InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ Confusion ( Chapter 44 )

~~Chapter 44~~

~Confusion~

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Ben Philips smiled as Gin Izayoi Zelig opened the door and greeted him with a warm grin followed in close order by a kiss on the cheek that was more of a flutter of her lips than anything else. “Hello, Ben! What brings you out at this time of day?”

 

He chuckled, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Your mate called me, of course,” he supplied. “Can't very well ignore the tai-youkai, now can I?”

 

She rolled her eyes and waved a hand in dismissal. “But it's Valentine's Day! You should be spending the evening with your special someone, ne?”

 

He didn't miss the hint of curiosity in her tone. “Perhaps, if there was a special someone,” he replied easily enough. “Is Zelig home?”

 

“Hmm,” she said, tapping her index finger against her lips thoughtfully. “He came back a little while ago and popped into the kitchen long enough to let me know, but then he disappeared again . . . Maybe he's in the studio?”

 

“Ah, well, I shan't trouble you further, Gin,” he said. “I'll find him.”

 

“All right,” she replied with a conspiratorial wink. “Would you mind letting him know that I'll have dinner ready soon? You will stay for it, won't you?”

 

“Uh, we'll see,” he hedged.

 

Gin clucked her tongue but smiled happily before spinning around on her heel and hurrying off toward the kitchen.

 

Closing the door behind him, Ben's smile faded quickly enough. Even in the foyer of the grand mansion, he could smell the unseen youkai, but if Gin had noticed, she hadn't mentioned it . . . Not entirely surprising, though, since the woman tended to view it as Zelig's business. To Ben's knowledge, she simply never really asked too many questions about such things.

 

Ben frowned, wondering exactly how much Zelig knew or even understood, given the circumstances. It was telling, wasn't it? Instead of taking Marin to the youkai special crimes headquarters that had special rooms set up for the interrogation and potential holding of suspect youkai, Zelig had opted instead to bring him to his home—something that Ben had never known Zelig to be lax in before. Exactly what was going on in his head? He'd sounded strange on the telephone—not surprising, all things considered, but still . . .

 

And where was Zelig? Even from his limited perspective at the moment, Ben could tell that the tai-youkai was not in his office where Marin currently was, but he was close. Ben set his thin black leather attaché case on the floor beside the table and stuffed his hands into his pockets before wandering down the narrow hallway that cut around the thick wooden staircase. In older days, this part of the main floor would likely be considered servants' quarters. The rooms were smaller and much more modest, favoring function over form. Gin tended to use them for storage these days, and yet it was to these rooms that Ben was drawn by Zelig's youki.

 

Down the hallway to the small open sunroom he walked, spotting Cain leaning against the lattice-work frame. Elbow raised, forehead resting on his forearm, he seemed a million miles away. “Zelig,” he said quietly.

 

He made no move to indicate that he'd heard Ben at all. So lost in contemplation that Ben had to clear his throat a couple of times to draw Zelig's attention, he didn't turn to face Ben as he pushed himself away from the window and patted his pockets for a pack of cigarettes. “I know him, Ben,” Zelig finally said, his voice low, rasping, raw. “I . . . I don't know how, but I . . . I do.”

 

“You do,” Ben agreed, careful to keep his tone casual. “I'm surprised that he's still alive.”

 

“Why . . .? Shouldn't he be?”

 

Lifting his eyebrows, he sighed softly. “I don't know if I'd say `shouldn't', but the last time I saw him, he was in pretty bad shape.”

 

Taking his time in lighting a cigarette, Zelig let his head fall back, releasing a sigh full of smoke in the air, watching in silence as it thinned and dissipated. “Do I want to know how I know him?” he asked at length, half-turning, holding up the cigarette and examining the burning end with absolute concentration.

 

Frowning at the reluctance in Zelig's voice, Ben took his time answering. He sounded so odd, even to Ben's ears. What was it about Zelig's bearing that brought to mind a child? he wondered absently. There was a certain susceptibility that reminded Ben of another time, another place, and a young boy who hadn't really been old enough to understand a damn thing . . . “Let me talk to him, Zelig. Let me talk to him, and then I'll tell you everything that I know . . . that is, if you're ready to hear it.”

 

He didn't turn his head, but his eyes darted to the side, meeting Ben's gaze with a strange sort of expression—a foreign sense of foreboding—maybe it was fear?—the sort of emotion that Ben hadn't realized that Zelig possessed. There was an underlying sense of vulnerability in his stare, and maybe he already knew the truth, even if he didn't want to admit it. It brought to mind the same expression on another face in another time—the last time he'd seen Zelig's father . . .

 

But Zelig nodded. “Y-yeah,” he murmured.

 

Biting his bottom lip, Ben narrowed his gaze on the tai-youkai, wondering absently just how much Zelig really did remember but deciding in the end that it wasn't the right time to broach that subject.

 

Without another word, he turned and headed down the hallway once more, taking his time in order to organize his thoughts before he confronted the bear-youkai. It had been centuries, and yet the memories were crystal clear in his mind. What surprised him was that Marin had managed to live his life without drawing notice thus far, and while Ben was curious as to how he'd accomplished it, the pervasive questions in his mind had little to do with the passing centuries since the first and only time he'd ever encountered the man.

 

And yet he couldn't say that it surprised him, either. The oddly disjointed phone call that Zelig had made less than twenty minutes ago still ran through his head . . .

 

“B-Ben . . .?”

 

“Ah, Zelig. Did your better half finally kick you out?”

 

“Uh, oh, um . . . no.”

 

Ben frowned. He'd been in the middle of explaining things to Gunnar and for a moment, he had wondered if he weren't simply projecting his own unease over the situation onto Zelig. “Is something wrong?”

 

“I don't . . . I don't know . . .”

 

“You're not making much sense . . .” Ben hedged.

 

“I know him, Ben. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but I . . . I know him . . .”

 

That gave Ben pause, and he frowned at the phone. “Who do you know?”

 

Zelig heaved a sigh—a long, impossibly weary thing. “Griffin Marin,” he answered quietly. “Isabelle's bear . . .”

 

Ben's eyes flashed open wide, and he grimaced as the paltry bit of plastic that was his cell phone groaned under the strain of his tightening grip. “Zelig, where are you?” he demanded, disliking the tone of the tai-youkai's voice.

 

“Home,” Zelig replied. “I . . . I brought him home . . .”

 

“I'll be right there,” he said, clicking off the cell phone as he started to walk fast—very fast . . .

 

Stopping outside the thick door of Zelig's study, he scowled at the silence that seemed to deafen him. Taking a deep breath, he reached for the handle and opened the door . . .

 

Bas Zelig looked up from his place seated at his father's desk, folding the newspaper in half and setting it aside before untangling his long legs and slowly getting to his feet. “Hey, Ben,” he greeted, stepping around the desk and offering his hand.

 

Ben shook it and nodded. “Would you excuse us, Bas?”

 

Bas nodded but shot Marin a quick glance before moving to comply with the request. Ben could sense his questions but didn't offer any answers, and Bas didn't say anything more as he headed for the door.

 

Marin didn't turn his head, but he did watch Bas' exit. Sitting rather hunched over with his chin ducked slightly in what Ben could only perceive as an effort to minimize the appearance of the angry scars that intersected the side of his face—a practiced sort of bearing that bothered Ben much more than he could credit. “He . . . he looks just like Cavendish,” he ventured at last, his tone lacking any hostility but not at all what Ben would consider friendly, either.

 

“Yes, he does,” Ben replied, stuffing his hands a little deeper into his pockets as he wandered toward the desk. “I'm Ben Philips. I'm one of Zelig's generals.”

 

“I know who you are,” Marin remarked, his voice barely above a low rumble.

 

“I suppose you do.” Leaning against the front of the desk and crossing his arms over his chest, Ben frowned. “I also suppose you realize why you were asked to come in.”

 

He didn't answer right away. The discomfort in his youki spiked and constricted though he made no outward sign that anything was amiss. When he finally did deign to answer, it was nothing more than a terse nod—a solitary jerk of his head, really. From Ben's vantage point, he couldn't rightfully see Marin's face behind the curtain of shaggy brown bangs that hung just slightly below the youkai's chin.

 

“You know, I thought you'd died a long time ago,” Ben went on, opting for a casual tone. “Why did you run away?”

 

“I didn't . . . run away,” Marin contradicted. “I just . . . wanted to find a better place to die.”

 

That gave Ben pause as he considered the statement, and in the end, he figured that it sounded about right. He wouldn't have wanted to die right there, either, he supposed. “And did you find that place?”

 

“As good a place as any,” Marin admitted.

 

“But you didn't die.”

 

“N . . . no.”

 

Heaving a sigh, Ben pushed himself away from the desk and strode over to the small wet bar on the far side of the study. The little refrigerator under the counter was always stocked with bottles of water, and though he'd have preferred something a bit stronger, he allowed that water would just have to do. “Are you thirsty, Dr. Marin?” he called back over his shoulder.

 

“No, tha—thank you.”

 

Retrieving a single water bottle, Ben ambled over to the desk once more, deliberately taking his time in cracking the seal around the plastic cap. “I was never exactly certain what happened that night, you know. I, um, I got there a bit late, and Zelig . . . well, he was too small to understand. Fact is, I know he doesn't really remember it very well, if he remembers it at all. Never talked about it that I know of.”

 

“He was just a cub,” Marin mumbled with a shake of his head. “A lot happened . . .”

 

Ben nodded. “Why were you there?”

 

Marin sighed, shaking his head slowly. “I . . . I don't really know,” he replied.

 

Ben digested that for a moment. From anyone else, it might have seemed like a flip attempt to avoid the truths that might well work against him. From Marin, though, Ben had a feeling that he meant exactly what he said. Even now, centuries later, Marin really wasn't sure exactly what had brought him to Sebastian's mansion that night, or maybe . . . maybe it was more of the idea that he wasn't entirely certain how he'd come to be in that place at that time, at all.

 

“But you were with the dissidents,” Ben prodded though not unkindly.

 

Marin grunted then ducked his chin a little more. “It made no sense, hiding our natures,” he muttered. “At least, it didn't at the time . . .”

 

“So you came with them to help convince Cavendish to revolt against Sesshoumaru's edict?”

 

He scowled, nodded, then shook his head slowly. “I thought that was the right path,” he admitted. “We just went there to talk. A couple of the others saw you take Terfoure into custody, and . . .” Trailing off with another sigh, Marin opened and closed his hand as he struggled to explain what he probably didn't understand any better than Ben did. “They said that we were just going to ask for his release; that's all. I didn't know that some of them had brought guns along—youkai with guns . . . kind of ironic, isn't it?”

 

Ben nodded slowly, understanding Marin's statement completely. Guns were the reason that the youkai had chosen to hide their true natures . . . “The very things that brought about Sesshoumaru's edict were the same things that those brash youkai would use to make their point,” he mused.

 

Marin shot Ben a quick glance. “We just wanted to make Cavendish listen; that was all.”

 

“Then why hide after the fact? Why did you run?”

 

Scowling fiercely at the floor, Marin hunched forward a little more, pressing his fingertips together as his hands dangled between his parted knees as he considered the answer to Ben's question. “I . . . I could have stopped it,” he muttered. “I should have stopped it . . . Cavendish's mate . . . she shouldn't have died,” he said, his voice catching, rough and somehow intrinsically gentle at the same time. “But I was . . . a-afraid. It all . . . spun out of control so quickly that I . . . I didn't know what to do.” He sighed and shook his head again, the guilt and recrimination in his aura a painful thing. “If I had just gone into that house . . .”

 

“If you had gone into that house, you would have died,” Ben interjected, pointing out what should have been obvious. “What would you have done? Would you have jumped in front of Daniella? Would you have taken that bullet instead? Would you have tried to explain things to Cavendish when he was beyond the ability to perceive reason? No, I'll tell you what would have happened had you gone into that house. Cavendish would have cut you down regardless of what your intentions were. He almost cut me down, you know, and then . . .” Ben paused in favor of a long quaff of the water before continuing, measuring his words carefully and understanding that no matter what he saw that night, Marin's perception of it was vastly different and instead of seeing what he was able to accomplish, all he could comprehend were his own shortcomings. “You saved Zelig, didn't you?”

 

“Like I said,” Marin mumbled, “he was just a . . . cub.”

 

Ben set the water bottle on the desk before turning his attention on the bear-youkai once more. “And had you not been in the yard—if someone else had caught Zelig . . . Daniella wouldn't have been the only one to die that day, and the line of the tai-youkai would have been broken.”

 

“Broken,” Marin murmured, as though the word was of vast import.

 

“The chaos that would have ensued . . . It would have been a frightening thing. Perhaps Sesshoumaru would have been able to appoint a new tai-youkai, but when I stop to consider the madness that would have come from that, it staggers my mind.” Pausing to let his words sink in, Ben slowly shook his head. “Youkai would have risen up to proclaim themselves the strongest. They would have cut each other down, one by one, to prove their right as the mightiest . . . The human war with England . . . the taxes and the sanctions and the political turmoil that stemmed from it . . . I know—I know—that it would have been the end of us, had Zelig been lost that night.”

 

He shook his head stubbornly, refusing to acknowledge Ben's words. “I-I-I could have stopped them. I was the oldest one there. They would have listened to me . . .”

 

“Do you really believe that?” Ben challenged quietly. “A mob will not listen to reason. They came to destroy, and that was what they did. It's what they wanted. If they told you otherwise, they were lying.”

 

“That's not true,” Marin said, his voice thick with emotion. “Most of them . . . they had families . . . mates . . . cubs of their own. They didn't want to die that day. They didn't want to destroy. They just wanted to be heard. I . . . I just wanted to be heard.”

 

“Because you felt that the edict was wrong,” Ben concluded with a wan nod. “Mr. Marin—excuse me: Doctor Marin . . . You don't strike me as a foolish man. Why do you insist upon lingering in your regrets?”

 

Ben's question gave Marin pause. The bear-youkai slumped back and heaved a little sigh, flexing his right hand in an idle sort of way. From his vantage point, Ben could see the puffiness of the scar tissue between his thumb and index finger—the lingering reminder of a child's consuming fear and the moment in time that had bound the two inexorably and forever. “I don't regret what I did,” he finally admitted, his gaze flicking to meet Ben's but only for a moment before it skittered away once more. “But I regret that I didn't do more. I was . . . I was afraid, and . . . and because of that, a cub lost his parents. Because I did nothing, the tai-youkai was killed without honor and without . . . dignity. It's as simple as that.”

 

Ben narrowed his eyes, trying to discern exactly what Marin was thinking. Had he felt this way in all the centuries that had come to pass, and if he had, how had he ever managed to survive? Guilt was a terrible thing to live with, but . . . But he supposed that it was understandable, too. By rights, any attack made against the house of the tai-youkai should have resulted in death, no questions asked, and yet here he was. Ben had spent weeks laboring over the decision to end the hunt for Marin centuries ago. On the one hand, anyone who had been there that night should have been hunted down and killed, and yet he had been reluctant to continue the search for Marin back then, and why?

 

He almost smiled—almost. Ben had come to understand in the time after Daniella Cavendish's death that Sebastian held one thing above all else: his son. The strength he'd shown in being able to deliver the boy to Sesshoumaru had proven that, hadn't it, and that had been the real reason that Ben had deliberately let the bear-youkai be presumed dead, after all . . . Hunting Marin down at the time would have accomplished nothing, and maybe the real sense of justice was sitting before him: a youkai who hadn't ever meant to hurt anyone just to be heard . . .

 

Taking a deep breath and offering a noncommittal shrug, Ben shook his head and cleared his throat, waiting until the youkai finally lifted his gaze to meet his before he finally spoke. “No, if you had tried to stop it—if you had been inside instead of remaining in the yard then there wouldn't have been a single soul to save Zelig . . . Sebastian was beyond comprehending friend and foe, and while I would like to think that he would have stopped himself in time, the truth of it is that he might not have. He might have cut Zelig down, himself, if Zelig had made it to that house, and he would only have regretted it later, and I tell you this: there has not been a day that's gone by when I haven't been thankful that you were there in the yard to stop Zelig and to send him back into the forest.”

 

“I'm not a . . . a hero,” Marin mumbled.

 

“No, you're right. You're just a man, and men make mistakes, but you saved the life of the tai-youkai, and that speaks volumes about your worth.”

 

Marin didn't respond to that. Ben would have been surprised if he had. He didn't look as though he quite believed Ben, but in the end, that was fine, too. He'd wondered years and years ago, just why he'd felt so compelled to speak to the bear-youkai. Now he knew. He'd always wanted to thank him, hadn't he; to thank him for protecting Zelig at a moment when no one else had been there to do it.

 

“It's getting late,” Ben said at length, tossing the empty water bottle into the trashcan beside the desk. “I need to speak with Zelig again, but I'd be honored if you would allow me to give you a ride home.”

 

Marin couldn't hide the momentary look of surprise that registered on his face before he was able to blank it out once more. He looked like he wanted to argue or at the very least decline the offer, but in the end, he nodded just once. “Th-thank you,” he mumbled instead.

 

Ben nodded and strode out of the office, pausing only long enough to locate Bas in the living room to ask that he sit with Marin for a few more minutes. Bas narrowed a speculative gaze on Ben, planting his hands on his hips and slowly shaking his head. “Why did Dad bring Dr. Marin here?” Bas asked without preamble.

 

Ben offered the future tai-youkai a wan smile and shrugged. “He saved your father's life,” he admitted.

 

Bas' eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Oh?”

 

“Mm. The day your grandmother was killed, he—Dr. Marin—caught your father before he could run back into the house and sent him back into the forest to hide. If he hadn't done that . . . well . . .”

 

Bas nodded slowly. “Really?”

 

“Yes, really. Would you mind sitting with the doctor until I've spoken to your father? I'll give him a ride home, but I need to take care of a couple of things first.”

 

“Not a problem,” Bas said. “Saved Dad's life, huh . . .? Never would have thought that . . . I should thank him.”

 

Ben watched as Bas strode away, a hint of a smile quirking the corners of his lips. More and more often of late, the young man reminded him of the other Sebastian—Bas' grandfather—and Ben knew that the Sebastian he had grown up with so long ago would have been so proud of Bas . . . just as he had always been of Zelig.

 

Giving himself a mental shake, Ben wandered over to retrieve the black attaché case he'd left beside the table before he headed back down the hallway to the solar. Zelig wasn't there, but he didn't have to think twice about exactly where Zelig might be. Whenever he was troubled by something, Zelig had a habit of sitting on the beach and staring out over the ocean, and now was no different.

 

Slipping out the door and across the yard to the narrow stone steps that led down to the beach, Ben heaved a sigh. The winds were picking up, rolling in off the choppy water. It somehow fit the mood, he supposed. “Gin will skin you if she catches you smoking those damn things,” Ben pointed out reasonably enough as he closed the distance between them.

 

Zelig started and blinked at the cigarette burning between his fingers. “Uh, probably,” he agreed absently.

 

“I talked to Marin,” Ben said without preamble. There really wasn't a reason to beat around the bush, anyway. “You're right. You do know him—at least, you should know him.”

 

Rubbing his temple, he scowled at the gravelly sand, dropping the smoldering cigarette butt without bothering to snuff it out. “I keep seeing . . . fire . . . I hear screaming . . . and this . . . thunder, but I don't . . . I don't remember rain . . .”

 

Hunkering down beside Cain, Ben set the attaché case aside and rested his elbows on his bent knees. “He was there the night . . . the night your mama was killed. He saved your life . . . sent you back into the forest to hide.”

 

Cain shot him a quick glance; a horrified sort of expression as the color leeched from his skin. “The night . . . Mother . . .?”

 

Ben sighed. “You never seemed to want to talk about it. Your father . . . he said that he wasn't sure if you even remembered, so I didn't press it. I believed that you would ask if you ever wanted to know.”

 

“F . . . Father . . .”

 

Ben grimaced against the unadulterated pain that seethed in Zelig's aura. As though the passage of time had been somehow stripped away, leaving him as that four year old who couldn't understand why his mama wasn't going to get on the ship with the first rays of light . . . Ben had thought at the time that maybe it was better that Zelig hadn't regained consciousness. Now he wondered just how difficult it had to have been for Sebastian to explain to his son that his mother was dead . . . “I have something. I kept it for you. I always thought that the time would come when you would want it. I guess . . . I guess maybe . . .”

 

Zelig watched out of the corner of his eye as Ben dug into the attaché case, carefully extricating an ornately carved cedar box—an incense box, actually—that contained the carefully laminated scroll. For years, Ben had protected it inside his private safe but when that method started to fail and as the parchment had started to crumble around the edges, he'd laminated it in order to preserve it for this day; for this moment. Tied with a teal ribbon shades darker than Zelig's ceremonial color, it had waited, and now . . . Now it was time, wasn't it?

 

“What . . . is . . . this . . .?” Zelig asked cautiously, his voice betraying his absolute dread. He refused to reach for it.

 

Ben cleared his throat and set the box in the sand beside Zelig. “It's, um . . . it's the last letter that your father ever wrote me. I received it from Sesshoumaru's messenger who had been sent to tell me that Sebastian—Keijizen—had . . . had died.”

 

Zelig grimaced and closed his eyes, ducking his chin as raw pain surged in his youki. The dormant memories were a harsh thing as they sprung to life in his mind. Those half-forgotten wisps of memory were taking their toll on him, but as much as Ben wished it were otherwise, there wasn't really a thing he could do. The young man who had returned from Japan flashed through his mind—the timid smile that still retained the far-away quality of the dreamer . . . Ben had watched as Zelig had come into his own, and while he was far from perfect, he was and continued to be a damn good man, and it was true that on some level, Ben was as proud of the man he'd become as he would have been had Zelig been one of his own, and still there was a certain distance that Zelig had always maintained, guarding the parts of himself that might have reached out for a father figure with a jealousy that Ben had never been able to touch.

 

And yet he knew that he was also as close as any man could ever hope to be, and it was more than enough to know that Zelig did consider him a friend. In the centuries when Ben had considered stepping away, had thought about leaving the stress of his station, it was Zelig, himself, that had always changed his mind though Ben would have been loath to admit as much to him . . .

 

“I . . . I remember . . .” Zelig finally said, lifting his gaze to the open water once more, watching without really seeing as the faint moonlight played on the waves. “I tore his hand open, didn't I?”

 

His voice was little more than a monotone, as though he couldn't find it within himself to lend emotion to his words, or maybe it was simply that the emotion that he had was reserved for the memories of a mother and a father half-forgotten.

 

“You did. He bears a scar from that and scars from your father, too. I think . . . I think they remind him of that night. I don't think he ever wants to forget how easily things can spin out of control . . .”

 

Zelig thought it over then heaved a weary sigh. “Could you take him home, Ben? I . . . I should talk to him, but . . . but . . . maybe . . . maybe later . . .” Blinking suddenly, he turned to look at Ben at last, his eyes uncommonly bright even in the darkness of the falling night. “I guess he's been seeing Isabelle . . .”

 

Ben blinked in surprise then shook his head. As unlikely as the couple might seem, he had to wonder if she weren't possibly the best person to tackle the job of drawing the stodgy bear-youkai out of his shell. Giving himself a mental shake, he stood up and clapped a hand on Zelig's shoulder. “It's fine. I don't think he's going anywhere. In any case, I'll see that he gets home. Don't stay out here too long or you'll worry your mate.”

 

“Thanks,” Zelig said.

 

Ben left Zelig there alone on the beach, trudging back toward the house. He hated to leave Zelig this way, but he'd done what he had set out to do, and in the end, he knew damn well that there really was only one person who could help him now, and she was in the bright, airy kitchen finishing dinner for her family . . .

 

 

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A/N:

For those who haven't read the oneshot, it is vastly helpful in understanding the circumstances discussed in this chapter:

Purity: Revolutioncan be found here: http://www.mediaminer.org/fanfic/view_st.php/121391/

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Sephrenia(MMorg):

Ohh! That was a very nice cliff there. I kept hearing dramatic music in my head while reading the end. I assume that you have these stories planned out before writing them, but how much? And how much changes when you type up the chapters?

 

The stories are pretty much set in stone at this point, and whatever does change are just things that don't or won't impact latter stories. I'm constantly checking over things to make sure that I'm not accidentally contradicting something that I will need later, and all that remains is simply the actual writing of the stories, themselves. In many cases, I know down to rather minute details exactly how something will unfold, which is a new approach to writing for me since I normally just “write”, but with a story that will ultimately unfold in this way, I rather needed to have a stronger basis for things. It always amuses me whenever people join my forum and read the teasers for the remaining Purity stories. They seem so amazed that I've actually started writing all of them, but I suppose when your muse hits, it's better not to ignore it. Sometimes things don't change at all when I write a chapter and it plays out exactly as I envisioned it in my head. At others, things will happen to surprise me, and as long as it doesn't impact the overall story, then I figure that it's fine, too!

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MMorg

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Final Thought fromBen:

God, I need a drink …

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Avouchment): I do not claim any rights to InuYashaor 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~