InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 10: Anomaly ❯ Reunion ( Chapter 20 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

~~Chapter 20~~
~Reunion~

 

 

~o~

 

 

“What?  No!  You cheated!” Mikio blurted as Madison’s character—Fang Wei—grabbed Mikio’s ninja, Sakuzo and ripped out his still-beating heart, only to let go of his body that flopped onto the platform as Fang Wei hefted the organ high overhead.

She laughed.  “I didn’t cheat!  I beat you, fair and square,” she countered triumphantly.  She’d brought back her old video game system on a whim.  It just happened that she saw it on the top shelf of her closet before she’d left Maine, and she’d grabbed it.  Granted, it was outdated long ago, but she had some pretty good memories of nights spent, playing games and generally goofing off with Evan and the guys.  Very often, it ended in pillow fights or other general nonsense.  They were good times . . .

Mikio rolled his eyes, but hit the rematch button on his controller.  “Random button mashing is not fair and square, Madison,” he chided dryly.

“I wasn’t random anything,” she shot back.  “You’re as bad as Evan—accusing me of button mashing when I beat you.”

He shot her a sidelong glance.  She could feel it, even if she didn’t look directly to verify it.  “You beat Evan?”

Madison wrinkled her nose.  “Only when he isn’t random button mashing.  He’s more into racing games and junk like that.  Not nearly man enough to play fighting games.”

He chuckled.  “I don’t think I am, either, then,” he confessed, making a face as he jammed the buttons, trying to counter Madison’s moves.

She giggled, neatly flipping Mikio’s character over her character’s shoulder.

“KO!” the game announced happily.

Mikio shook his head and dropped the controller.  “You’re really bad for my ego, Madison,” he pointed out.

Her lips twitched.  “I’ll let you win,” she offered.

He grunted and scooted back, away from the television and from her, but he hooked his arms around his raised knees, ankles crossed, and watched as she turned off the system and neatly tucked the controllers away.  “Oh, yeah,” he said, turning his back, snagging a folder off the coffee table that he handed to her.  “I printed this out for you this morning.”

She shot him a questioning look, but took it, her smile, widening when she opened the folder, only to see the picture of her holding Jaeger, carefully printed out.  “Thank you!” she breathed, staring at the picture.  “I’ll get a frame for it . . . Wow, do I look tired . . .”

Mikio shrugged and rehooked his legs.  “I didn’t notice that,” he said.  “He . . . looks nothing at all like you.”

Madison laughed.  “He’s Daddy, top to bottom,” she told him.  “Bellaniece told me that I look just like Mom—before the accident, anyway.  I mean, Kichiro did a fantastic job with her reconstructive surgeries, but I guess that there were certain things that he wasn’t able to completely restore, so he did the best he could.  Mom’s never complained, and I think she’s gorgeous—and so does Daddy.  That’s got to mean something . . . That’s what I think, anyway.”

It was true enough, and even then, Kelly’s surgeries had taken place long before she’d met Cartham, so, he’d never known her to look different than she did now.  Still, she could remember hearing the talk from time to time, Kelly, telling Bellaniece or talking to her father about how Madison looked exactly like her when she was younger.  The only difference, she’d said, was that Madison had Cartham’s eyes.  But her mother had never actually seemed upset.  If anything, she’d been more matter-of-fact about the whole thing, and it wasn’t really surprising.  Kelly had told her when she was older, when she’d asked once.  She’d said that she’d made peace with everything a long time ago, and that was all that truly mattered.

“You do look a lot like her.  Maybe not like you could be twins or anything, but there are similarities,” Mikio ventured.

Madison nodded, carefully closing the file and setting it beside her on the floor.  Staring at Mikio, though, she narrowed her eyes thoughtfully.  Something about him . . . She’d noticed it when she first got home a few hours ago.  He seemed somehow more relaxed?  Maybe a little more comfortable, but it was more than that.  There was an ease in his movements that was slightly different than usual, but she wasn’t sure why . . . “Mikio?”

He’d reached back to retrieve one of the files off the table and was only paying half attention at the moment.  “Hmm?”

“Did something happen while I was gone?  I mean, you seem a lot more relaxed . . .”

He looked up, and it took a moment for the concentration on his face to wane slightly.  He blinked.  “More . . .? Do I?”

She nodded.

He considered it for a moment, then shrugged, as though it were of no real consequence.  “Uh, must be because I’m hanyou again . . .” he ventured.

“What do you mean?”

Reaching back, he snagged the wire-framed glasses off the table and managed to unfold them and put them on with his left hand.  “I just always feel a lot better after my human night, is all,” he replied.  “Kichiro-nii said before that some people are just more sensitive to the approaching lunar cycles . . . Probably why I tend to get vertigo closer to the new moon.”

She digested that.  She’d never noticed anything with Evan back when he’d had human nights.  But then, maybe it was just because Evan, being who he was, was hanyou, but kind of wasn’t, since he’d stopped transforming when he’d hit puberty.  Aside from him, she didn’t really know many other hanyou outside of Evan’s family, so she figured she wasn’t familiar enough with the inner workings to have realized anything, one way or another.

“Well, you do look like you’re feeling better than normal,” she said slowly.

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then he shrugged.  “I guess,” he allowed.  “I mean, I never really stopped to think about it, but now that you mention it, I do tend to feel better right after the new moon . . .”

Before she could say anything, though, his cell phone trilled, and she watched as he dug the device out of his pocket to answer it.  “Izayoi,” he said after connecting the call.  “Uh, yes . . .?  Oh, tomorrow?  No, that’s . . . that’s fine . . . Yes, all right.  Yes . . . Thanks.  Bye.”

She blinked as the frown on Mikio’s face darkened, as he let his phone fall onto the carpet beneath him.

“Is something wrong?”

Mikio lifted his gaze to meet hers, and just as suddenly as the scowl had appeared, he blanked his features, shrugged carelessly.  “Uh, no,” he told her.  “They’re coming tomorrow to replace your lock.”

“Oh . . . That was fast,” she said.  “I mean, didn’t they tell you it’d take a couple weeks?  It’s only been . . . a little over one, hasn’t it?”

“They said they had another job in the area tomorrow, so they figured it’d be more convenient to take care of both.”

“I see . . .” Biting her lip, she pasted on a bright smile.  “Well, then, that’s great!  I’ve probably imposed upon you long enough, haven’t I?”

“I . . . don’t mind,” he muttered, burying his face in the file once more.

Madison stifled a sigh.

‘Just tell him you don’t want to go home yet,’ her youkai-voice said.

‘Uh huh . . . No,’ she retorted.  ‘If I said something like that?  He’d run for the hills, now wouldn’t he?’

Mikio closed the file and pushed himself to his feet.  “I just remembered, I need to go talk to Bas,” he said when she shot him a questioning glance.

“Okay,” she said, watching as he strode over, slipped on his shoes.  “Mikio?”

“I won’t be gone too long . . . Why don’t you, uh . . .? Why don’t you pick a place for dinner?”

“All right,” she replied.  He spared a moment, shot her a look that she couldn’t really read, and then, he slipped out the door.

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

Tapping on the doorframe, Mikio waited for Bas to look up from the file he was looking over.

“Hey,” Bas greeted, dropping the slimfile from his fingers onto the desktop with a dull clatter as he waved Mikio inside.

“You’re not busy, are you?”

“Not really . . .” Shaking his head, the big man stood up.  “Let me go grab a cup of coffee.  You want anything?”

“Uh, no,” Mikio replied, slipping into a comfortable chair opposite Bas’ hulking desk.

“Just a sec,” he said, striding out of the office and around the corner where the coffee machine sat.  It didn’t take him long to fill a mug and return.  “Okay, what’s up?” he asked, sipping the steaming brew as he sat back down again.

Mikio grimaced since he still wasn’t entirely sure if he really wanted to talk to Bas about this, at all.  In the end, though, he sighed.  “Well, I, uh . . .” He made a face.  “I . . .”

Bas frowned, setting aside his coffee mug and turning his undivided attention on Mikio.  “Is something the matter?”

He reached up, fiddled with his twitching ear.  “Not really . . . Kind of . . .”

Tilting his head to the side as he regarded Mikio closely, Bas’s mouth shifted to the left as he slowly, almost imperceptibly, shook his head.  “Okay, I’m going to go with, there is, but you’re trying to figure it out?”

Mikio sighed, propping his elbow on the arm of the chair, rubbing his right temple furiously.  “They’re coming to replace Madison’s keypad tomorrow,” he heard himself saying.

“Oka-a-ay,” Bas drawled.  “And . . . that’s not . . . good . . .?”

“Yes,” he blurted.  Then he shook his head and heaved a sigh, dragging a hand over his face as his exasperation surfaced.  “No.  I mean . . .” He grimaced.  “Damn it . . .”

Under any other circumstances, the speed—or lack thereof—of the comprehension that dawned upon the big man might have been funny as hell.  All things considered, however, Mikio wasn’t really in the mood to see a damn thing amusing about any of it.  Crossing his arms over his chest, Bas leaned back in his chair.  It groaned and creaked under his weight.  “I’m guessing that you would rather that she stays with you,” he concluded.

He let out a deep breath, casting Bas what could only be described as a somewhat nervous frown.  “Y-Yeah,” he admitted.

Bas slowly nodded.  “And I’m assuming you don’t want to take the most direct route and just tell her you want her to stay,” he concluded.  “Gotcha.”

“That . . . would seem . . . rude, don’t you think?”

Bas bit his lip for a moment, as though he were considering the dilemma at hand.  “Well, not rude, exactly.  I mean, it would depend on the woman, I guess, but Maddy’s always been pretty straightforward.  That aside, are we trying to come up with something that keeps her there without necessarily telling her that you just want her to stay?”

Mikio nodded.  “Yes, that.”

“Okay.”

When Bas said nothing else, Mikio made a face.  “No ideas?”

Bas held up a hand and reached for his coffee cup with the other.  “Give me a second,” he said, his voice, muffled by the mug.  He took his time, taking a long drink, before lowering it to the desk once more as he slowly, carefully, regarded Mikio.  “Not one, sorry,” he said with an apologetic shrug.  “Maybe you should ask Gunnar.  He’s an assrag, sure, but he’s a damn sneaky assrag . . .”

Mikio’s grimace shifted into a scowl.   “Don’t tell Gunnar.”

“Don’t tell Gunnar, what?” Gunnar asked as he strode into Bas’ office with a cup of coffee in his hand.

“Hmm, well, if he wanted you to know, then he wouldn’t have said not to tell you, don’t you think?” Bas shot back mildly.

Gunnar snorted.  “If you’re looking for advice, don’t ask him.  He doesn’t understand anything but how to break stuff.  I, on the other hand . . . I give great advice.”

Bas choked on his coffee, thumping the cup heavily on his desk as he narrowed his eyes on Gunnar, as though to see whether or not he was being serious.  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Bas stated flatly.  “Go away while the adults talk, why don’t you?”

Gunnar rolled his eyes and slowly shook his head as he decided to ignore Bas entirely.  “So, what’s the problem, Mikio?”

Mikio grimaced inwardly since he really wasn’t sure, what Gunnar would say, but, given the idea that he tended to be entirely too realistic, too fatalistic, he was reasonably certain that he wouldn’t be that much help, anyway.  “It’s nothing,” he muttered, intercepting Bas’ gaze.

“It’s not nothing if it makes you look like that,” Gunnar replied almost mildly, gesturing at him with his coffee cup.  Then he sighed.  “All right, I swear I will try not to be too harsh.  Better?”

He slowly shook his head.  “Gunnar . . .”

“I’m assuming it hasn’t got a thing to do with Gavin’s case,” Gunnar prompted when Mikio trailed off.

“Uh, no,” he admitted.  “It’s not really important. I just . . .” He shook his head again.  “It’s nothing.”

Bas frowned, settling back in his chair, propping his elbow on the wooden armrest, resting his chin in his ‘L’-shaped thumb and index finger.  “Let me ask you something, Gun—and don’t be an ass, all right?”

“Just because I’m blunt doesn’t mean I’m an ass,” Gunnar retorted.  “But go ahead.”

Bas grunted.  “If you thought that someone would be better off, staying with you, how would you go about, getting them to stay without saying anything that could be taken in the wrong way?”

“The wrong way?” Gunnar echoed, shaking his head as he slouched back against the wall, crossing his ankles and affecting a somewhat careless pose.  “You mean, without the other person thinking that you like them more than you do or in a different way?”

“Yeah, like that,” Bas replied.

Gunnar considered that for a long moment.  Then, he shrugged.  “I’d just tell them that I’d feel better if they stayed with me—unless it’s you, Bas.  I don’t want you anywhere near my house.  Sydnie and the pups can stay, though.”

“As if, you bastard,” Bas grumbled, rolling his eyes.  “Anyway, if that were an option, then we wouldn’t be discussing this, now would we?  Try again.  Something sneakier.”

“Oh, in that case . . .” He made a face.  “Can I ask you, who the hell are we even talking about here?  That might help.”

Bas shot Mikio a quick glance.  “Maddy,” he admitted, nodding at Mikio.  “Her security system’s going to be fixed tomorrow, and he doesn’t really want her to go home yet . . .” Trailing off for a moment, he sat up a little straighter.  “Can’t say it’s a bad idea, though.  Isn’t that robber-turned-murderer still on the loose in that neighborhood?”

Mikio latched onto that.  “Yes, exactly,” he allowed.  “It’s dangerous, especially since they’ve been known to have the ability to breech certain security systems.”

“She’s a little less fragile than you think,” Gunnar pointed out.  “But you know, there are crooks out there, all over the place, so, even if she’s safe from one, that doesn’t really make her safe from the next guy that comes along—especially someone like her.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mikio demanded, unable to keep the sharpness out of his tone.

Gunnar, didn’t seem to catch it, though.  Instead, he leveled a rather blank look at Mikio.  “You have to have noticed that Madison’s a very beautiful woman.  She could easily be attacked, just walking down the street.”

“If she’s so vulnerable, then why aren’t you two doing more to watch out for her?” Mikio growled.

Gunnar frowned.  “Listen, Mikio, I’m just pointing out the obvious.  Any woman that looks like her would be a target regardless, but Maddy herself?  I think she’s a lot more than most men could possibly handle, so don’t worry.”

Mikio’s gaze narrowed as he eyed Gunnar.  There was something there behind his normal façade, something that said a lot more than he’d actually voiced.  Gunnar . . . “Did you sleep with her?” he asked before he could stop himself.

Gunnar blinked, and, for a moment, he looked rather surprised.  “I . . . Does it matter?” he countered.

He didn’t know why it never had occurred to him.  He didn’t know why it bothered him now—especially now.  Considering it was well in the past, it shouldn’t.  But . . . “So, you did,” he concluded.

Gunnar shrugged, as though it didn’t really matter, which only really made Mikio’s already agitated temper, rise exponentially.  “It was a while ago,” he admitted.  “Not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” Mikio echoed, shaking his head, slowly rising to his feet.  “You sleep with a woman, and it’s not a big deal?  But then, they never are, are they?”

“Mikio, I don’t—” Bas began, only to cut himself off when Mikio’s hand shot out toward him.

“Hey, I—” Gunnar began.

“Fuck you, Gunnar,” Mikio snapped, shoving the chair out of his way and striding toward the door.

“Mikio!” Gunnar called after him.

Mikio didn’t stop, and a moment later, the sound of the elevator doors closing abruptly cut off the stinging feel of his youki.

“What . . . the hell was that?” Gunnar finally said, still staring at the doorway in rather obvious shock.

Bas let out a deep breath and slumped a little lower in his chair.  “You seriously can’t tell?” he challenged.

His question earned him a scathing glower.  “Well, if you’d pointed out sooner that he had a thing for her, I—”

“Why else would he want her to stay with him, you moron?” Bas shot back.

Gunnar grunted, pushing himself away from the wall, stomping over to the other chair across from Bas’ desk.  “I figured it out,” he grumbled, collapsing into the seat.  “I didn’t even tell him to start with, and . . . Damn it.”

Bas sighed.  “You seriously slept with Maddy?  I mean, isn’t that kind of like . . . sleeping with Jilli?  Which, if you did, I’d have had to kill you, just so you know.”

That earned him another scathing glower.  “No, it’s not—and what the fuck is wrong with you, anyway?” he shot back.  After another moment, he started to stand up.

“Where are you going?” Bas asked.

Gunnar snorted.  “Where do you think?  I’m going to go talk to Mikio.”

“Don’t do it,” Bas warned.  “You suck at explaining, and you’re not going to make him feel better.  Besides, he’s too pissed off to listen, or didn’t you notice that?  Give him a few days to cool off—and when you do go over there, try not to make it worse.”

He didn’t look like he wanted to admit any such thing, but in the end, he flopped back into the chair once more, dropping his face into one hand, the long, draw-out sigh that escaped him, muffled.

 

 

~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~

A/N:

STORY STILL ON HIATUS …

I’m posting this chapter for oblivion-bringr… You’ve been with me for a long, long time.  I pray that you get better so that you can stay with me for a long time to come!

== == == == == == == == == ==

Reviewers

==========

MMorg
Sal ——— Sora ——— oblivion-bringr

==========

AO3
Okmeamithinknow ——— minthegreen ——— Amanda+Gauger ——— mygrayhare ——— Elizabeth

==========

Final Thought from Madison:
Hmm … I remember that …

==========

Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Anomaly):  I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga.  Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al.  I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~