Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

A Fool's Redemption	By : Grumblebear Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > InuYasha/Kagome Views: 23728 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story.

Chapter List
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- 3
(Note – Updated to version 3 on 08/02/11)
Chapter 2 – The Most Important Question
The sunlight was fading quickly from the room, and Kagome’s uncle rose to switch on a nearby lamp.
“You already know I joined up with the HREO when I was at the university,” she began.
“Remind me again what that stands for,” Solomon said as he returned to his seat.
“Human Research Ethics Organization. There were only a few of us at the time. I was their tenth member. It was formed due to growing concern about the potential for human biological engineering after that huge surge in medical and technological breakthroughs a few decades ago, right after the second war. Some scientists were getting cocky, thinking that if they could cure most illnesses from the human body, maybe they could improve upon a few other things as well. Of course, it was outlawed, but there were rumors that some scientists were still trying to get away with it.
“Just after I graduated, we were approached by a couple of officials in Eona who had suspicions about a large laboratory in their jurisdiction. They told us it was possible that human engineering was taking place there, but because of some well placed red tape by another official, their hands were tied when it came to dealing with the situation. They couldn’t even launch an investigation until they had some sort of proof that there were crimes being committed within the facility. So that was where we came in. They were unable to do anything, but the same rules didn’t apply to us.
“They said that if they were able to collect enough evidence of genetic tampering from the lab, then they'd be able to shut the place down. Since we were a private organization supposedly working on our own initiative, we were able to bypass the red tape. It was decided that since I had a degree in biophysics, I'd be the one to infiltrate the facility and gather the evidence they needed. My credentials were doctored up a bit to make me seem more appealing to them as a prospective employee. It was easy enough to get a job in the facility, but because they were so suspicious of newcomers and having their secrets revealed, it took almost a year of working there before they trusted me enough to show me their human test subjects. Their ‘special projects’, as they liked to call them.
“Even then, I don’t think they really trusted me. They only gave me lab projects for a while. Blood work, protein analysis, that sort of thing. It took months before they'd let me work with the handling team, the ones who actually dealt firsthand with the test subjects. I was only allowed to observe at first, but eventually they started letting me participate. I think they thought that if they slowly exposed me to all of the things they were doing, I'd be more likely to accept it. Somehow, I managed to get through it, though. I had to leave my emotions at the door when I came to work everyday, or risk giving myself away. I had to make myself be as cold and uncaring as the rest of them.”
She sighed. “The people we ran our tests on weren’t considered humans, they were specimens.” She spat out the last word with disgust. “With most of them, the experimentation began before they were even born. A huge part of the research involved extensive genetic re-writing, blending, and selecting on embryos, mostly using the DNA from animals.”
“That would explain those distinctive features, especially the ears,” Solomon said thoughtfully, more to himself than between the two of them.
Kagome nodded. “If the embryos were still viable beyond that point, they were then implanted into female hosts so they could be carried to term. If the baby survived into early childhood, they were raised in a nursery until about the age of six. After that, they were treated like lab rats. All kinds of things were done to them. Experiments to increase growth rate, improve brain learning speed, increase strength and pain tolerance, decrease the effects of fear, increase the speed and effectiveness of healing, and what I thought was worst of all—experiments to remove the individual’s free will.”
“A mindless, living weapon,” he noted.
She lowered her head. “Thank God most of those experiments never gave those scientists the results they wanted. But every failed experiment only meant that there would be another, and another, until they achieved whatever it was they were after, or until the test subject wasn’t able to take anymore and died. The experiments were horrific. Injections, implants, surgeries, probes...” Her eyes stared forward blankly, widening a bit as she spoke.
“You're tired,” her uncle said gently. “We should stop.”
Kagome shook her head. “No, it’s okay. You should hear the whole thing. It’s just that part's always difficult for me.” She took a deep breath and continued on.
“Their security was really tight. We were searched at the end of every shift to make sure we didn't leave the lab with anything that might be considered incriminating. It took four months because I had to be so careful, but I finally got all the evidence we needed. The officials took the information we'd given them and within two weeks they'd formed a solid case against not only the lab, but also against the official who'd set up all the red tape. It turned out he was involved with funding the lab’s research. He had a fascination with the possibility that humans could be manufactured as weapons.”
Solomon exhaled through his teeth, his eyes narrowing angrily.
“When they told us they were going to make a move to shut the place down, I pleaded with them to give me the chance to get him out. They were hesitant at first—they didn’t want to risk either of us getting killed. But I pointed out that because of the way he looked, he'd probably never be accepted into society. People would be afraid of him. He'd never lived outside of the lab, had never interacted with other people. A world that was still getting back on its feet after nearly destroying itself was no place for him to learn how to be a human being. What’s worse, he could have ended up in yet another research facility, since he was the lab’s only living success story. Other labs may not have been allowed to copy the work, but that wouldn't have stopped them from trying to study the results.
“It was too risky to try sneaking him out during the raid. He might have been killed by the lab's employees to prevent him from speaking out against them. So that’s when I contacted you. I knew you’d be able to get him out of the city safely and bring him here to make sure he got to live in a place where he would be accepted. Once you gave your okay, I told them you'd offer him refuge, and they finally agreed to let me set up his escape the day before they were going to raid the place. You know how the rest of it goes. Most of those scientists didn’t live to see all of their hard work dismantled and destroyed.”
He gave a grim nod.
“After the lab was shut down,” she continued, “I was taken into hiding for my own safety. The official who'd funded the lab was really powerful at the time and knew I would end up exposing him. I can’t blame him for wanting to shut me up. He was completely ruined at the trial. Instead of defending him, his attorneys tried to shift the focus to the deaths of the lab's employees, saying it was my fault for letting ‘that monster’ out and that the wrong person was being prosecuted.
“I used to think they might be right. If it wasn’t for my insistence, all those people might still be alive. A part of me still wonders if they deserved it, and if it really was my fault. But it is comforting to know that they won’t be hurting anyone else the way they hurt him…and everyone else they kept there.”
“Just how many did they have in that lab?”
“Twelve of their special cases. But most weren’t strong enough to survive, or most were simply put through too much, and their bodies couldn’t take it. He was the only one who survived.”
“I remember seeing the angry crowds outside the trial hearings when the pictures of all the bodies were made public,” he said. “Especially the children.”
She nodded sadly. “It was six months from the time the lab was shut down until the trial started. And then another six months for the actual trial itself. I was kept in hiding the entire time, except for when I had to testify in court. The official was a corrupt bastard, and most of his dirty little secrets were revealed during the course of the trial. Ultimately, it was those things, and not his involvement with the lab, that sent him to prison.
“But he blamed the organization and me for getting the ball rolling. After the trial, he had people looking for me, waiting for me to come out of hiding so they could pay me back for my testimony against him. So I stayed hidden. I lived in a little compound on the edge of town for two years with an HREO coworker and her nephew.
“I couldn’t go outside, even in disguise. Everything I needed was brought in for me. I still worked for the organization, but all my work was done over a computer line. I couldn’t go out and spend my paycheck even if I wanted to. It felt like I'd been sentenced to prison, too.
“Eventually, the people looking for me found out where I was. They set fire to our house in the middle of the night. It was a miracle we all made it out alive. Luckily, the director of the organization has a lot of pull within Eona now, and he was able to make it so that it was reported I’d died in the fire.
“Regardless, it’s still not safe for me there, in case someone recognizes me and realizes that my death was faked. So that left me needing a new home. Someplace where that man’s thugs couldn’t find me.” Her expression brightened a little and she grinned at him. “And it just so happens that I have an uncle who runs his own city that’s supposedly thug-proof. So I thought I’d drop by and take a look around. Maybe hang out for a while.”
He snorted. “Don’t be cruel to an old man. I promised your father I would keep an eye on you, and after years of being denied that opportunity, I am insisting that you stay, at least for a little while. And just so you know, I will cry very loudly and very pathetically if you do leave. You don’t want to make an old man cry, do you?”
Kagome smiled. “I guess I have no choice then.”
“Excellent!” her uncle said, clapping his hands. He pulled a small communicator out of his shirt pocket, pressed its display, and waited.
“Yes, sir,” a female voice came from the device.
“Where are you?”
“Control room,” the voice replied. “Are you ready for me?”
“Yeah.”
“On my way.”
Her uncle put the communicator back in his pocket. “They gave me one that fits in my ear, but then I walk around looking like I’m talking to myself.”
Kagome laughed again, but the older man suddenly turned quiet, his expression thoughtful.
“You know,” he said finally, “you haven’t asked about him once yet. About how he’s doing now. I would think that would be rather important to you.”
Kagome hesitated. “I guess…I’m just worried,” she said finally. “The last time I saw him, it seemed like we were both trapped in a nightmare. Seeing him again…it’s something that both excites me and terrifies me at the same time. I want to ask his forgiveness, for all the things I helped do to him, but I’m worried about how he might react.” After a long pause, she asked quietly, “So. How is…he?” She didn’t know what name he went by now.
“Good,” Solomon answered. “He's done extremely well for himself in the three years he's been here. It was a little rough going at first, though. He was very much like a child; terrified of everything. But he adapted amazingly fast. He spent a lot of time venting all of his pent up rage by smashing rocks that we needed to have cleared for a new greenhouse, with his bare fists, no less! That boy’s strength is incredible, but I suppose that has a lot to do with what happened to him early on. After he got most of the anger out of his system he mellowed out and settled right in.
“He’s worked hard to earn his place here. Really hard. He’s smart too. A remarkably fast learner. He makes a point to learn as much as he can about everything he can. He has a bit of an attitude problem, but no one seems to mind it, and he’s extremely popular. No one has ever given him a hard time about the way he looks, either. In fact, with the kind of people who live here, he actually fits right in.” He chuckled.
Kagome smiled, relieved that his transition had been so smooth.
“The people here like him so much that they installed him as our third prince just over a year ago. But that didn’t change him at all. Still works just as hard as he did before, and still just as likely to mouth off.”
“Prince?” Kagome asked.
Solomon laughed. “You know how I’m called the 'king' here? Well, that title was given to me by the citizens of Alduray. It was just a silly little thing they started back when I first began building the city, but over time it just stuck, and people continued to address me that way. I asked them not to, but they all insisted. Eventually I just stopped arguing with them and let them have their way. The position of prince came about as a way for me to reward my hardest working citizens. Again, the people were the ones who coined the title ‘prince’, not me.
“There are a few perks that come with the position, but for the most part the princes are normal citizens just like everyone else. They have the same jobs, eat the same food, socialize with the same people and do the same things as the rest of the population. I make sure they remember their position is one they earned by gaining the respect of the city, and that it’s not enough just to earn respect, they have to maintain it as well. The citizens tend to treat them a lot like rock stars, so it can be hard to keep one’s humility in that kind of situation, but there’s never been any trouble with any of them, including the ones who've come and gone. There's very little hierarchy here, which helps to deter those who might only be interested in gaining power.”
“I see. It sounds like he’s doing well then. What name does he go by now?”
Her uncle paused for a moment, then said, “Strangely, he decided to keep the one he was given in the lab. When I told him he could choose a different one, he immediately refused. He said the name he had suited him.”
That surprised her. “He’s not a demon,” she muttered, still angry with the long dead scientists who had given him the only thing that, during his time in the lab, had truly belonged to him: his name. Inuyasha. Dog demon. It had been meant to degrade him. She couldn’t imagine why he would want to keep it.
“I’m going to be honest with you, though,” Solomon added in a somber tone. “When I asked him if he remembered the person who'd helped him escape, he said he did but that it didn’t matter. He said he didn’t care which one of ‘those sadistic bastards’—his words, not mine—he owed his freedom to, that they were all the same in his eyes. He wouldn’t discuss it any further.”
Kagome flinched at those words. “He only knew me back then as a lab employee. I never got the chance to tell him who I really was,” she explained. “He still doesn’t know anything more about me than that?”
“I told him who you were working for, that the group was trying to shut the lab down, and that getting him out was your decision, but it didn't seem to change his opinion. After that, if I tried to bring up the subject again, he'd just walk away and refuse to listen.”
She sighed, realizing that her goal might have already slipped out of reach. “Then I’ll just have to be very careful about how I approach him, won’t I?” she said.
“Would you like my help?”
She held up a hand. “Thank you, but I want to approach him on my own, at the right time.”
He nodded his approval.
A knock at the door caught their attention, and they turned to find a young woman, only slightly older than Kagome, standing in the doorway, a long black ponytail falling over her shoulder as she leaned into the room.
“Ah, good,” her uncle said. “You’re here. Kagome, this is Sango. She'll be taking care of you for the next couple of days. Getting you settled in, showing you around, that kind of thing. I’d do it myself but I’m up to my neck in trade negotiations right now.”
“No problem,” Kagome told him, and then turned back to the girl at the door. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” Sango returned the greeting with a bright smile. “I’ll take you up to your room. Where’s all your stuff?”
Kagome stood and held up her small bag. “This is it.”
“That's all?” Sango gaped at her, but then shrugged. “Plenty of time to fix that,” she said with a mischievous grin. Kagome didn’t have time to ask what she meant. The older girl had already turned on her heel and disappeared from the doorway.
Kagome looked back to her uncle.“Thank you, again. For everything you’ve done,” she said.
“Don’t mention it, Kagome. You’re the only niece I’ve got, so I have to take care of you. I hope you like it here.”
After leaving him with one last hug, she hurried out of the room and back down the hall. Sango was waiting for her at the other end. “Sorry to make you wait,” Kagome said.
“No need to apologize. I was just giving you two a chance to say goodnight.”
“Thanks.” She smiled up at the other girl.
“Now let's get you upstairs and settled in,” Sango said. “I was told you’ve been traveling all day. You must be exhausted.”
Continued in Chapter 3 – Rise and Fall
A/N: Thank you for the review!! This ended up being a very narrative chapter, where as I would have liked to have added more atmosphere. But there will be some in the next chapter.
Influential music for this chapter
Dewdrops – Kajiura Yuki, Tsubasa Chronicle OST
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A Fool's Redemption