InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 4: Justification ❯ Reverberations ( Chapter 75 )

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

Bellaniece stood in the center of the living room with her arms crossed over her chest and stared dolefully at her father.

"If you're trying to make me feel bad with that look, it isn't working," Cain stated flatly.

"Daddy, you hurt him," she accused.

"I certainly hope so," he shot back.

She sighed, berating herself for the hundredth time for leaving Kichiro alone.  "Daddy, I love him.  He's my mate."

Grinding his teeth together, Cain grimaced and shook his head.  "Pfft!  Can you stop saying that?  Just the thought of that little bastard is enough to—"

"He is, you know."  She shrugged helplessly.  "No matter what you think of him, he's my mate."

"Is this negotiable?"

"No."

Cain stopped pacing long enough to cast his daughter an incredulous glance.  "He doesn't deserve you, Bellaniece."

"I think he does.  Sometimes I think I don't deserve him."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

She smiled sadly and rubbed her forearms.  "He wanted to tell you when we got home from Maine," she confessed, "but I . . . I wanted to be the one to tell you, and then I couldn't . . ."

"Have I ever given you the impression that you can't tell me something?"

Bellaniece winced.  "Of course not.  I just . . ."

"You just, what?"

"I just . . . I didn't want to hurt you."

Recoiling at the sadness in her expression, Cain shook his head and sighed.  The anger seemed to seep away, leaving a sense of regret that was hard for her to swallow.  "Can you tell me you'll be happy with someone who doesn't want pups?"

"Yes, I can."

He glowered at her and slowly shook his head.  "That's bullshit, and you know it."

"It's not.  We . . . We talked about it, and it's just not something that either of us wants," she said, swallowing hard.  "Ever."

"Do you think I've never noticed the way you watch children?  I've seen you, Bellaniece.  You . . . glow . . . when you watch them playing.  You've talked about them forever, and now you really expect me to believe that you would be happy never having pups of your own?"  He shook his head, looking away from her.  "Lie to me if you want.  Just don't try to lie to yourself."

Bellaniece grimaced.  She knew it was going to be nearly impossible for her to lie about this.  Her father knew her too well, didn't he?  'Having children means that Daddy would be free . . .' She licked her lips, drawing a breath to steel her flagging resolve.  "Just because I love children doesn't mean I want any of my own," she fibbed.  "I wouldn't even know how to be a mother."

"What?"

She shrugged in what she hoped was a casual manner.  "Well, I didn't have one, right?  How would I know how to be one?"

Cain jerked back, his expression registering his shock at her quietly voiced concern, and she winced as his cheeks reddened, as he grimaced and couldn't meet her gaze.  "It's instinctive, Bellaniece.  You'd be fine."

"Daddy—"

"How long have you been sleeping with him?"

Bellaniece could feel the wash of embarrassed color shooting to the fore.  "Since Maine."

The air whooshed out of Cain in a hiss of breath.  "Did he go with you just to take advantage of you?"

"No!  It wasn't like that.  A-A-And you're one to talk!  You've been sneaking out to Gin's every night—"

"That's entirely different!"

"How is it different?"

"We're both adults!"

"I'm an adult."

"No, you're not!  You've never learned how to be on your own!  You've never taken care of yourself; you obviously don't know how to make your own decisions—"

"I'm not a little girl anymore!  I haven't been one for years!  I don't need you to take care of me!"

Cain stopped short, eyes darting up to meet hers.  Belligerence met shocked panic, and Cain was the first to look away, but not before she saw the hurt in his gaze—the hurt he tried to conceal from her.  "I didn't mean—"

"You're right," he murmured, rubbing his eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest and nodded.  Uttering a terse laugh, he pursed his lips and shrugged.  "You're right."

"Daddy," she began, her voice cracking as she blinked to stave back the tears that rose behind her eyes.  His pain was tangible, palpable—the father who was realizing just a little too late that his little girl had grown up.

"You're right, Bellaniece.  I must have looked away for a moment, or at least long enough to miss it . . ." He shook his head.

"I—"

He managed a weak smile, and she knew that it was entirely for her benefit.  The sight of it broke her heart.  "Mates should be together," he said quietly.  "He's your mate, right?  Mates . . . Mates should be together."

"Daddy?  Wait . . . but you—"

"You should go to him."  She ran toward him.  Cain held up his hands to stop her.  "You should.  Just . . . make sure he knows how precious you are.  Make sure he never knows if he ever hurts you . . ."

"Daddy . . ."

He shook his head, his smile widening, breaking her heart just a little bit more.  Cain nodded once, eyes brightening—uncannily bright—though no tears spilled over.  Bellaniece whimpered, hand fluttering over her lips as he turned his back, jamming his hands into his pockets as he moved into the hallway.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.  "I didn't mean to hurt you.  I still need you . . . Daddy, please don't . . ."

Stopping before he reached his bedroom door, he sighed and lifted his chin but didn't turn around to face her.  "It's fine, Belle.  I'll be fine.  Don't worry about me."

It took her a minute to realize just what he'd said after he disappeared into his room, closing the door softly behind himself.  He'd called her 'Belle', hadn't he?  Hearing the shortened form of her name from him . . . Why did that hurt more than anything else?

"Daddy!" she gasped, stumbling after him, down the dim hallway, past the menagerie of closed doors.  She reached for the door handle and turned, staring in shock as she realized he'd locked her out.  "Please, let me in?  Daddy?"

He didn't respond to her pleas.  Leaning her forehead against the physical barrier, she stifled a sob with the back of her hand and rattled the handle.  'He's never, never locked me out of his room . . . Not ever—not once . . .'

'Come on, Belle . . . Leave him alone for now.  Kichiro needs you, too, you know.'

'But I can't leave Daddy; not like this . . .'

'Then leave him to someone who can help him.  It's time to let go, because you can't hold onto your father and Kichiro, both.  Love them both, cherish them both, but you can't live your life for both.'

'Someone who can help him?'  Bellaniece sniffled and let go of the handle.  'Gin . . . She'll help him, won't she?  Gin . . .'

Kissing her fingertips and pressing her hand to the door, Bellaniece forced herself to walk away, back down the hallway and out of the apartment.

Gin answered her door after the first knock.  Arms wrapped around a very large red canvas bag, she frowned as Bellaniece hugged her.  Dropping the bag to hug Bellaniece back, Gin frowned and shook her head in confusion.  "Will you help him?  I'm begging you—please."

"Bellaniece?  What happened?  Where's Cain?"

"He locked me out . . . Gin . . . Daddy . . . He's never . . . I said, but I . . . Please."

"Calm down, okay?  Tell me what happened."

Bellaniece sniffled and took the tissue Gin offered from the box on the table beside the door.  Drawing a few deep, stuttering breaths, she nodded and swallowed hard.  "I hurt him, and I didn't mean to . . . I didn't mean it the way it sounded; honest I didn't."

"What did you say?"

Bellaniece grimaced as tears filled her eyes all over again.  "I said I . . . I'm not a little girl anymore.  I said . . . I said I didn't need him anymore, but I do.  He's my daddy."

"Oh . . . Belle . . ."

"He called me 'Belle' . . . He's never called me that before, and then he said I should go; that I should be with Kichiro.  Then he went into his room, and he locked the door.  He's never locked me out of his room before."

Gin shook her head and sighed.  "I was going to go over and see Kichiro.  He looked really bad . . ."

"I'll go," Bellaniece insisted, dabbing her eyes on her damp tissue.  "Would you try to talk to Daddy?  Could you?  He might talk to you."

"Okay," Gin agreed, giving Bellaniece another quick hug.  "Take my first aid kit.  He probably has one, but I know mine is stocked."

"Thank you, Gin," Bellaniece said as she grabbed the bag strap and hefted it over her shoulder.  "Will you tell him something for me?"

Gin nodded.

"Tell him that I . . . I love him."

"I will," Gin agreed.

Bellaniece nodded and, after one last look back, slipped out of the apartment and down the stairs.


Gin knocked on the closed door, wincing at the raw emotion that reached her even through the stout blockade.  "Cain?  Cain, will you open the door?  It's me . . . It's Gin . . ."

Unsure whether or not he'd comply—unsure what sort of state she'd find him in, Gin blinked in surprise as Cain opened the door; as he stepped back as it swung open.  Despite the sadness in his gaze, he smiled at her and shrugged.  "Why'd you come?"

Gin lifted her hand to his cheek.  "You need me."

Cain pulled away, rubbed his forehead with a trembling hand.  "I'm fine."

"That's what your lips say.  Your eyes say something entirely different."

He glanced around, stared at the ceiling, eyes bright, red-rimmed, and though she didn't smell any tears, she had to wonder if he'd been crying.  "I just keep trying to figure out when it happened, you know?  I don't remember noticing that she'd grown up."

"She'll always be your little girl."

"My little girl . . ."

Flinching at the hollow sound of his empty chuckle, Gin drew a deep breath and tried again.  "You know, Kichiro-nii-chan isn't a bad guy.  He has a bad habit of running at the mouth, but deep down, he's got a . . . proverbial heart of gold."

Cain sighed as he shuffled over to the window, back straight and proud and somehow broken.  Gin pressed her hands to her chest over her heart, and waited for him to speak.  "Will he take care of her?  Cherish her?"

"He will," Gin assured Cain.

Her answer didn't seem to have the desired effect.  Cain sighed softly and shook his head, and for a moment, Gin didn't think he was going to speak again.  "I don't remember a time when I didn't have her with me . . . bandaging her cut knees, making her peanut butter sandwiches . . . tying ribbons in her hair, watching her come home with her dresses stained and ruined but the brightest smile on her face.  I don't know how not to be her daddy."

"You're still her daddy.  You'll always be her daddy.  Bellaniece loves you.  That's why she couldn't tell you.  She was afraid of hurting you."

"I know," he said quietly, his voice raw with pent-up emotion.  "I knew she'd . . . grow up, get married . . . I knew it.  I just wanted to think it'd take a bit longer.  I'm not ready to give her up."

"Cain . . ."

"It's like losing Isabelle all over again.  Does that make sense?"

Gin nodded.  "It does, in a way, but you're not losing Bellaniece; not really."

"I know."

She winced.  She didn't think he really did know that.  Then again, maybe she was just too close to Cain to be objective.  "She thinks you're mad at her."

Cain shook his head, dug a rumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one.  "I've never been able to be mad at her.  I have to let her go now.  She was mine long enough, right?"

Gin took a few tentative steps toward him and stopped, hesitantly reaching out to touch his shoulder.  He didn't turn around but he didn't pull away.  Gin rubbed his back for a moment before slipping her arms around his waist to hug him.  "You sound so final, Cain.  You sound so . . . resigned."

Exhaling a breath of smoke that blossomed in the air like a storm cloud only to disperse before the rain could fall, Cain turned around, leaned on the window sill, staring at Gin with an emotion that she couldn't define.  "She made her choice.  I've got to accept that.  It's forever.  Mates . . . Mates are forever."

"Yeah," Gin forced herself to say, gazing past Cain out the window at the horizon of buildings.  "Forever.  That's . . . how it should be."

"I fucked up, Gin.  I spent all these years trying to be both father and mother for my daughter.  She tells me that she . . . doesn't know how to be a mom.  That my fault.  I took her mother from her . . ."

"You didn't.  You did the best you could.  Bellaniece is a wonder girl.  She didn't mean that, I'm sure, and Kichiro-nii-chan . . . I don't know what's going on.  He's always loved children."

"That doesn't matter.  They don't want pups."

"Your heir," Gin murmured.

"It's not about an heir.  Don't you see?  Bellaniece has always told me that she wanted a houseful of babies.  Not one or two but . . . lots of them.  She says your brother doesn't want them.  Why would she give up her dream?"

Gin bit her lip and shook her head then shrugged, forcing down her turbulent emotions and smiling wanly as she hoped he couldn't see through it to her heart.  "Some things are worth the sacrifice.  Sometimes you have to choose."

"The last beautiful thing," he murmured as he crushed out his cigarette butt in the tiny plastic ashtray beside him.

"Hmm?"

Cain brushed her bangs out of her eyes, running his fingertips down her cheek, down her jaw, grasping her chin gently and making her look at him.  His smile was enigmatic, full of a bittersweet emotion, a sense of longing that she felt, too.  "You're the last beautiful thing in my life, Gin.  Are you going to leave me, too?"

"No," she whispered, closing her eyes against the momentary swell of pain that surged through her.  "I'm not going anywhere."

He sighed and pulled her into his arms, taking the comfort she offered him as she closed her eyes, as she told herself not to think, as she concentrated on what Cain had said, the things that he needed—and at the moment what he desperately needed was a friend.


Kichiro grunted as conscious thought invaded his blissfully unaware mind.  Opening his eyes, he grimaced as his head throbbed to a beat he wished he couldn't feel.

'Damn, are we dying?'

Stifling a groan as he forced himself to his hands and knees, Kichiro thought his skull just might explode.

'That's just wishful thinking.  I think Belle's father was trying to kill us.'

'Unless you want to die, you'd better shut up.'

'Threatening me now?'

'No, but the more you talk, the more my head hurts.'

'Gotta say, Kich . . . you asked for that beating.'

'Maybe I did,' he admitted as he bit back the bile that rose in his throat as he carefully, painfully pushed himself to his feet.  Swaying slightly—or maybe the world was just tilting—Kichiro reached up slowly, touched the back of his head.  Grimacing when he felt the matted hair stiff with dried blood plastered to his scalp, he staggered toward the steps.  His initial aim had been to make it into the house.  For now, he'd settle for the steps . . .

He heard the vehicle but couldn't even summon the strength to turn around.  Bellaniece's aura surrounded him, and Kichiro gritted his teeth as the sound of her rapid footfalls echoed through his head.  "Kichiro!  Oh, God . . . What are you doing out here?"

"Just taking a walk," he ground out.

She shook her head.  "That's not even funny.  Let me help you."

"You didn't sneak out again, did you?" he demanded, his voice louder than he intended.  Unable to stifle the soft groan of pain, he was certain that he probably had a concussion, and his back felt raw, scraped.

"No," she assured him, slipping her arms around his waist to help him up the stairs and into the house.  He let go of her in the bedroom, flopping across the bed with a grunt and a hiss of breath.  Bellaniece cried out and thumped the bag beside him.  "I need to clean your head," she insisted quietly, "and your back.  Oh, Kichiro, I'm so sorry . . ."

He could smell her rising hysteria and the tears that lingered near the surface, though he didn't have to open his eyes to verify the truth.  "S'okay, Belle."

"No, it's not.  If it weren't for me . . ."

"What are you doing here?  I thought I told you to go home."

"I did," she said.

"Never listen," he grumbled, gasping as Bellaniece touched a cotton ball dampened with antiseptic on his back.  "I need a shower."

"You can't stand up for a shower," she told him.  "How about a bath?"

Kichiro snorted.  "Keh.  Baths are for pups.  Let me rest awhile."

"At least let me clean your back.  How many times did Daddy hit you?"

"Just the once," Kichiro slurred, struggling to fight back the waves of exhaustion that beckoned him.

"One time?  That's not true.  Daddy shoved you against the house and tossed you into the yard."

"Incidentals," he grouched.  "So he shoved me around a little.  He only hit me once.  No big deal. I'm fine."

She sighed but didn't talk as she dabbed at his wounds.  That was for the best since it took all of his concentration to keep from growling in pain.  "Would you mind if I . . . stay with you?"

"What?" he demanded, unsure if his mind was playing tricks on him or not.  "What did he do to you?  What did he say?"  Summoning what was left of his strength, Kichiro tried to sit up.

Bellaniece's hand on his shoulders stopped him, and she took a deep breath before answering.  "It wasn't Daddy; it was me.  I said some things, and I really hurt him.  He told me I should be with you."

"You should be," Kichiro agreed with a heavy dose of bravado that he didn't feel at all.  Sighing as the scent of fresh tears assailed him; he rolled onto his side and held out his hand.  "Come here, princess.  Lay down with me?"

She sniffled and moved the first aid kit onto the floor before crawling onto the bed and carefully stretching out beside him.  "I didn't mean the things I said.  I really didn't."

"I know.  Give him a day or two to get over it."

"I'm so sorry," she murmured, fluttering kisses all over his face.  "So sorry . . ."

"What?  This?  This is nothing," he lied.

Bellaniece winced.  "Kichiro . . ."

"I need a nap, wench.  Someone kept me up all night."

"I love you."

He smiled, pulling her closer against his chest.  "You, too."

"Really?"

"Don't be stupid."

Bellaniece sighed.  "Do you think—?"

"Sleep, Belle-chan," he grumbled.  "You'll need it."

"I hardly think you're in any condition to do that sort of thing for at least a couple days," she remarked.

"Not that."

"Then what?"

"You've got one month, princess.  I've waited long enough, don't you think?  You've got one month to plan our wedding."

"Your mother and I have already planned out most of it."

"You don't say."

"If it's okay with you, we could do it sooner . . ."

He chuckled, ignoring the pounding in his head.  "Give me a date, wench.  I'll be there."

She kissed his cheek and snuggled against him, and while he could still sense her turmoil, she seemed a lot happier.  That was enough, wasn't it?  So long as Bellaniece wasn't crying . . .