InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Fruition ❯ Whispers ( Chapter 29 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

"This . . . is a really weird game, Cherry."

Charity giggled and reached over to take Emmeline from her father then handed over Nadia.  "You've got Nadi, so it's your turn."

Rolling his eyes, he still chuckled.  "I promise I won't bug your phone to listen in on calls from boys—after you're twenty-one."

"Wo-o-o-ow, Ben," she drawled, shaking her head, "that one's sad—really sad."

Ben's smile didn't diminish.  "Your turn."

"Hmm," she said, shifting her face to the side as she pursed her lips and pondered her next promise.  "Em, I promise that I'll break your daddy's surveillance equipment—Are you really going to be that bad of an overprotective father, Ben?"

Ben raised his eyebrows and glanced around before leveling a look at Charity.  "Yeah.  I am."

She heaved a sigh and traded babies with Ben yet again.  The girls thought the whole thing was great, even if they didn't understand what was being said.  "Okay.  I promise that I'll let you have candy whenever you want it so you get nice and chubby.  Maybe that'll keep the little shits at bay."

Charity made a face.  "And I promise you that I'll get you and your sister lifetime memberships at the gym of your choice."

Ben snorted indelicately.  "You're ruining my promises," he informed her.

She wrinkled her nose.  "Then be serious!  You're not going to do any of that stuff, you know!  Do you want them to grow up, hating you?"  She waved a hand.  "All right, so they may not hate you, but you know you won't ever be their favorite person, right?"

"Yes, well, as much as I respect Toga-the-tai-youkai, I have to question just what he was thinking while raising you and your sisters.  I think you all had a little more freedom than you should have.  Just look how Chelsea turned out."

Cocking an eyebrow, Charity narrowed her gaze on the man.  "That's my papa you're disparaging," she reminded him.

Ben snorted.  "No, the more I think about it, the more I think that InuYasha had it right with Gin . . ."

Charity snorted.  Loudly.  "And she almost died, Ben, so no, I don't think he had it right, either."

"All right, so he was a little extreme.  Even so, you have to admit that the world is not a nice place, and I'd rather keep them safe from it than to let them go out there and get hurt in the process."

Charity sat back, snuggling Emmeline in her lap as the baby leaned forward, yammering away at her twin.  She was pretty convinced that they could understand one another.  It wouldn't surprise her.  She'd didn't remember a time when she couldn’t talk to Chelsea on some level.  "And yet, you have to let go, too, Ben.  You can't protect them their whole lives or they don't learn how to live in the world, either.  Papa understood this, and, yes, he was pretty protective, but he wasn't overbearing, either.  At a certain point, you have to let go and trust that you've given them a solid enough foundation that they can make those choices, and if they fail?  Then you just be there for them.  That's what my papa and mama did for me."

Ben sighed.  "You're going to be a better mother than I am a father; I just know it."

"It's not a contest, Ben," she pointed out gently.

He snorted.  "I just . . ." He sighed.  "My parents weren't exactly the most hands-on people.  I was left to my own devices a lot.  My earliest memories weren't of them.  I remember exploring and searching and . . . and spending days upon days, just wandering.  I'm sure I went home, of course, but I can't say I remember a lot of it, and in a way, it was good.  I grew to be independent, and yet . . . Maybe it wasn't such a good thing, either."

"Do you really think that?  I mean, wasn't that the reason why you were able to leave with Keijizen?  Because you were allowed the freedom to understand what your limitations were?  Because you developed a sense of independence from the way you were raised?"

"Yes, well, I'm sure they regretted that later," he muttered ruefully.  "Makes me wonder exactly how they raised Kyouhei.  Did they give him that much freedom?  Or did they fear that it would lead him to follow a different path than the one they wanted him to travel?"

"They used guilt a lot, if you must know."

Ben blinked and sat up just enough to peer over Charity as Kyouhei stepped out of the house and onto the patio.  "How did you get here?  I didn't even sense you . . ."

Kyouhei chuckled as he strode over and picked up Emmeline, only to heft her high in the air, much to the child's delight.  "I flew."

Ben nodded and rolled his hand.  "Yeah, I gathered that much."

Kyouhei's grin widened.  "No, I mean, I used my energy form, ba-a-a-a-aka."

Ben opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it closed as he sat up straight, casting a suspect eye around.  "You . . . You didn't bring Eddie with you, did you?" he asked.

Kyouhei chuckled.  "Was I supposed to?"

Ben snorted.  "Not particularly … I don't think this house is big enough for both of us, in any case."

Offering a little chuckle as Emmeline bounced in his arms in an effort to get him to swing her around again, Kyouhei shrugged.  "Yeah, she said that, too."

"Figures."

"Oh, and Zelig-sama asked that you give him a call as soon as you can," Kyouhei went on.  "It sounded fairly urgent."

Ben heaved a sigh as he carefully swung his legs off of the huge hammock and managed to stand up without upsetting Charity or Nadia.  "I'll be right back," he said, striding across the patio and into the house to find the satellite phone.

Kyouhei watched him go as he sat down on one of the nearby chairs.  "You seem to be in a lot better spirits than you were before you left.  The beach is good for you," he remarked after Ben disappeared from view.

Charity smiled, swinging off the hammock in favor of moving over beside Kyouhei.  "It is nice out here," she allowed with a shrug.  "Why did you come down?"

His smile faded, though he tried to hang onto it.  Then he sighed.  "I'm going back to Japan," he said.  "I just thought I'd come and say goodbye."

She frowned as Ben's words came back to her.  "One of the dissidents in charge . . . He's the man I used to call 'father'."

"Kyouhei-san . . . Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," he said, gently bouncing Emmeline on his knee.  "You can also drop the 'san', if you'd like."

"Ben . . . He said that your father . . . That he . . ."

"That he's plotting against your grandfather," he supplied in a matter-of-fact tone.  "It's true."

Charity frowned.  "Then why in the world would you go back there?  You . . . You're not . . .?"  She winced.  "I know he's your father, that you must love him.  If it were my father . . ." she shook her head, struggling to find words for what she was trying to say.  "It's just . . . If there's a battle—if it came to that . . ."

"He is my father," Kyouhei said as he stood up, shuffling over the patio as he considered what he was going to say.  "I don't know what Ben's told you, and, in truth, I have no idea what kinds of memories he has of otou-san.  I only know the man I know—the one who raised me.  The problem is, for every good memory I have of him, I have ten that aren't nearly as pleasant or are apathetic, at best.  For years, they would tell me that I had to be loyal, that I could never question otou-san's authority . . . That I was nothing outside of the family."  A cynical sort of sneer surfaced on his face, and Charity blinked.  Had she realized that he was even capable of that kind of expression?  "I was nearly one hundred years old before they saw fit to tell me about Ben's existence," he went on quietly.  "They said he'd betrayed them.  They said . . ." He swallowed hard, turned to stare over his shoulder at her, his eyes dark, angry.  "They said he was dead to them, and for years, I fostered hatred toward my brother—a brother I had never met.  But I started to hear whispers of him—Ben Philips.  He had never in his life ever taken the name my father had chosen—yet the things that came to me bespoke a different kind of man than the one that otou-san had condemned."

"Ben's a good man," Charity said, unable to keep the indignation from her voice.  "He's one of the best men I've ever met.  He's got more decency, more integrity, more—"

He chuckled and offered her a bow of his head.  "You don't have to laud his praises to me," he assured her.  "I couldn’t tell you when or how or why it happened, but slowly, slowly, that hatred I'd carried toward Ben . . . It became more of a curiosity than anything, so I traveled here then, but he was busy, and I wasn't entirely certain what to think of him . . .That visit ended fairly abruptly, I confess.  When I returned home, however, I started questioning things—things I hadn't before.  The unerring loyalty, the insistence that I never gainsay them . . . It wasn't a conscious decision by any means, but the things that I started to understand . . . And the one thing that I know is this: Ben has never gone out of his way to badmouth our parents, and what he thinks of the entire thing . . . Well, I have no real idea about that, either.  All I know is that Otou-san blames Sesshoumaru-sama for Ben's defection, and over the centuries, it has festered and grown into an ugliness that is just now bearing its rotten fruit."

She digested that in silence, idly stroking Nadia's hair.  It was true, wasn't it, that the things Ben had said to her about his parents weren't unkind as much as they were simply fact, as he saw it.  If Kyouhei saw it, too, though . . . "But if you know all this, if you've come to the same conclusions as Ben has, then why?  Knowing what you know, why would you go back?"

Kyouhei sighed.  "Your father's asked me to go back, to get more information if I can," he admitted.  "I've decided to help the Inu no Taisho—the real Inu no Taisho."

"At what cost?" she asked quietly.

"Sometimes," he said, a thoughtful frown surfacing, "the cost of silence far outweighs the price of one's conscience."  Lifting his face as he closed his eyes for a moment, as the wind blew in off the ocean, Kyouhei tucked Emmeline's head against his shoulder as she let out a contented breath.  "In this, there are no winners," he stated softly, his voice carrying to her on the breeze. "There are only losers who must decide how much they can stand to sacrifice—and why."


"Hi, babies!  How are you today?  Oba-chan will be there to visit you soon!"

Charity giggled as Chelsea did her best to make the twins laugh.  They stared at the television with varying degrees of confusion, probably because her voice was coming out of the satellite phone instead.

"Are you coming down here?  You should . . . The beach, you know . . . Ben owns this island, so there's that, too."

Chelsea sighed.  "I would—if I could find my passport.  I hope I took it out of that overnight bag I had—the Marcus Mebius one?  The one I donated for the benefit auction at the soup kitchen . . ."

Charity wrinkled her nose.  "Only you would donate something without checking the pockets first."

"I'll just apply for a new one if that one's missing.  No idea how long it'll take to get it from Japan, though."  Leaning in closer to the camera, Chelsea closed one eye as she dabbed mascara onto her lashes.  "So, where's Super-Ben, anyway?"

"Hey, Cherry, have you seen—?  Oh, sorry to interrupt.  Hello, Chelsea.  You're looking entirely troublesome, just like always."

Chelsea batted her eyes a few times to dry her lashes.  To Ben, however, she probably looked like she was flirting, and for some reason, the idea of Chelsea doing such a thing made Charity giggle.  "Here he comes to save the day," Chelsea drawled.  "I hope you're keeping in mind what we discussed the last time we saw one another, Ben."

Charity frowned at the for a moment.  "What did you two discuss?"

"Nothing important, Chare.  We just came to an understanding of sorts, didn't we, Ben?"

He cleared his throat and picked up the girls.  "I would suppose that we did," he allowed before turning his attention to Charity once more.  "I'm going to go get them changed," he said, making an exaggerated face as he raised his eyebrows to emphasize his point.

"Oh, wait," she called after him, opting to ignore her twin for a moment.  "Were you looking for something?"

"Uh, it can wait," he assured her as he strode out of the room with the babies.

"You two seem to be getting along well," Chelsea remarked.

Charity made a face and hoped that her twin would miss it.  "Everything's okay," she allowed.

Chelsea arched a delicate eyebrow.  "So, what was that face for?"

She should have known that there was no way Chelsea wouldn't have seen it.  "Just . . . You know, between the babies and . . . and stuff . . ."

"That doesn't sound too positive," Chelsea replied, a hint of something foreboding entering her tone.  "Let me talk to Ben again . . . Where'd he go?"

"No, Chels," she stated flatly.  "It's fine.  Just . . ." She sighed.  "It'll be fine, anyway."

Chelsea didn't look like she was ready to let it go.  Charity started to open her mouth to insist once more that everything was all right, but Chelsea spoke first.  "Well, since you're convinced that you can't tell me whatever it is you're not telling me, then I guess that's fine, but I did get your Christmas card . . . That picture is one of the cutest things I've ever seen."

Breaking into a self-conscious little smile since the picture she was talking about was the same one that they'd taken a couple days after arriving, she giggled.  "It was a good one, huh?"

"Yes," Chelsea stated. "It was.  You should blow it up and frame it.  I'm serious."

Glancing over at the five-by-seven print she'd already framed and sat on the mantle of the oversized fireplace, she laughed.  "I already did."

"Good!  Oh!  I was going to ask you, are you guys going to be home by Thanksgiving?"

"Probably not . . . Ben said that the Mexican general asked him to stick around for a few weeks.  I guess he's having some trouble with some vagrants who keep popping up here and there, causing trouble and generally being a nuisance, but they have conflicting reports as to whether they're human or youkai—something like that.  He didn't actually explain a lot to me, but that was the gist.  Anyway, I'm hoping that we are able to go back by Christmas."

"Okay, good.  Keep me posted.  Gin-oba-chan asked me to plan the Zelig Foundation Christmas party this year, so I'll be around, and I can't wait to see those little darlings again!  It's amazing, just how much they've grown in just a couple months!"

"Right?" Charity said.  "They're not supposed to grow this quickly, are they?"

"You're asking the wrong person, Chare," Chelsea replied.  "Listen, I'm sorry to cut you off, but I've got an old friend in town . . ."

"Oh?  Anyone I'd know?"

Chelsea laughed.  "Maybe," she hedged, winking at her twin. "Give Ben my best!"

"I will," she said.  A moment later, the feed cut off, and Charity set the satellite phone aside.

Letting out a deep breath as she stood up and wandered toward the doors, she stepped outside and smiled to herself, catching her hair in one hand and dragging the strands over her left shoulder.  It was a little windier today than it had been so far.  Still, it was by no means cold: a breezy seventy-two degrees—a definite improvement over the nearly freezing temperatures back in the city.

Stepping off the patio, she wandered down to the water's edge, dipping her toes into the salty spray.  The wind was whipping up some fairly decent sized waves, but they seemed to be breaking up well before they reached the shore.  Even so, the brisk breeze lifted the sprays of water rising up out of the Gulf of Mexico, hitting Charity with a fine mist that brought a surge of gooseflesh to her arms and legs.

Turning her head, watching the sun as it sank lower on the horizon, she couldn't help the small smile that quirked her lips.  There was just something magical about this time of evening.  How often had she and her siblings stopped playing, long enough to watch as the sun descended?  How often had Toga and Sierra sat in silence as the children played, and yet, every last one of them would stop, would wait for that insular moment.  Mama had said once that if you made a wish at the very second that the sun finally disappeared for the night, your wish would come true.  Chelsea had always wished for funny things: a doll or candy or things like that. Charity never had.  No, she had always waited and waited, and in that moment, that magical second, she'd make her wish—a wish for happiness, that she would find the one thing that would make her happy forever—if that was even possible.

And she stopped, ankle deep in the ever-flowing water, her pale peach crinkled-cotton dress blowing around her in a flirt of motion, damped by the mist rising off the sea, waiting for that moment while the sun slowly dipped lower and lower.

"Charity . . ."

Whirling around at the sound of Ben's voice, Charity blinked, stared at him, her smile fading when she saw the absolute brightness in his eyes, the strange sort of fierceness, alight in his gaze.

"Ben . . .?" she murmured as he stalked toward her, an efficacy in his every movement, and he closed in on her fast.

She gasped when he reached out, as he dragged her toward him, crushing her against him with one arm around her waist, as his mouth fell on hers with a fierce growl, as his free hand sank into her hair.  All she could do was to slip her arms up around his neck and hold on as the absolute shock that rattled straight through her culminated in a white-hot explosion in the very core of her.  Her knees gave way, but he caught her, steadied her, his lips pushing against hers, gently nudging her mouth open as his tongue stroked hers, tasting her as his fangs grazed her lips, setting off another round of tremors so deep, so profound, and all she could do was cling to him.

Pulling away just enough to redirect his attention, Ben trailed kisses along her jaw, down the hollow of her throat.  She gasped softly when his fangs raked over her flesh, hard enough to draw another surge of passion, gentle enough to make her shiver as her head fell to the side just enough to allow him better access.  His tongue, his lips, his fangs, and they all combined into a gush of heat that shot through her with all the finesse of a raging wildfire gone out of control.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could feel the tease of his claws, dragging against her leg through the thin cotton, the tickle of the fabric of her skirt against her thigh, and yet, it made no sense, either . . . Shoving her hands up under the hem of his shirt, he half-groaned, half-growled as she slowly, haltingly ran her fingers over the taut skin of his stomach.  She needed to be closer, didn't she?  Listening to the whispers and the hushed entreaties, the need to touch him was as fierce as it was beautiful; as compelling as it was entirely right . . .

Her breath caught somewhere between her lips and lungs when the all-consuming fire of his touch rattled through her.  His palm on her bared hip as he crushed her against him, as his mouth fell over hers once more in a kiss meant to possess her, meant to define her . . .

The whimper that slipped from her was harsh in her ears when Ben pulled back, his breathing harsh, his heart resounding like thunder in her ear as she pressed her head against his chest, still holding onto him as though she were afraid to let go.

"Damn it," Ben growled, his voice a little harsher, a little more irritated, than she could credit.

"Huh . . .?" she murmured, tilting her head to look up at him.

Ben was glowering past her, and it took her a moment to realize that, whatever he was looking at had made him stop the kiss.

A very definite throat clearing, and a soft chuckle.  "Hate to disturb you, nii-san," Kyouhei remarked rather dryly.

"What?" Ben bit out.

Kyouhei smiled and gave a little shrug.  "There's someone here to see you . . . Says his name is Steve Vasquez."

Ben heaved a sigh, and he finally looked down at her, meeting her rather dazed expression.  "He has terrible timing," he grumbled.

Charity managed a weak laugh as Ben let go of her with one hand but kept the other around her waist to lead her back toward the house once more.