InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Fruition ❯ Deadlock ( Chapter 22 )

"H-Hello . . . Can I help you . . .?" Charity asked, staring the stranger, up and down and back up again.  A little taller than Ben, a lot lankier than him, too, but by no means was he skinny . . . His build brought her brother, Mamoruzen to mind, and yet there was an understated electricity that seemed to envelop him as a very slow grin spread over his ridiculously pretty features.  She used to think that her younger brother was the prettiest male alive, but no, this one . . . This one most assuredly won that title, hands down, from the absolutely chiseled features of his face that were softened to keep the angles from being entirely too stark to the slight almond shape of his eyes, giving them an exotically sultry tilt, and the aura surrounding him was mesmerizing, given the almost lyrical way his body moved . . . Carelessly flipping a long strand of sun-streaked, lightest brown-slash-dark-blonde hair over the shoulder of the impeccably tailored suit jacket he wore—Ador Miseanblas, if she was right about the designer—as he let his gaze roam up and over her, he chuckled softly—an almost too-familiar sort of sound that unsettled her, even if she had no idea why.

"May I?" he asked, gesturing at the opened doorway.  His words were touched by a very distinct Japanese accent that she recognized, though he did well in minimizing it, enough that she knew that he possessed a very respectable command of the English language.

She nodded—her voice somehow gone—and watched as he stepped over the threshold, taking in his surroundings in much the same way that a wild animal might peruse the area for any sign of threat before he ventured any further inside.  His eyes were more of a hazy blue color—bright blue with flecks of near-green that seemed to take on an independent light all their own, and when he finally shifted his gaze past Charity and toward the stairs, he chuckled.  "Ben," he greeted, his smile widening by degrees as he offered the panther general a deep bow, yet retaining the strangely perfunctory sense of manners.

Ben didn't look very pleased to see the man, though, and he nodded.  "Kyouhei," he replied tightly.  "What are you doing here?"

'Kyouhei?  Then he's Ben's brother, right . . .?  But he's not a panther-youkai . . .' Charity narrowed her gaze on Ben at his perceived rudeness.  He either missed the look or he chose to ignore it.

"Well, I was waiting for you to extend an invitation to visit," Kyouhei remarked in an entirely off-the-cuff kind of way.  "Then I realized you weren't going to, so I decided to come, anyway."  Stuffing his hands into his pockets and leaning back on his heels, he stared at Ben for an inordinately long moment before finally nodding.  "Otou-san and okaa-san send their . . . highest regards."

"I'm sure they do," Ben replied tersely.  Charity frowned at the odd undertone in his words.

It felt more like a bizarre stand-off rather than a meeting between brothers, and no matter how Charity considered it, it just wasn't normal.  She had a feeling that whatever was bothering Ben about his brother's unexpected visit, he wasn't about to say it when she was standing right there, either.  "We're going for a walk," she said, needing to distance herself and the twins from the overwhelming tension that hung thick in the air between the two men.  The girls were already fussing just a little, likely because they could feel the discomfort and were reacting to it.  If she didn't get them out of there soon, they'd end up entirely discomfited, and that wasn't something Charity was willing to allow.

"Be careful," Ben called after her as she hurried around Kyouhei toward the door.  He waited until she was gone before turning his attention back to his brother once more.  "How long will you be staying?"

Giving an almost casual shrug, Kyouhei's smile lost a trace of the near-cynicism that he'd carried in with him.  "I don't know," he replied.  "I suppose that I'll stay until I feel the need to move on."

"Like you did the last time?" Ben countered mildly.

Kyouhei chuckled.  "Touché, Benjiro."

Ben sighed, slowly shaking his head.  Willing himself to let go of his irritation that really didn't have a thing to do with his younger brother's unceremonious appearance, he drew a deep breath and counted to twenty.  "How are they?"

"They're fine as ever," Kyouhei remarked, following as Ben stepped past him into the living room.  "Okaa-san just recently spoke of you, though—first time I can remember her doing that in . . . two?  Three hundred years . . .?"

"Can't imagine that she had anything good to say," Ben remarked, pouring a glass of brandy and handing it over.

Kyouhei took it but didn't drink, idly swirling the contents as he held it up to catch the light.  "She didn't curse the day you were born, if that's what you mean."

"Progress," Ben allowed as a wry grin surfaced.  "And chichiue?"

Not surprisingly, Kyouhei made a face.  "At the mention of your name, he went outside and decimated a few trees."

Sipping the brandy, Ben nodded slowly.  "As I thought."

"Do you know that I was nearly eighty before they even mentioned that even I had an older brother?"

Ben sloshed more brandy into his snifter as a sardonic half-smile quirked the corner of his lips.  "That doesn't surprise me, either," he admitted.

"Yes, well . . . It would have been nice to know that a little sooner," Kyouhei muttered.

"If it makes you feel any better, I didn't find out about you until Sesshoumaru mentioned that they'd had another son after I'd left," Ben remarked.

Kyouhei chuckled.  "Parents of the Century material, surely . . ."

"Water under the bridge," Ben maintained.  "I left all of that—them—behind a long time ago."

"I have to admit, I've never really understood any of that.   Of course, it doesn't help that they won't talk about it much, either."

Ben shook his head.  "Suffice it to say that it was a long time ago, and we didn't see eye to eye about . . . about a lot of things."

"So . . ." Kyouhei drawled, obviously deciding that a change in topic was in order.  "The woman and the cubs . . .?"

"They're . . . The twins . . . We're adopting them," Ben explained.  "Charity's a . . . a friend, and she bonded with them, too."

He looked surprised at that, which wasn't entirely surprising.  "But she is not your mate," he said.  "And yet, the two of you will . . . share custody?"

"Not exactly," Ben said.  "She lives here, too.  I'm away on business now and then, so we thought it would be best for the twins if she moved in."

Kyouhei nodded vaguely, thoughtfully, as though he were pondering something.  "Her coloring . . . She's the daughter of the tai-youkai, is she not?"

"She's one of them," Ben agreed.

"Even so, adopting a child with a woman who isn't your mate?  Isn't that an entirely human conception?" Kyouhei went on.

Ben shrugged.  "It doesn't matter as long as the girls are cared for," he insisted mildly.

"That's very neoteric of you," Kyouhei remarked.  "Though it may interest okaa-san, if you were to tell her about your babies . . . Then again, perhaps not . . ."

"Somehow, I doubt that telling her about the girls will do much for me to curry her favor," he said ruefully.  “Besides, given that they’re not biologically mine?  As much as I don’t give a great goddamn, where they came from, I daresay hahaue might have a few things to say about it.  The pride of the bloodlines and all that.”

"Funny how some things haven’t changed, I take it," Kyouhei went on, his tone, taking on a rather philosophical lilt.  "Sometimes, they're entirely too old-school, if you ask me."

“I don’t see that ever changing,” Ben muttered darkly.

“I can’t say that any of that makes a bit of sense to me,” Kyouhei admitted with an offhanded shrug.  “If it works for you, though, I have nothing at all to say.”

Satisfied that he was going to let the subject drop, Ben relaxed just a little bit, though not by much.  Still, something about Kyouhei’s bearing, his demeanor . . . Ben frowned.  “They don’t know you’re here, do they?”

Kyouhei blinked, finally managed a soft chuckle that sounded borderline amused.  “No . . . No, they don’t,” he admitted.

Digesting that for a long minute, Ben’s frown deepened.  “I feel like this isn’t exactly a social call.  Am I right?”  Setting the snifter aside, he crossed his arms over his chest and leveled a no-nonsense look at his brother.  "How about you tell me why you're really here."

For once, Kyouhei didn't try to make a joke, didn't try to hide his motivations behind the devil-may-care façade he'd worked so hard to perfect.  He sighed, raking his free hand through his long bangs to shove them back, off of his face.  "It's getting ugly."

"What's that?"

Shifting his head just enough to cast Ben a sidelong stare, Kyouhei didn't answer right away.  It was more like he was trying to decide exactly how much he wanted to divulge, and, in the end, he shook his head, sending those bangs right back into his face once more.  "You still work for the Zelig, yes?"

"Yes . . . Does it matter?"

"It might," Kyouhei allowed, shifting his gaze out the bank of windows overlooking the small but meticulously-kempt back yard.  "I doubt that the unrest would spread this far, but there is talk in the elder circles, a fell whisper on the winds that I've heard . . ."

A distinct sense of unease rose in Ben, a slow unfurling of near-dread . . . "And what are they saying?"

"Have you heard of Tetsuo?"

Ben nodded slowly.  "Tetsuo of the southern realm?  The one who fancies himself tai-youkai of that region?"

Kyouhei nodded, too.  "Delusional old bastard . . . I hear that he is drawing together his forces, that he is set to make a move against the Inu no Taisho."

"Sesshoumaru?  Why?"

Giving a little shrug, he finally lifted his glass to his lips, though he kept his gaze trained out the windows.  "They question his edicts—dislike taking a back-seat while the humans control the world . . . They question the idea that Sesshoumaru-sama would dare to acknowledge a hanyou as heir to the office of the tai-youkai—and potentially beyond."

Ben digested that for a moment.  If this rumor was true, Tetsuo was likely the only being on earth who stood a chance against Sesshoumaru in a battle of pure brute strength.  The one time the two had clashed centuries before was the stuff of legend, ending up with a mountain being shattered that eventually crumbled into the sea . . .

"Why didn't you take this to Sesshoumaru if you were so concerned?"

"I had my reasons.  Anyway, that is why I came to you now . . . I seek your counsel on the matter, Benjiro."

"I have nothing to do with Japanese politics," he pointed out.

"Politics in general, no, but . . . " Wandering over to the windows, Kyouhei leaned against the frame, and his answer was a long time in coming.  "Otou-san," he finally said.  "Otou-san is siding with Tetsuo."

"Otou-san is siding with Tetsuo."

Rubbing his forehead as he pondered Kyouhei's words, Ben let out a deep breath.  In truth, he wasn't at all sure what he ought to do.  Well, that wasn't entirely true.  He knew that he'd have to share the information that Kyouhei had given him.  But he hated to do that when the only thing he had thus far was hearsay, and as much as he'd like to trust his brother, the truth of it was that he really didn't know him well enough to simply take it all at face-value, either, despite the gut feeling that Kyouhei was being entirely serious about the whole damn thing.

'Not really surprising, given that you've only seen him a couple of times in over three hundred years—closer to four hundred, actually . . .'

Letting out a deep breath, he stood up, wandered over to the swords, hung on the wall.  He hadn't used them in a very long time—actually hadn't thought about them much, either.  Forged in the wakizashi style—dual blades that were the mark of samurais and swordsmen—and forged from Ben's claws and his father's fangs, the weapons were more for show these days than for actual use, hanging on the wall in Ben's office as a silent reminder of the bygone days when he'd worn them daily as par for course . . .

"Ben?"

Turning his head to meet Charity's gaze, he forced a little smile when he spotted her, lingering in the archway with the babies in her arms.  "Is everything . . . okay?" she asked, carefully choosing her words.  He could see the questions awash in her gaze, but he stubbornly refused to answer them.  How could he give her answers, anyway, when he really had no idea just what was going on himself . . .?

"It's fine," he lied, knowing on some level that she wasn't going to buy it, but hoping that she'd let it go.  "How was your walk?"

"It was nice," she allowed, stepping toward him as the babies squirmed in an effort to get to him.

He chuckled and took them both, balancing them carefully as he stepped over to the chair and sat down.  "Are these new?" he asked, nodding at the pretty little dresses the girls were wearing.

Charity nodded.  "They're outgrowing their clothes faster than they can wear them," she commented.  "Maybe we should just let them run naked."

"I don't have a problem with that," he said, then shrugged.  "Well, until they're older and start developing . . . stuff . . ."

"Stuff?" she echoed, smiling despite herself.  "You mean, like breasts and things?"

He nodded.  "Yes.  Stuff."

Shaking her head, she rolled her eyes as her smile slowly faded, only to leave behind a pensive sort of expression, a serious brightness in her amber eyes.  "Your brother . . . He left?"

Ben sighed as Charity took Nadia and settled in the chair beside him.  "He went to go check out of the hotel.  I told him he could stay here."

"You don't seem very happy that he came," she said.

"It's . . . complicated," he remarked.  "I didn't even know I had a younger brother until a few hundred years ago."

"But he's not a panther, is he?"

Ben shrugged, as though dismissing her observation.  "Kyouhei takes after hahaue: he is an earth element handler, just like her.   I've never seen him fight, but I remember when I was small.  Chichiue pissed her off, and she leveled our hut and all the crop fields in a three-mile radius . . ."

Charity nodded as she considered that.  "How old is he?  Your brother?"

"I . . . I don't know," Ben admitted.  "Over three hundred . . . Not quite four hundred, I don't think . . . maybe . . ."  He made a face.  "I really don't know.  You'd have to ask him."

She frowned and shook her head.  "I don't understand," she said at length.  "How could your parents not tell you?"

Ben sighed.  He didn't really want to get into the whole thing, but Charity ought to know.  "My parents were . . . not pleased when I decided to leave the Old World," he explained.  "They thought I was foolish.  They hated Keijizen.  They thought he was still the same irresponsible cub that I'd grown up with.  Chichiue said that he would lead me to my death, and hahaue . . ." He grimaced.  "She wanted me to take Manami as my mate and to settle down near them, but . . . I asked her to come with me.  She didn't want to leave her sister, and Setsuna didn't want to leave Japan . . . Nami never would have left her behind.  Even so . . ."  He shrugged.  "Hahaue never forgave me for that, I guess.  They both said . . . They said if I refused to listen to reason—if I insisted upon leaving with Keijizen, that they had no son."

"Your mother . . . She wanted you to . . .  to become Manami's mate . . ."

He could have kicked himself for reminding her of that kiss, even though it wasn't intentional.  "Charity—"

"Your . . . housekeeper . . ." Kyouhei said as he stepped into the room with a frown on his face as he gestured back the way he'd come.  "She's outside, yelling at some poor fool . . ."

Ben's eyebrows raised and he slowly stood up.  "What's she yelling?"

Kyouhei shook his head.  "I believe I heard the words 'old pervert', among other things . . ."

"Old pervert?" Charity replied as she rose, too.  Hurrying out of the office with Ben fast on her heels, she yanked the door open and stopped short, eyes widening as they spotted Eddie, standing on the steps, finger out and poking a middle-aged man in the center of the chest.

"Quit stalking me, John Martin!  I'll have you arrested!  Now, give me that bag, and go away!"

John Martin made a face, the poor man looking absolutely as confused as it was possible to look, but he handed over the shopping bag and took a step back in retreat.  "Does this mean you don't want to go get dinner sometime?" he asked.

Ben sighed as Eddie, who had turned to come inside, whipped around again.  "Of course, I don't, you old pervert!  Now, go away, and leave me alone before I call the police!"

The man still didn't quite take the hint, though.  "Eddie?"

"What?" she blasted as she hurried up the steps onto the porch.

"Are you going to the market tomorrow, too?"

Rolling her eyes, she growled low in her throat, but not before Ben saw the hint of a blush on her cheeks as she whipped her head to the side to yell at the man again.  "Don't I go every damn day?" she snarled.

Ben pressed his lips together as tightly as he possibly could to keep from laughing outright at the strange display unfolding before him.

"All right, then!  See you tomorrow, Eddie," he called after her.

Eddie snorted.  "Out of my way, Ben Philips," she grumbled.

Ben quickly stepped aside and lifted a hand when John Martin waved and ambled away, whistling a happy tune under his breath.

Charity shook her head as Eddie stomped past them.  "That . . . was the weirdest thing I've ever seen," she murmured.

"Yes," Ben agreed.  "Yes, it was . . ."