InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ Unnecessary ( Chapter 24 )

~~Chapter 24~~

~Unnecessary~

 

-=0=-

 

 

Kurt laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the traffic passing by on the street far below the windows of his tiny apartment. Though he'd always had trouble sleeping, today was much worse, wasn't it? The fact of the matter was that he'd given up on the idea of sleep long ago and was just trying to rest . . . and think.

 

It really was a female, wasn't it?

 

Why was that such a difficult thing for him to accept? Why was the very idea of that enough to make his stomach lurch unpleasantly?

 

Why didn't he want to accept that . . .?

 

But it really was a female. He'd seen that for himself, hadn't he? When he'd taken out the stitches, he'd seen the parts that he really hadn't wanted or needed to see: her uterus . . . Sick bastards . . . just what the hell were they doing? True enough, he wasn't exactly a fan of those demons. That didn't mean that he thought they should be dissected alive, either . . .

 

And didn't that make them no better than those creatures? It wasn't all right, was it? It wasn't . . .

 

Yes, he believed that they needed to be destroyed. Beasts like them didn't need to have free reign to kill and to destroy without as much as a second thought, but . . .

 

Even if he accepted the idea that the researchers were just looking for answers, trying to understand the fundamental differences in biology, he couldn't accept the idea of what Peterson and Warren wanted to do. He'd seen the pictures, hadn't he? Why the hell had they needed to catalog every single facet of the demon's body, anyway? He hadn't looked at all the images—he hadn't needed to. He'd seen enough, hadn't he? Fastened to the table, unable to move at all—that hadn't bothered him nearly as much as the helpless images, of every part of the little demon so blatantly presented? They bothered him—the gross misuse of the term `research' to blanket their sick and twisted desires . . .

 

He understood, of course, that Harlan viewed the little demon as his prized toy; as something that could be constructed and deconstructed at will.

 

What he didn't understand was why the little demon let it happen. He didn't even try to delude himself into thinking that it couldn't easily overpower the researchers—the white-coats, she called them. The things that they did to it—to her . . . how much more would she tolerate before she snapped? Before they put a bullet through her that didn't have a chance in hell to heal . . .?

 

It wasn't that he cared—hell no, of course not. It wasn't that the idea bothered him at all . . . One less . . . less demon in the world, right . . .? One less . . . monster . . .

 

Scowling at the ceiling as the gray light outside the window crept in like a gentle intruder, Kurt rolled onto his side and closed his eyes, trying not to think—not to think . . . not to think . . .

 

The police who had arrived at the house first had stared at him with undisguised horror—a little boy covered in blood, face streaked with tears and snot . . . He'd heard the whispers as he sat at the station, huddled in a blanket that smelled completely unfamiliar . . . Sitting in an oversized chair, feet drawn up as he shivered and stared, hearing whispers and sighs and words: so very many words . . .

 

“—He's too little . . . There's no way he could've had anything to do with that . . .”

 

“—sister nearly decapitated . . .”

 

“—mother's heart crushed inside her chest . . .”

 

“—father had to be ripped up by something like a pitchfork or something . . . Fucking Freddy Krueger . . .”

 

And the questions . . . Detective Shonberg, the guy who looked like a round rubber ball with legs . . .

 

“You mean you came home and there were monsters in your house? As in, what? The kind that hide under your bed and try to eat you?”

 

Kurt shook his head. “Demons,” he murmured, staring at the table. “Demons . . .”

 

“Look, son, don't you want to help us find whoever did this to your family?”

 

“Demons,” Kurt said once more. “Demons . . .”

 

“So you wanna tell me that the closet monster came out and attacked your mommy and daddy and sister? You've gotta help us, Kurt. We can't help you if you don't try.”

 

He didn't know how long he sat in that room. He didn't know how many times Detective Shonberg asked him the same questions. He vaguely recalled his aunt and uncle arriving. They spoke to the detective for a few minutes, and then Uncle Marcus had picked him up, blanket and all, and had carried him out of the station.

 

But they hadn't taken him to their house right away, either. He remembered that he couldn't understand why they'd stopped at the hospital. He remembered telling them that his family wasn't there. “The monsters tore Carrie's head off,” he'd said—he thought he'd said . . .

 

His aunt had cried—he remembered that, too. His lack of emotion had frightened her. He could understand that now, he thought with a wince. He'd felt so numb, so empty, so unreachable . . . so alone . . .

 

They'd checked him into the psychiatric clinic for a few weeks for observation, and maybe that had been the best thing for him. It wasn't that the doctors had made him talk or anything, but maybe what he'd needed at that time was just the quiet, the unobtrusive apathy of doctors and nurses who didn't try to coddle him, didn't try to force emotion onto him that he didn't want to feel. It was in that blessed and welcome silence that he had been able to begin functioning again. It was there that he'd been allowed to reach out at his own pace, away from the stifling hugs and overly rapt attention that he neither wanted nor needed.

 

By the time he'd left the clinic to go live with his aunt and uncle in a town about forty-five minutes away from Crosby, North Dakota, he was able to reach for Aunt Mary's hand. He didn't shy away when Uncle Marcus mussed his hair. He remembered seeing the relief on their faces, and, while he knew now that they hadn't thought that he was `better', they also had known that he would get there . . .

 

And who knew, really? He might have . . .

 

Heaving a sigh, he sat up, raking his hands through his hair. Why was he thinking about all of this, anyway? What good did it do to relive the past? He couldn't change anything that had happened . . . He couldn't fix anything or bring anyone back . . .

 

Giving up on the idea of catching a nap of any kind, Kurt stood up and shuffled toward the bathroom, tugging the nondescript black tee-shirt over his head and dropping it on the floor as he went before unfastening his jeans and walking them off, too.

 

He could still remember the first time he'd met with Robert Harlan. Having just graduated from medical school, he'd been working at St. Benedict's on the outskirts of Chicago when he'd heard whispers about a facility that was researching the kind of creatures that Kurt was intent on hunting down. The first demon he'd caught was a freakish-looking thing with a rat-like face that didn't speak more than a series of grunts and growls. Kurt had brought that one in muzzled since it had an unnatural preoccupation with trying to bite. Harlan had walked around the beast, his beady little eyes sizing it up as Kurt stood back and waited. The old bastard had given him a hundred and fifty thousand for it, citing that he'd have paid more had Kurt not accidentally burned its arm. The limb was unusable, and Kurt had learned his lessons well enough. Though there had been a couple of the damn things that he'd inadvertently injured or even had given a little too much of a shock in the days before he'd learned how to regulate his power, He'd done well enough, he supposed.

 

He stood under the tap, letting hot water flow over him for a long, long time. Harlan had told him that he wanted to find out what made those things tick; wanted to know everything there was to know about them in order to find the most effective way to get rid of them en masse. “It's all well and good to hunt them down, but what if we could devise a way to destroy hundreds of them—thousands of them—all at once?” he'd said . . .

 

Kurt hadn't liked Harlan from the start, and he certainly didn't trust him, either. Still, he'd seemed earnest enough when he talked about his ultimate goal, and even if he weren't, did Kurt honestly care? Harlan had said that he'd never actually seen a demon before Kurt had entered his office. He'd heard rumors of these horrific creatures, he'd heard whispers of things that could not be explained; things like entire families found torn apart—one in Texas the authorities had claimed was a ritualistic gang murder . . . another in Tulsa that was blamed on a husband gone mad who had supposedly killed his wife and two children with a hatchet or other `heavy, sharp instrument' before somehow managing to kill himself. Speculation had it that the wife had fought back, that she had managed to inflict the fatal wounds that had ended up killing the husband in the end.

 

Kurt knew better, hadn't he? He'd seen some of the pictures from the crime scene—some sick-o had stolen them out of the police station and had posted them online. It had only taken a glance for Kurt to recognize the wounds. They'd been inflicted by claws, and the police had to be stupid if they honestly thought that an injured wife could have possibly done that to her husband, too.

 

Those demons . . . They held no respect for life, no remorse for what they did, no reason to hate anyone enough to inflict that kind of pain. He barely noticed as the water cooled, as the steam that had built up in the air started to dissipate.

 

Thing was, he didn't care, did he? He just didn't have it in him to care . . . The families he'd seen or had heard about . . . he didn't care at all about the horrors that they had endured. He had his own issues to deal with, his own burdens to bear. If he could just find the ones responsible . . . if he could make them pay for what they'd done . . . He didn't think of it in terms of justice or punishment, but more of a leveling of the score.

 

Old Granger had asked him once if he thought that he was some sort of great avenger. Kurt hadn't answered. He had no intention of doing anything like that, not really. It wasn't a gross need to see the injustices of the world set right, was it?

 

No, his motivation was far uglier than that, far baser. He wanted to hurt them, needed to destroy them. There was no sense of doing what was right and no desire to vilify his actions. What he had was anger and hate and rage, and even if destroying the demons who had torn apart his family couldn't assuage those feelings, then at least they'd know for sure what they might have thought in the beginning: they should have killed him when he was a boy, when he'd been too small to protect himself, because he wanted them to know, didn't he? He wanted them to understand that he was the one who was doing the killing the next time . . .

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“Everything looks good, Sydnie. Your baby's doing just fine, though I'll advise you that you should probably try to eat a little more, okay?”

 

Nodding slowly as she straightened her skirt, Sydnie tried to smile at Isabelle. “Of course,” she murmured.

 

“I'm a little worried, too . . . you know, Bastian should be here with you,” she went on. “I think that everyone would understand if he came home.”

 

“I wouldn't,” Sydnie insisted stubbornly. “Not until they find Samantha.”

 

Resting on the edge of the bed, Isabelle nodded slowly. “Sydnie . . . it's not your fault,” she whispered as her gaze dropped away. “It's no one's fault . . . Sami's fine—just fine. She'll . . . she'll come home. You'll see.”

 

“Do you believe that?” Sydnie asked quietly, rubbing her arms as she wandered toward the window.

 

“I have to believe it,” Isabelle remarked with a little laugh. “She never really said it out loud; not to me, but I know . . . Your support means so much to her. It always has.”

 

Sydnie nodded slowly though Isabelle could tell that the cat-youkai didn't really believe her. “My support is why she's out there,” Sydnie admitted at length, her arms wrapped protectively over the slight bulge of her belly. “I . . . I told Sebastian that she could handle it . . .”

 

“And she did, didn't she? She did . . . She'll come back; you'll see, and you know she'll want to see that baby, too.” Standing briskly, Isabelle hurried over and slipped an arm around Sydnie's narrow shoulders. “Now, come on. Mama bought a few things for that baby . . . did you know that she's convinced that it's a boy?”

 

“D-does she?” Sydnie stammered, looking a little dazed.

 

Isabelle smiled brightly. “Yes. What do you think?”

 

She shook her head. “I . . . I hadn't thought about that . . .”

 

“Really? Well, you should! You know, I think that it's just what this family needs . . . a baby . . . and the next tai-youkai? That really would be fantastic, don't you think?”

 

Sydnie stopped and stared at Isabelle. Isabelle gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “You'll see, Sydnie. Babies are blessings.”

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

A soft knock on the door drew Ben's head up as he dropped the pen on the desk and sat back. “Come in.”

 

The door opened slowly, almost hesitantly, but he knew the youki well enough. Charity Inutaisho poked her head around the thick oak slab and offered him an apologetic smile. “Hi,” she said. “Busy?”

 

“Always,” Ben said but smiled. “What are you doing out so late?”

 

She stepped into the office, holding a beautiful arrangement of Christmas roses and holly and ivy. “I thought you could use something to brighten up in here . . .”

 

“They're lovely,” he assured her as he rose out of his chair. “Thank you.”

 

She nodded and set them on a table near the door before turning around to face him once more. “Any word?”

 

“No . . . but we're still looking.”

 

Pushing an errant lock of black hair out of her face, the young woman sighed. “Less than three weeks till Christmas, and it doesn't seem like it at all, does it?”

 

“We'll find her,” he promised quietly.

 

“I know,” she replied, managing a wan smile. “It always surprised me whenever I saw her . . . I just can't remember her growing up. She was the baby for so long . . .”

 

Ben sighed and shrugged, stepping over to retrieve two bottles of water out of the small refrigerator nearby. “Tell me about it,” he remarked. “Every time I turn around, I'm reminded of exactly how old I really am. Now Sebastian's going to be a father, too . . . and I remember when he was just a tiny babe, and I'll admit I was a little afraid that he would take after his mother in height.”

 

Charity laughed quietly, accepting the water that Ben offered. “I went out to the mansion earlier,” she confessed, toying with the sealed plastic cap. “Everyone seemed so . . . weird . . .” Shaking her head as her cheeks pinked, as though she felt that she was speaking ill of her family, she sighed. “Mama was sitting with Bellaniece, and . . . and they were laughing and carrying on, wrapping presents and singing Christmas carols . . . making up words when they couldn't remember the verses . . .but the more they laughed, the . . . emptier it felt . . . like if they stopped laughing, they'd . . . they'd cry . . .”

 

Ben nodded slowly. He'd heard and noticed the same sort of thing, too. “They're coping,” he murmured, wishing that he had a better answer to give her, knowing that he didn't. “They're trying.”

 

Charity suddenly barked out a harsh laugh as she ducked her head, as her hand shot up to swat at her eyes. “Sam would be so mad if everyone cried, right? I mean, she would; she really would . . .”

 

Grimacing at the angry sound of the woman's voice, Ben stepped over to her, slipped his arms around her. “Charity . . . if it matters, I won't tell her. If you want to cry . . .”

 

She resisted the comfort he offered her for a long moment before collapsing against him, muttering words that meant nothing at all and everything at the same time. Her worry, her pain, was a viable thing—the worry of an entire family that felt as though they couldn't cry . . . This one woman had felt that, too, and maybe that was as much to blame as her own fears and concerns. Crying for the family that struggled to keep it together . . . crying for the ones who could not . . .

 

“We'll find her,” he whispered, smoothing her hair away from her face as her sobs racked her body. “We'll find her; I promise.”

 

“W-will we?” she stuttered.

 

Ben nodded. “Yes,” he said, his tone unyielding, full of confidence despite the underlying worry that he was speaking a lie. “We will.”

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“You know, I'm starting to think that this rumor's nothing more than a lot of hot air,” Ryomaru muttered as he pushed away the half-eaten plate of food in the small roadside diner.

 

Griffin grunted and shrugged. He'd given up on trying to eat the greasy fare awhile ago. “I don't know,” he said. “Seems like a good place to hide if someone had a mind to.”

 

“A holy man in these parts?” Ryomaru scoffed with a shake of his head. “I don't know if I buy it . . .”

 

“We've only been out here a few days,” Griffin reminded him with a shake of his head. “What do you want him to do? Seek us out?”

 

Ryomaru rolled his eyes but shrugged belligerently. “Be a lot easier. Maybe the old bastard'll just jump out at us and toss an ofuda in our faces. Suppose it'd purify me or something . . . `Course, it might do you more damage . . .”

 

Griffin snorted and sipped his water, making a face at the metallic tinge that hadn't been removed by whatever filtration they had set up. “You're a little cocky, aren't you?”

 

Ryomaru grinned. “Been called worse.”

 

Griffin shook his head.

 

“Hey, sweeties . . . you want dessert? We got fresh cherry and apple pies, cream pie, peach pie, and our Christmas special, cranberry pecan,” the waitress rattled off in a monotone as she stopped by the table again.

 

“No, thanks,” Griffin muttered, ducking his chin and tilting his head to keep the scarred side of his face hidden in shadows.

 

“Nope,” Ryomaru said. “But tell me . . . you from around here . . . Kay?”

 

The waitress smiled rather clinically, as though she thought that the hanyou were trying to hit on her. “All my life, sugar . . . married my high school sweetheart, too.”

 

Ryomaru grinned and nodded. “So you'd know if I asked about someone?”

 

She looked a little surprised by Ryomaru's quick question. “I suppose,” she ventured.

 

His grin widened by degrees. “We're looking for an old man . . . kind of a . . . um . . .”

 

“. . . Hermit?” Griffin supplied when Ryomaru trailed off.

 

“Yeah, like that,” Ryomaru agreed.

 

Kay shifted her weight, tapping her chin with the harrow side of the order pad in her hand as she considered their question. “Hermit? Hell, sweetie, half of the people up `round these parts are hermits. You got a name?”

 

“No, we don't,” Griffin muttered.

 

“He's supposed to be, like a holy man,” Ryomaru added. “Spiritual powers and all that.”

 

She blinked, staring at him as though she thought maybe he'd lost his mind. Griffin was ready to grab the hunter and drag him out of the diner. Digging some money out of his pocket, he started to get up when the waitress suddenly laughed. “Holy man? Like a voodoo-hoodoo witch doctor of the mountains or something?”

 

Ryomaru shot Griffin a quick glance then nodded. “Yeah, sounds about right.”

 

“Well, I don't know anyone like that personally, but there was this story back when I was a kid `bout this crazy man that lived up in the woods. Said he'd come down into town, and whenever he did, he threw this powder-stuff all over. They said that he claimed it cast out demons . . . My friends and I drove down there a few times, hoping to catch this guy out, but we never saw him. That was awhile back now, though, about fifty miles down the road, here, a little town they call Manitou.” Popping her gum, she shrugged offhandedly before digging into her dingy white apron for their bill. “Who knows? Probably just one of those stories—those urban legends, you know? Why are the two of you looking for someone like that?”

 

Ryomaru grinned. “We thought maybe he could help us.”

 

She laughed and took the money that Griffin held out. “Got a demon you need to get rid of?”

 

Griffin grunted and stood up. He heard Ryomaru following suit. “Could be,” he remarked. “Thanks, Kay.”

 

“You two be careful out there!” she called after them. “TV says that we're in for a hell of a blizzard . . .”

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Something was bothering the taijya. In fact, it had been bothering him since he stomped into the holding area a few hours ago. He'd sloshed out half of her water when he'd stuck the bowl into the cage, and then he'd dropped the wrapped hamburger through the bars without bothering to see if she caught it. That was all right, she figured, but it seemed like the more he looked at her, the more irritated he became, and that was strange, wasn't it?

 

She hadn't done anything to antagonize him, had she? Well, she had asked to go to the bathroom a few minutes after he'd gotten his coat off, but she didn't really think that warranted the hostility that he was displaying. In fact, it was the first time that she'd actually felt as though he was truly angry at her, and that just didn't set well with her, at all.

 

She considered asking him about it, but had discarded that idea. The foreboding scowl on his face had convinced her that it wasn't a wise idea. Not for the first time, she had to wonder exactly what his story was, why it seemed like the strangest of things tended to set him off . . .

 

`Does it really matter, dollbaby? Maybe we should just leave well enough alone . . .'

 

That was sound enough advice, she supposed. Shifting her gaze to the side, she frowned. He hadn't sat down yet, either, prowling around as though he were trying to get a grip on his anger.

 

`You know, if he's this out of sorts, maybe we can use that to our advantage,' her youkai voice suggested. `If he's preoccupied, and you can get him to let you out of the cage . . .'

 

She shook her head. `Something happened,' she thought abruptly. `Something happened that's bothering him . . .'

 

`Earth to Samantha . . .! Does it matter that something's bothering him? You're entirely too preoccupied with that man, you know. Don't you want out of here . . .?'

 

Grimacing inwardly, Samantha shook her head. She did want that, didn't she? To get out of here and to go back home . . .? So why was she hesitating . . .?

 

`He's . . . he's worse off than I am, isn't he?' she mused slowly. He stomped over and dropped into the chair behind the desk but couldn't quite get himself to stay there. A minute later, he was back on his feet and pacing once more. `I mean, he might not be caged—at least, not like this, but . . . but maybe his cage is worse . . . and maybe he's been in his a lot longer than I've been in this one . . .'

 

`Samantha . . . that's crazy talk. That man . . . he's dangerous; don't you know? He wants to hurt you—destroy you . . . You're nothing but a paycheck to him! Nothing but a demon . . .'

 

She shook her head slightly. `You don't . . . you don't believe that, do you?'

 

Her youkai sighed. `It doesn't matter, what I believe . . . just like it doesn't matter what I know . . . In another lifetime, he would have been . . . but in this one—right now . . .'

 

`But you don't believe it. You've felt it, too, and you felt it long before I ever did . . .'

 

`He doesn't want us, you know? I've felt it, every time I've tried to . . . It doesn't matter, Samantha. No matter what we feel, he doesn't . . . and you have to understand that . . .'

 

Her eyes flared wide as the taijya whipped around, as a spike in the air around him reached out, touched her. He didn't know it; she knew he didn't; and yet it was there, as plainly as she'd ever felt anything else in her life. `It's pain,' she thought with a shake of her head. `He's . . . he's hurting . . . but he's been hurting for so long and so badly that he doesn't realize that's what it is anymore . . . He doesn't understand . . . and that confusion—that anger . . . It's all just an extension of that pain . . .'

 

`And you can't fix him! You, more than anyone else . . . you cannot fix him!' her youkai hissed. `He put you here! Do you understand? He put you here, and he hates you—us! Hates what we are and everything we stand for!'

 

She frowned, letting her head fall against the cage bars as she pondered her youkai's assertions—her youkai's confusion that mirrored her own. Her youkai . . . it wanted to believe—she heard it in the depths of its voice, and she understood that because she felt it, too. Her father . . . hadn't he always told her that everything happened for a reason? Hadn't he told her time and again that there was always something, even if she hadn't known what it was at the time? He'd told her this, and she knew that he believed it . . .

 

`Maybe this is why . . .' she thought slowly as a strange surge of something bright flared deep within her. Sitting up a little straighter, her eyes following the taijya's every movement, she started to realize, began to understand . . . `This is why . . .'

 

`No . . . no . . . It can't be why . . .' her youkai argued weakly. `To put you through all of this, just so you can try to show him . . . But, Samantha, he doesn't want to see! It won't matter how hard you try; if he doesn't want to see . . .'

 

`But maybe,' she rationed as the barest hint of a smile quirked her lips, `maybe he does . . . maybe he's simply tired of the pain he's been living with . . . even if he doesn't realize it yet.'

 

`He's familiar with youkai, even if he doesn't know their proper name. You know he is, don't you? You know he's brought others here, and the ones he brought here . . . Well, they're not here now, are they? They're dead, dollbaby: dead . . . and if we don't get out of here, we'll be dead, too, only our death . . . It won't be the white-coats who kill us . . .'

 

She knew that, yes; of course she knew that. But those others that he'd found . . . they were nothing like her, were they? Considered to be higher youkai . . . and if all he'd ever seen was the worst of them, how could he know what they really were? And while she acknowledged the truth in her youkai blood's statement, she couldn't help the burgeoning desire to help him to understand, either . . .

 

`That's not what I meant, Samantha . . .'

 

She swallowed hard and pressed her lips together. She understood what her youkai was trying to say well enough. She simply wasn't quite ready to admit that much; not yet . . .

 

It was the creed of the hunter, wasn't it? It was what she'd fought so hard to protect: the safety of humans—of all humans—even those who would harm her. Just because she'd been captured and brought here to this place . . . it didn't release her from her obligations, did it, because sometimes protection came in different forms—something she was only beginning to fully comprehend. A hunter would give his or her life, to fight to the death, if necessary, to protect that which could not protect itself. So what if the battle wasn't fought with weapons and if the blood that flowed wasn't something that could be discerned with mortal eyes? So what if the wounds ran deeper than the skin—so deep that they transcended the flesh; so deep that they transcended time? That was the nature of a hunter—a true hunter . . .

 

And Samantha Izayoi . . .

 

She smiled a little sadly as the faces of those she loved and held dear flashed through her mind, one at a time.

 

She was a true hunter, wasn't she . . .?

 

 

~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~= ~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~

A/N:

 

Freddy Krueger is the serial slasher from the horror film series, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Screenplay written by Wes Craven. Copyright 1984 New Line Cinema, all rights reserved.

 

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Final Thought from Samantha:

A true hunter ...

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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~