InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Fruition ❯ Annoyances ( Chapter 43 )

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

The chime of the cell phone interrupted Ben's train of thought as he reached for the device without taking his eyes off the file he'd been reading through.  Cain had sent him a list of hunt recommendations for Ben to go over since it was his job to verify facts and information on each one before Cain signed off on any of them.

Rubbing his temple as he shifted his gaze to the phone, he slowly shook his head as he clicked on the message reminder and waited for it to load.

'How about a flash mob?  You could even learn a choreographed dance or something to show off your moves, and we can film the whole thing to upload on YouTube!  You could go viral!'

He chuckled despite the fact that it wouldn't be happening, and Ben fired a message back to Chelsea.  'Keep trying.'

She'd been sending him suggestions on how to pop the big question to Charity ever since the Zelig Foundation Christmas Fundraiser, and they'd ranged from, 'beyond-stupid' to, 'never-in-a-million-years'.

'Never mind that her agreement is not a guaranteed thing, at this point,' his youkai-voice pointed out glumly.  'She might well say no just because she doesn't feel worthy of being with you—entirely stupid, but, well, so is the thought that we'd ever think less of her just because she got a little pissed off.'

Standing abruptly, Ben turned around to stride out of the office, but the sight of his swords, hung behind the desk, stopped him.  She'd used them, Kyouhei had said, and for the first time, he wondered if he ought to take them down, to put them away somewhere that would still be handy enough but wouldn't be constant visual reminders to her, either.

Even so, in the week that had passed since the night that Ben had talked to Charity's youkai, he was no closer to convincing her that her fears were completely groundless, but he'd called InuYasha the next morning, had told him what was going on and asked him to please call Charity, which, for some reason, he still hadn't done.  Of course, Ben realized that InuYasha was a busy man.  Between running his school and the continuing threat of the youkai uprising, not to mention the service dog that he'd taken back to Japan with him, Ben was sure that his time was precious.  Still . . .

'Maybe he's just busy . . . We could try calling him again . . .'

Heaving a sigh as he dug his hands into his hair in an entirely frustrated kind of way.  He'd pack them all up and fly them to Japan if his doctor would allow it.  As it was, he'd maintained that it was still too soon to put that kind of strain on his system, given how close to his heart the gunshots were.  Youkai systems were far too sensitive to air travel, and adding that kind of stress on top of the injuries was too dangerous.

'We could just book a flight for her,' his youkai suggested.  'Let her go alone . . .'

He'd already considered that, too, but with the turmoil and general unrest going on over there, Ben wasn't too keen on that idea, either.  It wasn't that he thought that she wouldn't be well enough protected, no, but there were a number of things that could happen to her from the time she left to the time she arrived at her family's home, and should anyone find out that Sesshoumaru's granddaughter was traveling alone?  It just wasn't a chance he was willing to take.

There were no easy answers, damn it . . .

The cell phone buzzed, and Ben glanced at it, his frown darkening as he read the name on the display.  He sat back down and routing the call to the house system.  The video connection took a moment to buffer, and Manami smiled in greeting.  "Good morning, Benjiro!" she greeted happily.  "You're looking good . . . How are you feeling?"

Raising an eyebrow at the black mock-turtleneck knit sweater that looked like it was skin-tight and the black knit slouch cap that she had her hair tucked up under, Ben slowly shook his head.  "You look like a cat burglar," he pointed out dryly, "and I'm fine; thanks for asking."

She laughed.  "I just got back from my morning run, if you must know," she told him.  "How's Charity?"

"She's good," he lied, unsure why he was unwilling to tell Manami about any of it.  "So, is this a social call?"

Manami shrugged.  "Yes . . . and no."

"Well, that's cryptic."

She laughed.  "I was offered a job."

"A job?" he echoed, steepling his fingers in front of his chin.  "I thought you worked for the MacDonnough."

"Hmm . . . I quit. He made it quite plain that if I wished to continue my association with him that I had to take the job that I declined in the first place.  I refuse to do so, so we've come to that inevitable crossroad and have decided to part ways."

"It's a hunter's job to hunt, not to judge the orders handed down," he pointed out.

She stared at Ben for a long moment.  "Even if the man in question has done nothing wrong?"

"Hunt orders aren't issued for people who haven't broken our laws," Ben remarked.

"It wasn't an official hunt order," she told him, holding her hand out to the side as she carefully examined her perfectly manicured claws.  "And at first, it was more of a . . . suggestion, I suppose you could say."

"He suggested that you kill someone? Why?"

"I don't know," she said simply.  "What I heard, though, was that Ian had approached the man about a marriage between the man's daughter and one of Ian's pets, and the man, of course, refused.  I mean, an arranged marriage?  Those went out of style with hoop skirts and corsets."

"An arranged marriage? Does that even happen anymore?"

Manami uttered a terse grunt—a sound that was wholly unlike her.  "It does if the daughter is the would-be heiress to a small dynasty that rivals Ian's in its own right . . . and because the marquess is a sworn supporter of Sesshoumaru-sama.  If and when he dies, the entire thing goes to the girl—or her husband, by proxy."

"But it would still be hers."

"Maybe.  Maybe not.  We're talking about the peerage, Benjiro.  They do things a little differently, and, should her parents die without making out a will, then the entirety of her estate would go to her future husband upon the date of her marriage, which wouldn't be a problem, given that I happen to know that they both have wills—very binding wills that leaves everything, including his title, to his daughter.  Unfortunately . . . "

"Unfortunately?" Ben prompted when she trailed off.

Manami uttered a dry little chuckle, as devoid of humor as it was full of irony.  "As is common custom in the case of the European youkai, guess who holds those wills in his keep?"

"Son of a bitch."

"Hmm . . . quite so."

"He can't do that," Ben maintained, knowing deep down that Ian MacDonnough was both capable and ruthless enough to do exactly what she claimed, and, unless she'd changed entirely in the years since he'd known her, Manami wasn't given to lying, either.  "That's . . ."

"Despicable?" she supplied helpfully.  She laughed, but it was a brittle sound.  "Surely it cannot surprise you.  How many of our own have we sent to Zelig-sama's jurisdiction in recent years?"

"Most of those have been accused of treason, even though there's never been any real proof to back up that claim.  Political asylum . . ."

She shrugged.  "All of them were warned before action could be taken," she said simply—maybe too simply.

"You mean, you tipped them off."

"Of course not, Benjiro.  That would go against my oath to Ian, wouldn't it?"

He didn't miss the irony in her voice, the sarcasm that belied her words.  "You've saved a lot of people, then."

"I don't believe that speaking out against reprehensible actions is cause to kill someone; that's all.  Most of those were people who questioned the hunt order issued for Meara MacDonnough and her mate."

Ben nodded slowly.  "That's pretty much what Cain figured."

She sat up a little straighter, smiled a real smile at him.  "Anyway, I was just calling to say goodbye—at least, for now."

"Goodbye?  You mean, Cain didn't offer you a job?"

"Well, he did," she allowed, "but after I complete this assignment."

"And what assignment is that?"

She paused for a moment before answering.  "I've been tasked by the Japanese tai-youkai to hunt down those responsible for the rash of murders in and around Kitakyushu and Fukuoka and to silence them."

"What?  No!" Ben exclaimed as he sat up straight, ignoring the slight twinge brought on by the abrupt movement.  "No, Nami, you can't."

"It's a perfect solution, and you know it, too," she went on, completely ignoring Ben's outburst.  "They want Ryomaru to be sent in—you know their plan.  I'll just slip in, take out the threats, and get out again."

"What if they see you?  Catch you?  Chichiue knows you!  Do you think he'd hesitate to kill you?"

"I appreciate your concern," she said, her voice completely unruffled, unaffected.  "I am very good at what I do.  You don't have to worry."

"Nami—"

She sighed.  "I hate to cut this short, Benjiro, but I must get to the airport.  I'll call you when I get back . . . Take care of yourself, and give your Charity a hug and kiss from me."

"No, Nami!  Nam—" Cutting himself off with a vicious growl as the connection ended, Ben hit the button to call her back, but wasn't at all surprised when he was directed straight to voicemail.

Hitting the button to call Kyouhei, Ben sat back with a disgusted grunt.

"I can't talk too much right now," Kyouhei remarked in lieu of a proper greeting.  "What's up?"

"I need a favor."

"Okay."

Letting out a deep breath as he rubbed his eyes, Ben counted to ten before he could continue.  "Manami . . . She's being brought in to hunt the ones who have been murdering people to draw out Ryomaru."

"You're sure?"

"She just told me . . . but chichiue knows her, and if she's caught . . . He'll kill her."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Stop her."

Kyouhei sighed.  "It wouldn't be that way if the capability wasn't there."

"I realize that, but if something goes wrong . . ."

"I can try . . . but that's about all I can promise.  You understand."

"I do.  Thanks."

"Business negotiations are always tricky.  I'll do what I can, but understand that, at a certain point, my hands are tied, too."

Ben grunted, painfully aware, the risk this call was for Kyouhei, and understanding, too, that the vague answers were the only kinds that he could possibly give at the moment.  "I know.  Watch your back, Kyouhei."

"Absolutely."

The call ended, and Ben sighed.  Just what was Toga thinking?  All it took was one slip-up—one unknown variable to switch—and Manami . . .

Leaning forward, Ben dropped his face into his hands.  Just when had things spiraled so far out of control, anyway . . .?


Sipping the fragrant coffee from the oversized, earthenware mug, Charity didn't look away from the laptop as she surfed the web, looking for things that would be good for the girls' nursery in the new house.  The blueprints had looked really great, incorporating everything that Ben and she had envisioned, so he'd given the architect the green light, so to speak.  At the moment, she was just searching for anything that looked cute for the twins, but ultimately, she would have to hunt some of the stuff down to see what they reacted most to.

Eddie slipped into the room, broom in one hand and her caddy of cleaning supplies in the other.  When she noticed Charity, sitting on the sofa, she stopped.  "I was going to clean in here," she said, "but if you're busy, I can do it later."

"Oh, no, it's fine," Charity insisted.  "Do you need some help?"

Eddie shot her a look, like she was trying to decide whether or not Charity was joking.  "It's my job," she said with a shrug.  "I don't mind."

"I know, but I feel lazy when I just sit here and watch you," Charity said.

Eddie laughed.  "Don't be silly!  Besides, you look busy."

"I'm just looking for decoration ideas for the girls' room," she insisted.  As she watched Eddie, she frowned.  She'd thought about it before, but with the craziness of the last few weeks and everything that had happened, she'd forgotten that she had meant to ask Ben if he thought that Eddie might deserve a raise.  After all, there was a huge difference between keeping house and cooking for one person and having to do the same for three more, not to mention the extra laundry and cleaning that had to be done when two of them were babies . . .

Eddie was humming under her breath—something that Charity had never heard the woman do before, and she raised her eyebrows as the half-forgotten memory of the poor man who had helped to carry Eddie's shopping bags home resurfaced in her mind.  "Eddie . . .?"

"Hmm?" Eddie intoned before resuming the humming once more.

"So . . . While Ben and I were in Mexico, did you go on a vacation?"

"'Course not," she replied without looking up from the coffee table that she was cleaning.  "Only between Christmas and New Year, like I do every year."

Charity nodded, setting the laptop aside and drawing up her knees.  "So . . . Did you see John Martin while we were gone?"

The maid stopped cold for a moment, and to Charity's surprise, her cheeks blossomed in a rosy hue, as well.  "That old pervert?  Ha!  No!"

She pressed her lips together into a thin line just in case Eddie were to glance at her.  "Really?  But he seemed like such a sweet little man," she added.

Eddie snorted.  "I don't have time for the likes of John Martin, and a good thing, too, since you're moving here."

"That's a shame," Charity drawled, hiding her amusement behind her coffee mug.  "He seemed to like you a lot."

Eddie's retort was cut off by the sudden and heavy pounding on the door.  Charity stood up, waving a hand at the maid.  "I'll get it," she said as she strode toward the doorway despite the sense of disapproval coming off of Eddie in waves.

She slowed as she drew closer, as she sensed the youki on the other side.  She knew that feeling, knew that youki . . .

"InuYasha-oji-chan!" she exclaimed softly as she jerked the door open wide.  "What are you doing here?"

He snorted, arms crossed over his chest, long, silver hair blowing in the winter wind.  "Keh!  Gonna make me stand out here all day, pup?" he growled.

She hurriedly stepped back to allow him entrance, and he stepped past her with a blast of frigid air as she quickly closed the door before hugging her beloved great-uncle tight.  "You went back to Japan," she said, shaking her head in confusion as she took a step back.

"Yeah, that old-assed cat called me," he said, leaning against the closed door to brace himself as he worked his boots off with the other hand and scowled at the bits of snow that fell from the shoes, only to melt and puddle on the floor.  "Said you were upset over that fight with the cougars."

Letting her gaze drop to the floor, she wrung her hands in a decidedly nervous fashion as heat blossomed under her skin while she slowly shook her head.  "Oh . . . That . . ."

He snorted again.  "I just got off that kami-forsaken bucket of bolts your jiijii calls a plane, pup.  Got any tea or anything?"

She grimaced as she glanced up, only to see Eddie wave a hand as she hurried out of the living room.  "Eddie’s bringing some," she said, brushing past her uncle and over to the row of windows that looked out over the back yard.  "I-Is Kagome-oba-chan with you?"

"Not gonna be here that long, so no, she stayed behind to keep an eye on Captain."

"Captain?"

He shrugged.  "The dog I took home.  A little skittish.  Don't much like being left alone, either."

She nodded, remembering that her mother had mentioned something about her uncle having saved a dog from being put down while he was here.  She just hadn't gotten the dog's name . . .

"He was a tracking dog—bomb sniffer, I guess.  Managed to save his human, even though he was injured pretty bad . . ." Trailing off as he stopped beside her, mirroring her stance as he stared out of the windows, he seemed thoughtful.  "Thought he killed his pack when all he really did was protect 'em . . . And he don't wanna listen when he's told that he did exactly what he should have done in that situation."

She rubbed her forehead, stared at InuYasha's pensive expression in the pane of glass.  "He . . . He's afraid," she whispered, unsure if she was talking about the dog or . . .

InuYasha shrugged.  "Maybe.  Don't have a reason to be."

She shook her head.  "Maybe . . . Maybe he thinks he does."

The slight rattle of glassware sounded behind them, and Charity turned to shuffle over, to pour tea for InuYasha.  Eddie strode out of the room once more.

She took her time, pouring the tea into a cup for him, and all the while, his words seemed to sink deeper and deeper into her mind.  

"And he don't wanna listen when he's told that he did exactly what he should have done in that situation."

But . . .

"Thanks," InuYasha said, taking the cup from her and sitting on the edge of the sofa cushion.

She sat down, too.  "What did . . . did Ben tell you?"

InuYasha sighed—a strange sort of sound, coming from him.  "He said I should be proud, that you fought . . . with honor."

She flinched at the assessment.

InuYasha slowly blinked at her as he drank the tea.  "You disagree?"

"I . . . I remembered what you said, but I . . ."

He grunted, setting the cup on the tray again.  "Refresh my memory, will you?  What, exactly, did I say?"

She sighed.  "You said . . . said not to lose my head—not ever . . . You said . . ."

"Is that what you did?  Lost your damn head?"

"I . . . I don't know," she murmured, hating the sense of sadness that surged through her, the guilt—the feeling that she'd somehow let them all down . . . "I was so . . . so angry, and I . . ." Swallowing hard, she squeezed her eyes closed, hating the truth of her own emotions—hated having to admit them to him, of all people.  "I . . . I wanted . . . to kill . . ." she whispered.

InuYasha didn't respond right away.  Drawing a deep breath, he seemed to be considering just what he wanted to say.  Trying to steel herself against the reprimand that she knew was coming, she wrapped her arms over her stomach, clenched her teeth together so hard that her jaw hurt.  She deserved whatever he was going to say, she reminded herself as she brushed aside the feeling that he was little more than a pup who had failed at a tracking lesson or something . . .

"I killed a bunch of humans," he said, his voice low, gravely—sad.  "Back in Sengoku Jidai, I . . . I lost control—lost Tetsusaiga—when we were captured by a band of thugs.  The boss was a moth-youkai.  Wrapped Miroku and me in this poisonous cocoon, and my youkai-blood took over."  Lowering his gaze to meet hers, she couldn't look away from the ugly truth in his eyes.  "In my youkai state, I destroyed the cocoon—saved that damned monk and me, but then I cut them down—one after another, and I . . . I enjoyed it," he admitted with a grimace full of self-disgust, even now, even centuries later . . . "I laughed about it as they . . . as they begged for mercy."

She shook her head stubbornly.  "But you . . . You wouldn’t have, had it not been for your blood," she insisted.  "That's not who you are, and—"

"And that's not who you are, either."

She flinched.

"Does that make me unworthy of being with your oba-chan?  Does it make me some kind of monster that don't deserve to live and breathe?  You tell me, Charity.  'Cause I never had an answer for that."

"You're not a monster.  You were protecting your friends!"

"And you were protecting your family, am I right?"

"It's not the same!  I was so angry—so ugly—and—"

"Of course, you were angry, and maybe you even wanted to kill them.  It'd be odd if you didn't feel that way . . . But don't keep it.  It ain't yours, and you don't need to own it."

"But . . . But how can I . . .?"

InuYasha snorted.  "Keh!  If they had won, do you think you'd be sitting here now?  Do you think that panther of yours would be alive?  'Cause you wouldn't be, and then . . . And then, that'd have left the rest of us to go after them, to get revenge, and maybe we would have, and maybe we wouldn't have, but you ended it.  You did what you had to do, and that's what was right.  That was the important thing, and for the record as your sensei?  I'm damn fucking proud of you, pup."

Something about his words . . . The wash of tears that rose inside her was vicious and unrelenting.  With a soft sigh, InuYasha drew her against his chest, against his shoulder—against his heart.  "I'll, uh . . . I'll let you cry this once," he said gruffly, softly, smoothing back her hair, holding her close as she sobbed.  "But no more after today . . . because you're not a monster, not any more than I am . . ."