InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 2: Defiance ❯ Naked Truths ( Chapter 25 )

~~Chapter 25~~

~Naked Truths~

 

 

Toga hung up the phone and rubbed his forehead. `Kami . . . I knew this was a bad idea . . . .'

 

Against his better judgment, he'd called the girls in the law division and had basically begged them to draw up another copy of the contract that Kari needed. In his negotiations, he ended up agreeing to do the calendar on the condition that Sierra would take the picture. He was nearly deaf now, from the girls' happy squeals. On the plus side, they'd agreed to have Kari's contract on her desk by three this afternoon . . . .

 

`That barter was made in the fiery bowels of hell,' he thought with a grimace, trying not to think about what he'd agreed to do. That he'd agreed to do it for Sierra was one thing. Posing for her wasn't something he dreaded. The cheap feeling of being on display, though . . . that was one thing that he wasn't sure he liked at all . . . .

 

He dialed Kari's office number and shook his head. `This is the last time,' he told himself. `If it happens again, I'll probably have to barter off my first-born pup . . . .'

 

“Kari Dennison.”

 

“Kari, it's Toga. The girls from legal should have your contract ready around three today.”

 

She gasped. “Toga? How did you do that? Thank you! You're so amazing!”

 

“You have no idea,” he grumbled.

 

“What was that?”

 

He winced. “Nothing. Anyway, just make sure you start keeping your working files locked up or something because I'm not doing this again.”

 

“Yeah, sure . . . you have no idea how much I appreciate this,” she assured him. “Thanks, Toga . . . .”

 

He sighed. “All right. I've got to go. Bye.”

 

“Bye, and thanks again.”

 

He hung up the phone and dropped it on the sofa as he checked his watch. Sierra had been gone nearly five hours now. He frowned as he shot to his feet and stalked restlessly to the balcony doors.

 

“Toga, I was thinking, last night . . . .”

 

He set aside his tea cup and waited for her to continue. Slapping her socks against her thigh nervously, she made a face, like she expected him to be angry. “I thought . . . maybe I should go alone. Maybe if you're not there . . . maybe I can make myself listen instead of wanting to run away.”

 

He caught a lock of her silky hair, hooked it behind her ear before he lifted her chin with his index finger. “If that's what you want . . . it's fine.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

He smiled. “Sierra, this isn't about me, is it? If you'd rather go alone, I understand.”

 

She shot him a hesitant smile. “Toga . . . .”

 

He shrugged. “Go on, and don't worry about me. I think I'll be all right. Maybe I'll go for a run on the beach.”

 

She hugged him then and put her shoes on while he called to get a cab for her.

 

But where was she now?

 

Pushing open the balcony doors, Toga stepped outside and drew a deep breath. His frown darkened as a scent came to him on the ocean breeze, and his gaze swept over the beach below. `Sierra? Why is she . . . crying?'

 

He spotted her sitting on a rock near an alcove to the left, and he narrowed his eyes. Before he thought about it, he vaulted over the edge of the railing, dropping the fifteen stories to the sand below. He didn't know if anyone had seen him. He didn't care, either. Using his natural youkai speed to his advantage, he shot over to her, knelt before her as she gasped, as she wiped her eyes. “T-Toga? Where did you come from?”

 

He winced at her obvious upset as well as her equally obvious desire to hide it from him. “What happened?”

 

She didn't answer right away. Lifting her hands, palms up, she struggled for words to tell him what was bothering her. When she finally did speak, her voice was oddly detached, as though adding feeling to her words would somehow hurt her all over again. “It . . . it's genetic, did you know? What she has . . . Huntington's disease . . . it's genetic. That's the reason they looked for me, to tell me that they may have passed their damn disease on to me.”

 

“Sierra . . . .”

 

“There wasn't a secret desire to get to know me. There wasn't a need to ask my forgiveness for not wanting me . . . . They looked for me to tell me this, and . . . God, I hate them! I hate them!”

 

He winced. What she said and what she felt were completely different, and he knew it. She wanted to hate them. She wanted to despise them and curse them. The trouble was that she just couldn't. Reaching out, smoothing her hair off of her face, he remained quiet, waiting for her to continue.

 

She shook her head. “I . . . I want to go home, Toga. I just want to go home . . . .”

 

He nodded as he took her hands, pulled her to her feet. “Sierra . . . I don't know what he told you, but . . . I won't let anything happen to you, do you understand?”

 

“I know you want to believe that,” she said quietly. “There's nothing you'll be able to do to stop it, if I carry the gene for it.” She looked away, blinking back a fresh wash of tears. “If I do . . . I can't be with you.”

 

“Don't talk like that,” he growled, unwilling to let her give up.

 

Sierra choked back a sob. “Toga, you said forever . . . if I have . . . if I get that disease, forever won't be very long, and . . . .” She closed her eyes. “You didn't see her. You didn't see . . . and I can't let you see it.”

 

“That's not your choice,” he informed her as he pulled her against his chest. “It's mine. I choose you. I'll always choose you.”

 

 

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

 

 

Standing still on the deck that overlooked the sloping land, the whispering trees, Sierra gazed at the beauty of the forest without seeing a thing. The sentient trees were blanketed in a fluffy coating of snow that hung from barren branches like stalactites, a gruesome effigy that soothed her. Pulling Toga's Mokomoko-sama closer around her shoulders, she held it together with one hand and lifted a steaming cup of cocoa to her lips with the other.

 

How was it that he seemed to know her better than she knew herself? Instead of taking her back to Chicago, the bustle and crowd of everyday life, he'd brought her here, instead, to his boss' mountain retreat in Montana. She didn't ask how he'd managed that. She didn't ask how he'd finagled another week off work for both of them, either. How had he known that this quiet, this solitude, was something that she needed, too?

 

She sensed his presence behind her before she heard him, before she felt his arms snake around her waist. Leaning against him, letting herself draw from his strength, it wasn't the first time that Sierra knew that she'd found something rare and wonderful in him, and that thought brought tears to her eyes. “It's so peaceful here.”

 

Toga sighed. “Yeah. You hungry?”

 

She shook her head, lifting her face as a snowflake touched her skin. “No . . . are you?”

 

Toga shrugged and held her closer. “No, but then I don't really have to eat. You do.”

 

“You don't?”

 

Toga shook his head. “Nope. Youkai thing. Most of us do eat but not for the same reasons humans do.”

 

Sierra was intrigued by this notion, and she turned to gaze at him. “Really? Then why?”

 

“Youkai---especially mononoke---have heightened senses. Smell, feel, hearing . . . taste. We eat for the experience of the act, not really to sustain us. If we eat often enough, though, our bodies react in much the same way as humans do.”

 

She made a face. “I've heard your stomach growl before.”

 

He smiled bashfully. “Well, I've always liked to eat things. Father said that it does perpetuate our physical growth early on. He doesn't eat often.”

 

“What about hanyous?”

 

“Hanyous have half-human bodies. They have to eat.”

 

“But your body looks human enough.”

 

“This form makes it easiest to camouflage ourselves. Would you have wanted to get to know me if you'd met me in my youkai form?”

 

His words reminded her of his transformation, of the giant black dog. She didn't answer his question. She didn't know how.

 

He chuckled. “Come, Sierra. You're going to catch a cold out here.”

 

She let him lead her back into the warmth of the cabin-house and kicked off her shoes as she set the empty mug on a small table near the door. She'd stood still for so long just thinking about everything she hadn't realized that her feet were quite numb. Trying for a normal gait as she stumbled over to the fireplace, she could feel Toga's gaze on her.

 

“Sierra? Something wrong?”

 

She winced but stubbornly kept moving. With every step she took, her feet regained a degree of feeling, and the feelings that returned were enough to make her grind her teeth together. By the time she got to the plaid fleece blanket Toga had laid out, her feet were prickling with sharp, stabbing pains, and she was more than a little concerned that she had gotten frostbite on her toes.

 

Giving up the pretense that she was fine, Sierra carefully tugged off her socks. She wasn't sure whether she ought to be relieved or not when she looked at her feet as Toga knelt beside her. On the one hand, the angry red color indicated that she didn't have frostbite. On the other, her feet were throbbing painfully, and she groaned.

 

“I knew I shouldn't have left you alone out there that long,” Toga growled as he gently pulled her feet into his lap and rubbed her toes.

 

She tried to hold in the painful whimper that welled up inside her at the contact. She couldn't, and he flinched. “I'll be fine,” she managed.

 

“What would you do without me,” he countered, a hint of teasing in his tone.

 

“Rub it in, Toga,” she grumbled. “Ow!”

 

He winced and pulled his Mokomoko-sama off her shoulders and wrapped it around her feet instead. She watched as he stood up to retrieve her mug. He refilled it and brought it to her, pinning her with a challenging stare. “Drink it.”

 

She did as she was instructed, letting the warmth of the cocoa spread through her. “Thanks.”

 

Toga sat down again, bracing himself against the coffee table as he pulled Sierra against his chest. “Uncle Yasha says humans are weak.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Sure. Can't take extreme temperatures long, get sick far too easily . . . sounds pretty weak to me.”

 

She made a face at his gentle teasing as she reached over her shoulder to tug on his hair. “Weak, huh?”

 

He chuckled, his breath ruffling against her skin like a warm summer breeze. She shivered, and he pulled her closer. “Don't worry. I like you, even if you are weak.”

 

She rolled her eyes but smiled, hiding her amusement behind the cocoa mug. “Nice to know.”

 

“Sierra . . . when you said you couldn't be with me, if you carry the gene for that disease . . . you didn't mean it.”

 

She winced at his hopeful tone, closed her eyes against the near-panic that shot through her at the idea of not having Toga near. “Toga, I---”

 

Pulling the mug out of her hands, he set it aside before tugging on her shoulders, making her face him. Golden eyes suspiciously bright, his gaze was fierce as he searched her eyes for a truth that she couldn't hide. “I need you, Sierra, and you need me, too.”

 

She tried to smile, wished she could hide her insecurities from him, if only to reassure him. Her smile failed as her gaze fell away. “I need you to be happy, Toga . . . I can't ask you to stay with me when . . . she can't move. She can't speak. She can't do a thing, and she probably doesn't even know who she is. If I end up like that . . . .”

 

Toga hugged her tight, tried to reassure her though his touch, through his proximity, that she wasn't alone, that she would never be alone.

 

“I want the test,” she said, her voice tinged with emotion, raw from unrepressed anger. “I can't do anything until I know . . . . If I have the gene, it means I'll have the disease, and . . . and I don't want to hurt you.”

 

He looked like he wanted to understand. The confusion, the torment in his eyes was enough to break her heart. `You can't ask it of him, Sierra. No matter what he says, you know in your heart that you can't. Toga is everything you've ever wanted, and . . . and you love him . . . but that's why . . . .'

 

“Let's not worry about it until after the test is done,” she told him with a wan smile. “No sense worrying about it now, right? There's a fifty-percent chance I don't have it.”

 

Toga winced at the forced cheerfulness in her voice, at the cold truth of the medical facts spelled out so eloquently. But he nodded and tried to smile in return, and for that, she was grateful.

 

“Can I take your picture now?”

 

Her conscience needled her. How fair was it to ask him that now? She knew he wouldn't fight her on it. She just kept thinking that if, by some perverted twist of fate she tested positive for the defective gene, at least she'd have something left of him in the end, even just the smallest thing . . . even if it were only on paper.

 

Toga nodded and watched as she got up and ran off to retrieve her photography equipment.

 

`Don't think, Sierra. There's more than enough time to do that later, right?'

 

She sighed.

 

Right.

 

 

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

A/N:

Mononoke: Animal spirits. Inu-youkai would be classified here.

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

Reviewers

==========

Flames101 (FFnet) :

Great chapter!! As for Sierra's reaction I don't think she'd take it well. I know I wouldn't. One question. Does Purity 3 take place during this story or after?

 

Purity 3 takes place well after… probably a good … 2 years after…

==========

MMorg

angelica incarnate ------ DarklessVasion ------ Sari15 NSI ------ notzathros ------ Iggy Lovechild (LoL, I feel your pain… and agree … ) ------ LadyOrion ------ Lena17 ------ Kyonarai

==========

FFnet

Drake Clawfang (Oi! You can't say you didn't honestly think they'd end up together? LoL!) ------ kestral-tudorica ------ lil epad ------ TheFanaticInTraining ------ myeerah ------ ILOVEINUS589 ------ Miranda

==========

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

Jasmine Fields (muahahahaha probably) ------ Midnight_Sparrow ------ akdreamer ------ FieldsofHeather ------ Shiga (LoL) ------ Countess Lulu ------ Sess_2005 (Pretty much, though my circumstances were much different) ------ Lila Elensar ------ tdgtink85

==========

Final Thought from The Girls in Legal… Strangely another Hentai Three:

Toga! Beefcake!

==========

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~