InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ Quid Pro Quo ( Chapter 38 )

~~Chapter 38~~

~Quid Pro Quo~

 

-=0=-

 

 

Samantha's ears twitched at the familiar sound of rattling plastic as she tried not to be too obvious about the fact that she was trying desperately to smell what the taijya was opening. She couldn't see what he had in his hands, but she could smell chocolate . . . and damn it, she wanted that chocolate . . .

 

“Okay, little demon,” he began without turning around. “We're going to play a game . . . sort of.”

 

“A game?” she echoed, pushing herself up on her tip toes as she tried in vain to see around him. “What kind of game?”

 

“I'm going to ask you some questions, and you're going to answer them, and if you answer them truthfully, I'll give you a piece of chocolate.”

 

She blinked and stared at him, then shook her head. “Oh, no, because you'll just say you don't believe me, and I won't get any of that,” she countered.

 

“Then answer truthfully,” he shot back. “First question: have the researchers given you any sort of strange injections that you know of?”

 

She considered that then shook her head. “I don't think so . . .”

 

He stared at her with a marked scowl for a few minutes. She was starting to think that he was going to accuse her of lying. “You're sure?”

 

Biting her lip as she tried not to stare at the small bag of Hershey's Kisses in his hand, she nodded. “I don't think so,” she repeated.

 

For some reason, her answer didn't seem to appease him, but he tossed a Kiss into her lap, and she squealed.

 

“Good God, how can that not hurt your ears?” he complained, smashing the heel of his hand against the side of his head.

 

She popped the candy into her mouth and shrugged. “It just doesn't,” she replied, holding out her hand for another.

 

He stared at her wiggling fingers and shook his head. “I haven't asked the next question yet,” he pointed out.

 

She nodded emphatically. “You did. You asked how come I didn't hurt my own ears.”

 

He blinked and stared at her for a long moment then rolled his eyes, but he did drop another candy into her hand, just the same. “So if you're the baby of your family—”

 

“Youngest,” she corrected around a mouthful of chocolate.

 

“Isn't the baby usually the youngest?”

 

She shook her head. “I'm not a baby,” she informed him.

 

He snorted. “Incidentals. Anyway, if you're the youngest—also known as the baby—” She interrupted him with a little growl of protest that he summarily ignored, “—then why in the world would they let you do something potentially dangerous, like what you call `hunting'?”

 

She pondered that for a moment as she finished the candy in her mouth. “Youkai are different from humans,” she pointed out slowly. “Fighting is something that nearly everyone learns to do early on . . . it's tradition, you know? And youkai—honorable youkai—would never stoop to using a gun in a real battle.”

 

He quirked an eyebrow and shook his head. “You were carrying a gun when I captured you,” he reminded her.

 

She made a face and heaved a sigh, her ears flattening for a split second before popping upright again. “My family insists,” she muttered, obviously disliking the idea. “As I've said—honorable youkai fight without guns, but not all youkai that are hunted are exactly honorable creatures.”

 

“So your gun was for your family's peace of mind?”

 

She nodded. “Yes, and that was two questions,” she said happily.

 

Kurt made a face but handed over two more pieces of chocolate. “Who gives you these hunt orders?”

 

“My boss.”

 

Kurt snorted again. “And who is your boss?”

 

“Well, I can't really tell you that,” she hedged.

 

“Why not?”

 

Her grin widened. “Because I want you to give me more candy?”

 

“You have yet to actually answer my questions,” he pointed out.

 

She shook her head and held out her hand. “My boss gives me my orders; that's really all I can tell you,” she insisted. “We deal with highly classified information, you know.”

 

Okay, so he had to allow that one even though it was starting to sound more and more like the youkai version of the CIA . . . or the mafia . . .

 

“All right, then answer this: if youkai are so much more powerful than humans and so much tougher and all that, then why do you hide what you are?”

 

Her expression took on a much more serious light, and she considered her answer before she started to speak. “A long time ago, we didn't. We didn't have to. Back then, it was safe because we were stronger, but there has always been more humans than youkai, and even then . . . Youkai have always been a bit more ruthless than humans, that's true, and some of them . . . weren't so kind. They'd kill humans, not because humans were weaker, necessarily, but because they were in their way. But then, humans invented gunpowder and guns, and there isn't a youkai alive who could outrun a bullet, you see? So when humans were able to harness that kind of power, they rose up against youkai. I guess . . . I guess it was natural, all things considered . . .”

 

“So youkai went into hiding because they were threatened with guns?” he replied with a shake of his head. “You've got to be kidding me . . .”

 

She frowned and carefully smoothed out one of the small foil squares from the candy. “Not exactly . . . see, the greatest among the youkai . . . He said that we should hide what we were, not because we were frightened, but because it really was the only way we'd ever survive—to let our kind fall into the darkness of history and legend . . . and it wasn't so bad for a long while. Most of the lesser-youkai were hunted down and exterminated—ones that couldn't hold onto human form . . . ones that were too much like animals to even try . . . I guess you could say it was like Darwinism at it's finest. The problem is that the longer you leave things alone, the more likely it is that history will repeat itself.”

 

“Are you saying that youkai are going to rise up against humans?”

 

She sighed. “No . . . I meant that some of those youkai who survived were the head of certain clans, and as the head, they were stronger, and they were able to retain their concealments even though their kin were commonly considered to be lesser-youkai, but . . . but as their bloodlines weakened with passing generations, some of them . . . degenerated, giving rise to the lesser-youkai these days. What were once proud and noble families have been reduced to barely sentient creatures, and most of the time, those are the ones I'm sent out to hunt down.”

 

A strange expression flickered over his features, gone before Samantha could really make sense of it. With a nod, he tossed the rest of the bag to her before turning back to his desk once more.

 

He hadn't gotten angry this time, though, had he? He hadn't told her that she was a monster or a demon, and that was progress. Come to think of it, he'd been pretty nice to her ever since he came back from whatever it was that he'd been doing. She supposed she didn't much care, curiosity aside, as long as he wasn't hunting down a male for the white-coats to try to breed with her.

 

The very idea set her hackles rising all over again, so she deliberately forced her attention to the candy, instead. If he wanted to trade Hershey's Kisses for information, who was she to argue? Popping one into her mouth, she glanced up, only to find him staring at her, and she smiled.

 

Too bad she didn't have something she could offer him in order to get a few questions of her own answered . . .

 

`Give it time, dollbaby. I think he's coming around . . .'

 

Smiling at the encouragement her youkai voice offered, she nodded. `I . . . I really like him,' she admitted quietly.

 

Her youkai laughed. `So do I . . . so do I . . .'

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

“Any luck?”

 

Evan grunted but didn't turn around to look at his brother as he watched the building below. “Not yet,” he admitted despite the irritation that he'd been stalking out the place for a few days now, and not a single soul had even glanced at the front of the building.

 

Bas sighed and knelt beside Evan, bracing himself with one hand between his knees. “Hey, Evan, listen . . .”

 

“If you're gonna tell me that I'm wasting my time, just blow it out your ass, all right?”

 

Bas shook his head. “That's not what I was going to say.”

 

Evan shot him a quizzical glance before shifting his gaze back to the building he was watching. “What, then?”

 

“I, uh . . . I thought you could use some company,” Bas finally said.

 

He glanced at Bas again, unable to mask the hint of surprise on his features. Of all the things that he'd expected to hear, that wasn't actually one of them. “Relax, Bubby. I ain't gonna fuck this up.”

 

“I didn't think you would,” Bas replied. “You . . . you know, right? If you were missing—”

 

“I know,” Evan mumbled, scowling at the darkened building below. If he were the one who hadn't come home, Bas really would turn everything upside down to find him, and even if they didn't see eye to eye all the time, Evan . . . Evan would do the same for Bas. “Me, too.”

 

Bas stared at him for a couple minutes, as though he were trying to make up his mind about something. In the end, he cleared his throat and uttered a little cough. “Evan . . . you've been out here for days, haven't you? Why don't you go back to the hotel for a couple hours? I'll stay here till you come back.”

 

Evan shook his head stubbornly. “No. Look, I know what Cain says about this place, and I get his logic, but . . . It's just a feeling—a gut instinct. There's something here . . .”

 

Bas nodded slowly. “The old man always said to trust your instincts, right? Evan . . . don't run yourself ragged, okay? Just go get something to eat, clean yourself up, maybe catch a nap. I swear I won't leave here.”

 

Evan let out a deep breath. “I can't, Bas . . . You were older . . . Hell, she wasn't even born when you went to Japan to train. I was. I didn't get to fuck around with Gunnar and Morio and Mikio. It was just me . . . and Sam.” Sitting back, he smiled just a little. “Tagged around behind me everywhere I went. She just . . . and for once, I was the older one—the perfect one.” He chuckled quietly and shook his head. “I was you, Bubby . . . the way I used to see you when I was just a little shit.” Gaze shifting to the decrepit old buildings that were pervasive in the area, Evan let out a deep breath and shrugged. “She's gonna come home.”

 

Bas clapped him on the shoulder and nodded, lifting his head, letting the wind blow his hair off his face. “Absolutely,” he agreed, a quiet conviction tingeing his voice. “I tell you what: I'll go get some coffee. You want anything else?”

 

Evan shook his head as Bas got to his feet and strode away. As much as he disliked the idea of leaving this spot, he had to admit that the company—even Bas—just might be all right, and maybe it'd be okay to call an unspoken truce with his brother, at least for the duration.

 

It had surprised him, hadn't it? Fully expecting Bas to insist that Evan stop being stupid and go back to the hotel, Evan had been ready to rise to the challenge if he had to. Maybe he'd spent a little too long as the younger brother—the screw up, but what he'd said wasn't a lie.

 

His summers spent in Japan were synonymous with having Samantha underfoot. Unlike Bas, who had first traveled to Japan for training when he was fairly young, Evan's first summer there had been when he was ten. Samantha had been right around a year old at the time, and she'd just learned how to walk. She'd followed him around that whole summer whenever she could, and hers was the first face he'd seen when he'd walked out of the air port the next year, too. Summers spent with a tagalong—a little girl with wide blue eyes that looked like she really could have been his baby sister, and Evan . . . Evan had enjoyed telling people that she was as Samantha had smiled and hidden her face against his shoulder in a moment of bashfulness . . .

 

He'd learned more during those summers from his uncle, Kichiro than he had from Ryomaru or InuYasha—learned about music and feeling and emotion. For that, alone, he owed them something, and if that meant that he spent days and days out here in the snow and the cold, then so be it, because one way or another, he wasn't going back until Samantha came home . . .

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Kurt sat up straight and stretched, grimacing at the soreness that had set in between his shoulder blades as he'd watched the hours of tape while the little demon slept soundly.

 

Peering over his shoulder, he frowned at the tiny form. Hair so long that it spilled over the side of the cot that he normally used, it hung like an iridescent sheet, shining softly in the dim light of the room. He'd left her out of her cage, and she was sleeping soundly. How was it that she could do that? If the situation was reversed, he'd never sleep so well, would he? `No doubt about it,' he thought with a shake of his head as he turned back around to face the monitors once more. `Definitely going soft . . .'

 

`But she's a demon, Kurt . . . How could you . . .?'

 

Grimacing as the words echoed in his head—an accusing voice that sounded a little too real—Kurt bit his lip and opened the next video file.

 

He knew damn well what she was. Of course he did. He knew better than anyone that she was a demon, but . . . but he also knew that she wasn't mean or cruel or vindictive. She wasn't those things that he had believed for so long . . . She wasn't . . . and more . . .

 

He knew her, didn't he? Knew the familiarity of her and understood it, even if he didn't know what it all meant. It was unsettling, sure. In all his life, he'd never actually thought that anyone would ever be able to look at him and know, just from that insular moment, exactly what he was thinking . . . and why . . .

 

And yet, it made him feel a little less like a freak, didn't it? His entire life, he'd always felt like an outsider; like someone who wasn't accepted—wasn't wanted—by the normal reaches of society. One of those humans who had seen too much, right? Those things had only served to ostracize him before he'd ever gotten a chance to try to fit in, at all.

 

`But . . . she's not a demon, is she? That word she said . . . youkai?'

 

`Youkai . . . magical creatures. Though there are a number of youkai that are able to harness the power to control the elements of nature, many also are the manifestation of wild creatures. . .'

 

She'd said another word, true—hanyou . . . He didn't understand that one, though. He couldn't seem to find any real definitions or, in fact, any mention of it, anywhere, and she didn't seem to want to explain it, either. He figured that was all right, though. He wasn't too keen on delving into some of the things regarding himself that she might be curious about, either.

 

He sighed. Three days had passed since he'd returned, and with the passage of those days, he felt as though he were no closer to finishing the surveillance videos than he had been in the beginning. Every day he spent, sitting at his table in the depressing little apartment, watching the data cards he'd smuggled out of the facility, and every night after the demon had fallen asleep, he sat up, watching the day's recordings so that he didn't fall further behind. He needed to tell her to be leery of injections, but he wasn't entirely certain if he could do that without tipping her off. He wasn't ready to tell her of his plan; he figured that'd just be a thousand times worse, in the long run. Telling her that he was eventually going to get her out would only make her time left that much harder to bear, wouldn't it? He couldn't do that to her . . .

 

Besides, the last thing he wanted was to tell her that when he still wasn't entirely positive when he could get her out . . . Until he watched all the tapes to make sure that they didn't put a tracker on her . . .

 

“Oooh,” the little demon whined as she turned over on the cot.

 

Kurt rolled his eyes—why she couldn't seem to wake up without moaning and groaning, he wasn't sure. She seemed to do that just about every time . . .

 

“Is it morning?” she asked, her voice still thick with sleep.

 

Glancing at the clock, Kurt shook his head. “Nope.”

 

She yawned loudly, and the cot squeaked as she shifted around. “What time is it, then?”

 

“One-forty-five,” he replied. “You know, don't you have better vision than me? Can't you see the clock from there?”

 

She yawned again. “You're closer.”

 

“Go back to sleep,” he said without taking his eyes off the screen.

 

“Am I bothering you?”

 

“Yes,” he replied automatically.

 

The little demon laughed then slowly fell silent.

 

Kurt glanced at her and frowned. sitting with her back against the wall, she had her feet drawn up, her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin buried against her knees . . . but she looked troubled, and he didn't rightfully understand why. “What's wrong with you?” he asked, deliberately inflicting enough boredom into his voice to mask his own feelings.

 

She shook her head, those ears drooping just a little. He grimaced. “I'm okay,” she lied.

 

Heaving a sigh as he stared at the surveillance tape long enough to memorize the time stamp, he shut it down and rotated the chair to eye her. “Yeah, that's a lie,” he countered quietly.

 

Her ears flattened a little more. “I was . . . was just thinking . . .”

 

Crossing his arms over his chest, he narrowed his gaze on her. “About what?”

 

Scrunching up her shoulders, she gave a little shrug. “N . . . nothing . . .”

 

“Tell me.”

 

She winced at his no-nonsense tone of voice. “It's just . . . what you said the other day? That you weren't looking for a . . . a male . . .”

 

“Yeah,” he said slowly, shaking his head, unable to grasp exactly where she was going with this.

 

“Did you mean . . . did you mean that you were just not looking for one then or . . . or that you wouldn't look for one, at all . . .?”

 

The breath rushed out of him in a sudden gust. “That's what's bothering you?” he could help asking incredulously.

 

She grimaced and nodded once.

 

“I wasn't planning on it, no.”

 

She nodded again, her ears perking up just a little as a sudden scowl of defiance filtered over her features. “Well, good . . . because it wouldn't work, anyway!”

 

He blinked at the vehemence in her voice. “It wouldn't?”

 

She shook her head, her chin lifting a notch. “No youkai you could capture would dare touch me like that.”

 

“Why?” he blurted before he could think about it. There was definitely something strange in her answers, wasn't there?

 

She shot him a rather nervous glance, as though she'd said something that she hadn't meant to. “They just . . . just wouldn't,” she said again.

 

He snorted as his mind flashed to those demons that had attacked his family. No scruples, no values, no sense of right or wrong—just beasts. “Why? What are you? Some sort of . . . princess or something?” he scoffed.

 

A strange sort of expression filtered over her face, and she shook her head. “N-no . . .” she murmured. “It just wouldn't happen . . . and even if it did . . .”

 

“Even if it did, what?”

 

Her gaze fell away to the coarse blankets on the cot, and she shrugged. “I wouldn't do it,” she replied quietly. “I'd never allow my child—my baby—to be born in a place such as this. I'd . . . I'd kill myself, first.”

 

Kurt snapped his mouth closed, an unreasonable rage roiling in the pit of his stomach as he stared at her, as he saw her absolute conviction. She would do it, wouldn't she? That she was trapped . . . that was enough, wasn't it? And as much as it appalled him, he couldn't say he didn't understand her feelings, either . . .

 

She was quiet for a long minute, and when she stared to speak again, her voice was so low that Kurt had to strain to hear her. “I can stay here as long as I have to,” she murmured, her chin dropping to her knees once more. “They can do whatever they want because . . . because it doesn't matter . . . but I . . . I want to believe that I'll be free again, someday . . . even if that's really only a lie . . .”

 

“Little demon . . .” he whispered, horrified by the steadiness in her gaze, the blankness in the depths of her eyes. A part of her knew, didn't it? Knew that she'd never get out of there, and worse: she'd accepted that, too . . . All of the laughter and the smiles . . . they were her way of coping, just as anger and apathy had become his . . .

 

She shook her head and turned to look at him, her expression shifting into a smile—a real smile—a smile that broke something deep within him, leaving him feeling torn and bleeding, and the brighter it grew, the deeper the wound tore. “Tell me something, taijya . . . is there snow outside?”

 

He nodded, unable to speak, unable to force a sound past the suspect thickness that choked him.

 

Her gaze took on a dreamy sort of quality as a quiet laugh slipped from her. “I miss the snow,” she said. “It didn't snow so much when I was little . . . Some every now and then, but it melted so fast, even in the forest . . . Sometimes Papa would drive Mama and me out to the country, just so we could play in snow . . .”

 

Kurt grimaced and let his eyes fall away. He just . . . he couldn't look at her, could he? Couldn't stand to look at her and know that he was the one who had taken her away . . . “It's all . . . all tired and dirty now,” he murmured harshly. “Plowed and re-plowed . . . and all the dirt and slush . . . that exhausted look it gets after Christmas is over . . .”

 

She closed her eyes and lifted her face, her smile widening just a little at whatever it was she saw in her head. “I'll bet it isn't as bad as all that,” she finally said. “I still miss it . . . Sometimes when you come in, I can smell the snow on you.”

 

“You can?”

 

She nodded. “Mhmm . . . then I feel better.”

 

He cleared his throat, rubbing his burning eyes as he tried not to think about what she'd said. “You know . . . why don't you go back to sleep? You've still got awhile before they come in . . .”

 

She lay back down but didn't answer. The silence wasn't at all uncomfortable. Kurt sat still for a long time, just staring at her as her breathing evened out and steadied, and he knew that she was sleeping . . .

 

This little creature . . . what was she? And what kind of power did she possess that could reach him in a way that no one else ever had? A lifetime of laughter wasn't enough for her, was it? To be surrounded by those who loved and cherished her . . . that was what she deserved . . . The family that searched for her every single day, the ones he knew damn well made her look like she wanted to cry whenever she thought about them . . . That she was willing to give them up because she didn't want to risk hurting anyone . . . just what did that say about her—and about him?

 

`I'll . . . I'll get you out of here, little demon . . . and maybe someday . . . maybe someday, you'll forgive me . . .'

 

 

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

A/N:

Hershey's Kisses are trademark belonging to the Hershey Food Corporation.

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Final Thought from Bas:

Like me …

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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~