of those American porn stars he admired. “If you can’t see Kuzen you’re fifteen seconds from death.” It was difficult to speak through his quick, short breaths. It was difficult to walk and concentrate while it seemed that all of his blood rushed into his groin. The mantras were not quelling the sensations between his legs and he was weakening, dying a kind of death not of body but of will.

He found a park bench still wet from the storm and sat, cradling his face into his hands.

“Ah, better than a lip job,” he said unaware if others could be hearing. “Better, I could be rubbing that cock between her breasts, I could be humping her chest like an animal!”

He wondered, too, just how wet his load could make her shirt and gasped at the thought of it.

“If only Kuzen were here, she would bring me back to my senses. Oh, god, I need her! I cannot be like this! Can I – help me, Kuzen, help me from myself.” He prayed and shuddered – but what if Kuzen were there? Her ideas of help and love could be wrong.

Zenku mumbled sprawled over the bench as across the distance the boy children played and girl teenagers in their white and green uniforms watched. And then a faint, singular drop hit his head and skidded his hairless contours onto his face, his lips, where it trickled toward the ground like a sort of tear. It was followed by another and another. Faster, harder.

“Kuzen? That’s you, isn’t it? Was I a bad boy again?”

And at once he found he was at peace.