InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 2: Defiance ❯ Toga's Promise ( Chapter 21 )

~~Chapter 21~~

~Toga's Promise~

 

~*~

 

 

Sierra stared out the window as Toga opened the door. Kirara bounded inside with a happy yip. He never had to leash her when he took her outside. Sierra glanced back at them and shook her head. He maintained that it was because he understood her. For some reason, Sierra felt just a little slighted that the hyperactive puppy always behaved like a perfect little angel whenever Toga was around. Watching as the animal held her head high and pranced over to the old pillow she used for a bed, Sierra rolled her eyes but smiled wanly as Kirara settled down for a nap.

 

“She's a spoiled brat,” Sierra commented as she continued to stare at the drowsing dog.

 

Toga chuckled as he dropped his jacket over the back of an armchair. “I'd spoil you, too, if you wanted me to.”

 

Arching an eyebrow as he prowled closer, Sierra frowned. “I have to ask? She didn't.”

 

“And how do you know she didn't ask?”

 

Sierra sighed as her smile resurfaced. “Did she?”

 

He didn't answer as he dropped a small paper bag of puppy treats on the coffee table. Sierra wasn't surprised. He had stopped by the specialty pet store just around the block like he did every time he took Kirara for a walk. “I didn't think you'd let me,” he finally confessed as he pulled her into a warm hug.

 

“Let you?”

 

He shrugged. “Let me spoil you. Money always seems to bother you, so I indulged the pup instead.”

 

She stiffened in his arms and leaned away before turning her back on him as she crossed her arms over her stomach. “I don't want your money, Toga.”

 

“I know you don't.”

 

She shook her head and started to hurry toward the kitchen. “I don't want to talk about this right now, okay?”

 

He caught her hand and gently pulled her back. Grimacing slightly as he tucked her hair behind her ear, he sighed. “I don't think it is. Why? Why do you hate the idea that I have money? And don't tell me it doesn't bother you because I know it does. It always has. Now tell me why.”

 

It was easier to glare at his stomach than it was to meet his concerned gaze. “I told you about Allan, didn't I?” she hedged, unwilling to bring back memories that still hurt.

 

“You did. You said he was wealthy,” Toga agreed, “but that doesn't really explain why you hate that I am, too.”

 

She shrugged. “He . . . he made a fool of me, Toga, because he could.—because he was rich . . . because no one ever told him `no'.” Shaking her head, she finally lifted her chin, dared to look at him, frowned at the confusion, the upset that drew his eyebrows together, that clouded over his topaz gaze. “I dated him for six months before I found out that he was already engaged.”

 

“To Kari,” Toga deducted as something far more dangerous sparked to life behind his gaze.

 

Sierra jerked her head in response. “When I confronted him about it, he . . . he laughed. He said that little `country girls' like me were only good for . . . for sex, which is funny since we never—” Cutting herself off, she waved a hand as though to dismiss what she was about to say as her cheeks blossomed in indignant fire. “Anyway, he was just a jerk—a rich jerk . . .”

 

Toga's breath whistled as he sucked in air. “What?” he growled, unable to contain the rage in his tone. “He said what? What's his last name? Does he live around here?”

 

Shaking her head in confusion, Sierra frowned as she massaged her aching temple. “Hutchins . . . he used to live over on Lakeshore Drive . . . why?” She gasped as he dropped his arms and spun around, grabbing his jacket as he moved in a streak of blurry speed toward the door. “Toga! Wait!” she hollered as she chased after him.

 

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob, his gaze fierce, challenging. “Stay here, Sierra.”

 

Her eyes widened as his eyes flashed scarlet around the edges. “Toga . . . ? No, you can't!” she yelled as she ran to him, threw her arms around him. “You'll kill him!”

 

He abruptly stopped trying to move her aside, and Sierra breathed a sigh of relief but didn't let go.

 

“He hurt you,” Toga growled, voice thick with frustrated anger. “Damn it, I won't let him—”

 

“It's okay,” she argued. “I'm fine now, and—”

 

“It's not okay,” he shot back. “That little bastard isn't going to get away with what he did to you!”

 

She shook her head, letting go of him only to lift her hands to cup his face. “It is . . . you make it okay for me.”

 

The stubborn set of his expression waned a little as he glared at her. As the glare diminished, he sighed, wrapping his arms around her. “If I ever see him . . .”

 

She shivered, closing her eyes against the grim determination in his voice. “Just don't kill him, promise me. He's not worth it.”

 

Toga sighed again. For a moment, she thought that he was going to argue with her. In the end, he relented with a nod. “He might not be worth it, but you are,” he pointed out as his scowl darkened. She bit her lip, the anxiety in her expression growing more and more by the second. He relented with a sigh despite his desire not to. “I promise I won't kill him.”

 

Something about his tone worried her, and Sierra tilted her head back to frown at him. “You won't promise not to beat on him, will you?”

 

He snorted indelicately. “Hell, no!”

 

The narrowing of his gaze was answer enough. Sierra sighed. “Toga . . . I don't want you to fight over me. It's in the past. Can't I just leave it there?”

 

He snorted. “Keh. No one will hurt you, Sierra, and if I ever see that bastard, I swear I'll deal with him.”

 

“Toga . . .”

 

“Forget it, wench. This isn't open to debate.”

 

She sighed. Something about the frosty brilliance in his gaze, the determination in his stubborn expression . . . She had a feeling that he'd already given her the greatest allowance he was likely to make . . . `No . . . I don't suppose it is . . .'

 

 

-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-

 

 

Toga lay stretched out on the sofa with Sierra cuddled against his chest. He wasn't watching the movie. Eyes trained on the screen, he hadn't paid any attention to it at all. He could tell by the way Sierra sighed every so often and by her rapt silence that she was enjoying it.

 

He couldn't get her words out of his head. ”He said that little `country girls' like me were only good for . . . for sex, which is funny since we never . . .”

 

He knew that she hadn't been with a man. She was simply too sweet, too naïve to have been. In this day and age, it was practically unheard of, outside of the youkai world, but he'd also known that there was something different about Sierra, hadn't he? Something that set her apart from other women, something rare and beautiful.

 

Unable to stave back his grimace as his resolve deepened, Toga clenched his jaw. `I promised Sierra I wouldn't kill Allan, sure. I never promised I wouldn't wipe the floor with him, though . . .' Perhaps a call to Uncle Yasha was in order since Toga hadn't bothered to bring his halberd with him.

 

Sierra wiggled around, used her arms against his chest to push herself up to stare at him. “You're not watching the movie at all, are you?”

 

“No,” he confessed.

 

She shook her head as she pinned him with a knowing stare, the mist in her eyes swirling and flowing like a thick morning fog. “You're still planning on hunting down Allan, aren't you?”

 

He didn't deny or confirm her suspicions as he idly wrapped a lock of her hair around his finger.

 

She shook her head, her long sigh designed to let him know that she thought he was being stubborn for no good reason. “I love these,” she remarked instead, idly tracing the blue stripes on his cheeks—his crests.

 

He cracked a small grin. “You have a strange preoccupation with seeing my crests, Sierra,” he remarked.

 

“They look . . .” she shrugged offhandedly. “They look natural on you, I guess.”

 

He made a face. “I suppose.”

 

“Why do you hide them?”

 

Toga yawned, idly rubbing her back with his fingertips. “Youkai weren't forced to hide until about five hundred years or so ago. Even then, it was more of a general consensus than an order. Father said that it was easier to simply blend in than to try to coexist with humans as we were.”

 

Sierra looked sad. “Is that why your father hates us?”

 

Toga shook his head. “Sierra . . . I don't know if you'll believe me or not, but he doesn't hate them. My older sister is human. Father saved her. She was just a young girl when the village she lived in was destroyed by a pack of wolf-youkai. Rin was killed, but Father . . .” with a sigh and a shake of his head since he really didn't understand everything, himself, Toga shrugged. “Father saved her.”

 

Sierra frowned. “How could he save her if she was already . . . dead . . .?”

 

His smile lacked the humor that the expression should have had. “Father has a sword . . . in fact, it used to belong to my grandfather. He had it forged in order to protect his human mate—Uncle Yasha's mother. They call it the Sword of Heaven, Tenseiga. That sword can be used to cut through the creatures that come to bear a soul to the next world—in essence, it revives those who have died. They say that Tenseiga has the power to save a thousand lives.”

 

“How can someone have that much power?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. It frightened her, didn't it? That sort of might . . . it was mind-boggling.

 

“I've wondered that, myself,” he admitted at length, his gaze taking on a faraway sort of light. “Uncle Yasha Tetsusaiga—the Sword of Earth. It can slay a thousand youkai in a single stroke. He's half-human, so I used to think that maybe he should have had Tenseiga. He has sympathy for humans, and I'm not saying that Father doesn't, but Father . . . Father doesn't like to interfere, and maybe . . . maybe that's the real reason that he has Tenseiga.”

 

Sierra shook her head, unable to comprehend what Toga was trying to say. Her confusion must have showed on her face, though, because he sighed and smiled wanly, reaching over to smooth her hair out of her eyes. “Think about it: if people were resurrected at will simply because you feel sorry for the ones that they left behind, don't you think that it might upset the balance? That's the nature of life, isn't it? Everything is born, everything lives, and . . . and everything dies, too.”

 

“Maybe,” she allowed slowly. “But what about people who are killed for no good reason? People who die because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

 

Toga sighed. “Father has saved those that Tenseiga has compelled him to. He respects the power of the sword, and even if he didn't use it very often, he always carried it with him.”

 

Sierra let out a deep breath, taking a moment to ponder Toga's words. She'd realized it before, of course. He absolutely respected his father, even if he didn't like the things that Sesshoumaru did. She supposed she could understand that. After all, she didn't care for him, did she, and yet she still had to respect him for having raised a son as wonderful as Toga.

 

Toga shook his head as the slight bemusement in his expression gave way to a darker emotion: not quite anger despite the irritation evident in the drawn tightness of his countenance. “If Aiko would have wanted to marry a human, Father would have blessed the match. It's just me, because I'm his only son.”

 

“I feel like I'm making you choose,” she muttered, her tone tinged with a hint of disgust.

 

He smiled, and while it wasn't the brightest one she'd ever seen, it wasn't feigned, either. “Don't worry about it, Sierra. You're the one I want to be with.”

 

She smiled as she shifted her arm, resting her elbow on his chest and propping her chin on her hand. “Will you show me your face now?”

 

Toga rolled his eyes and removed the concealment. “You're so demanding,” he teased.

 

Sierra traced the crests on his cheeks with gentle fingers. “And you were born with these markings, right?”

 

He nodded, unable to hold back his smile as she feathered her fingers over his face. Her touch was soothing and yet stirred a deeper part of him, something wholly primal, entirely instinctive . . . Catching her hands, he pulled her down, leaning up to capture her lips with his. Her fingers tightened around his hands, and she sighed.

 

The softness of her mouth, gentle, teasing, collided with the ferocity that rose in him, a desire so euphoric that it threatened the edges of reason. Her body burned him despite the clothing that separated them as apple blossoms mingled with something far more exhilarating, a scent both primeval and untamed, assuaging the escalating need that shot through his youkai blood.

 

He flicked the tip of his tongue against her lips. With a whimper, a shudder, a soft exhalation, she opened to his perusal. Letting go of her hands, he slipped an arm around her, drawing her closer against him, raking his claws through her hair as he kissed her deep, tongue seeking the hidden recesses of her, his body reacting to her, the chosen, his mate in his heart, if not in fact. Her body reacted to the unvoiced desires, pressing against his as lingering sanity fell away. Aching madness, resurgent heat, the palpitation of two hearts that wanted to be joined echoed in the room, lingered on the skin, heavy as the earth, lighter than air.

 

Her heart beat against his in a stuttered cadence, a precarious rhythm that goaded him. If he listened closely, he could hear the blood surging through her, could smell the rising passion as her scent evolved, changing as rapidly as the shifting desert sands, beautiful as the rising sun. His breaths grew shallower as her daring grew. Unwilling to let him do all the kissing, she sank her hands in his hair, rose above him like a tender spring blossom reaching for the sunlight. She stared at him, eyes lit with an inexplicable glow. She didn't hide anything from him. The flush in her cheeks, the blood-red lips, swollen from his kisses, breath ragged, fanning over him in a white-hot burn . . . if he had ever seen anything quite as breathtaking as she was, he couldn't remember . . .

 

“Sierra,” he whispered softly, reaching for her, hands shaking as he stroked her cheeks, as he reveled in the smoothness of her skin.

 

Her eyes fluttered closed as his touch flowed over her. With a soft little whimper, a tiny half-moan, Sierra collapsed against him, nuzzling his neck. Her exhalations rippled over him, set off shocking waves of consuming fire through him, devastating his senses, his will. Her hands ran up and down his chest as explosions of light, the fissure of energy surrounded them. The heat of her palms was like a tropical balm. Caught between what he wanted and what he needed, Toga growled as the intoxication of the woman grew thick and heavy.

 

Running his fingertips down her sides and back again, claws catching the hem of her blouse and pushing it up as he deliberately provoked her, she trembled as her skin erupted in goose bumps, as her flesh quivered under his slow exploration. Her breasts strained against him as she gently licked, suckled on his neck. Toga fought for reason, for his last shreds of logic. Suspended just out of his reach, maddeningly close but too far to touch, his inner youkai dangerously close to taking over, Toga heard the words echoing through his hazy mind. `Mate needs . . . mate wants . . .'

 

Dragging kisses up his neck, along his jaw, finally reclaiming his lips once more as Toga's mind blanked completely, Sierra's kiss scalded him, branded him, spoke to him with a demanding fervor he couldn't ignore. He held her close. She gasped as his body throbbed against her. He swallowed the sound in a wet kiss, in a moment, in a second, in a culmination of fire and sensation.

 

The telephone's trill cut through the labored breathing, through the comfortable fog with absolutely no subtlety at all. “Ignore it,” Toga whispered between kisses. After ten rings, Sierra sat up with a frustrated growl and stumbled to her feet, absently shoving her hair behind her ear as she staggered to the phone.

 

Toga sighed, willing his body to calm. `Baka . . . that was too close!' he berated himself as reason crashed back down on him. `You can't just . . . you've got to tell her what it means to you . . .'

 

Dropping the receiver back into the cradle, Sierra heaved a sigh of her own as she shuffled back to the sofa and stretched out on Toga again. “They hung up,” she told him.

 

Toga made a face. “Sierra . . . we've got to talk.”

 

She digested that in silence for a moment as a suspicious expression, a vague wariness, filtered into her gaze. “What? If you're going to tell me now that you're an alien or something, I'll—”

 

He managed a weak chuckle as he toyed with her hair. “Nope, no aliens . . . just, uh . . . I almost . . . what we almost . . .” Fighting back the blush that rose to heat his face, Toga shook his head and forced himself to look at her. “We can't . . . not unless you're sure, because for me—for my kind—it's forever.”

 

She looked surprised as she sat up. Toga pushed himself up, too, waiting for her to speak. After several moments of silence, he cleared his throat and started to rise.

 

“Wait, Toga . . . you mean, if we were to be together then . . . what do you mean?”

 

He sank back down, leaning forward and scowling at the floor. “I'm inu-youkai. When we take a mate, it's forever. There isn't such a thing as divorce. Once you're mated, then there's not a thing that can separate one from the other except death, and even then, most of the time the loss is enough to kill the mate that is left behind.”

 

“And . . . you chose me . . . ?” she asked, her voice breathless, awed.

 

He shook his head. “I was . . . drawn to you. My youkai chose you.”

 

“And you?”

 

He grinned as he finally peeked back at her. “I need you.”

 

She smiled, too, then suddenly frowned as she looked away. “Toga . . . but . . . you said that when one dies, the other normally does, too . . .”

 

He nodded.

 

“You'll live a long time, won't you? I won't.”

 

He leaned back, tilted her chin to make her look at him. “You could.”

 

She stared at him as hope cautiously flickered to life. “With you?”

 

He nodded again then shook his head. “I know you've got a lot on your mind right now.”

 

She groaned and let her forehead fall against his chest. “Thanks for the reminder, Toga. Much appreciated.”

 

He rubbed her back with an inward wince. He hadn't meant to bring up her impending trip to meet her biological parents in quite that aggressive a way. “That reminds me, do you still want me to come with you?”

 

She sat up and sighed. “Are you sure it won't be any trouble? I . . . I don't know if I can face them alone.”

 

Toga smiled. “You're never trouble, Sierra.”

 

She let him pull her into his arms again as she rested her cheek on his chest. “I feel like they're going to say something I don't want to know,” she confessed quietly.

 

“Yeah. I know.”

 

Sierra sat up, stared into his eyes. “You're the only thing I'm sure about anymore, Toga. Why is that?”

 

He kissed her forehead. “I'm not in a hurry, Sierra. I'm not going anywhere.”

 

She finally smiled, too. “Good. You've grown on me, you know, and Kirara would miss you.” She shook herself and got up. “All right, enough of that. I want ice cream.”

 

Toga wrinkled his nose and watched Sierra's hasty retreat. “Thrown over for ice cream,” he remarked with a snort. “Keh!”

 

She served up two cones and came back, sitting down before handing him one. A perplexed look crossed her features as she stared at the cones. “Toga . . . if you're a dog youkai, can you have this?”

 

He shook his head as he stared at the cones. “What's that supposed to mean?” he demanded as he reached for a cone only to have it whisked out of his reach.

 

“Well, it's chocolate ice cream . . . and dogs aren't supposed to have chocolate.”

 

“Oi!”

 

She leaned further away as she eyed him speculatively. “Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen you eat chocolate anything before . . .”

 

“That's because my mother used to say that it made me incorrigible,” he told her. “So I just don't normally eat it.”

 

“Incorrigible, how?”

 

Toga grinned. “Give me that cone, and you'll find out.”

 

“Hmm, I don't think so,” she countered as she licked her ice cream. “That somehow scares me.”

 

He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “All right, fine . . . I'll just watch you,” he remarked. “Never mind I'm only half inu-youkai . . .”

 

She relented, handing him the other cone then giggled at the quick shift from total-pout to complete contentment. “You're dripping.”

 

Turning his cone to see what she was talking about, he caught the drip on his tongue as Sierra's giggle escalated. “What's so funny?”

 

She shook her head as her giggling subsided. “You just remind me of this stupid card I saw once, at the store. It was one of those beefcake cards, and—” cutting herself off abruptly as another round of giggling bubbled out of her, Sierra tried to eat her ice cream and laugh at the same time.

 

`Beefcake . . . ?' Toga frowned. That was the second time that word had been mentioned today . . . “Sierra . . . what, exactly, is a beefcake calendar?”

 

Her gaze widened in surprise. “Never heard that one, huh?”

 

He shook his head.

 

She shrugged as she licked her ice cream again. “It's a calendar full of pictures of nearly naked men.”

 

His eyes widened at that, and he couldn't staunch the flow of blood that shot straight to his cheeks.

 

“Why do you want to know?”

 

Toga made a face. “No reason,” he grumbled as he bit the top off his cone.

 

“You look like there is a reason,” she countered. “Why?”

 

Feeling his cheeks explode in embarrassed color, Toga couldn't bring himself to look at Sierra when he finally said, “The secretaries in legal want me to pose for their `beefcake' charity calendar.”

 

Several seconds ticked away as Toga's embarrassment heightened. Suddenly, Sierra threw her head back and laughed. He stared at her with a worried frown as she tried to control her laughter. By the time she had calmed down enough to speak, Toga had finished his cone as well as hers since she was still too busy laughing to eat it.

 

“It's not that funny,” he grumbled.

 

“Sure, it is,” she countered.

 

He snorted. “Keh.”

 

“Well, you are hot,” she contended.

 

Unable to keep the blush that rose from surfacing, he shook his head and tried to retain a modicum of dignity. “I don't think I approve of this `beefcake' idea,” he informed her in an entirely brusque tone.

 

“I think you should do it,” Sierra told him.

 

Toga did a double take. She looked sane enough . . . “What?”

 

She shrugged. “You should do it. I mean, it is for charity, right? I remember you answering your door in that towel . . . you don't have a thing to be ashamed of . . .”

 

Toga sputtered indignantly, leaning away, looking completely appalled. “You cannot be serious! This Toga isn't posing for any stupid beefcake anything!”

 

She giggled as a dangerous glint lit in her gaze.

 

Toga shook his head again. “Absolutely not.”

 

Her grin widened. Toga groaned.

 

 

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A/N:

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Reviewers

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oakzap425 (FFnet) :

As far as this Kari girl (and now we know she's Allan's new girl) Toga has been helping, Am I correct when I say that I sense a little Crush from Kari's part on Toga? If so, will you have some triangular tension between Toga-Sierra-Kari (as in... Kari trying to break those two up)?

 

I don't know, exactly, what Kari's intentions are . . . she's not seeing Allan anymore . . . but who's to say she isn't wishing for a little revenge on the woman who was seeing her fiancé on the side?

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MMorg

Death-By-Minnow ------ piscesanela007 ------ Kyonarai ------ DarklessVasion

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FFnet

Fairia13 (lol!) ------ Proforce ------ Ryguy5387 ------ SilverStarWing ------ Flames101 ------ Drake Clawfang ------ Hitomeshy ------ myeerah ------ kolohe

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AFFnet ------ AScom ------ ATnet

moon_girl ------ rachainu (Lily is a human) ------ akdreamer ------ Aitu-- not signed in (You're such a riot. LoL!) ------ Angel

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Final Thought from Toga:

I'm so NOT doing a beefcake calendar, damn it …

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Defiance): 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~