InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ Misguided ( Chapter 65 )

~~Chapter 65~~

~Misguided~

 

-=0=-

 

 

Kurt groaned and tried not to breathe too deeply since that hurt far more than the action was worth.

 

He hadn't realized, had he? He hadn't known that a human body could hurt quite that badly; oh no . . . He did now, of course. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure that there were any parts of him that didn't hurt.

 

Still, he'd been more than a little surprised when the lady of the mansion slipped into the room with a huge canvas bag that he'd figured out quickly enough was a first aid kit. She'd not said much as she'd doctored him; as her husband had stood directly behind her with a scowl on his face but a resigned sort of stance, as though he'd figured it'd come to that.

 

He grimaced. She really had tried to be as gentle and efficient as she could, but her doctoring had hurt a lot, and though he'd tried to hide his pain, he hadn't really been able to do it, and the poor woman had apologized a number of times during her treatments.

 

Which, of course, had only served to make him feel that much worse. They should have just killed him, shouldn't they? They should have struck him down where he stood for what he'd done to her—to Samantha. They certainly shouldn't be letting him stay in their home, and even if he were confined, it hardly mattered when the bed he had to sleep on was soft and warm, when they brought him three ample meals a day even if he couldn't quite bring himself to eat a lot, given that it hurt to breathe, let alone being able to chew and swallow food . . .

 

No, the room they'd put him in was the nicest one he'd ever seen, and he knew first hand that the balcony that overlooked the back yard provided an absolutely breathtaking view of the forest and ocean . . . He figured that since it was three stories off the ground, they doubted he'd actually try to escape. Funny thing, really . . . he didn't actually consider that to be an option, did he?

 

He was tired, damn it—exhausted, really. After dealing with the child for the last couple weeks—and he had to admit that he missed her, too—and then finding Samantha . . . He felt like his entire existence was spinning out of his control, leaving him broken and bleeding as he asked himself just how much more he really could take.

 

When he was stripping to take a shower earlier—another adventure in pain that he just didn't want to think about—he'd emptied his pockets, only to pull out those damned candies, and as he'd stared at them with a little bit of a smile, he'd had to blink back tears as the sounds of her wailing when he'd finally left her echoed in his head . . . It seemed like he was always letting go of people that he'd come to care about . . . Between Samantha and the girl . . . and he had to wonder just how much of himself he'd ever truly be able to keep for himself . . .

 

But where was she? Samantha . . .? He closed his eyes, wishing that he'd not been so stubborn, that he'd taken the pain reliever that Zelig's wife—Gin—had offered to him. He seriously doubted that they'd let him off of the hook tomorrow, and while he couldn't say that the punishment fit the crime, he could say that he was already suffering from it . . .

 

Of course, the worst of it, really, had come right after the lady of the house had bandaged him up, applying salves that she said would help his bruises heal faster, wrapping his ribs in about four Ace bandages to keep them from killing him completely. As she stood back with a somewhat satisfied, if not entirely grim sort of expression on her face—a face that reminded him entirely too much of another silver haired woman with those little pointy ears—she'd nodded as though something had been decided in her head, and without preamble, she'd demanded that he get up.

 

Which, naturally, he did.

 

“I'm going to train you,” she said with a nod, as though it was a foregone conclusion.

 

Kurt blinked the only eye he could see out of and slowly shook his head. “Wh-what?” he stuttered, unsure he'd actually heard her right.

 

She nodded a little more emphatically. “It's only fair, you know. Otherwise, they'll just keep beating the snot out of you, and—”

 

“Uh, Gin, I don't think that's a good idea,” Zelig cut in with a marked frown.

 

She waved a hand over her shoulder but didn't even look at her husband. “It's a fantastic idea,” she insisted with a bright laugh. “In fact, I think it's the absolute best idea of them all! I'll train you. That way, you won't get beaten up so badly, right?”

 

Her husband heaved a sigh. “Your father's not going to go for that,” he pointed out, obviously believing that this would dissuade her.

 

She laughed and finally peeked over her shoulder. “Papa will think it's a fantastic idea,” she countered.

 

“Knowing him? Probably . . .” Cain muttered.

 

Kurt shook his head, collapsing onto the edge of the bed since his legs were still rather shaky. The jarring motion, though dulled by the springy mattress, made him groan when his ribs protested. “I don't think they want me to learn as much as they want to pummel me into the dirt,” Kurt confessed.

 

“Of course not,” Gin insisted. “If you can't fight back, at least a little bit, then it isn't an honorable battle.”

 

They were a strange lot, he'd decided then. That belief was only confirmed when he'd found himself out in the yard once more a few minutes later with that damned wooden sword in hand once more. He'd spent the next three hours dodging and trying to parry with the wooden joke as Gin had hurled this strange scythe-shaped weapon at him. Connected to a long chain that seemed to grow longer or shorter, depending on what she wanted it to do, it had a thick metal ball on the other end of that chain, and he had a particularly wicked-looking bruise where that damned chain had wrapped around his ankle to trip him up time and time again.

 

She'd called it a kursarigama. He'd called it evil . . .

 

At least she'd called a halt to the training when Zelig had pointed out that it was nearly time for dinner. The woman's eyes had widened as she uttered a little gasp, and after asking her husband to help Kurt back to his room, she'd darted away to make dinner.

 

It was damn good, too—at least, the part of it that he'd been able to eat. Too exhausted to manage more than a few bites, he'd given up and was already stretched out on the bed almost asleep when the younger silver-haired man strode in to secure him for the night. That he was also polite enough to ask if Kurt needed to go to the bathroom first was something else that Kurt had taken note of, too.

 

In fact, it bothered him that they were all going out of their ways to be entirely decent to him, all things considered, and to be completely fair, he really didn't feel that awful since Gin had applied whatever salves she'd used. Aside from his ribs and his still-swollen eye, he wasn't too bad off, if one discounted general soreness from overexertion.

 

It hardly seemed right, really. After everything the white-coats had done to the little demon, if this was the extent of his punishment for it . . .

 

Of course, it should have been obvious to him, to start with, shouldn't it? He'd seen it in her all along. That same sense of fairness, that same compassion . . . it stood to reason that her family would feel it, too, didn't it? After all, they were the ones who had raised her, so their values had become hers, too.

 

Somehow, that only served to make him feel just a little worse, too, as a bitter, sad little grin quirked one corner of his lips. The true monsters, right? The absolute monsters . . . He was one of them.

 

A sudden and ferocious twang twisted his stomach; a feeling that had nothing at all to do with the injuries that riddled his body and had everything to do with the dark blue eyes that smiled in his head, the feel of her lips as real, as palpable as they had been when she'd thrown herself at him. He missed her viciously, desperately . . . and even as the surge of desolation reminded him that he was no good for her, the wild hope, the poignant wish . . . Coming here was a mistake; a huge mistake, wasn't it? Maybe her family deserved to have this time to regain a semblance of their honor, but . . .

 

But he didn't dare see her again, and he knew it. He couldn't take that chance when the only thing he really wanted to tell her was that he was sorry . . . and that . . .

 

And that he loved her.

 

Pushing that thought away, forcing it to the recesses of his mind, he grimaced as he tried to roll over onto his side. It was going to be a long, long night . . .

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Samantha slowly prowled around the ground below the third story balcony. She didn't sense anyone up there posted outside the door, but she couldn't rightfully see well enough to tell for certain, either. Even then, she figured that everyone inside likely knew that she was here, or at least, that she was on her way. To think that her parents hadn't realized that she was gone, to begin with, was little more than wishful thinking, and she didn't even try to convince herself that she was wrong . . .

 

“Do you sense anything?” she murmured to Griffin.

 

Scowling at his cell phone, he grunted. He'd shut it off when the first of the phone calls had come in. He probably had more missed calls now than he'd ever had since he'd gotten it, in the first place. He was limping just a little—a reminder that he was still recovering from the last reconstructive surgery he'd had, but when Samantha had asked him about it, he had waved her off with a shrug and a snort meant to assure her that he was just fine.

 

“Why don't you just go in the front door?” he asked suddenly, grabbing her arm before she could jump. He let go just as quickly.

 

She frowned at him. “And you think they'll let me just walk right up the stairs to see him?”

 

Griffin made a face and crossed his arms over his chest, clearly uncomfortable with the part he was playing in this. A guilty pang shot through her. She really hadn't meant to trap him in the middle of this, and that's exactly what she'd done since there was more than a passing chance that both her parents as well as Isabelle were likely to be angry at him for helping her, in the first place.

 

“You know,” he began, looking even more uncomfortable by the second, “this—this sneaking around—this is why everyone is worried . . . The Sam I know would think this through logically, and then she'd talk to people. The Sam I know doesn't sneak out windows or . . . or run away from her family.”

 

Staring at her feet, she tried not to feel ashamed, to no avail. He was right, and she knew it, but . . .

 

“That's not it,” she said quietly, rubbing her arms to dispel the chill of the mid-April night. I've tried talking, but no one's willing to listen, and . . .”

 

Griffin shrugged. “Your parents are too close to you. Maybe you should try talking to someone else . . . your grandfather, maybe . . .”

 

Lifting her eyes to peer up at him, she slowly shook her head. “Do you . . . do you think he'll listen?”

 

“I don't know. He might. I mean . . . it doesn't hurt to try, does it?”

 

“There you are!”

 

Samantha stifled a sigh as her mother's arms locked around her. Bellaniece's heart was hammering a mile a minute as her mother smashed Samantha against her chest.

 

“M-Mama,” she said with an inward wince.

 

“What were you thinking, running off like that?” Bellaniece scolded as she leaned away just far enough to frown at her.

 

“Griffin? I can't believe you ran off with her,” Isabelle huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest and shot her mate a definitive pout.

 

“Did you want her running off all by herself?” Griffin challenged gruffly.

 

“No, but you should have come and gotten the rest of us,” she pointed out.

 

“Mama, Isabelle,” Samantha said, interrupting the escalating argument as she gathered her resolve. “Don't be angry at Griffin. He just wanted to make sure that I was safe; that's all. I . . . I came over here to talk to Grandpa.”

 

Bellaniece stared at her for a long moment, unable to mask her upset. Then she forced an overly bright smile that made Samantha grimace inwardly. “O-okay . . . let's go talk to him, then. In fact, I'm pretty sure that your father's already in his office, so . . .”

 

“N-no, Mama,” Samantha said quietly, catching her arm before she could hurry toward the house. Sparing a moment to glance at Griffin, who caught the look and offered her a curt nod: his support. “I want to talk to him alone. Please,” she added to soften the blow.

 

“Uh . . . oh . . . o-of course,” Bellaniece said, blinking quickly as her indulgent smile widened even more.

 

Samantha managed a very weak one of her own before hurrying toward the living room door. It dissolved as she hurried through the house, thankful that it was late enough that almost everyone else had already gone to bed. Wincing as she reached for the handle of her grandfather's office door, she stopped when she heard the raised voices within, and against her better judgment, she leaned in to listen closer.

 

“I want that son of a bitch dead, damn it!” Kichiro growled.

 

“I know you do,” Cain said with a sigh. “I might even agree, but it hardly matters, don't you think? Samantha says he's her mate.”

 

Kichiro snorted indelicately. From the way his voice traveled, she could tell that he was pacing the floor. “He isn't, or didn't you notice? He doesn't smell a damn thing like her, does he? I'm not sure what kind of witchery he pulled to do what he did, but it's nothing but a fluke!”

 

“Which also doesn't matter when she smells like him. Even if she didn't, she says he's her mate, and—”

 

“Keh! She's fixated on him! That's all it is!”

 

The loud scrape of a chair and a thud as Cain slammed his hand down on the desk . . . “You don't know that! And you wouldn't take that kind of chance with her life, would you?”

 

“Back off, Zelig! Samantha is my daughter, not yours!”

 

Biting down on her lip, Samantha stepped away from the door, stumbling toward the stairs—anything to escape the raised voices—the conflict.

 

It was wrong: all wrong. Her father and her grandfather never had seen eye to eye, but . . . But it was worse—so much worse—now . . . and it was all her fault . . .

 

It seemed like all anyone had done since she'd gotten home was whisper and speculate and talk amongst themselves, but no one—no one—had asked her a thing. True enough, she'd had to think about it, but it really hadn't taken her too long to figure out. The night he'd gotten her out of there . . . just how bad off had she been? Her memories of the days following that were a little vague, a little fuzzy, but she knew, didn't she? He'd saved her—really saved her . . . and when he had, he'd made her his mate, too.

 

Stumbling through the mansion, up the stairs to the third floor, she wandered, her thoughts so twisted, so troubled, that she just couldn't make sense of anything at all. All she wanted was for everyone to understand that she wasn't fixated on Kurt, that there was nothing perverse or ugly about her feelings. She knew in her heart, as certainly as she knew that the sun would rise in a few hours . . . It was clear to her . . . but . . .

 

“What are you doin' up here, pup?”

 

Blinking and gasping as she stopped short, coming face to face with her other grandfather, Samantha couldn't help the way her ears flattened as her gaze dropped away; as she prepared herself for the inevitable lecture that she had no business on the third floor; that she had no business anywhere near the taijya. “I just . . . I just want to see him,” she whispered, more to herself than to InuYasha.

 

“Figured that much,” InuYasha muttered. Sitting with his back against the door, arms wrapped around Tetsusaiga, his ears flicked idly. “Your old man know you're up here?”

 

Shaking her head `no' just once, she stifled the urge to sigh. “N-no,” she admitted quietly.

 

“He don't smell like you,” he pointed out, jerking his head to indicate the closed door and the man behind it.

 

“I know,” she replied quietly. “He . . . he saved me.”

 

“When those bastards cut you.” It wasn't a question. “He hurt you? Don't you lie to me.”

 

“Un, no. Not at all. I mean, when he first took me there, he sort of . . . I don't know, shocked me, I guess, but that was my fault, and I'm glad he did . . . I . . . I attacked . . .”

 

“I meant, did he really hurt you, pup,” InuYasha interrupted in a tone of voice that stated that she ought to have known as much.

 

She shook her head quickly as a strange thought passed through her head. Her quick-tempered, hot-headed grandfather . . . he was the one who was willing to listen . . .? But somehow, it was enough.

 

“He has reason to hate us,” she admitted. “He never met a decent one of us—at least, he hadn't, until he met me, and when he figured out that we weren't all monsters like he thought . . .”

 

InuYasha nodded as he considered that. She'd heard stories from a long time ago, from InuYasha's youth, and while he did tend to act first—act with his heart—and question it later, Samantha knew well enough that his decisions weren't nearly as rash as they probably used to be. “Tell me, pup . . . He really your mate?”

 

Samantha smiled. She couldn't help herself. The very idea . . . hearing someone else say it in something even a little bit close to belief . . . She nodded. “He is. I know he is . . .”

 

InuYasha grunted tersely as he got to his feet. “Hell . . . he's kind of pathetic. Been asleep for hours. He ain't goin' nowhere, and I'm going to bed.”

 

He paused long enough to kiss the top of her head before striding down the hallway toward the stairs.

 

Samantha shook her head and blinked in surprise at the unguarded doorway in front of her. Before anyone else could come along to stop her, she reached for the handle and turned it . . .

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Kurt wasn't sure exactly what woke him. The gentle brush of fingers on his cheek; the warm and soothing balm of breath on his skin . . . or maybe it was the droplet of moisture that burned him . . .

 

Groaning softly, he hesitated to open his eyes, unwilling to relinquish the remnants of a breathtaking dream . . .

 

Opening his good eye, he couldn't quite credit what he saw; the silver hair, the flattened ears . . . the rich quality of her saddened aura . . . “L-little demon,” he breathed before he could stop himself, before he could consider the ramifications of the vulnerability in his voice.

 

She choked out a roughened sound: nearly a sob but not exactly. “Taijya, I'm sorry,” she mumbled. “What . . . what have they done to you . . .?”

 

The softly uttered question brought him sharply back to his senses as his entire body stiffened against his perceived weakness. “S-Samantha . . . get out of here,” he demanded, willing himself to sound just a little cold, just a little cruel.

 

She shook her head stubbornly though he didn't miss the way her already flattened ears jutted out to the sides at the reprimand. “Do . . . do you want a glass of water or anything?” she asked, completely ignoring his terse command.

 

He watched in silence as she stood up and stepped over to the desk, pouring a glass of cold water from the white carafe that Gin had left for him when she'd come to take his dinner tray away. The dull clank of the ice inside reminded him that he actually was thirsty. Still . . .

 

She started back toward him, a teary yet completely genuine smile on her face. When she crossed through a shaft of moonlight that seeped through the window, he couldn't do a thing but blink, stare. In that instant, she seemed to glow, didn't she? Her hair, her skin, her eyes . . . every delicate plane and hollow of her face . . . the beauty that a man would be lucky to gaze upon once in his lifetime, and yet there she stood, a brightness in her eyes that had nothing at all do to with pain or sorrow or fear . . . Anxiety, certainly, but untouched by those darker emotions . . .

 

But it was the ordinary quality of the tee-shirt and jeans that she wore that broke the illusion. Those things seemed a little too garish, too out of place, those things that shattered the trance that she'd cast over him so effortlessly. “Stop,” he demanded.

 

She did.

 

He forced his gaze away, staring hard at the wall without really seeing a thing. “I want you to get out of here,” he said again, a little more forcefully this time. “I . . . I mean it.”

 

She didn't reply right away. Closing his eyes, trying to ignore the spike of pain in her aura, he reminded himself angrily that there were just some things in the world; things that simply couldn't be, no matter how desperately he might have wished it were otherwise. Her family despised him, and with damn good reason, and he . . . he'd never ask her to choose between them and himself . . . as if there were really any choice about it . . .

 

“You don't want me to; not really,” she murmured with a shake of her head as she set the glass on the nightstand and refused to leave. Somehow in the expanse of time that they'd been apart, he'd forgotten exactly how obstinate she really could be.

 

Gritting his teeth as he gnashed over the idea that something—anything—should go his way, he sighed. “I mean it,” he told her with a shake of his head. “I . . . I want you to leave me alone. Now.”

 

“No.”

 

Blinking at her soft tone—almost a whisper—he narrowed his gaze on her. “What do you mean, `no'?”

 

She clasped her hands, stared at the floor, her cheeks pinking discernibly, even in the shadowy, dusky light of the room. “I said no,” she repeated simply.

 

“W-why not?”

 

She drew a deep breath, wandered toward the window, wrapping her arms around herself. “You never left me alone there; not when it mattered. I won't leave you alone now.”

 

“Why can't you understand?” he grumbled, ignoring the aches that exploded all over his body as he pushed himself up on his elbow. “You were there because I captured you! I took you there . . . They could have killed you, and I wouldn't have done a thing to stop them . . . Don't you get it?”

 

“That's a lie,” she countered without looking at him. Why did he have the feeling that she was smiling?

 

“Is it?” he challenged quietly. “Samantha . . .”

 

“You're my mate,” she blurted suddenly, pivoting on her heel to face him. “You came here because you know it's true, even if you don't want to admit it.”

 

“Mate?” he echoed, dropping onto his back once more. “I only . . . I came here to give your family information on how to keep track of the researchers,” he argued, though his tone had lost much of his initial irritation. “None of them would want you in here . . . I . . . I don't want you here, either.”

 

“But you're hurt, and I—”

 

“No!” he snapped, glowering fiercely at her when she came toward him once more. He couldn't let her touch him, could he? If she did . . . “Get out, damn it! Get out!”

 

Wincing at his anger, she shook her head. “Kurt, I—”

 

“Go!” he bellowed, straining to push himself upright. “Now!”

 

A strained expression flitted over her features but was gone as quickly as it had come as she whirled around and hurried toward the door. As it closed behind her, he winced. He was wrong for her; all wrong for her. So why didn't that knowledge help him, even a little? The anger ebbed out of him slowly, leaving a dull emptiness behind. And yet . . .

 

And yet he knew, didn't he? She hadn't left because she was giving up; she had complied with his demands because she hadn't wanted him to see her cry . . . and somehow . . .

 

Somehow he had to wonder . . . Had he finally met his match, after all?

 

 

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

A/N:

Kusarigama: Kohaku's weapon. Gin uses a modified, youkai one.

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Final Thought fromKurt:

It …it has to be this way …

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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~