InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 2: Defiance ❯ The Marking ( Chapter 49 )

~~Chapter 49~~

~The Marking~

 

Toga frowned as he stared at the glass container beside Sierra as she kept her eyes on his face, careful to avoid following the direction of his gaze. She hadn't complained when the needle had been inserted into her arm. She hadn't moved much since then. He'd sensed her aversion when Kichiro had begun prepping the area on her arm for the bloodletting. She hadn't said a thing. She didn't need to. Toga had to admire her resolve even if he wished that she didn't have to suffer in silence.

 

“Are you feeling all right?” Toga asked as he sat down on the edge of the examination table in the stark white doctor's office. Sesshoumaru had arranged for them to use the family physician's office to do this, and since it had been Kichiro's idea, he was the one taking care of everything even though Dr. Yamoura was still in the office. Potentially safer than the old method, Sesshoumaru had been keen on the idea of testing Kichiro's theory. If it worked, it could alter the way future markings were done.

 

Toga sighed. Seeing Sierra hooked up to the heart monitor as well as the other pieces of modern technology was scary and yet somehow comforting at the same time.

 

Sierra nodded and smiled to reassure him as she reached for his hand. “It'll all be over soon, right?”

 

Absently staring at the heart monitor, he agreed. Forcing his gaze off the reassuringly steady green blips, he managed a little smile and smoothed her hair out of her face. “Right.”

 

Kichiro stepped into the room and closed the door quietly. Toga had to look at him twice. Seeing his troublemaking cousin in a very professional white lab coat was disconcerting to him. Kichiro didn't interrupt as he picked up the paper readout slowing issuing from the heart monitor. Staring at the endless trail of paper, he frowned slightly, rubbing his chin in a thoughtful way.

 

“Something wrong?” Toga asked, disliking the look on his cousin's face.

 

Kichiro blinked as though he had forgotten that Toga and Sierra were even there and broke into a tepid smile as he bent down to check the rapidly filling bottle. “Nope, it looks good. Toga, you need to sit over there,” he remarked as he waved at the chair beside the examination table.

 

Toga moved without comment as Kichiro glanced at the heart monitor again. Stepping around the table, he waited while Toga rolled up his sleeve. Kichiro tied a thin rubber tube around Toga's arm and took his time examining the youkai's arm to find the right place to draw blood. “All right, if you start feeling light headed, you need to drink some juice. You're youkai though, so it really shouldn't be too bad. Anyway, it's time.”

 

Toga glanced over at Sierra. The monitor was registering her subdued heartbeat, and in the length of time it had taken to prep Toga, she had fallen asleep. Kichiro cleared his throat. “Where?”

 

Toga had to force down a rising lump that threatened to choke him before he could answer. Something about the vulnerability of Sierra's pose, the absolute quiet of her forced unconscious bothered him. “Her throat,” he replied, his voice gruff, low. During their time away, he'd discovered that he was inordinately drawn to her throat, and he figured out that was where she should be marked.

 

Kichiro glanced at him and nodded, patting Toga's shoulder as he turned away to hook Sierra to the other part of the apparatus. He worked quickly and in silence. When he stepped back, Toga couldn't stop the wince that surfaced as he caught sight of Sierra's ashen skin and the needle sticking in her neck.

 

“I'll get you some juice,” Kichiro said quietly. “Don't worry. She'll wake up in a little while.”

 

Toga nodded and sighed, holding his arm still despite his desire to touch her, to hold her hand until she opened her eyes.

 

Watching the tube that carried blood from his body to hers, he repressed a shiver. This was brutal enough, in his opinion. There was no way he'd have been able to do this the old fashioned way. He didn't care if his feelings made him seem weak or pathetic. He had admitted long ago that he didn't have it in him to hurt someone he loved.

 

He let his head fall to the side, leaning against the wall as he stared at Sierra's face. Her color seemed to be losing the slight hint of gray, the tinge of blue to her lips. The heart monitor registered the slight increase in her pulse, and he tried to smile. His face felt paralyzed, and he knew he wouldn't be able to do that until she opened her eyes . . . .

 

 

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

 

 

Toga opened his eyes slowly and blinked into the darkness. He was in his bed, in his home, but the unsettling thing was that he didn't remember getting there. He could smell Sierra near though she wasn't in the room. Maybe she'd just stepped out. Either way, her absence worried him, and he grimaced as he sat up.

 

Biting back the waves of dizziness that hit him as the metallic tinge of bile rose to coat his mouth, Toga flopped back against the headboard as Sierra slipped into the room with a tall glass of orange juice. “Oh, you're awake! How are you feeling?”

 

Toga managed a weak smile as she sat down on the edge of the bed and slipped the glass into his hand. “Drink this.”

 

She looked fine, happy, as though she hadn't been leeched to the point of dying hours ago, and for that, Toga was thankful. “I'm fine,” he lied without batting an eye as he drained the glass as quickly as he could. His stomach lurched that the influx of liquid. He swallowed a few times to keep it down.

 

Though she didn't look like she believed him, she nodded as she took the empty glass and set it aside on the nightstand. “Good.”

 

“How'd I get here?” he asked since the last thing he did remember was Sierra opening her eyes in Dr. Yamoura's office.

 

Sierra leaned forward to push Toga's hair out of his eyes. “Your father.”

 

“My father?”

 

With a nod, she sighed and ran her knuckles along his cheek. “You didn't drink your juice, and you passed out . . . . That's what Kichiro said.”

 

Toga grimaced. He hadn't even thought about drinking the juice Kichiro had brought in. He'd been too busy watching Sierra to make sure she was recovering. He sighed. “How long before we figure out if it worked or not?”

 

“It worked.”

 

He frowned. “How do you know?”

 

Tilting her head the side, she held down her collar. Toga's gaze narrowed as he slowly lifted his hand to touch the faint white scar. Shaped like a curved slash, the mark was unmistakable to him. It was the slightly altered mark of the Inu no Taisho---Toga's seal . . . Toga's mark. “When did you get that?”

 

Sierra shrugged as she let go of her blouse and straightened her shrugged. “It wasn't there. It just . . . sort of appeared in the last hour or so.”

 

Toga finally smiled as he held his arms out to her. With a giggle, she stretched out beside him, resting her head on his chest. Toga pulled her hair back and gently ran his fingers over the mark, reveling in the ferocious pride that surged over him, the wealth of emotion that accompanied the sight of Sierra---his mate, bearing his mark.

 

“It'll all be okay now, right?” Sierra asked as she tilted her head to stare into Toga's eyes.

 

He chuckled. “It had better be.”

 

“Oh? What'll you do if it isn't?”

 

Toga tilted her chin, kissed her forehead. “I'll fix it, of course.”

 

She cuddled closer. “You ever wonder what would have happened if you hadn't moved to Chicago?”

 

Stifling a yawn, Toga struggled to keep his eyes open. “Nope. It was meant to be. I would have ended up there, anyway. It was just a matter of time.”

 

“How do you figure?”

 

“Father was being unreasonable, trying to dictate my life.”

 

Sierra snorted then giggled. “So you're telling me that you moved half-way around the world in a single act of defiance?”

 

He chuckled again. “Yup.”

 

Her laughter melted into a groan as she hid her face against Toga's chest. “That doesn't really bode well, does it?”

 

“For what?”

 

“For our kids.”

 

Toga made a face. “Oh, I don't know . . . would you try to tell our pups who they can or can't choose as a mate?”

 

“Not hardly.”

 

Toga grinned as he pulled her tighter against his body, content to feel her next to him. She was everything that mattered, everything that was fresh and clean. It was hard to believe that their future was just beginning. He couldn't remember not loving her, and sometimes he had to wonder if he'd ever really lived before she came into his life. Leaning his cheek on her silky hair, breathing in the scent of apple blossoms, Toga's smile widened even as his eyes drifted closed. “Neither would I,” he agreed. “Neither would I.”

 

 

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A/N:

A note about the marking:

You don't really think I'll let that happen, do you? I've said it before; I'll say it again. Marking is a fictional device, not canon. It never has been canon, it will probably never be canon. That said, I won't do it, not in that sense. The fundamental thing is this: when you love someone, you won't hurt them, not for anything, not in any way, shape, or form. Youkai, hanyou, or human, the basis for the belief is sound. I'm not that big a fan of violence for the sake of it. For those who are looking for some sort of significant `marking' thing in any of the Purity fics? Not gonna happen. It personally doesn't sit well with me. It never has. That is why the whole `marking' thing has been avoided and will continue on this way.

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Reviewers

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LadyBarrista (MMorg):
Great chapter as always Sue! Question, I can understand why Kagome, Rin and now Sierra have to be marked in order to extend their life, but why did Sesshoumaru have to mark Kagura since she is a youkai and should already have a life-span that matches his? Am I confusing things with your other stories where it was simply the act of making love with the exchange of body fluids and scents, were the only things necessary to mark your mate?

 

Sesshoumaru marked Kagura because he did so just after Naraku was defeated, meaning that he did follow the archaic tradition. Through the years, it has waned in popularity unless it was something that NEEDED to be done, as when a youkai or hanyou took a human mate. Rin was never marked. She `owns' Sesshoumaru's Mokomoko-sama, which he borrows back on rare occasion. In Purity, the mating process does sort of `mark' one's mate, changing their scent to a more recognizable mix with the mate, but the actual exchange of blood is what is needed to prolong life, though if the process is done BEFORE they actually mate, then it does lend a sense of protection to the female since the mixing of the blood also would cause a change in her physical scent.

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MMorg

Notzathros ::: Washuu Ogami (the time line slides a bit… there is roughly 3-5 years between Purity 2 and 3… ) ::: DarklessVasion ::: suzehowe ::: cj flutterbye ::: Aitu ::: blzzrd53 (They are mostly romances and they are listed on my author page on Media Miner) ::: Iggy Lovechild ::: Kyonarai

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FFnet

Kenshin's Gal ::: WiccanMethuselah (If it were Ryo, heck no, Toga wouldn't trust him … LOL) ::: myeerah (Hmm… it was typical of my writing…) ::: xSilverShadowsx (Nope… just an exchange of blood, in simplest terms) ::: btrains126 ::: Flames101 ::: Ryguy5387 ::: agent-doo ::: SilverStarWing ::: Toya's Gurl ::: Akihana

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

Deep Serenity ::: akdreamer ::: Deep Serenity (Thank you!) ::: Midnight_Sparrow ::: xenus ::: Sess_2005 ::: Shiga ::: fruitcake ::: catt ::: redtatsu ::: inugrl15 ::: Colshalin ::: Breezy99

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Final Thought fromSierra:

…Happily ever after … ?

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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~