InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 2: Defiance ❯ Berlin ( Chapter 1 )

Staring down from the penthouse window over the congestion of the city far below with a vague smile turning up the corner of his lips, he tried to brush off the over-taxation of his keen senses.  Kami, he hated traveling.  He’d spent the majority of the afternoon after his arrival in the bedroom with the heavy damask curtains closed and a cold, damp washcloth covering his eyes as he’d tried to relax away the after-effects of the over-stimulation.  The noise of the planes at the airport, the scents of a myriad of people all rushing from one place to another . . . the changes in pressure in the airplane, itself . . . It had all culminated in one hell of a headache that still hadn’t completely gone away.  Expression devoid of any real humor as his amber eyes swept over the cityscape, the only sound in the unbroken silence was a soft clink of ice cubes in the glass he held in his long-fingered hand.  ‘How long this time, Father?  How long will you wait before you summon me home?’

Last year, it was Nepal, and a beautiful human girl named Amira.  Sesshoumaru had caught wind of her and had ordered Toga home before he had been able to ask her on a date.  Then it was London and the lovely Lyssia.  Same thing.  Madrid had been Pilar, and of course, the edict had come in shortly thereafter.  This time, however . . .

In fact, for as long as Toga could remember, it seemed as though he hadn’t had any real interactions with what he considered to be suitable females except one: Lily.  He smiled as the fleeting image of her face, of those amazing violet eyes of hers, flashed through her head.  Something about that girl . . . His indulgent smile slowly faded, and he shook his head.  Why was he thinking about her now?  It had been years since she so unceremoniously walked out of his life.  He sighed and shook his head.

‘Nice, Toga . . . must be jetlag.’

His smile returned, just a little, adding a slight brightness to his gaze that caught the lights of the city below and added to the flecks of gold.  ‘Is that what we’re calling it these days?  Jetlag?’

‘Good enough,’ his youkai-voice quipped.

Stifling a sigh, he lazily lifted the glass of sparkling water to his lips.  ‘How long do you suppose our respite will last this time?’

‘There is no such thing, not when it comes to the Will of Inutaisho Sesshoumaru . . .’

There was a little too much truth to that rueful statement, wasn’t there . . .?

The intrusive trill of his cell phone cut through the silence like a knife.  Wincing as he dug around in the pockets of his tailored Vengal suit, Inutaisho Toga finally located the offending electronic device and grinned just a little when he read the name on the caller ID.  “Hai, Kaa-san,” he greeted after he clicked the button and brought the phone to his ear.

“Darling, how was your flight?” Kagura asked, her rich voice as soothing to him now as it had been when he was a child.

He sighed, idly scratching the back of his head.  “In a word?  Tedious.  Is there something you needed?”

Kagura chuckled.  “Needed?  No . . . Do I need a reason to call my favorite son?”

He made a face but smiled as he stared out the window.  “And your only son,” he reminded her.

“That, too.”

Toga sighed and shrugged off his jacket.  “I’m here, at the penthouse,” he remarked casually, waiting for her to mention the real reason she had called.  It didn’t take long.

“Toga . . . tou-chan wanted me to call.  He said to remember your promise.”

Toga made a face, not that his mother would see it.  “How could I forget?  When the Great and Powerful Inutaisho Sesshoumaru speaks, the world quivers in fear.”

“Toga . . .”

Rubbing his face, he gave in.  Some things were just not worth arguing over, were they?  “I won’t forget, kaa-san.”

Kagura sighed.  “I wish you two could come to terms on this.”

Toga rolled his amber eyes, raking his claws through his raven-black locks.  “We will—as soon as he admits that he’s being stubborn and archaic for no good reason.”

“He has his reasons,” Kagura reminded him.

“As do I,” he replied tightly, the first stirrings of temper starting to come through in his normally easy-going tone.

“Aiko misses you,” she tried again.

Toga winced at the mention of his younger sister.  It was her fault this whole thing had come up, in the first place.  “I’m sure.”

Kagura sighed this time.  “Will you be home for her wedding?”

“I’ll try,” he offered, frowning since it was the very last thing he really wanted to do.  “No guarantees.”

“Toga . . .”

“I’ve got to run, kaa-san.  I have reservations for dinner in half an hour, and I don’t have a thing to wear.”

Kagura groaned at her son’s joke.  He’d never cared for clothes or convention, never gave a damn for the things that were expected of him, and that was the crux of the problem.  Never quite as happy as he was when he had spent time with his aunt and uncle and cousins, Toga, it seemed, much preferred the laid-back lifestyle of his hanyou uncle, InuYasha, than he had, spending time with his nuclear family.

Hanging up, Toga dropped the cell phone onto the sofa before wrinkling his nose in abject disgust.  Growing up the only son and thus heir to his tai-youkai as well as Inu no Taisho father, Sesshoumaru, Toga had been taught responsibility early on, and much to his own chagrin.  Not that his childhood had been a terrible experience.  It was far from that.  There used to be a time when he had believed that his father was the greatest being on earth, and in a way, he still did.

Stepping over to the closet where the butler had hung his clothing, Toga retrieved the black linen evening suit and a forest green silk banded neck shirt.  Tugging off the necktie he loathed, he started changing his clothes for the dinner meeting he couldn’t get out of.

With a sigh and a shake of his head, Toga’s thoughts returned to his father, to the events that couldn’t be undone now.  It wasn’t until he’d reached twenty-five that his relationship with his father had started to really deteriorate.  Toga still remembered that day last summer.  He’d realized then that everything was about to change.

“Aiko tells me she wishes to take a mate,” Sesshoumaru remarked casually enough as he sank down behind the desk in his spacious study at their estate just outside Tokyo.

Toga flopped back in the thick leather chair across from his father, legs stretched out before him, crossed at the ankles, as Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow at his son’s perceived lack of manners.  “Just a matter of time, I thought,” Toga remarked.  “Seiji’s a good match for her, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps, though I might have thought that you would wed long before your sister.  Tell me, Toga . . . Are you not pleased with Fujiko?  I thought you cared for her.”

Toga slunk down a little lower in his chair as his pinking cheeks gave away his discernable reticence to have this discussion.  “She’s all right,” he hedged noncommittally.

His deliberate choice of words did not go unnoticed as one of Sesshoumaru’s eyebrows arched in silent question.  “All right?” he echoed at length, sitting back in his chair, steepling his fingertips together in front of his face.

Toga schooled his features, brushing aside the almost perverse desire to squirm under such close scrutiny.  “Yes, she’s fine,” he reiterated, hoping that it was enough to get his father to drop the current line of questioning.  It did not.

“And tell me, then, just what it is about her that is . . . ‘fine’ and ‘all right’ . . .?”

“She’s just not really my type,” Toga muttered.

“Nonsense.  She is a perfect match for you in every way that matters,” Sesshoumaru insisted, his tone taking on the dismissive kind of lilt that meant, as far as he was concerned, the discussion should be over.  “Her father tells me that she has been looking at wedding dresses.”

Toga barked out a terse laugh before he could stop himself or think better of it.  “Oh?  Is she marrying anyone I know?”

Sesshoumaru’s gaze narrowed as he regarded Toga for several long seconds.  After what felt like an eternity, however, he reached over, released the lock on the desk drawer beside him.  The drawer sprang open, and Sesshoumaru retrieved a black velvet box that he didn’t even bother to look at before he pushed it across the broad expanse of the prodigious desk toward Toga.  “I took the liberty of having this commissioned—with your mother’s impeccable input, of course.”

Toga didn’t reach for the box right away since he had a reasonably good idea, just what was inside the damned thing.  Curiosity, however, got the better of him, though, and after pinning his father with a darkened scowl, he leaned forward and snagged the box, flipping it open and turning it from side to side, staring in unabashed incredulity at the ridiculously large diamond solitaire ring, glittering at him from the nest of black satin inside.  “Nice.  I’m sure it’ll look beautiful on kaa-san’s finger,” Toga quipped dryly, snapping the box closed and tossing it carelessly onto the desk before slumping back in his chair once more.

“It’s for your engagement to Fujiko,” Sesshoumaru pointed out with all the finesse of an executioner.

Toga bristled.  “Fat fucking chance,” he muttered under his breath.

Sesshoumaru wasn’t impressed.  “I’ll pretend not to have heard that.”

Toga grunted inelegantly.  “Do I need to say it louder?”

Narrowing his eyes, his father looked even less amused than normal.  “Far too much time with your uncle.”

Toga shook his head, wondering why it was that Sesshoumaru always blamed InuYasha whenever the two of them disagreed.  “Yasha-oji-chan has nothing to do with it.”

“What is it you want, Toga?” Sesshoumaru challenged abruptly.

Toga’s smile belied his age, a tainted smile that spoke more experience than he ought to have had.  “Passion.”

Sesshoumaru pondered that answer for a moment before he broke into the vaguest hint of a smile.  “Passion?” he echoed in as close to an incredulous tone as Toga could recall having heard from him before.  “That’s a fleeting emotion.  Do you not know that?”

Toga shrugged.  “So, you don’t desire kaa-san anymore?”

“Don’t be flip.”

“Then don’t be simplistic!” Toga countered as he sat up straight, daring to counter his father as no one else would ever think to, with the exception of Yasha-oji-chan.  “It’s easy for you to say; kaa-san has always been your heart mate, your equal . . .”

“And you don’t feel Fujiko is yours?”

“No, otou-sama, I know she isn’t.”

“Then keep looking, Toga, just bear in mind, she cannot be human.”

Toga shook his head.  “Youkai women are all the same, and you know it.  They’re all like Fujiko.  They’re cold and aloof . . . untouchable . . . I don’t want it.”

“It is not a matter of wanting, Toga.  It is what I require of you.”

“Try again, tou-san.  I’ll not take a youkai mate if she doesn’t please me.”

“Then by all means, find one who pleases you, but she’d better be youkai.”

Shaking his head slowly, Toga rose from his chair.  Staring Sesshoumaru in the eye, amber gazes locking, neither man willing to give an inch.  “I don’t care if she has three heads and spits fire.  If there is no passion, I will not take her to mate . . . and if the one I find is human . . . then you’ll have to live with that, too.”

He’d finally managed to irritate Sesshoumaru—really irritate him.  It showed in the underlying spike of his father’s youki; it showed in the slight flare of his nostrils as he deliberately blanked his features and sat back.  “Toga, in this, you will honor me.”

Toga shook his head before he strode toward the door.  “I’ll honor you when you honor me, as well.”

He sighed and shook his head as he drained the water from his glass and set it aside as he brushed away the lingering traces of the memory.  The last thing he wanted to do was suffer through an overly long business dinner tonight.  Having taken over most of the responsibilities for acquisitions for the family business, Inutaisho Industries International, Toga also didn’t have much of a choice, either.  They were trying to buy out Stellesaft, and, if he were careful, he might be able to close the deal tonight.

Grabbing his jacket as he grabbed his cell phone to call a cab, Toga told the girl at the courtesy desk that he needed a ride to the Vau restaurant on Jägerstrasse as he hit the button on the elevator and waited.  Checking his watch as after he donned the jacket and tapped his foot impatiently, he couldn’t help but feel restless, as though something unexpected was about to happen . . . if only he could figure out what that could possibly be.

"Guten Abend!  Welcome!  Do you have a reservation?"

Toga nodded at the young hostess that greeted him.  “Abend,” he answered.  “I’ve a meeting with Herr Stelle.”

“Ah, Herr Stelle . . . This way, please.”

Following along behind the small woman, Toga squinted as he dug into his inner breast pocket for his glasses.  Damn clumsy things, but necessary . . .

Still fumbling around with his glasses as they approached the table, he was welcomed before he could rightly see the squat, middle-aged man rise and offer his hand in greeting.  Jamming his glasses into place as he accepted the friendly greeting, Toga pasted on his best business smile as he sat down in the chair opposite the man.  “Pleased to meet you!  I’m Wildemar Stelle.  My wife is . . . how do you say?  Powdering her nose.”

Toga nodded as a waitress approached.  He could smell her before he turned to look at her.  The perfume she wore was much too strong, masking whatever scent lay below the surface as she offered him a tepid smile.  Leaning away as far as he dared without appearing offensive, Toga returned the expression and dragged his gaze off the woman’s obscenely red lipstick.   He could tolerate perfume in small amounts.  Too bad she smelled like she’d bathed in it . . . “Wine?  Beer?”

“Water,” he answered, bringing his hand to his nose without thinking about the gesture.  Being inu-youkai sometimes held distinct disadvantages.  In places such as this, when the scent of the overwhelming perfumes and powders made his head spin, he was all-too aware of the drawbacks of his uncanny senses.

“Wasser!” Stelle laughed, waving his hand as though Toga had made some sort of joke.  Toga blinked as he stared at the German.  “You drink nothing?”  Stelle shook his head and waved at the waitress.  “You drink no liquor?”

Toga nearly smiled.  Recalling the time his father and Yasha-oji-chan had gotten drunk on sake and basically made complete and utter fools of themselves in a swordfight, Toga had sworn early on—mostly after listening to his mother’s diatribe over the same incident—that he wouldn’t be drinking, ever.  The two men—his role models, for kami’s sake—had ended up sleeping it off at Yasha-oji-chan’s house, and only because Gome-oba-chan was damn near a saint . . .

“No, I never touch the stuff.”

Stelle seemed to think that Toga was just having him on, and with a hearty laugh, he reached over and heartily thumped Toga on the back.  “You will have beer, ja?”

Toga smiled politely and waved his hand.  “No, thanks.  Water’s fine.”

“So sorry I’m late,” a very feminine voice said as she quickly slipped into the chair between the men.  Toga shot to his feet.  Having been taught to stand when a lady presented herself might have seemed old fashioned, but . . .

But then he saw her face, and his heart stopped.  Platinum blonde hair pulled back in a delicate chignon at the nape of her neck, she smiled as she glanced up at him.  Her smile faltered as she stared.  Toga’s senses kicked in full-throttle as her all-too-familiar scent surrounded him like an old friend.  Those amazing violet eyes of hers . . . they were the same ones he remembered.  “L-Lily?”

She blinked and stared, her rosy cheeks paling noticeably even in the ambient light of the restaurant.  Her hand shot up to flutter at her throat, and he couldn’t help but notice that she had to swallow a few times before she could find her voice.  “Toga . . .?”

“You two have met?” Stelle asked, apparently pleased by what he viewed as a fortuitous turn of events.

Jarred rudely back to his senses by the intrusive sound of his voice, Toga sat back down and tried to shift his gaze away from the girl who had disappeared from his life so long ago.  Why did the floor feel like it had opened under him?  Why could he feel his entire world spin entirely out of his control?

‘Lily . . .’

“She is lovely, ja?”

“Uh, yeah,” Toga agreed, fighting down the flush that threatened to engulf his features.  ‘Damn . . . of all the . . . Married?  Lily?  To Wildemar Stelle?  Ah, kami . . .’

“We met years ago, when my father was stationed near Tokyo,” she supplied since Toga couldn’t quite find his voice.  She sounded normal, didn’t she?  Completely natural—though he could still make out the slight tightness around the corners of her eyes.  How unobservant was her husband?  How could he not notice . . .?  “His sister and I were friends . . .”

“Ah!  So, you two know each other from long time!” Wildemar said enthusiastically.  “This is good!  Very good!  Business amongst friends, ja?”

Lily managed a weak laugh.  To Toga, it sounded like she was struggling to come off as natural, normal.  “Tell me, how is Aiko?”

It took a moment for Toga to digest what Lily had asked, and he cleared his throat before answering.  “Aiko?  Uh . . . fine . . . good . . . She’s, uh, she’s getting married soon.”

“Really?  That’s wonderful!  A nice man, I hope?”

Nodding slowly, wondering just how he was going to get through the rest of the dinner, Toga forced a smile.  “Seiji, yes . . . He’s a pretty good guy.”

“I hope your sister will be as happy as Lily and I are,” Wildemar went on, his already ruddy complexion, darkening a shade or two.  “Two years, just last week!” he exclaimed happily.

Toga managed another smile.  “Two years,” he echoed pleasantly.  “Congratulations.”

He was saved from further commentary, however, as the waitress returned with their drinks.  Across the table, he intercepted the warm smile that Lily shot him, and he returned the gesture as Wildemar busied himself, discussing some things on the menu with the woman.

Lily seemed to relax, though, and she smiled: radiant, lending a brightness to those remarkable eyes, carving adorable dimples in her soft pink cheeks, as she turned her attention to the waitress, allowing Toga a moment to try to gather his scattered thoughts.  He forced his gaze away and wondered just how it could be that the one girl who’d ever managed to stop his heart was married . . . the one girl who made him feel so alive, so free . . . so . . .

In the immortal words of Yasha-oji-chan, ‘Keh!’