InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ Terms ( Chapter 17 )

~~Chapter 17~~

~Terms~

 

-=0=-

 

 

“Doc! Glad you're here!”

 

Casting Harlan a suspect eye, Kurt stepped off the elevator and let it close behind him as he adjusted his grip on the knapsack and waited for the proverbial gauntlet to fall. An unsettling sense of trepidation crept up his spine as he waited for the aging doctor to reach him. Plodding down the hallway in what Kurt figured was an all-out sprint to him; at least, he looked a little shaken.

 

“The . . . demon . . . is . . . sick,” he huffed between labored breaths.

 

“It's what?” Kurt demanded, brushing past the doctor and heading down the hallway. “What do you mean, sick?”

 

Dr. Harlan ran after him. “Sick! Sick! We were testing her hearing, and—”

 

“It's not a `her'!” Kurt interrupted angrily, quickening his stride as he closed in on the researchers who were milling around in the hallway.

 

Harlan waved his hands in blatant dismissal. “It, then!” he agreed with a wheeze. “It vomits every time we try to move it . . .”

 

Making a face as he skidded to a halt just outside the door of the room where it sat, legs bent and splayed on either side, hands shackled before it with its head down so low that its hair spread over the floor around it. The room reeked of bile, and not one of the researchers seemed willing to step foot inside, though he highly doubted that it was the demon that kept them at bay nearly as much as it was the idea of being puked on that did it.

 

Kurt snorted loudly and pinned Harlan with a glower. “And just what the hell am I supposed to do with it?” he snapped.

 

Harlan shrugged and took a step back. “You can put her in her cage, can't you?”

 

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the bastard to do it his damn self. Before he got a chance to, Harlan mumbled something about a business dinner that he was already late for and that he'd see Kurt in the morning.

 

Shaking his head as the rest of the team followed suit, Kurt heaved a disgusted sigh and dropped his knapsack on the floor before stepping into the room.

 

He took about three steps, the sound of his boots echoing off the cement floor, then stopped short when the little demon lurched to the side, barely managing to catch itself on its hands as it reared up on its knees and heaved almost pitifully. He wasn't sure if it was better or worse that it had nothing left to purge, and as he stood there, watching it, he couldn't help the grimace that enveloped his features.

 

It didn't make sense, did it? Harlan had said that they were testing its hearing, hadn't he? So why was the creature so sick?

 

He was almost inclined to think that it had something to do with the sandwich he'd fed it the night before, but then, he was fine, wasn't he, and he'd eaten some of it, too . . .

 

It had seemed fine this morning when he'd left, hadn't it? Awake, alert, it had sat in its cage, content to look around and watch as he double checked the cage as well as the security walls. It had watched with avid interest as he'd inspected the doorway barrier, too. In fact, he'd checked everything in the holding area, making sure that nothing needed to be fixed or replaced, and it had cooperated completely, if not even a bit easily, when he'd demanded that it scoot out of the cage, feet first so that he could fasten the ankle chains on it before he allowed it to go to the bathroom . . .

 

Something had definitely happened, hadn't it?

 

Scowling at the stench that choked him, he rubbed his forehead and weighed his options. He really didn't like the idea of staying in this room. There was too much stuff that the demon could grab and use to its advantage if he weren't careful, and the room, itself, was far too small, and while that might limit the demon, it also limited him. The problem was that he wasn't overly keen on the idea of being vomited on if he tried to move it, but the smell was entirely overwhelming in here, turning his stomach unpleasantly as he tried his hardest not to breathe too deeply.

 

“Turn . . . it . . . off . . .”

 

Kurt blinked and glanced at the demon, not entirely certain that he'd really heard it speak. Barely above a whisper—more of a breath or exhalation than spoken words. He shook his head and stared at it. “Turn what off?”

 

Uttering a soft whine, ears flattened against its head, it forced its eyes open painfully slowly. “Turn it . . . off . . .”

 

`Damn it!' he thought as he realized that those idiot researchers must've left some sort of sound on, Kurt shot the demon a darkened scowl then turned on his heel to stride into the adjacent booth . A modified sound board not unlike those used at recording studios had been left on, the needle on the indicator dancing erratically up near the red zone. Muttering curses under his breath since he had no idea what button or knob worked the sounds that it could hear even if he couldn't, he glanced through the one way mirror before running his hand under the row of knobs, turning them all counterclockwise. The dancing needle faltered then dropped. A moment later, he flicked off the main power then heaved a sigh as he strode out of the booth.

 

“Can you stand up?” he asked. He figured that it couldn't, but asked anyway.

 

It tried to comply but didn't get far. The exertion brought on another round of heaving. Deciding against trying to move it, Kurt looked around and frowned. This room wasn't equipped with a hose, probably because of the sensitive equipment in the booth, but the smell was overwhelming. Even if it did throw up again, at least he could clean it up in the holding area, which was a far sight better than enduring the stench until it felt up to moving on its own.

 

There just was no help for it, was there?

 

He started to haul it over his shoulder but thought better of it since the added pressure on its stomach could not possibly help the situation. It whimpered and moaned but didn't fight him at all as he scooped it up, trying his damndest not to breathe as he strode out of the room.

 

He grimaced. It really was tiny, wasn't it? He hadn't really noticed that before . . . If it weighed more than eighty-five pounds, he'd eat his knapsack, and that . . . that was because it hadn't been eating, wasn't it? It . . . it hadn't felt that light before, damn it, and now . . . It leaned against him without even trying to give any kind of token resistance, almost . . . almost trustingly . . . like a . . . a . . .

 

His frown darkened. `Like a . . . child . . .'

 

Somehow, that idea didn't sit well with him, either.

 

He stifled a sigh. Even if he didn't like the thought, it had lied to him about its kind not needing to eat, and that knowledge only served to tick him off just a little more. `Stupid . . . stupid demon . . .'

 

Luckily, he managed to get down the hall and into the holding area before it pushed against him. Striding over to the trash can, he leaned it over, gritting his teeth as it heaved again then spit. A few more steps put it back in its cage, where it huddled against the far corner with its ears still flattened against its head.

 

He spared a moment to lock the cage but didn't bother to bring up the security walls before he hurried out to gather his things.

 

It still hadn't moved when he returned to the room a few minutes later. He almost thought that it had fallen asleep when it moaned quietly.

 

Was its sense of hearing really so acute that the sounds that it had been subjected to could make it physically ill? Crossing his arms over his chest as he stared at the huddled form, he thought that maybe it was possible. He wasn't sure how bad the noise was that it had asked him to shut off. He hadn't heard a thing, had he?

 

That was interesting, he decided. He'd never actually thought that those monsters could be susceptible to something like that, had he? He'd never considered it, really . . .

 

He considered cleaning up the examination room for all of thirty seconds before discarding that idea altogether. They were the ones stupid enough to leave the sound on that made the demon sick, in the first place, weren't they? They could just clean up after it, too . . .

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“Here.”

 

Kichiro glanced up and took the Styrofoam cup from Gunnar, frowning at it for a moment before he lifted it to his lips.

 

“I hate this place,” he muttered, flicking his ears to shake off the snow that had settled on them in the few minutes that he'd been waiting on the cold metal bench.

 

Gunnar sat beside him and nodded, slowly sipping his coffee as tendrils of steam rose from the tiny holes in the lid. “Me, too.”

 

Kichiro sighed. He hated waiting, too, and that was what they were doing at the moment: waiting. Because neither Ryomaru nor InuYasha were entirely fluent in English, they'd figured that it'd be best to split up, which meant that Gunnar would be heading out with Ryomaru while Kichiro was paired up with InuYasha. At least, that was the story they'd come up with. Kichiro had a feeling that there was more to it than that. Gaze shifting up and down the street, wishing and praying that he'd see the familiar streak of silver hair that he knew so well . . . Kami, he felt as though he were going crazy . . .

 

“We'll find her,” Gunnar said quietly as he scowled at his coffee cup.

 

Kichiro shot him a quick glance. “Yeah, I know,” he murmured.

 

“She's a smart girl,” he went on. “I remember the first time she came back from a hunt—she brought in a youkai for questioning . . . old buffalo youkai . . . We'd tried to get him to come in for years, but he never would. Sam convinced him, and when I asked him why he'd agreed, he said that he just trusted her.”

 

“I'm not worried that someone would trust her,” Kichiro admitted with a shake of his head. “But she tends to trust everyone else, too . . . and that scares the hell out of me.”

 

Gunnar didn't get a chance to reply when Ryomaru and InuYasha strode out of the alley beside them. “No luck?” Ryomaru asked in lieu of a proper greeting.

 

“Keh!” InuYasha snorted as his eyes darted up and down the busy street. “Would've been sooner if I didn't have to waste time talking to your father-in-law,” he complained. “Damn that Zelig . . . if he's so damn concerned, why don't he get his ass out here to look, too?”

 

“You know why, Uncle, and if I recall rightly, you agreed with the rest of them at the time,” Gunnar pointed out rather acerbically.

 

Ryomaru shook his head, draping his hands on his hips as he, like his father, took his time as his gaze roamed up and down the street. “There's still a few decent hours of daylight left,” he interrupted. “How `bout we make use of `em?”

 

Gunnar nodded as he got to his feet. “We'll call if we find anything.”

 

InuYasha grunted as the two strode away. “How's your mate, pup?” he asked.

 

Kichiro stood, tossing the cup into a nearby trashcan. “She's all right,” he said. “She's stronger than people think she is.”

 

“So's your mama,” InuYasha allowed as he fell into step beside his son.

 

“Speaking of Mama, she said that the ofuda was definitely a barrier anchor.”

 

InuYasha nodded. “Figured as much. That damned monk used to harass me with `em—him and that old hag, Kaede.”

 

“Belle says . . . she says that Sam's fine. She says she can feel her . . .” Kichiro ventured.

 

InuYasha nodded. “Sounds `bout right. Your mama could always tell when any of you got in over your heads, too.”

 

“Except for Gin.”

 

InuYasha shot him a quick glance. “Hell . . . I think your sister . . . No one thought she'd do something that damn stupid.”

 

“It's not the same,” Kichiro finally muttered as they ducked into an alley to vault onto the building. “All the idiotic things we've done . . . we've done them to ourselves . . .”

 

“Keh!” InuYasha snorted as he landed beside Kichiro atop the building. “And you think that matters?' It don't. When it's your pup, it don't.”

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Samantha slowly opened her eyes, sighing heavily in the welcome silence. She didn't remember coming back here. To be honest, she didn't remember a hell of a lot about anything. Well, that wasn't entirely true. She did remember some of it. She remembered being shackled and then being led into the examination room. She'd figured that it was just more of the same and had been bracing herself for it. To her surprise, though, they'd shackled her legs to the iron loop embedded in the wall, followed by the collar that they'd secured to a chain hanging from the ceiling. Locked into place, she couldn't do much more than just stand there, but it hadn't taken long before she figured out exactly what they'd had in mind as they affixed sensors to her body at various points to get accurate readings on her reactions.

 

Oh, it hadn't been too bad in the beginning. Playing a series of tones that she recognized easily enough as being a standard hearing test, she'd simply stood there, expression blank.

 

But as the minutes then hours ticked away, the researchers had gradually increased the sounds, ranging from low tones that she barely heard to the loudest, most obnoxious tones that jarred through her with a painful clarity.

 

She didn't know when she'd started to feel sick. Unable to block out the barrage of sound, she'd felt her legs giving way. She vaguely remembered feeling as though she were going to choke to death when her knees finally buckled, as she'd remained there, suspended by the collar. Her already weakened body just couldn't hold up, she'd realized, and she'd nearly passed out when they had finally unfastened the collar, letting her crumple to the floor.

 

The thing was, that didn't stop them, either. Intent on continuing their tests, she supposed, they'd continued to inundate her with sound—sounds so high in pitch that she knew that they couldn't hear it, and to her mortification, she hadn't been able to stop herself when the first waves of nausea hit her hard.

 

Everything after that, though, was pretty much a blur. She vaguely recalled one of the guards unfastening her ankles when they tried to get her back to the holding room. She sort of remembered tugging off the sensors and tossing them away, herself. The weak and blurry image of the holy man's face swam in and out of her conscious, and she thought that maybe she'd asked him to turn the sound off, though that might have just been wishful thinking—something she'd wanted to do but couldn't.

 

Still, she knew that he had been the one to bring her back here. That was enough.

 

Drawing a tentative breath, she pushed herself up. Her head felt heavy, and her throat still hurt from the collar, but she supposed that those things were pretty incidental, really.

 

The panel slid open, and he pushed a fresh bowl of water into the cage. She stared at it for a moment before willing her body to move. The first couple mouthfuls, though, she swished around and spit out, wishing that she had a toothbrush or some gum—anything to get rid of the nasty taste that lingered.

 

It was strange, the things that she found that she missed; the simplest things, really. Toothbrushes or soap . . . a soft, warm towel or a fresh cup of coffee . . . the smell of a summer breeze blowing straight off the ocean or the gentle sound of laughter . . . the freshness of a spring rain or the crisp cold of a winter storm . . . the crackle of a fire, the rustle of autumn leaves . . . the burn in her muscles after a good, long run . . . simple things: beautiful things . . .

 

Things that felt a little further away with the passage of every single day. `We're . . . not made for this . . . to endure this . . . We're . . . not . . .'

 

The confines of this place, the limitations that she couldn't control . . . Youkai weren't meant to survive like this, and she knew that, too.

 

What she couldn't understand was why, exactly, she didn't mind it—at least, not as much as she ought to. She ought to loathe the constraints, shouldn't she? She should . . .

 

She should hate . . .

 

Grimacing at the vehemence of her own thoughts, Samantha bit her lip, stared at her weak and distorted reflection in the mirror of the water's surface. It was odd, wasn't it? A little dirty, a little smudged, but really, she didn't look that different . . .

 

“Take these.”

 

Samantha blinked and lifted her chin to stare at the fingers stuck into the cage. He held out two nondescript white tablets, and when she made no move to take them right away, he shook his hand impatiently.

 

“W-what . . .?”

 

“Ibuprofen,” he muttered. “Should help your head.”

 

She smiled despite the ache in her skull. “I thought . . . you hated me . . .” she teased.

 

He snorted loudly and shook his hand again. “I do,” he insisted. “I just don't feel like cleaning up after you if you throw up again.”

 

Well, she figured, that was better than nothing, and at this point, she would take whatever she could get. Accepting the medicine despite her general dislike of such things, she stuck them in her mouth and downed a few drinks of water. “I don't like those,” she said as she wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “They always make my head feel thick . . .”

 

“Why won't you talk to them? The researchers?” he asked suddenly, and judging from the expression on his face, he had surprised himself by asking it.

 

She shrugged and set the bowl aside. “I wouldn't want to disappoint them,” she replied, only half joking. “They seem to like to think that I'm an animal.”

 

He snorted again, shaking his head as though he'd found something she'd said to be utterly ridiculous. “Demons aren't even worthy of being compared to animals,” he stated though his tone lacked any real rancor. Disgust, sure, and even a hint of irritation, but the way he'd said it—as if it were known fact he was quoting—didn't bother her.

 

“And you think I'm a demon.”

 

“You are a demon.”

 

She shook her head. “I told you before. I'm hanyou.”

 

He sighed and braced his fingertips against the floor to push himself to his feet. “Look, I don't give a damn, what you call yourself. I know what you are, and I know what your kind is capable of, so don't try to play your mind games with me.”

 

“I'm not that good at mind games,” she admitted quietly. The look he shot her told her quite plainly that he didn't believe her, and she figured that was all right, too. She honestly hadn't expected him to, anyway.

 

He said nothing else as he headed back over to the desk once more. Shaking out his newspaper, he seemed content to ignore her. She frowned. He seemed to read the paper every night, she'd noticed, which made her wonder why he didn't just get a digital reader like most people. Sure, the papers were still printed on a daily basis for those who choose to buy it sporadically, but most people who read the paper every day tended to buy the readers instead since the subscriptions overall were far cheaper in the long run . . .

 

Then again, maybe it didn't surprise her that much. He struck her as an old fashioned sort, didn't he?

 

`Sam . . . we have to talk.'

 

Wrinkling her nose at the incursion of her youkai voice, Samantha heaved an inward sigh and waited patiently.

 

`You need to stop fixating on him. I don't think he was joking when he said that he didn't like you.'

 

No, she didn't think he was joking, either, but somehow, she didn't quite think that he really meant it, even if he thought he did or wanted to . . .

 

`Don't be stupid! You're here because he put you here!'

 

And she had to allow that that was true, too. Still, she knew that there was more to it. She wasn't sure how she knew that, but she did. She knew . . .

 

“Stop staring at me,” he growled without lowering the paper.

 

Samantha bit her lip, her cheeks pinking almost instantly as she forced herself to look away.

 

`But he has been decent to me,' she rationalized to herself.

 

`Because he has let you go to the bathroom? That's being nice, is it?'

 

`Isn't it?' she countered angrily. Maybe it wasn't a huge allowance, especially since he'd completely shackled her beforehand, but it was enough—more than enough. It was enough to let her retain some small measure of her dignity, wasn't it, and even if he had much simpler motives for the actions, that just didn't matter; not really.

 

`Stop trying to make excuses for him, and concentrate on what matters, can't you? We need to get out of here! You know it, and I know it, too! We can't stay here—we really can't. If we stay in here . . .'

 

Her youkai didn't need to finish that statement. In her heart, Samantha knew that it was true. Staying here . . .

 

Rubbing her arms against the chill that was never very far away, Samantha deliberately forced herself to think about other things since dwelling on those aspects was just not good for her. She hoped that Sydnie wasn't letting herself get too worried. She didn't need to be thinking about Samantha when she had much more important things—things like her unborn child—to consider . . . and Bas should be there with her, shouldn't he? Gunnar . . . she'd never really gotten a good feel for him. Certainly, she respected his abilities, and yes, she spoke with him whenever they were in the same room, but there was always a certain level of awe, she supposed, the residual effect of having grown up so much later than them, maybe . . . Her grandfather, InuYasha . . . Kami, he'd hated it when she'd told him that she wanted to be a hunter. Worse, he'd just stared at her then nodded, but she hadn't missed the heightened brightness that he'd masked in his gaze . . . Aunts and uncles, cousins, everyone . . .

 

All of her family . . . they worried her. The last thing she wanted was for them to drop everything, just to look for her. If her thoughts were like the ocean, would they reach them one day?

 

Besides . . . the holy man had brought others here, hadn't he? She'd gotten that impression from the few things he'd said. It stood to reason, didn't it? If he had, if she weren't the first, then he very likely had done something to ensure that she couldn't be found, anyway . . .

 

A slow sense of melancholy crept up her spine—a melancholy so fierce that she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from screaming out loud. For a girl from a large extended family, she couldn't help the overwhelming sense of loneliness that ate away at her. All her life, she'd been surrounded by people who loved her, even in those few times when she'd thought that she was isolated. Even then, she'd felt them—the warmth of their presences, even if they weren't right there with her. She'd never, ever felt their absences as deeply as she did at that moment . . .

 

And she realized then with a poignant clarity that she really and truly was alone.

 

 

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A/N:

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Kyosama ------ Firedemon86 ------ Dark Inu Fan ------ kittycatkitten ------Sovereignty ------ malitiadixie ------ FriskyPixie ------ asgard ------- Sesshomaru4Kagura4ever ------ jessie6491

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Final Thought from Samantha:

…alone …?

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Vendetta): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~