InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ Everyone's Darling ( Chapter 1 )

Scowling at the slim-file in her hands, Samantha Izayoi tapped her claws against the hard plastic casing as she read through the information she’d been given.  ‘Jean-Pierre Benoit; viper-youkai . . .’

“He’s the one responsible for a rash of killings in and around Paris about seventy-five years ago.  According to reports, he cut down fifteen children at a daycare facility then disappeared.”

Glancing up from the file long enough to shake her head and flick her ears, Samantha narrowed her gaze on her cousin-in-law and employer as Sydnie Zelig pushed herself onto the desktop and crossed her slender ankles, idly kicking them to and fro as she met and returned Samantha’s look.  “So if he was able to elude detection back then, why is he surfacing again now?”

Letting out a deep breath, Sydnie’s expression darkened considerably, her emerald green eyes glowing with pinpoints of angry light.  “Why, indeed,” she muttered.

“Calm down, kitty,” Bas Zelig said as he leaned back on the desk beside his mate.  “There’s reason to believe that he hadn’t actually disappeared—at least, not as well as he could have.  The truth of it is that he was hanging out in Europe until recently, and, well, you know how that goes.”

Sam snorted indelicately, snapping the slim-file closed as she shook her head again.  “Since he killed humans, then it wasn’t a very big concern for the MacDonnough, you mean,” she reiterated, unable to completely repress the scorn in her tone.

“Well,” Bas said, obviously struggling for a semblance of objectivity, “Ian claims that he had more pressing concerns at the time—at least, that’s what Dad said.  However, since Benoit was stupid enough to try to slip into the States . . .”

“Then that makes it a whole new ball game,” Sydnie finished when Bas trailed off.

Bas sighed but smiled wanly.  “Something like that.”

“Doesn’t exactly sound like a youkai special crimes case,” Samantha remarked slowly.

Bas’ golden eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t look away.  “You’re right; it’s not, but Dad had to dispatch all his hunters on that syndicate investigation, so he asked if I had anyone I could send.”

Samantha’s delicate eyebrows rose, disappearing under the thick fringe of silvery hair that framed her face, and she couldn’t help smiling at the pure chagrin evident in her cousin’s expression.  “And you chose me?” she teased, unable to help herself.

Bas made a face and shook his head, leveling a no-nonsense glower at her.  “Not really, no, but Dad had to call in some of my hunters, too, so you won by default.”

Repressing the urge to roll her eyes, Samantha pasted on a tolerant smile since the subject was a sore one, in her estimation.

No one in her family with the possible exception of Sydnie seemed to think that Samantha ought to put her years of training to use and become a youkai hunter; not one.  Even her very open minded parents were against it from the start though at least her father, Kichiro pretended to support her choice.  Looking back now, she figured that it was more of a show of indulgence than actual approval on her father’s part. She had a feeling that he believed that she would eventually change her mind and settle on a less violent line of work.

“Anyway, I trust you’ll be careful,” Bas went on, narrowing his eyes just a bit, enough to give away his understated concern that had waned over the past few years since she’d come to work for the youkai special crimes division.

She nodded and pushed herself to her feet.  “You know I will,” she remarked with a shake of her head.  “Besides, you have bigger things to worry about, like that baby,” she pointed out, leaning forward to rub Sydnie’s slightly protruding belly.

Sydnie giggled, cheeks pinking in a happy display of absolute pleasure.  “Just make sure you call when you’re done,” she said with an arched eyebrow.

“Of course,” she said, hoping that they couldn’t discern the thinness of the smile that surfaced on her face.  “I always do.”

Bas frowned as though he wanted to say something, pressing his lips together in a tight line, but he must have decided against it.  Reaching back, he grabbed a plastic card off the desk and held it out to her.  “Here are your funds,” he said as she took the card.  “Your flight leaves in about nine hours, and a courier will be by later to deliver your ticket.”

“Okay,” Samantha agreed as she headed for the door.  Sparing a moment to offer a jaunty wave and a flashing smile, she couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when she pulled the door closed behind her and stepped into the hallway.

She could understand everyone’s concern, and she supposed that she could appreciate it on some level, as well.  The trouble was that she’d been doing this for nearly two years, and she knew that she could keep up with the best of them.  The truth of it was that she was damn good at what she did, and she only wished that the rest of her family would acknowledge that, too.

“Oh, Samantha, I didn’t see you come in,” Connie Leadbetter, Gunnar Inutaisho’s personal secretary called as she stepped out of the hallway.

She paused and shot the secretary a smile.  “Gunnar was probably barking at you at the time,” she said.

Connie gave a deep belly laugh.  “That sounds about right,” she agreed easily.  “Heading out on an assignment?”

Offering a small nod, Samantha’s smile faltered just a little.  “Yeah.  It shouldn’t be a big deal.”

“That’s what they all say,” Connie commented, waving a hand as she lifted a steaming mug of coffee to her lips.  “Between you and me, though, some of the guys who come in here regularly are a little shady in my estimation.”

Samantha laughed that off and reached for the knob.  “I’ve thought that myself,” she replied then waved.  “I’ve got to get going, so keep Gunnar in line, will you?”

Connie’s laughter followed her out of the office, and Samantha heaved a heavy breath that lifted the fringe of silvery bangs that framed her face.  Hurrying toward the metal door of the enclosed stairwell, she shook her head as she lightly ran down the steps.

It was strange, she figured, that Gunnar had hired a human secretary.  He’d maintained that Connie had been the best choice, but Bas had given him hell for it, or so Samantha had heard.  Because of that, the hunters that were employed by the youkai special crimes office were hidden under the disguise of clients who would come in to see Bas and Sydnie or Gunnar since it was deemed better to keep their association with the division as confidential as possible, and not simply because of Connie, either.  Renegade youkai would undoubtedly love to get their hands on information such as the identities of the hunters.  In fact, Samantha was the only one who actually frequented the office to receive her assignments, and only because Bas insisted on giving her the ‘You’d-Better-Be-Careful’ speech each and every time he sent her out . . .

“You’d think I was still just a pup,” she muttered under her breath to no one in particular as her cheeks pinked at the prodding of her disgruntled thoughts.

‘That’s not entirely fair,’ her youkai voice chided reasonably as Samantha pushed through the doors and into the lobby on the ground floor of the youkai special crimes building.  ‘Would you rather that no one cared about you at all?’

A long sigh slipped from her as she stepped outside into the late October sunshine. The day was crisp but not quite cold despite the chill wind blowing off the Atlantic Ocean, and she closed her eyes for a moment, lifting her chin as she savored the invisible fingers of the breeze rippling through her hair.  Being out of doors never ceased to calm her, no matter how badly frazzled her nerves were, and she could feel the irritation ebbing away as cleanly as waves receding from the shore.  Feeling somewhat renewed, she took a step toward the nondescript white car parked in front of the building.

“Samantha!” Bas called, throwing open the door and leaning outside.

She stopped and whirled around to face him.  “Yes?”

“Think fast,” he said, tossing an unlabeled amber bottle at her.

She caught it and shook it, turning it over in her fingertips with a thoughtful frown.  “What’s this?”

Bas shrugged.  “Scent-tabs,” he said.  “You said when you got back the last time that you were almost out, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed, slipping the bottle into her pocket.  “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he called after her.  “Be careful.”

She waved a hand over her shoulder as she stepped off the curb to skirt around the car.  “I’ll call when I’m finished,” she assured him.

He nodded but remained silent as she got into her car, started the engine, and pulled onto the street.

If it weren’t for Sydnie, she wouldn’t be a hunter, she supposed.  She’d gone to her father’s uncle, Sesshoumaru, the Inu no Taisho, to ask him for a job when she’d finished school only to be turned away.  Sesshoumaru had maintained that she would have to talk to Toga but that he was quite certain that there was no need for more hunters in Japan, and when she’d approached Toga later, he’d pretty much echoed his father’s sentiments.

She’d even asked her grandfather, the North American tai-youkai, and hadn’t been at all surprised when he’d turned her down flat, too.  As a matter of fact, she’d started pondering the idea of contacting other tai-youkai in hopes that someone might give her a chance when Sydnie had called her.

“Cain tells me you’re looking for a job,” the cat-youkai had said, her soft alto voice reminding Samantha of a purring feline.

“Jii-chan did?” she blurted before she could stop herself.

Sydnie laughed.  “Actually, he said something about it to my puppy, but I overheard him.  Is it true?”

Samantha frowned.  “Sure, but I’m looking for work as a hunter.”

“Sebastian said that you were trained by the same men who trained him?” Sydnie went on, ignoring Samantha’s statement.

“InuYasha-jii-chan and Ryomaru-oji-chan, you mean?  Of course!”

“Good, good,” Sydnie intoned,  “and Mikio?”

She wrinkled her nose at the reminder since she wasn’t particularly pleased about that part of it.  She was hanyou, after all, and while she could appreciate her father’s thoughts on the matter when he’d insisted that she learn how to use a firearm, she didn’t want to use that knowledge unless she absolutely had to, either.  Her uncle, Mikio had taught her how to fire guns, though, more for her father’s peace of mind than for her own.  “Yeah,” she admitted slowly.

Sydnie uttered a low sound of approval.  “Well, I could use a decent hunter who can use her head when necessary.  Would you be interested?”

Samantha clutched her cell phone tight, blinking quickly as she tried to understand that she really was being offered a job—a real job—as a hunter.  “Of course I am!” she blurted.

“Excellent!  I don’t know how soon you can be here, but I’d feel much better if you were able to come sooner than later.   I hope that it won’t be a problem . . .”

And it hadn’t been.  Much to her parents’ collective chagrin, she’d packed up her things that afternoon and had grabbed the first flight out of Tokyo, and while Bas had insisted that he test her skills in a mock-battle, he’d grudgingly given in when she managed to prove that she really could hold her own.  She knew that he hadn’t really fought her toe-to-toe, but he was forced to acknowledge her abilities, and that was more than enough, in her estimation.  Aside from the oldest male members of the family like InuYasha and Sesshoumaru and very likely Ryomaru as well as his own father, Cain, it was common knowledge that Bas, the next North American tai-youkai, was the force to be reckoned with when it came to fighting.

For the most part, she enjoyed her job.  Well, maybe that wasn’t the exact word she’d use, but it was close.  It was more of a calling, she’d thought before.  She felt compelled to do what she did.  Protecting humans and youkai alike, she’d always felt as though what she was doing was important, and while she didn’t particularly relish the idea of taking a life, she knew deep down that it was worth it in order to bring closure to people who had lost loved ones in inexplicable acts of violence.

Stopping at a light at the corner of Fox Street and Twenty-First, Samantha bit her lip as she scanned the surroundings with a critical eye.  It was second nature, really.  She’d learned early on in her training that a hunter always had to be fully aware of his or her surroundings or they wouldn’t be alive very long. When Ryomaru-oji-chan had said that at the time, she’d thought he was being a little melodramatic, and maybe he was trying to scare her out of wanting to be a hunter, but regardless, she’d taken that lesson to heart.

The soft trill of the cell phone broke through Samantha’s musings, and she tapped the blue intercom button on the dashboard beside the windshield wiper controls.  “Hello?”

“How’s my girl?” Kichiro Izayoi’s warm voice greeted.

She smiled, the dimple in her right cheek flashing as she turned the corner.  “Just fine,” she assured him.  “How are you and Mama?”

“Missing you, of course,” he replied smoothly.  “Don’t suppose you’ve decided to come home for a visit any time soon?”

With a soft laugh, she shook her head.  “Sorry, Papa,” she apologized without sounding at all contrite.  “I’m heading out on a job in a few hours.”

She didn’t miss Kichiro’s sigh though he didn’t say anything about it otherwise.  “Your mother said to remind you that you’ve not been home for Christmas in the last two years,” he pointed out.

She winced, her little white hanyou ears flattening for just a moment.  “I’m sorry, Papa,” she said again, this time sounding truly genuine.  “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try.”

“I’ll be more than happy to talk to Bas,” he warned.

“That’s hardly fair, you know,” she remarked.  “Just because I’m related to the boss isn’t really a good reason to take advantage of it.”

Kichiro grunted.  “Everybody is entitled to a vacation every now and then,” he reiterated.

Sam pulled into the driveway in front of the apartment building she called home.  “I know, Papa,” she assured him.  “I’ll talk to Bas and Sydnie when I get back; I promise.  Besides, I did make it home both years for your birthday party.”

“I’d hardly call a one day furlough a visit, Samantha,” he reprimanded her gently.

“But I did make it,” she quipped once more.

He heaved a sigh designed to let her know that he was going to be well beyond upset if she wasn’t able to go home for the holiday this year, and she smiled.  “I promise,” she repeated solemnly.

“I’ll tell your mother,” he said.

Samantha grimaced since that, in her opinion, was hitting below the belt.  If he did that—if he told Bellaniece Zelig Izayoi—that she was coming home for the holidays, then she’d have to make sure that it happened.  It wasn’t that her mother was mean or anything of the sort.  No, it just wasn’t really an option to disappoint her, and Kichiro knew that, too.  Bellaniece wasn’t exactly the typical mother by any means, but she was always the first to hug her children when they came home from school, always right there when Samantha had a piano or dance recital.  She was the kind of woman who would drop everything at a moment’s notice to make sure that her children came first, and while Samantha had grown up with a stay-at-home father for the most part, it had made a huge impression on her whenever her mother somehow managed to juggle her schedule between an internship at one of the local hospitals in Tokyo and still make the time whenever Samantha asked her to.

“All right, Papa,” she agreed as she slipped into the parking spot in front of her ground-floor apartment.

He chuckled.  “Good, and do me a favor?”

Yanking on the emergency brake and killing the car’s engine, she smiled wanly as she reached for the slim-file on the seat beside her.  “What’s that?”

“Call your mother when you get a chance.  She worries about you.”

“Of course, Papa,” she said as she scooted out of the car and bumped the door closed with her hip.  “Love you.”

“You, too, babydoll.”

Smiling as the line went dead, she clicked the phone off and dropped it into her pocket as she hurried up the walkway toward the staid door of the building.  Kichiro had called her ‘babydoll’ for longer than she could remember.  Her mother was fond of telling her that it was the first thing he’d said when he’d held her minutes after her birth, as he’d taken in Samantha’s silvery tufts of flyaway hair, the tiny hanyou ears that were flattened against her head.  Bellaniece had said that Samantha was rosy and smooth and perfect, and that she’d stared up at her father in complete fascination as her sparkling blue eyes—her mother’s eyes—slowly blinked in the brightness of the birthing room.  “She looks like a porcelain baby doll,” he’d said with a tender smile.  “My babydoll . . .”

She knew well enough that her parents’ worry wasn’t completely restricted to her.  She’d overheard her mother often enough over the years as she fussed over Samantha’s older sisters.  It was a mother thing, she figured, and it came part and parcel with the years that passed, even after the children weren’t children any longer.  She’d seen the sad sort of smile that touched her mother’s lips from time to time—the melancholy that was mingled with absolute love when she spoke of the daughters that had left home long before Samantha had.

In fact, she’d wondered more than once if it wasn’t her sisters’ leaving home that had prompted Bellaniece and Kichiro to have her.  Her sister, Alexandra, was eighteen when Samantha was born, and Isabelle, the oldest, was twenty.  She’d grown up as an only child, for the most part, and while she’d always known that both of her sisters adored her, she couldn’t help but feel as though they would never truly see her as anything but their ‘baby’, and while she’d tried not to let Alexandra and Isabelle’s uncommonly close bond bother her, she couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of it, too.  They were always like the best of friends, no matter how much time or space existed between them.  Isabelle, after all, lived in Maine with her mate, Griffin—one of the three men that Samantha adored above all others.  The surly and oftentimes gruff Kodiak bear-youkai was also one of the gentlest men she’d ever met, and while he’d grouch and turn a bright shade of red if anyone pointed that out, there wasn’t a doubt in anyone’s minds that he loved his mate and respected her family without question.

Alexandra, on the other hand, lived in Sydney, Australia, about three blocks from her long-time boyfriend and might-as-well-be-mate, John Troyer—quite possibly the most perfect man on earth—and Samantha wasn’t the only one to think so, either.  The male members of her family tended to refer to John as ‘Mr. Perfect’, and while it was meant to be a playful nickname, it was entirely appropriate, too.  He was completely in control of every given situation and could just as easily spar with Samantha’s notorious grandfather, InuYasha as he could talk art for hours with her other grandfather, Cain Zelig.  He watched sports with Bas whenever he was in the area, and he discussed youkai policy with Gunnar for hours on end.  He even knew a hell of a lot about music—more than enough to earn Evan Zelig’s overwhelming respect, and even Kichiro had been known to discuss his current research with John, too.  He brought Alexandra flowers, took her to the nicest restaurants all over the world—when he could coax her into leaving her own research behind for a much-deserved vacation, that was—and basically treated Alexandra like a princess, and Samantha had harbored a crush on him ever since the first time she’d met him.

These days, though, she knew that it was more of a young girl’s hero-worship than real love.  Over the years, she’d learned how to differentiate between those feelings, and while she still adored both John and Griffin, she knew that they really weren’t the ones for her, but she couldn’t help but compare men to them, either.  Unfortunately, that was the problem, wasn’t it?  She’d yet to meet a man who could measure up to John or Griffin, and if that wasn’t bad enough, even if she did manage to find the one man who might be able to outshine those two, she sincerely doubted that she’d ever meet anyone who could hold a candle to her father . . . Well, if she was a betting kind of girl, she wouldn’t like the odds; not at all . . .

Stopping outside the door of her apartment, Samantha pressed her thumb against the identilock and waited.  Seconds later, a soft beep announced that her print had been accepted, and the door opened with a click.  Her stack heels clicked against the slate floor as she stepped inside, depositing the slim-file and her purse on the immaculate glass top of the small wrought iron stand nearby before reaching back to nudge the door closed with her elbow.

The LCD panel on the wall blinked to life as the apartment’s computer system started up, running through a list of phone calls and received emails that she’d missed while she was out.  ‘Nothing important,’ she decided as she tapped the screen to close the reminders, and she heaved a sigh as she turned away, checking her watch and breaking down the list of things that she needed to do before she got on the plane later.

Pulling the bottle of scent-tabs out of her pocket, she headed for the kitchen.  It took a few hours for the tablets to take effect, after all, and she didn’t like going to the airport with her real scent intact.  Her grandfather had told her time and again during training that a youkai’s scent was akin to their fingerprints and infinitely easier to identify.  After her father had accidentally stumbled across the gene that controlled an individual’s scent, it had become par for course for hunters to be issued scent-tabs before they left on a mission.  The overall effect lasted for about seven days before another scent-tab had to be taken to prolong the effect.  It helped to conceal them, and it helped to protect the hunters’ families because it wasn’t uncommon for a renegade youkai who felt as though his or her loved one was unjustly targeted to lash out at the hunter who had been charged with the task of taking care of the deviant youkai, in the first place.

She shook a small tablet out of the bottle and held onto it while she carefully filled a glass with tap water.  Making a face at the chalky, bitter taste left behind by the scent-tab, she dumped the rest of the liquid down the drain and set the glass on a towel beside the sink to dry.

The next thing, of course, was to pack, and that never took very long.  She wasn’t going on a recreational trip, anyway, and whenever she was sent out on a job, she made a point of making sure that everything she needed fit into a carry-on bag.  In fact, most often, she only bothered packing one change of clothes, minimal toiletries, and, of course, her gun.  It could be a bit of a pain, but her family insisted that she carry it with her at all times, and while Samantha had been detained at the airport more than once as security checked and double checked her concealed weapon permit, she also had to admit, at least to herself, that the bother was ultimately worth the peace of mind that her family had in knowing that she was absolutely protected.

She’d also learned that, while she could take the gun with her, she was not allowed to carry ammunition with her in any capacity at all.  Instead, she’d stop at a local gun shop on her way to the hotel before she even bothered to secure housing for the duration of her say.  If she didn’t, there was a good chance that her family would flip out on her.

‘You’re being harsh today, aren’t you?’ her youkai voice spoke up.

Samantha wrinkled her nose and leaned against the wall as she bent down to pull off her boots, taking a moment to straighten them neatly before she stood up and strode through the living room and down the hallway toward the bedroom.  ‘I’m not trying to, no,’ she replied defensively, pressing the flat switch beside the mirror fronted closet doors and tapping her claws against the smooth plastic as the door slowly slid open.

‘For not trying to, you’re being awfully touchy.’

Heaving a sigh, she shook her head and retrieved the utilitarian black leather carry-on bag that looked more or less like a very large backpack.

She wasn’t trying to be touchy.  Shuffling toward the bed as she unzipped the bag and checked to make sure that she’d unpacked everything the last time she was sent out on an assignment, she bit her lip.  She loved her family; of course she did, but there were times when their concern became a little stifling, and there were moments when she couldn’t stand it, she supposed.  That was natural, wasn’t it?  After all, every single one of them had voiced their concerns over her choice of profession at one time or another.

Even her renegade cousin, Evan had asked her if she was sure that hunting was something that she really wanted to do.  As close to a big brother as she had, she had spent many a summer of her youth trailing after him when he’d come to Japan to learn how to fight.  Back then, he’d ditched training as often as he could, preferring to hang out with Kichiro, who taught Evan how to play the piano.  She was only three or so at the time, but she could remember Evan, who was nearly fourteen, sitting at the baby grand piano with Kichiro, listening as her father played piece after piece.  It was remarkable, her father had said later, just how quickly Evan had picked up on any song he heard.  He played by ear—that’s what Kichiro maintained.  He’d said, too, that Evan had a gift for music.  Samantha had simply thought that the songs that they played were beautiful.

She’d followed Evan around all summer like a puppy, she supposed.  Thinking back now, she had to marvel at the patience he’d shown.  She couldn’t remember him ever grumbling at her or telling her to go away even though she had to have frustrated him.  After all, how cool was it for a teenage boy to be toting around a toddler?

And maybe that was the real reason that she couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed by his line of questioning.  Coming from a man who thumbed his nose at convention with a cheesy grin on his face and a smart-ass remark on the tip of his tongue, she hadn’t really thought that he, of all people, would be anything but supportive of what she thought was a perfectly logical choice.

The men in her family were well known for their compassion in dealing with humans.  As tai-youkai, as legendary figures that were commonly regarded as heroes, they’d fought the vilest of evils, had passed on to their children and grandchildren the responsibility that they all took very seriously: the need to protect those who didn’t possess the strength to do that for themselves.  Her grandfather, InuYasha had fought to destroy the monster known as Naraku centuries ago, fought to protect Samantha’s grandmother and their friends.  After he’d traveled through the Bone Eater’s Well to Kagome-baa-chan’s time, he’d found his niche in working with children, starting a specialized and elite school on the outskirts of Tokyo near the shrine where Kagome had grown up—near InuYasha’s Forest.

In the wake of his defection from Sengoku Jidai, the youkai had come up against another frightening menace; one that had ultimately led to her uncle, Sesshoumaru’s rise to power.  As the eldest son of the Inu no Taisho, Sesshoumaru had been recognized as leader of them all in a time when they desperately needed someone to step forward; to bring the youkai together in a show of alliance against humans.  Those same humans had discovered gunpowder, and that innovation had very nearly brought about the end of the youkai.  In the simplest terms, youkai were faster, stronger, lived longer, possessed powers that humans feared, however even the mightiest of youkai were unable to outrun a bullet.

But it had taken a hideous act of violence to bring about the legendary edict that had come to dictate their lives since then.  A youkai family was lured into a human village.  The father, believing that if he helped humans fight against the lesser-youkai—the ones who could not hold even a semblance of a human-like form—had gone with them since he recognized the threat that the lesser-youkai posed.  The lesser-youkai were animalistic than intellectual: incapable of cognizant thought, relying heavily on instinct and possessing far too much power to be viewed as anything but a menace.  Because of that, the villagers had managed to lure the youkai as well as his family into the village where they had procured the assistance of a traveling monk who subdued the youkai with his barriers and ofuda.

The family was tortured and killed, one by one, starting with the mother, then the father, and then the youngest—a little girl.  In the midst of it all, the teenage boy managed to get loose, and in an insular act of sheer desperation, he cut down the villagers: every last man, woman, and child.  He’d managed to escape in the end, taking his sister’s ravaged body and burying her under a lone sakura tree in a quiet field near their family’s home, but he could not retrieve his parents’ bodies since they’d been scattered on the wind as little more than dust.

That boy had grown up, bearing the scars of that awful day, and he’d eventually ended up in North America—in Maine.  His name was Griffin Marin, and he was Samantha’s oldest sister’s mate.

But his family’s sacrifice had been the beginning for the youkai in so many ways.  When he witnessed the senseless violence, the horrific act, Sesshoumaru, the reluctant Inu no Taisho, had felt there was no other recourse than to issue the edict by which all youkai lived now: hide their true natures; do what one had to do to keep the existence of youkai a secret.  Blend into human society and let them believe that they’d won, and while many youkai had protested, they’d all understood that the only way that they could ultimately survive against the threat of guns was to do exactly what Sesshoumaru had ordered.

So they’d faded into myth and legend, lending humans the sense of security that they seemed to crave and creating an illusion that mankind was the ultimate power.  The ruse suited the youkai well enough, and while there were dissidents who felt like the edict was akin to cowardice, the more vast majority ascribed to the belief that Sesshoumaru’s command was the only reason that youkai had been able to survive in the centuries that had passed since then.

And with the rich history of the men who had fought and carved the world in which she now lived, Samantha had understood that same sense of honor and duty very early on.  It was that sense of honor and duty that had compelled her grandfather, InuYasha to protect Kagome and the Shikon no Tama so long ago, that had forced her great-uncle, Sesshoumaru to forge a sense of reason in a time so full of chaos, that had driven her uncle, Ryomaru to be a hunter, and even her father, Kichiro in his never-ending quest to understand and aide youkai through his medical research.  The list of achievements in her family was long and proud, and while she didn’t even try to delude herself into believing that she could top even one of those milestones, she couldn’t help but hope that maybe she could leave an indelible impression with her chosen profession, if even just the smallest bit.

It wasn’t personal glory that she sought, and she had no desire to have everyone in youkai circles know her name.  The reason she’d chosen to do become a hunter was simpler than all that—something that she’d come to realize normally was the case with the biggest decisions in life.

To be completely honest, it was something she’d just felt.  She’d overheard her uncle talking to her father one day.  Sitting at the table in the dining room going over notes for a school test, she’d seen the obvious disgust in Ryomaru’s expression, but she’d sensed the underlying melancholy in his aura, too.  He’d just gotten back from a hunt for a youkai who had murdered a family of humans for no apparent reason, leaving only a three-year-old girl who was struggling to survive in a hospital downtown—a little girl, he’d said, who woke up every night crying and calling for her mother.  She’d seen the saddened emotion in her father’s eyes as they’d slipped to the side to stare at her, and as she met his gaze, as she watched him try to smile for her sake, she’d understood, hadn’t she?

Humans’ lives were far more precarious than theirs.  She’d realized at that time and in that place that she wanted to protect those lives if she could.  All of her friends were humans, and as she grew older, as she came to understand certain truths, she’d known.  If she could use herself to protect the lives of those who were unable to do so for themselves, especially against beings that were faster, stronger, tougher, then that’s what she wanted to do.

Heaving a sigh, Samantha dropped the empty bag on the bed and turned back to the closet once more.  Standing around thinking about the past and the reasons why she’d chosen to be a hunter were all well and good, ‘But I have a job to do,’ she reminded herself sternly.

After all, she could sit around and wax nostalgic after the target was silenced, couldn’t she?