InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 4: Justification ❯ Hopelessness ( Chapter 88 )

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

Kichiro cradled Gin's foot against his chest with one hand supporting the back of her knee.  He'd worked her right leg for nearly ten minutes and was just finishing up with her left one as Kagome slipped into the room and sank into the chair beside the bed.  Casting her son a weary little smile, she stroked Gin's hand before carefully adjusting the heart monitor capping Gin's fingertip.

"No change?" she asked quietly.

"No," he replied with a tired sigh.  "She doesn't seem to be weakening, though.  That's a good sign."

"Your father's on his way," she said, more to reassure herself than for his benefit.  "I called him a few hours ago."

Kichiro sighed, pulling the blankets up to cover Gin.  "Oyaji hates flying."

"Sure, he does, but he loves her."

Following the direction of Kagome's melancholy gaze, Kichiro nodded slowly and tried to smile, hoping that maybe he could fool his mother into believing something that he wasn't entirely sure was possible, even if Cain arrived soon.

"It's never too late for us to hope," Kagome remarked, as though she could read Kichiro's mind.  "Zelig-san can help her.  He's the one she chose . . ."

Kichiro scowled but didn't counter his mother's unwavering optimism.  "Did he put up a fuss?"

Kagome shrugged and brushed Gin's bangs out of her face.  "No . . . InuYasha said that he came willingly enough."

"Good, though I'll bet the old man was hoping that he'd put up a fight . . ."

Kagome wrinkled her nose and stubbornly shook her head.  "There'll be no fighting.  Gin needs them—both of them.  If they even think about fighting, I'll purify them—see if I don't . . ."

"Keh!  The hell you will, wench," InuYasha snarled as he strode into the room and pushed Kichiro aside.  Kagome moved out of the way as InuYasha carefully looked Gin over and kissed her forehead gently.  "How's she doing?"

"She's hanging on.  Where's Zelig-san?"

"Fuck if I know.  If we're lucky, he got himself hit by a car."

"InuYasha—" Kagome began in a warning tone.

"He's on his way," InuYasha grumbled, lifting Gin's hand and clasping it in his.  "Toga's making sure he don't get on another plane heading back to the States."

"Oi, old man," Kichiro remarked slowly, "be careful what you say.  I have no idea what she can and can't hear."

InuYasha snorted but didn't reply, shaking his head slowly as he carefully regarded his daughter.  "Her coloring's a little better," he finally said.

"The IV is helping," Kichiro volunteered.

"Damn it."

"G-G-Gin . . .?"

All heads turned to stare as Cain slowly, cautiously, slipped into the room.  Hovering near the doorway with a pallor leeching the little color he had from his skin as his gaze focused on the bed, the tai-youkai looked somehow diminished; almost sickly.  Shuffling his feet as he forced himself to move, he swallowed hard, the movement of muscles under his skin painfully pronounced as he grimaced and slowly shook his head in disbelief.

Kichiro stifled a growl of frustration and stepped back, allowing room for Cain to move in closer.  Creeping nearer as his eyes widened in unmasked horror, he uttered a low whining sound that obviously wasn't meant for the rest of them to hear.

"Come on, InuYasha," Kagome said softly, taking her mate's hand and gently tugging him away from the bed.

"The fuck I'll—"

"It's all right," she said, her voice soothing, calm.  "Everything's going to be all right now."

"He did this!" InuYasha hissed, at least trying to keep himself calm despite the obvious desire to protect his daughter, even from Cain.

"And he's here now.  She needs him, and besides, I haven't slept well without my mate."

Growling as Kagome rubbed her distended belly, InuYasha's expression shifted into what Kagome normally called 'The Pout' as he stubbornly crossed his arms over his chest.  "If you think—"

Kagome sighed and rolled her eyes, giving up on the gentle chiding as she grasped InuYasha's ear between her thumb and index finger and jerked him toward the door.

"Oi, wench!" he complained, grimacing as he managed to jerk his ear free of her grip.  He shot her a glare before stomping back over to Cain, snorting as he grabbed Cain's arm to force the youkai to look at him.  "Keh!  You broke her, damn it.  Fix her!"

Cain didn't look away from the angry hanyou.  He didn't say anything at all.  The two stared each other down for several tense seconds.  In the end, Cain nodded curtly and let his gaze return to the girl who looked so completely lost in the midst of the little bed.

He waited until InuYasha and Kagome had left the room, ignoring Kichiro for the moment, before dropping to his knees beside her, taking her hand in his and cradling it against his whisker-roughened cheek.  "I'm sorry, Gin . . . God, I'm sorry . . ."

Kichiro didn't say anything as he carefully stepped around Cain to adjust the IV drip.  Gin's pale skin seemed to take on a more unearthly glow in the dim half-light of the falling evening.  Flicking on the lamp that sat on the table beside the bed, Kichiro spared a moment to rub his sister's cheek before stepping back and turning toward the door.

"She'll . . . She'll be okay, right?" Cain asked just before Kichiro could close the door behind himself.

"I don't know," he admitted, unable to summon a lie.  "But I hope so."  He had a feeling that there had been far too many of those told already.  Giving voice to one more . . . It was something that Kichiro just couldn't do.


Cain rubbed his eyes and sighed.  "Ben'll be happy.  Old bastard's been trying to get me to find a new mate for years," he said softly, stroking the back of her hand with his index finger.  "Sometimes I think he's more interested in my life than I am . . ."

Kichiro had said that it might help if Cain talked to her, and he did.  Spending hours talking and talking while he prayed that she'd open her eyes; that she'd do something to let him know that she could hear him . . . "You have to wake up soon, you know.  I bought something for you, and you know you love presents . . ."

In the last few days since his arrival, he hadn't left her side at all, except for a few minutes to shower or to step outside for a cigarette when the stress had seemed just a little more than he could handle.  He thought that maybe her coloring was a little better but then that could be little more than wishful thinking on his part, too.  He'd been doing that a lot lately—wishing for things.  Wishing that she'd wake up and smile at him . . . Wishing that he had made her listen to him before he left the first time . . . Wishing that he could find a way to make her listen to him now . . . just wishing.

'Why isn't she waking up?'

Cain sighed again and pulled the sketchpad off the nightstand.  Painful, wasn't it, to sketch her in this way; to commit to paper the image of her, lying so still in the bed with the tubes and the wires that sustained her life—those angry, bitter things that reminded him a little too well, that he had come way too close to losing her.

Glaring at the nearly completed sketch, he shook his head, willing away the insane desire to destroy the hurtful rendering.  'Why am I doing this?'

'Because you don't want to forget, do you?  You never, ever want to forget.  You don't want to let it be reduced to a sad, lonely memory.  You want to remember because you don't want this to happen to her again.'

"I don't want this to happen again . . ." he mused.

The incessant tick of the clock droned on and on while nothing really changed at all.  Time could pass; mountains could fall.  In the space of a whisper or in the expanse of an eon, and somewhere in the wave of time was the mechanical hiss of the respirator.

"Anything you want, baby girl—anything at all . . . All you have to do is say the word.  Wake up, Gin . . . please . . . I need you . . ."

She needed him, too.

Cain scowled at the sketch and shook his head.  'She needed me as badly as I need her.  Why didn't she tell me?  Why didn't she let me know?'

He heard the door open behind him but didn't turn to look.  Kichiro slipped into the room and made quick work of checking the monitors, adjusting the IV.  Stopping beside her to check her pulse, he kept his expression blank but didn't seem alarmed, either.

"Why isn't she waking up?" Cain growled, drawing the doctor's attention at last.

Kichiro put her hand back down and adjusted the heart monitor on her fingertip.  "Do you think she got like this overnight?  Give her body some time, will you?  She'll be fine.  Have a little faith."

"That's not good enough," Cain bit out.  "Not by a long shot."

Kichiro shook his head and shrugged.  "All we can do is wait.  I don't know what else to tell you."

"That's not good enough, damn it!  You said that she'd recover if she knew I was here, didn't you?  You said her youkai-blood would know."

Shifting his gaze to the side as he stepped back from the bed, Kichiro stared at Cain for a moment before slowly nodding, as if something finally made sense to him.  "You look like crap.  You know that, right?  Do you feel any better than you did the day you arrived?"

Cain frowned.  "That's a stupid question!  Of course I don't feel better.  I won't till she wakes up.  Don't you get it?"

"Stuff your indignant outrage up your ass, Zelig.  I'm talking on a clinical level.  Your coloring's better than it was.  The circles under your eyes are dissipating.  You don't look nearly as shaky as you were, but you don't feel great; am I wrong?"

Shaking his head, Cain propped his elbow on the armrest and dropped his forehead into his hand.  "I don't care, how I feel.  She's the one I care about."

"You were gone for nearly four weeks.  You think that everything she's been through can be undone in a three-day span?"

"There has to be something—anything . . ."

Kichiro sighed, draping his hands on his hips as he glanced from his sister to Cain and back again.  "There is one thing that might help her," he ventured slowly, almost reluctantly.

Cain's head snapped up as a wild surge of hope shot through him.  "What?"

Kichiro shrugged offhandedly.  "You could try marking her.  If her youkai knows that yours has accepted her as your mate . . ."

"Will it work?"

"It can't hurt."

"Do it."

"Have you accepted her as your mate?"

Cain snorted, shooting Kichiro a look that stated just how ignorant he thought that question really was.  "Are you stupid?"

"I have to ask.  A ritual like marking can't be undone later."

Balling his hands into fists as he tried to remind himself that Kichiro was simply concerned about his sister, Cain had to count to fifty before he dared try to answer.  "I know it can't be undone.  I wouldn't want it to be undone.  She's the one—the only one . . . She's my mate, damn it."

Kichiro nodded.  "Am I to assume you know where her mark should be?"

Cain opened his mouth to say 'no' but remembered the sharp memory, of Gin's body, of the draw that he couldn't ignore.  "Yes."

"Where?"

Trying not to blush as he shrugged in what he hoped was an offhanded manner; Cain scratched his chin and made a face.  "Her . . . rear."

"Her . . . what?"

Cain grunted.  "Her . . . ass . . . Okay, not her ass, exactly—just under her waistline, actually."

"Not nearly as bad as Belle's spot," Kichiro grumbled under his breath.

"Come again?"

He shook his head.  "Nothing."

"How soon can you do it?" Cain demanded, scowling as he stared at Gin's pale face.

"I'll have to run to the office and get the apparatus.  It shouldn't take long, but you know, you'd probably better ask my parents before you take it upon yourself to do this."

"Like they'll have a choice in it," he pointed out.

"Choice or not, unless you want to be at odds with the old man for the rest of your life, you'd better do it, if not for yourself, then think about her."

Cain rolled his eyes but had to allow that what Kichiro said made sense.  The doctor left the room, muttering something about picking up the equipment.  Cain kissed Gin's forehead.  'I'd rather eat dirt than ask that hothead for a damn thing.'

'Kichiro's right, as much as you hate to admit it.  Gin might want to be with you, but you know how much she adores her family.'

'Family is fine . . . It's her father I could live without.'

'Get over it, Cain.  They can't really stop you.  They want her to recover as much as you do.'

'Okay, fine . . .'

'Just do it.'

Cain wrinkled his nose but heaved a sigh as he slowly turned and headed for the door.


"Over my dead body."

"InuYasha . . ."

"I said no."

"Don't be so hasty," Kagome cut in, laying a hand on InuYasha's arm to placate him.  "If it helps Gin . . ."

"How the fuck can being that bastard's mate help her?" he growled.

Cain snorted.  "She's already my mate," he pointed out.  "If you haven't realized that by now, then you really are a little thick."

"Like that matters!  You ain't even asked her if it was what she wanted!  Kind of underhanded, if you ask me: making it so that she can't complain, even if she wanted to.  Sneaky bastard."

"I want her to wake up," Cain remarked tightly.  "Your son said that it might help."

"My son apparently said a lot of things," InuYasha shot back.

Kagome rolled her eyes and stepped between the men.  "You both just want what's best for Gin, and it's a little late to be arguing about it now, don't you think?  Gin made her choice, and she chose Zelig-san.  Can't you both just think of her first?"

"I am thinking of her," InuYasha snarled without taking his eyes off Cain.  "I'm thinking about how fucking miserable she'll be if she's forced to live with him for the rest of her life."

"She won't be miserable," Cain retorted.  "She wants to be with me."

"Yeah?  Then why the hell did you leave her?  Were you really stupid enough to think that she didn't need you?  You're the reason she's in that fucking bed!  You're to blame for it, damn it!"

"Do you think I don't know that already?  I tried to get her to go with me.  She didn't want to leave her daddy.  You've kept her under lock and key for so long that she doesn't have a clue that she could make it on her own!"

"And you're the fucking expert?  Your daughter didn't even know how to protect herself at all!  Don't tell me how to raise my daughter when yours can't do that much for herself."

"All right," Kagome interrupted loudly, pushing Cain back as she held InuYasha at bay.  "This isn't helping!  InuYasha, please!  Gin doesn't need this!  Do you really want her to wake up with you two fighting like this?"

Cain glared at the hanyou but stepped back.  "Do I have your permission?"

InuYasha didn't answer.  Kagome rolled her eyes and elbowed her mate in the stomach, earning her a fulminating glower.  "Keh!  Fine, but you'd sure as hell better protect her better than you have been.  Do you hear me?"

"I'd die for her," Cain growled.

InuYasha snorted.  "You'd die for your first wife, baka.  You need to live for my daughter."

Cain didn't reply as InuYasha turned on his heel and slammed out the back door.  He didn't go far; only to the edge of the pond.  Hopping onto the large boulder that jutted out over the water, the hanyou sat proudly, his hair billowing behind him in the autumn breeze.

"He loves her," Kagome said quietly, staring in the same direction as Cain.

"So do I."

"I know you do, and so does InuYasha.  I didn't think he'd ever give permission for someone to take away his daughter."

"I'm not taking her away," Cain grumbled, shuffling his feet as he slowly shook his head.

"Of course you're not.  She'll always love her papa, and her papa . . . Well, he'll always adore her, too."

"I just want her to get better.  I just want her to wake up."

Turning to face him at the sound of his quiet confession, Kagome smiled gently and nodded.  "I know.  She will.  Gin's always been strong."

"I hope so."

"She's hanyou.  She's tough."

Blinking quickly as Cain remembered the same words coming from another face, he smiled.  "She is, isn't she?"

Kagome nodded.  "Sorry about the poor reception, but welcome to the family, Zelig-san."

He waved off her welcome as a hint of a blush crept up his cheeks.  "Just Cain's fine, and thanks."