InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ The Finality of the Beginning ( Chapter 75 )

~~Chapter 75~~

~The Finality of the Beginning~

 

-=0=-

 

 

Ben sat back in his chair and heaved a sigh as he tossed his ink pen onto the old fashioned red blotter and rubbed his throbbing temple as the roots of a fierce headache took hold. Through the window off to the left, he could see the sky brightening as dawn broke. He'd been searching all night, hadn't he? So why the hell couldn't he find it . . .?

 

The trill of the telephone cut through the tense silence, and with a grimace, Ben yanked the receiver out of the cradle and smashed it against his ear. “Hello?”

 

“Now don't you sound cranky, Ben? Don't tell me you've been up all night again.”

 

Smiling wanly as Myrna Loy's silken voice came through the line, Ben willed himself to calm down. “Sorry, Myrna. Any luck?”

 

“In the open cases? Nope. Not a thing,” she replied, the unmistakable hint of irritation prevalent in her words. No doubt about it, the woman did so hate to fail at anything, and it showed.

 

Ben scowled, picking up his pen and drumming the cap against the blotter. “That's impossible.”

 

“Unless he's lying about it,” she supplied in a dubious tone.

 

“He's not lying,” Ben replied automatically.

 

“And you don't think this guy'd say just about anything to save his worthless neck?”

 

“He didn't need to save anything, so no, I don't think it was a lie. Anyway, I'm sure he was telling the truth.”

 

Myrna snorted indelicately. “If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, Ben. You're too damn good, you know. You think that just because you wear your integrity on your sleeve that other people do, too, and that simply isn't the case.”

 

“Thank you for the jaded lesson on ethics, Ms. Loy,” he replied despite the reluctant hint of a smile that surfaced. “I think I'm a pretty good judge of when someone's lying to me and when they're not.”

 

“For what that bastard did to Samantha? Hanging's too good for the likes of him.”

 

“Put your claws away, please,” Ben said. “Did you double check the files?”

 

Myrna sighed. “Ben, honey, I quadruple checked the files, just for you, and I'm telling you, there's nothing here—nothing even remotely close.”

 

“All right; all right. Thank you.”

 

“Of course,” she said. He could hear her stifle a yawn. “I'm going to go crawl into bed now . . . Don't suppose you'd come on over to keep a lady warm?”

 

“Good night—morning, Myrna. Sleep well,” Ben replied.

 

She heaved a melodramatic sigh. “Can't blame me for trying, now can you?”

 

He chuckled and hung up the phone, but his humor died quickly enough as he tried to make sense of it all. If those youkai had attacked and murdered Kurt's family, why weren't they showing up in the unsolved cases? It didn't make any sense, did it? Ben had spent the entire afternoon and evening yesterday and then all night reading through notes and handwritten files—things that pertained to the happenings from thirty to thirty-two years ago—his own notes from the unsolved cases that had sprung up through the years.

 

`Unless it's a closed file . . .' his youkai piped up.

 

To be honest, he'd thought of that, too, more than once, but Drevin had seemed so convinced, hadn't he? He'd seemed so sure that the youkai who had murdered his family were still around . . .

 

Letting out a deep breath, Ben leaned down to push the power button on his computer before standing up and stretching, venturing over to start a fresh pot of coffee.

 

A soft knock on the doorframe drew his attention, and he smiled when he caught sight of the pretty hanyou woman lingering there with an armload of bright spring flowers. “Morning,” she said with a hesitant smile. “I . . . I saw your car outside . . .”

 

“Flowers?” he asked in a teasing tone.

 

She blushed and shrugged as her little ears flicked almost nervously. “Well, I thought they'd brighten up your office a little,” she explained.

 

“I thought that the man was supposed to be the one bearing flowers,” he pointed out.

 

She laughed and set the large cut glass vase on the table near the door. “Sure, if they're dating,” she shot back. A moment later, she seemed to realize exactly what she'd said, and she blushed darker as she forced a high, terse laugh. “I mean—”

 

“It's okay,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Maybe I'll bring you flowers next time—That is, I . . .” He chuckled and shook his head as a suffusion of redness infiltrated his cheeks, too. “You want some coffee? I just made a pot.”

 

Charity giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. “That'd be great, thanks.”

 

He poured a mug for her, then one for himself and headed back to the desk.

 

Charity added a packet of sweetener and a splash of cream to her cup. “You're here early,” she ventured as she stirred the coffee.

 

He sighed as he lifted the cup to his lips. “Or late, as the case were. To be honest, I've been here all night,” he admitted, grimacing at the strength of the coffee. “Oh, uh, my coffee tends to be a little on the . . . muddy side . . .” he warned her.

 

It was too late. She fumbled her drink with a wince, leaning forward as a dribble slipped down her chin. Wiping it away with the back of her hand, she laughed and set the cup down. “Oh . . . wow . . . I think I'll be feeling that one for a few hours or so . . .”

 

He chuckled and offered her a clean, crisp handkerchief. “Sorry about that,” he murmured.

 

She took it and dabbed her chin. “It's fine,” she assured him. “I just wasn't expecting it to be so . . . so strong . . .”

 

Ben gestured at a chair and logged into the security system. It only took a moment for his identity to be confirmed, and he keyed `Kurt Drevin' into the file search.

 

“You've been here all night?” she asked as she sat down.

 

Ben sighed. “Yes. I've been trying to find some information on an incident that happened about thirty-two years ago.”

 

“That's awhile,” she remarked.

 

Ben nodded as he scowled at the computer monitor and the viable lack of search results. “Damn . . .”

 

“No luck?”

 

“No . . .” He ran the scan again, this time using just `Drevin'.

 

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

 

Ben's eyes widened as a file came up. “Uh, no, thank you.”

 

Charity smiled and stood. “You seem busy, so I'll leave you alone.”

 

“Wait,” he called after her, casting her a smile. “Would you . . . would you care to have lunch with me later?”

 

She blinked in surprise and nodded slowly. “Y-yeah,” she stammered, her cheeks pinking. “That'd be nice.”

 

“Okay, I'll call you, and I . . . I could bring you some flowers.”

 

She bit her lip, smiling shyly. “That sounds great.”

 

He watched her go, bemusement illuminating his gaze.

 

Then he sighed, turning his attention back to the computer once more.

 

The file was dated `2039', and Ben clicked on it. Scanning the documents with a frown, he leaned to the side and idly rubbed his temple.

 

According to the file, three youkai had attacked the family for unknown reasons, murdering Doug Drevin, his wife, and their young daughter. The documents mentioned a son, but his name wasn't given, and according to official records, he escaped the killings.

 

But that was all, really. There was a curious lack of information, on the whole.

 

The names of the three youkai thought to be responsible, however, were linked, and Ben clicked on that.

 

It opened another case file—this one the hunt order. Issued a few months later, it cited another instance, this one at a state park in lower North Dakota where a couple was slain. According to the police reports of the incident, they had fallen victim to a random bear attack, and the details were gruesome, but the police report also stated that they'd found a child on the scene—unconscious and lying in the center of what appeared to be a circular burn roughly ten feet in diameter on the ground. The youkai investigators who were sent in didn't see or have occasion to talk to the child—a boy police reported as being named Douglas K. Drevin, Jr. He was the nephew of the victims and had gone to live with them after a brief stay at a psychiatric hospital after he'd witnessed the violent deaths of his entire family a few months prior . . .

 

“Junior,” Ben repeated quietly, thoughtfully. “So that's why . . .”

 

He grimaced. It all made sense, didn't it? The file on the couple—Marcus and Mary Latham—went a bit more in-depth with the case in general. The couple had no children of their own, and, according to the documents, Mary Thompson Latham and her twin sister, Lainie, had no other family. Lainie had married Douglas Drevin shortly out of college, and their son, Douglas Jr. was the oldest of their children. When the Drevin family was killed, the Lathams had taken the boy in since the only kin listed on the father's side was his father, Granger Drevin, and no one had known exactly how to contact him, anyway.

 

Strangely, though, the old man, himself, surfaced just hours prior to the forest incident, yelling at the police that his grandson was in danger, and after a screaming match between the officers on duty and the bordering on senile old man, they'd agreed to go check on the family. By the time they'd reached Roider State Park a couple hours later, it was too late. Both Marcus and Mary were dead, and the boy was unconscious nearby.

 

In the chaos that followed, however, the old man had somehow managed to abscond with the child, and while the police had wanted to talk to him, they'd eventually closed the case. After all, no child would have been strong enough to have been responsible for the atrocities they'd witnessed, would they? And in the end, wasn't it better for the kid to get as far away from all of that as he possibly could?

 

And the youkai hadn't actually made that much of a connection, not at the time. Easy to overlook if the son was named for his father. Douglas Drevin and Douglas Drevin, Jr.? Ben remembered the case clearly enough. Somehow, they'd all managed to overlook the boy, hadn't they? By the time they'd figured out that a child was involved, they'd figured, as had the police, that it was better to let him forget what had happened. He'd gone to live with his grandfather, right? They'd thought that it was for the best . . . A boy who could see youkai—monsters that the lesser-youkai could appear to be . . . a boy who had never understood why his family was targeted: a boy who had grown into a man who never had understood any of that.

 

Grabbing the phone receiver, Ben punched in the number he knew by heart.

 

It only took Cain a couple of rings to pick up, and in the background, he could hear the soft talking that spun around the Zelig breakfast table every morning. “Zelig,” he answered.

 

“Cain, you near your computer?”

 

“No, but I can be. Hold on.”

 

Ben heard the distinct scrape of a chair being pushed back. Cain murmured something, probably to Gin, and the dull sound of his footsteps filled the line. “Did you find anything?”

 

“I think so. I need some verification, first.”

 

“What kind of verification?”

 

Ben sighed. “I'll send you the files I found.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Tell me something. What's Kurt's full name?” Ben asked.

 

“I don't know,” Cain replied. “Why?”

 

“If these are the right files, then everything makes a hell of a lot of sense, but the boy mentioned in one of them isn't listed as `Kurt'.”

 

“What's he listed as?”

 

Ben rubbed his eyes as a wave of weariness hit him. “Douglas K. Drevin, Jr.”

 

Cain sighed, too. “Okay, I got the files. Give me a second to read them . . .”

 

Ben waited patiently. Cain said nothing for several minutes, probably coming to the same conclusion as Ben had. Suddenly, though, he stood up—Ben could hear the unmistakable sounds—and strode out of his office. “Sami? Do you know what Kurt's full name is?”

 

Samantha didn't respond right away. “No . . .” she finally said. “I didn't even know his first name until the day he sent me home. Why?”

 

“Could you ask him?” Cain asked, ignoring her question.

 

Samantha laughed. “Sure, Grandpa. Let me go find him . . .”

 

“Ben?”

 

“Yes?”

 

Cain let out a deep breath. “If that's him . . .”

 

Ben nodded slowly. “I know.”

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Samantha slipped into the room just in time to see Kurt emerging from the bathroom with a pair of jeans on and nothing else. Hair still damp from his shower, eyes glowing softly in the hazy morning light, he looked good—damn good, and Samantha had to blink and remind herself that she wasn't there to enjoy the scenery. “Morning, taijya,” she quipped lightly.

 

He shot her a quick glance before turning his attention to the breakfast tray that Gin had delivered a bit ago. “Morning . . . you know, I think they feed me every morning in hopes that I'll puke it all back up during their daily torture sessions,” he pointed out dryly.

 

She giggled and hurried over to hug him, letting her fingertips trace over the soft skin of his back, inhaling the clean scent of him. “Can I ask you something?”

 

He snorted but slowly slipped his arms around her. “What's that?”

 

She smiled. “What's your full name?”

 

That question earned her a rather dubious look. “Why?”

 

“Humor me,” she countered.

 

He rolled his eyes, reaching around her for a biscuit. “I was named after my father. Why?”

 

“Was his name `Sexy', too?”

 

He snorted but blushed at that, breaking off a large hunk of biscuit and shoving it into her mouth. “Crazy little demon,” he muttered with a shake of his head. “No, my name's Douglas Kurt Drevin, Jr. Now why?”

 

“That sounds so respectable,” she quipped, swallowing the biscuit with a giggle.

 

Bas leaned into the room. “Come on, Drevin. You get to fight me today.”

 

Samantha smothered a laugh. It was plain that Bas thought that fighting him was a great thing, but it was equally plain, judging from the look on Kurt's face that he simply didn't agree in the least.

 

“If I die, scatter my ashes over the polar ice caps, won't you?” he muttered, letting go of Samantha and heading for the door.

 

She did laugh at that. “Kick his ass, taijya,” she called after him.

 

Kurt's snort lingered in the air long after he'd headed down the hallway, and with another soft giggle, Samantha followed along behind to tell her grandfather the answer to his question.

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

Kurt was really starting to dread these little misadventures that always seemed to lead to Cain Zelig's office, never mind that this one had put off what would have doubtless been another sound trouncing dealt him by that damned battle tank, Bas . . .

 

When he let himself into the office, it was to find Cain reading over something with a thoughtful scowl on his features.

 

“You wanted to talk to me?” he asked without preamble.

 

Cain started and sat up a little straighter. “Yeah . . . Sit down, please.”

 

Kurt did but couldn't quite shake the feeling of unease as he waited. Something about the odd soberness in Zelig's aura—Samantha called it `youki' . . .

 

“Your . . . your family . . . You were from North Dakota, right?” Cain asked at length.

 

Kurt nodded as a trill of suspicion raced up his spine. “Yeah.”

 

Cain sighed. “Douglas K. Drevin, Lainie Thompson Drevin, and your baby sister, Caroline . . .”

 

Kurt grimaced, unsure why it bothered him so much, to hear their names spoken out loud. “Yeah . . .”

 

Cain nodded. “And your aunt and uncle.”

 

“. . . Yeah.”

 

Dropping the papers onto the desktop, Cain sat back and rubbed his eyes. “I thought so.”

 

“Why?” Kurt demanded flatly.

 

Cain got to his feet, stuffed his hands into his pockets as he turned toward the window. “We never knew why they attacked your family. Just chalked it up to the erratic actions of the lesser-youkai . . . causing trouble, targeting a family for whatever reason . . . I get it now, of course. They could sense your gift, couldn't they? Knew you could see through their concealments . . . and thought you were a threat.”

 

“So I was told,” Kurt agreed evenly despite the anger that soared inside him; an anger that he couldn't quell.

 

Cain nodded. “And you've spent your entire life, trying to track them down, right?”

 

Kurt ground his teeth together. “Something like that,” he allowed.

 

Lighting a cigarette, Cain slowly turned to face him, his eyes sad, brightened by a certain melancholy that Kurt couldn't quite credit. “And if you'd found them? What then?”

 

Clenching his jaw so tightly that it hurt, Kurt's expression hardened. “I'll kill them,” he replied.

 

Cain nodded slowly. “That's what I thought.”

 

Kurt shot to his feet, stalking the length of the study and back. “Listen, Zelig, I have to do this. For what they did . . . I have to . . .”

 

Cain sighed as though he'd expected as much. “I know,” he said quietly. “That's why . . .”

 

“You don't get it,” Kurt growled, unwilling to let Cain try to talk him out of it. “You have no idea! Those . . . those demons . . . they gutted my mother—cut up my father . . . They ripped my sister to pieces because . . . because I could see them! All of it—all of it—and it . . . It was my fault, and . . . and you have no idea what that's like . . .”

 

“Kurt,” Cain said softly, sadly, “you won't find them.”

 

He spun around to glower at Cain, shaking his head in sheer disbelief. “I don't need your approval,” he bit out. “I don't.”

 

“No, Kurt, you don't understand,” Cain interrupted in an even calmer tone of voice. “They're dead. They were hunted down for what they'd done, and they're dead.”

 

Kurt froze, his brain slowing to a crawl, unable to comprehend what Cain claimed. “Wh-what?”

 

Cain drew a long drag off his cigarette and slowly let the smoke escape in a long ribbon. “I issued a hunt for them, and one of my men saw it through. Those youkai that killed your family . . . They've been dead for years.”

 

Kurt shook his head, sank into the nearest chair, hunching forward with his hands dug into his hair. A thousand memories shot through his head; a hundred screams and a million cries for help . . . a nonsensical order, a macabre dream—all of it gone but never forgotten. He couldn't give it a rhyme or reason; couldn't make himself understand. The things that had driven him his whole life through . . . and what was it worth?

 

Cain crossed the floor, sat down across from him on the fawn brown suede sofa. “Kurt . . . youkai are not allowed to do what those youkai did to your family. It's my job to make sure that those who do are taken care of so that they can never hurt anyone again . . . to protect what we are and our way of life . . . You never should have had to go through any of that, and . . . and I'm sorry that you had to, but if it makes any difference at all to you . . .” He paused and sighed, as though he were trying to decide whether or not he should tell Kurt the rest. “You killed one of them,” he said. “The investigator I sent down there reported a strange burn mark on the ground. We thought that it was just the residual marking of an attack, but . . . but when my hunter tracked the three of them down—”

 

Kurt's head shot up, his eyes wary, confused. “There were two,” he said. “Only two.”

 

Cain shook his head. “There were three. The last one was their leader, it seemed. He's the one . . . He was nearly dead when Cartham caught up to them after they murdered your aunt and uncle. Cartham said that he would have died within the day or so, anyway. At the time, we figured it was just infighting or something. What did it matter? They were taken care of, but now I think . . . I think you did it.”

 

Kurt snorted. “I didn't do a damn thing,” he argued. “I was too little, too weak . . . I didn't . . . I couldn't . . .”

 

Cain sighed and managed a little smile—just a little one. “I think you somehow managed to put up a barrier, Kurt. That's what saved you. You saved yourself. That's what I think.”

 

“I . . . I don't remember . . .” he admitted.

 

Cain shrugged. “You could talk to Cartham sometime if you wanted. He comes in from time to time. He'd remember; I'm sure. Cartham doesn't forget a hell of a lot.”

 

Kurt nodded slowly and got to his feet. The overwhelming desire to be alone was a fierce one, and he didn't think as he headed out of the room, toward the front door.

 

Bas stopped in the doorway and shot his father a confused sort of glance before starting after Kurt. Cain's voice stopped him. “Let him go for now,” he said.

 

Bas shot Cain a troubled look.

 

Cain stood up and nodded. “It's all right. He's not going far. He just needs some time to think.”

 

“What happened?” Bas pressed.

 

Cain's answer was awhile in coming, and when it did, it was tinged with sadness, a kind of regret. “I think he just realized that there's nothing left for him to fear.”

 

Bas still didn't look like he understood what Cain meant, and that was all right. He would after he became tai-youkai one day. Cain sighed and shook his head at his own thoughts. Sometimes his job really sucked, didn't it?

 

This was one of those times.

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

He wasn't sure where he was going. There wasn't any conscious thought in his mind. Thoughts kept swirling, half-formed, bleeding into one another without reason, with only a modicum of comprehension.

 

Those monsters . . .? But . . .

 

Closing his eyes, he kept walking, stumbling, sight unseeing. His entire life . . . had there ever really been a point? The last crumbling remnants of everything he'd ever believed . . . everything he'd ever done . . . and there never had been a reason . . .

 

Trudging along the pebbly beach, he slipped around the base of the cliff that served to shelter the cove and blinked as he stepped inside the tiny nook. Three walls of rock surrounded the area—quiet, private, perfectly isolated . . .

 

Sinking down in the tender, sparse grass that grew up through the sandy terrain, he closed his eyes for a moment, unable to ignore the void, the emptiness that threatened to encompass him. What was it worth? Those years of anger, of bitterness, of righteous indignation . . . Those emotions that had fueled his very existence for so very long . . . What was anything worth anymore?

 

He grimaced, leaning his elbows on his knees, burying his face in his hands. He'd single-handedly masterminded more hatred in his life than he could credit, and all because of those moments when he had felt as though he couldn't do a damn thing. All he'd done was hurt everyone and everything around him, and . . .

 

“Daddy!”

 

Chin snapping up at the sound of that one little voice, Kurt's eyes came to focus on the tiny girl as she wiggled free of Samantha's grasp to dart over to his side. “Tanny, Daddy? Tanny?” she asked hopefully.

 

Samantha smiled gently, leaning against the rock wall with her arms crossed over her chest, her hair tossed ever so lightly by the invisible fingers of the salty breeze. “I followed you,” she confessed quietly.

 

He handed the child a fistful of candy as a sad, bitter smile touched his lips. “They're dead,” he said just as quietly. “All of them.”

 

“Who?”

 

He shrugged, as though it were of no real consequence, forcing himself to lend voice to the thoughts that were twisting and turning and tumbling around inside him. “The . . . the monsters,” he replied with a sigh. “Your grandfather had them hunted.”

 

She didn't seem at all surprised by the admission, but she did push herself away from the rocks and wander toward him. “I told you,” she said quietly, simply. “Youkai aren't allowed to hurt humans, and those who do . . . We deal with them, too.”

 

He shot her a look then shook his head before returning his gaze to the sea. “But I never knew that,” he said. “And when I think about the things I've done because I thought I was right . . . because I thought that your kind were . . . were monsters . . .”

 

“And how were you supposed to know? Who was supposed to have told you? Kurt . . .” Gentle fingertips turned his chin, forced him to look at her: at the infinite sadness veiled in the depths of her gaze. “Don't live in the past,” she whispered, her brow furrowing, as though she were trying to make him understand. “All you see when you look back are regrets . . . and I don't ever want to be one of yours, okay?”

 

“What am I going to do?” he muttered, scanning her face for an answer—any answer. “I have . . . nothing—no reason, no purpose . . .”

 

“You have me . . .”

 

“Do I?”

 

She nodded, her smile timid, almost uncertain. “I don't want you to be sad or bitter or alone . . . Maybe we can find something else, you know? Another reason for you . . .” Her expression brightened suddenly, a ray of sunshine in his world of darkness. “How about this? I'll live the rest of my life for you—to make you laugh and smile and to give you good memories, and you . . . you can do that for me, too.”

 

Kurt let out a deep breath and uttered a small little laugh. “You make it sound so easy.”

 

“It could be,” she told him. “You just have to want it.”

 

“Is that right?”

 

She nodded as the child crawled back toward him once more with her hand outstretched and a brilliant smile on her face. “Daddy, hugs!” she announced, throwing her little arms around Kurt's neck.

 

He blinked and stared for a long moment. “You taught her another word,” he said.

 

Samantha nodded, her smile widening. “It's a nice word, don't you think?”

 

And suddenly, he realized something, an understanding of exactly what the little demon had tried to tell him for so very long. He'd spent his life walking backward, staring at the past and hating himself for the things that he couldn't change. Was that the difference? Was that the thing that he'd never fully been able to put his finger on? That thing ingrained so deeply within her that she knew it instinctively? She didn't look back, did she? Didn't look over her shoulder for demons that were trying to catch up with her, because she let them go as soon as they faded. That was the real reason that she was still able to smile, still able to trust and to love . . .

 

Even if he wasn't sure that he could be that way, too, there was some measure of truth in the things she said, wasn't there? To look forward instead of looking back, and maybe all that really meant was that he needed to put words to those things that he wanted more than anything else . . .

 

“Sam . . .”

 

“Hmm?” she intoned, reaching over to pluck a bit of dandelion fluff out of the child's hair.

 

“I want to ask you something, but I want your honest reply. Don't say anything just because you think that it's something that I want to hear, okay?”

 

She frowned at the seriousness in his tone but nodded. “All right.”

 

He drew a deep breath, his gaze shifting to the little girl who was stooped over, gingerly moving a hunk of driftwood aside to see what was underneath. “Would you . . .? Do you think you . . .? How would you feel about . . . about a-adopting her?”

 

Samantha's breath was audible, and she sat completely still, breathless, for a moment. It was as though she were afraid that he was going to tell her that he was joking or something silly like that, but she slowly, hesitantly met his gaze. “You . . . you want to?”

 

“I never really thought about having a family of my own,” he admitted with a shake of his head. “Just seems like . . . like she should be in it, too—if I have one, that is.”

 

He blinked and gasped then grunted as he fell back against the sand. Samantha was little more than a blur of motion, bearing him down, covering his face with kisses. “S-Samantha . . .”

 

She laughed, straddling his chest as she continued to barrage him with affection. Kurt chuckled then shook his head. “I guess that means you want to . . .”

 

It took a moment for him to realize that there were two sets of lips accosting him. Opening his eyes, he couldn't help the small laugh that escaped him. The child, it seemed, had decided that attacking him looked like fun, and for once, Kurt didn't try to sit up or push them back. “You're sure?” he asked Samantha.

 

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “I'm sure,” she replied happily.

 

“Tanny?” the child asked suddenly.

 

Kurt shook his head. “So much for that,” he muttered as he sat up to dig a piece of candy out of his pocket. “Here, Stinky-butt.”

 

“You know, she really ought to have a name, then,” Samantha pointed out reasonably.

 

“What's wrong with Stinky-butt?”

 

Samantha heaved a longsuffering sigh. “I just don't think that'll look good on a birth certificate; do you?”

 

Kurt leaned back on his hands as Samantha cuddled against his chest. “I'm not good with names,” he said. “You pick one.”

 

“Well, there's always Iris,” she teased.

 

Kurt shot her a droll look. “Yeah, no,” he said then frowned. “It should be something that's easy for her to say, don't you think?”

 

Samantha nodded. “Well, the only thing she says on a regular basis is `Tanny',” she pointed out.

 

Kurt smiled just a little. “Tanny . . . is kind of cute.”

 

Samantha laughed. “You want to name her Tanny?”

 

He considered it for a moment as he watched the girl shriek and dash away from a crab that had crawled ashore nearby. “Tanny,” he called. The girl turned around, staring at him with complete anticipation. “Well, she answers to it,” he pointed out.

 

Samantha giggled. “You know, I like it.”

 

“Do you?”

 

She nodded as Kurt watched the child poke a long twig at the crab from a safer distance. `Yeah,' he thought with a satisfied sigh. `Tanny's not so bad . . .'

 

 

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

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MMorg

Sesshomaru4Kagura4ever ------ sheastarr334 ------ Firedemon86 ------ malitiadixie ------ Usagiseren05 ------ CandyEars ------ darkangel05 ------ kds1222 ------ kittycatkitten ------ Jester08 ------ Dark Inuu Fan ------ My-Only-Love

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Forum

Mangaluva ------ Firedemon86 ------ malitiadixie ------ cutechick18 ------ laura.beth ------ Evan Lover ------ tragic-hellion

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Final Thought from Samantha:

Tanny …

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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~