InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Fruition ❯ Dawn ( Chapter 52 )

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

Hidekea rumbled out an ominous chuckle as he stood in the courtyard, sword in hand, facing his firstborn son.  The wind lifted his coal black hair, tossed it wildly as the smell of the rain rolled in.  The first fingers of lightning streaked across the heavens, casting an eerie kind of pall over the land.  "You don't have the right to fight me," Hidekea growled.  "You, who have fallen so far that you would pander to someone such as the Zelig . . . You, who turned you back on your kin so long ago that the mere mention of your name is akin to blasphemy in the house of Muira . . . And you dare to come stand before me now, invoking your Rite of Kinship?  You don't know the meaning of the word."

"I'm not here to trade insults with you," Ben countered, the green of his eyes, brightening, illuminating, taking on the inner glow that was the hallmark of his kind, he stood, feet parted, arms at his sides, as he waited—waited for that moment, that heartbeat—that would decide the outcome of the battle before it ever commenced.  Over time, he'd learned how to wait for it, how to temper any sense of impatience that might overwhelm his ability to read and interpret the very air around him.  It was both a gift as well as a hard-fought lesson to master.

"Yes, you're here to end 'this', aren't you?" Hidekea mocked.  "You can never defeat me, Benjiro.  You couldn't then, and you cannot now."

"You will not do this!"

Ben didn't take his gaze off his father as his mother strode across the courtyard—a ghost in white cotton and old lace.  Her face hadn't changed in the passage of centuries, still just as beautiful as she was in his deepest memories—still just as cold.  Hair floating around her as the crackle of her youki stung the quiet, she seemed to glide across the ground, the extra weight of her pregnancy detracting nothing from her regal bearing, her understated grace.  Yet, the air around her bespoke a certain state of atrophy, as though her very essence had been somehow tainted by the centuries that had come and gone. It was more of a sense of slow decay: of the mind that refused to bend, to yield to the passage of ages.

She came to stand before him, deliberately insinuating herself between Ben and Hidekea.  Glaring up at him within a cloak of righteous indignation, she narrowed her blue eyes on him: eyes so cold that he could almost feel the chill—eyes so very much like his brother’s.  "How dare you!" she hissed, her outrage taking on a sharp, bitter edge.  "How dare you disrespect your father in such a way!  How dare you dishonor the house that gave you life!"

"The life you gave me held too many strings," Ben said, the calm of his youki buffering him against the jagged edges of hers.  He finally let his eyes meet hers, stood unimpressed by her sense of injustice, her seething rage that burned within her eyes but did not touch her timeless face.  So many images of Charity, of her as she cuddled and laughed and played with their daughters flickered to life in his mind, and it occurred to Ben that he could not recall such a memory—not one—of this woman—his mother—a perfect stranger that he knew.  "What you did to Manami is unforgivable, and I ask you: where is Kyouhei?"

"He is rethinking the error of his ways," she replied.

"What have you done to him?"

"That child is of no concern to the likes of you," she spat.  "You . . . You are dead to me!"

"I have been dead to you for centuries," Ben reminded her calmly.  "Step aside.  This is not your fight."

"You dare speak to me in such a way?" she demanded, her incredulity thick, raw.  "I will not have it!"

"Stand aside," he commanded once more, the last of his patience with his mother's brand of censure at an end.  "My business here is not with you."

He saw her intention, moments before her hand flashed out, cracked like thunder against his cheek.  His head snapped to the side, but he did not move otherwise, and as he slowly turned his face back to level a look at her, he allowed his emotions to show just once, and just for a moment: all the anger, the bitterness of a lifetime, lived without the family he should have had, the melancholy that they had turned him away, simply because he'd chosen a path that they had not been able to control, was laid plain: unfettered, unhindered, unabashed—unbroken.

She gasped sharply as his gaze stung her, and he saw it, didn't he?  The sense of fear, of dread, as she realized in that instant that perhaps she'd lived her life to its natural twilight . . .

"Move aside, hahaue, or you'll be caught in a fight that is not yours," Ben stated once more.  This time, she had the sense to retreat.  She stalked across the courtyard and up the steps to the raised platform, not stopping until she'd disappeared into the darkness of her bedroom once more.  InuYasha strode over to the opened doorway, likely to make sure that she wasn't going to try to interfere again as Ben turned his attention to his father once more.

A sudden shift in the air, however, drew his notice, and without thinking, Ben glance to the side, eyes narrowing as Ryomaru and Charity reappeared from the darkened house with Kyouhei, hanging listlessly between them.  His brother’s youki was thin and weak, and from where he stood, Ben could see well enough that the man was unconscious.  A crack of lightning split the skies once more, and in that short moment, in that breath of time and space, he saw it: the mottled and discolored flesh of his brother's chest, the cuts and bruises on his face as his head lolled helplessly on his shoulders . . .

And it was the overwhelming scent of Kyouhei's blood that filled his nose and shot straight to his brain, unleashing a rage so complete, so encompassing, that he could feel the edges of his careful control slipping, and yet, he didn't care, either, and he shot forward, flicking out the smaller of the two swords.  Hidekea easily sidestepped it as Ben unleashed his youki, his body flashing forward as he caught the smaller blade by the hilt and brought it around, neatly slicing through Hidekea's forearm as his father jumped back, fast enough to avoid the blow to the heart that Ben had intended, but not nearly quickly enough to come out of it unscathed.

Uttering a terse growl, Hidekea lunged forward, attempting to catch Ben off guard as he brought his sword down hard.  Ben flipped back, landing in a crouch, using the balls of his feet, using his fingertips against the ground, to launch himself at his father once more.  Drawing the katana in mid-air, he flipped the blade at the last moment, landing the blunt side, hard against Hidekea's chest, sending the older youkai tumbling back.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard the sound of his youkai-voice, somehow muted and faint, chastising him for not ending the fight when he had the opportunity.  Straightening up, he ignored the voice as he strode over to his father's still-prone body.  "Get up, goddamn you," he growled, shaking his head to try to dispel the scent of his brother's blood that hung a little too heavily in the air.

“Kyouhei . . . Nii-san . . . yakusoku suru."

He winced as those words came back to him.

‘Damn it . . .’

Hidekea got to his feet slowly, rubbing his chest where he'd taken the brunt of the hit, his gaze clouding over with an irate light.  "Learned some tricks, have you?  Flash will only get you so far, Benjiro," he goaded.  "Do not pretend to care about that one," he scoffed, jerking his head in Kyouhei's direction.  "He's always been a bitter disappointment."

He was trying to goad Ben's temper, and he knew it.  The knowledge didn't really help as much as it should have, though.  Every time he tried to quell it, the sound of Kyouhei’s voice, resounded in his head: “He's spent centuries, nursing this animosity, this feeling that he's been so callously betrayed that it's become second nature to him.  He's filled with such hatred, such bitterness now . . .”

Hidekea sprinted toward Ben, moving so fast that his body was little more than a blur against the blackened night.  Bringing up his sword to block Hidekea's attack, Ben gritted his teeth as the blades crossed and caught, as a waterfall of sparks shot from the fissure where they met.  He wrenched the blade against Ben's grip, trying to disarm him with brute strength alone.  Ben shoved him hard, sending Hidekea, sliding back a few feet before he managed to stop himself.  Pushing off the ground, he barreled toward Ben once more, and Ben sidestepped him easily enough.

Hidekea's frustration was rife in the air, and suddenly, he laughed, but it wasn't a laugh.  It was more of an angry growl.  He sprinted forward again, and Ben hopped back, realizing a moment too late that Hidekea wasn't aiming for him.  "Damn!" Ben hissed, dashing over, trying to head off his father before he reached the intended target.  Sword drawn back, his father started to swing, the blade erupting in an ominous red glow.

'I'm . . . I'm not going to make it . . . He's going after Kyouhei,' Ben thought as he struggled to move faster.  His emotions were too high, too out of his control, that he couldn't make his body flash to intercept Hidekea.  Closing in on Ryomaru, Charity, and Kyouhei as she tried her best to treat his wounds, they weren't paying attention.   "Look out!" Ben bellowed.

Ryomaru glanced over his shoulder and started to rise as Hidekea bore down on them.  Charity, however, was faster, springing to her feet, grabbing Ryomaru's sword as she brought it up just in time to keep Hidekea from decapitating Kyouhei.  The blades showered down a rain of sparks, and Ben didn't think twice as he hefted his katana high over his head, as he leapt up and forward, bringing the blade down with all of his might.  Charity very nearly pitched forward when Hidekea's right arm fell away, still grasping the sword as he stumbled back with a howl of pain, of rage.  Ryomaru caught her, steadied her, and then yanked his sword out of her grasp with a very terse grunt.  "Take care of that shit," he growled, jerking his head at Hidekea as he slammed his sword back into the scabbard once more.

"Bite me, Ryomaru.  Don’t you think I'm trying?"

"Keh!  Apparently not hard enough if he's got enough fucking time to try to off your brother."

Ben's rebuttal was cut off short when the abrupt shifting in the air drew his attention.  Glancing at his father, he narrowed his eyes.  His stance, the way his youki thrashed wildly about as blood poured out of his severed limb . . . The wind spiraled around him, lifting his hair in a crazed vortex, and without stopping to think about it, Ben shot forward, intent on ending it before his father managed to transform into his true youkai form.

He was too late.

Legs and good arm elongating, the tatters of his clothing fell away as his body morphed and grew, as the pitch-black hairs sprung out, as his face shifted and altered.  He was easily the size of a full-grown elephant, maybe a little larger. . . It only took a moment, and Ben caught himself, pushed backward as his father unleashed an earth-shaking caterwaul as he lunged toward Ben.

'I . . . I can't kill him like that,' Ben thought wildly.  'The only way I can fight him now is if I . . .'

"Ben!" Charity hollered.  As if she could read his thoughts, as if she knew what he intended to do, her youki brushed over his, calmed his almost instantly.

The panther leapt at him, but he didn't try to run.  Hefting his sword over his head, he braced himself as his father bore down on him.  His angry yowl shifted into one of pain as the katana sank deep into his chest—into his heart—and with a mighty grunt, Ben yanked the hilt, tearing Hidekea’s chest wide open, as his father's blood flowed over him in a scorching gush.

Hidekea's body fell on him, bearing him to the ground, forcing the air out of his lungs, smothering him with his formidable weight, and for a moment, Ben thought that maybe it would be the most befitting way to go.  A moment later, however, the weight disappeared as a flash of light, a gust of unnatural wind hit him.

"What have you done!  What have you done?" Yukina screamed as she tried to run toward Ben, out of the safety of her room.  "What the hell have you done to your father?"  InuYasha caught the woman, held her back, arms pinned against her sides as she tried in vain to throw him off, to get away.

"Knock it the fuck off!" he growled.

She fought him more, and he uttered an irritated grunt as he dragged her down the steps and toward the cement building that they'd kept Manami prisoner in.

"Ben!" Charity called out again, her voice, seeming to come from so very far away.  She sounded relieved—or at least, as relieved as she could at the moment.

He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees.  "No!" he bellowed, holding out his arm, hand up to stop her before she could run to him.  Something about the absolute horror of the situation broke free in his mind, and he leaned forward, letting his forehead touch the ground, as the first wretched sob broke free . . .


"Ryomaru's gone."

Ben nodded slowly, his gaze trained on Kyouhei's face as the latter continued to sleep.  The sun was sinking on the horizon, but they were afraid to try to move him since they were fairly sure that he was poisoned, and moving him from the walkway to his room had been more than enough.  He had yet to awaken, and, given his injuries, Ben had to think that was probably a blessing.

"He took the cat-o-nine-tails back with him to see if they can't figure out if it was treated with the same poison, too . . . Said he'd tell Toga everything when he dumps off those bastards for questioning."

"Thanks," Ben replied in a near-monotone.  As though all of his feelings were literally just gone, he stared into space, and everything felt dulled, dimmed, as though his brain had had enough, as though it had simply chosen to shut down, to block out everything that would require emotion that he just didn’t have at the moment.

"I locked your mother in that building," InuYasha went on as he scowled at Kyouhei's prone body—at the rent flesh of his back.  The wounds weren't healing, but at least the bleeding had lessened.  They were afraid to try to move him, given that he bled like a stuck pig when they tried to do more than a cursory cloth-bath.  At least the worst of his wounds—the ones on his back—had been thoroughly cleaned.  Ben had ended up, taking care of that himself, given that Charity had looked just a little green around the gills when she’d tried.  Considering he’d literally had to move pieces of Kyouhei’s flesh aside to clean it all?  Ben couldn’t rightfully blame her for it, either.

"Anyway, Ryo said he'd see if Kichiro can't get away long enough to come check on him," he went on, more to himself than to Ben.

"Okay," Ben replied in the same monotone, carefully peeling back the clean cloths that he’d laid over Kyouhei’s back to keep his wounds clean.  The salve that he’d applied a few hours ago had turned a rather nasty shade of gray.  Charity had said that it would do that as it drew out infection, and then, that layer of gunk had to be wiped clean again and replaced with a fresh coating . . .

“Fucking hell,” InuYasha growled, hunkering down on Kyouhei’s other side.  He reached across for a few packets of gauze pads and tore them open to help Ben clean off his brother’s back.

They worked in silence for several minutes.  Ben’s hands moved as if by rote.  Finally, though, he was cleaned, the salve reapplied, and the covering back in place once more, and still, Ben remained silent, staring off into space, at the dancing flames in the lit braziers.

InuYasha snorted, crossing his arms over his chest as he scowled at the youkai.  "You gotta snap out of it," he growled, waving a hand in front of Ben's face as he stood up to stomp over to Ben, who didn't even blink.  "Oi!  Baka!  Oi!"

Ben blinked and jerked away from InuYasha's hand.  "S-Sorry," he muttered.

"Keh!  Don't be sorry . . . You ain't done a thing to be sorry for, have you?"

"I killed my own father," Ben gritted out, a flash of anger—the first real emotion he'd felt all day—kindling deep inside.

"And your father did that to his own son," InuYasha shot back, waving in Kyouhei's direction.  "So, you did what you had to do, and if you hadn't?"  He snorted again, flopping down on the floor beside Ben.  "If you hadn't done it, you know as well as I do that he would have killed him."

A sudden smile twisted Ben's lips—an expression that was as devoid of real humor as it was full of a much uglier emotion.  "I think . . . I think they were trying to brainwash him," he admitted quietly.  "They wanted him to see the error of his ways . . . That's what hahaue said." He laughed, but it sounded more hysterical than genuine.  "Those were her exact words," he went on.  "'To see the error of his ways . . .'"

"Why did you choose it?" InuYasha asked, scowling at Ben, though the latter didn't see the expression.  "Why the hell would you do that?  Ryomaru or I . . . We could have . . ."

Ben shook his head, hair falling over his face as he slumped his shoulders, as he closed his eyes.  "I . . . I would have hated you if you had," he admitted.  "Regardless of my feelings, of what may or may not be right . . ."

"He's still your old man," InuYasha concluded.  "So, you'd rather keep all that hate inside and let it eat at you.  That it?"

"Maybe . . ." Ben sighed.  "Probably . . ."

"And you think that'll be all right?"

Turning his head just enough to glower at InuYasha through the curtain of his hair, Ben grunted.  "Better than to place it where it doesn't belong," he argued.

"It ain't yours," InuYasha growled.  "Let it go or it'll ruin you—and Charity, too . . . Your old man made his own choices, didn't he?  And as far as I can tell, he was the perfect example of what happens if you spend a lifetime, hating every-fucking-thing.  You want that for Charity?  For your girls?"

"I—" Ben snapped his mouth closed on the words he was going to use to lash out at the hanyou.  "Of course not," he muttered.

InuYasha glared at him for another long moment, but finally, he nodded as he got to his feet.

"Where are you going?" he asked as the hanyou started to stomp away.

"Keh!  To make sure your mother's secured for the night.  Where else?"

Ben sighed, letting his forehead fall into his open palm.  Letting go of that emotion . . . Could he do that?  Somehow, he felt that it was easier said than done, and it didn't matter that he knew deep down that he just hadn't had any other choice.  There wasn't a way to turn his father back because there wasn't a 'back' to fall upon.  As long as Ben could remember, Hidekea had always been the same: cold, calculating, entirely aloof, and InuYasha was right: if Ben hadn't intervened, Kyouhei would have died—or he'd have been brainwashed into going along with their plans, and either way, the Kyouhei he'd fought so hard to save would have been lost, too . . .

“Kyouhei . . . Nii-san . . . yakusoku suru."

"How's he doing?"

Turning at the sound of Charity's soft voice, Ben let out a deep breath and held out his hand.  She stepped forward and took it, letting him pull her down beside him before she slipped her arms around him and kissed his cheek.  "About the same," Ben replied.  "I . . . I want him to wake up . . . and I don't . . ."

Charity nodded, understanding the emotion behind Ben's words.  On the one hand, he'd welcome the reassurance that Kyouhei was going to be all right.  On the other one, the pain he'd be in if he did wake would be nigh unbearable, and . . . And then, Ben would have to tell him what had happened, too . . .

"I'm proud of you," she said.  "You're a good man, even when you don't feel like you are."

"I don't know about that," he admitted.

She tightened her arms around his waist.  "It's true.  What you did . . . I'm so sorry you had to do it, but . . . but when I look at Kyouhei-san . . ."

Ben sighed.  "And yet, in his own way, didn't chichiue think that what he was doing was right?  Just?  Even if it wasn't, but . . . But it's all just perception, isn't it?  That I happen to be on the one side while he was on the other . . .?  So, really, who's right and who's wrong?"

"They were wrong," Charity insisted.  "If you have to murder innocent people, just to get what you want?  Then you're wrong."

The look he gave her was so lost, so sad, that she grimaced as tears sprang into her eyes, as she reached over to push his hair out of his face.  She'd given him a full bathing after his fight, though he'd have to admit that he didn't actually remember any of it, except that every time he glanced at her, she was smiling tenderly despite the tears that stood in her eyes . . .

"I tried to ask your mother about the poison," she admitted.  "She . . . She wouldn't answer me."

"What aren't you saying?"

She sighed.  "It's not a big deal.  I mean, she lost her mate, even if she's as complicit as he is, so . . ."

"What did she do?" Ben asked again.

"She just cursed at me, tried to spit on me . . . But she wouldn't tell me what kind of poison—if it was the same or not . . . I found some in her room, along with antidotes for them all, but if I give him the wrong one, it could do more harm than good . . ."

"I'll talk to her," Ben said.

Charity shook her head.  "I doubt she'll tell you anything," she said.  "As long as he's not in too much danger, we can test him and figure it out from there, like we did for Manami-san."

Ben stood up.  "Stay here with him," he told Charity.  She nodded, giving his hand a squeeze before letting go.

He strode out of the room, along the walkway.  The rain had cleared—the first time since the fight—and he ignored the muddy ground under his feet as he slipped on a pair of geta sandals and strode across the courtyard.

InuYasha stood when Ben approached.  He'd been sitting on the hard concrete slab in front of the door with his arms wrapped around his beloved sword.  "I'm going to speak with her," Ben said.

InuYasha nodded, ears flicking as he stepped back, digging out his cell phone to disengage the barrier.  "I'm gonna get something to drink," he said as he strode toward the house.

Ben drew a deep breath that was meant to calm him but did very little.  Since Kyouhei was unconscious, they didn't use the identilock.  At some point, someone had installed an ofuda lock instead—probably InuYasha.

It was a relatively new thing that Kurt had created, and, though it was powered by spiritual energy and ofuda that were enclosed in the small metal cube, it worked just by sticking the cube to a surface—in this case, the door—but the ofuda was charged enough to provide constant protection.  Someone like Sesshoumaru could easily overpower the lock and render it ineffective, although it would likely be a painful thing to do.  A regular youkai, however, would not be strong enough to break it without incurring life-threatening damage since it created a barrier over the door.  The real trick was to create it in such a way that it wouldn't harm youkai who were using it.  To that end, each lock was issued with a specific cut-off code that could be entered via cell phone to turn the barrier on and off.

He pushed the door open and stepped inside.  The small brazier suspended on the wall was lit and burning brightly, but it didn't do much to dispel the overwhelming gloom of the chamber.

They'd brought in her bed and a small table.  She sat on the floor in seiza, staring stonily at the wall, hair a tangle around her shoulders, still wearing the same nightgown.

"Hahaue," he said, stopping just inside the door, crossing his arms over his chest.  "I've come to ask for the antidote for the poison used on Kyouhei."

"That child dies with his father and I," she replied.

"Why?"

She didn't answer him right away.  He was starting to think that she wasn't going to when she finally spoke again.  "Your horizons, Benjiro . . . Were they what you hoped they'd be?"

Surprised by the nearly agreeable question, he stared at her.  "Did I find what I was looking for, you mean?"

"Did I fail you?" she countered, ignoring his question entirely.  "Did you run away from me?"

He shook his head.  "I didn't run at all, hahaue," he replied.  "I followed my instincts, just as I always had, even as a child.  Choosing this path or that one . . . It was merely a divergent path from the one that lay straight ahead—and I am not sorry for venturing down it, no."

"You were the strongest, the best," she went on, as though she hadn't heard him at all.  "So very much like your father . . . and if it was you who ended your father's time—my time—then that's all right, too."

"You . . . chichiue . . . You chose your destinies," Ben countered softly, sadly.  "Leave Kyouhei to his own."

"That child has always been a mere shadow of you," she said.  "He should not have been suffered to live.  Too soft, too compliant . . .That one has never possessed an ounce of your determination, of your father's will to succeed . . . He is no more than a puppet—a faultily constructed puppet, at best.  He will come with me to the afterlife, and I shall spend eternity, showing him the error of his ways."

"You're . . . a monster," Ben murmured, narrowing his gaze on her.  "You're his mother.  You don't get the luxury of assessing him or finding him wanting.  Your job—your only job—was to love him, to honor him in the way you demand that others honor you.  There is no 'error' to show him—only people who should have loved him, doted upon him, from the day he was born into this wretched family.  What you've created is a man with integrity, with honor—in spite of yourselves, and you hate those things, don't you?  Because those are the things that you cannot dictate, that you cannot bend to serve your will."

"And you may not speak to me thusly," she countered, her tone gaining a clipped quality that bespoke her irritation.  "You, who abandoned your father—who abandoned me!  Your very own mother!  Did I not clothe you, shelter you, raise you?  Did I not do all the things that a mother is tasked to do?  And yet, you spite me, you mocked me, you walked away without a backward glance . . . and I realized that it is not a mother's place to coddle and to simper over her child.  It is her place to raise them to be strong, to be true, even if that means that you must teach them to be just a little bit ruthless, too . . ." Rising off the floor, she finally met his gaze, her eyes lit with a half-mad glow as she stepped toward him, her nightgown trailing on the dusty floor.  "And you learned that, too, didn't you, my Benjiro?  You learned that ruthlessness because of your father and I . . . and it serves you well, does it not?  So, preach to me again, my child.  Who is right and who is wrong?"

Ben stared at her for several long minutes, both of them silently daring the other to look away.  Finally, he let his arms drop, reached out to place the palm of his hand against her distended belly.  "This one," he vowed, his voice quiet despite the resolve that punctuated his words.  "I promise you, hahaue, this one will not be raised your way.  This one will know love and laughter and hugs and kisses and all of those things that you never understood.  This one will never know that kind of loneliness, will never exist under the strain of your ridiculous demands.  This one . . . This one will be loved.  This one will have that from me . . . And from Kyouhei."

He turned on his heel, leaving her there, as he closed the door and nodded at InuYasha, who had returned while he was inside.  The hanyou secured the lock via cell phone once more, and Ben strode back to the house once more.

To be honest, he hadn't actually expected that she would give him the antidote, and maybe some part of him had simply wanted one chance to see what she would say to him, and as much as he might have wished that it were otherwise, he'd known, deep down, that it would be the logical conclusion that he'd received.

Slipping back into Kyouhei's room, he met Charity's gaze and slowly shook his head.  She reached out a hand to him, inviting him close, as he sank down beside Kyouhei's futon once more.  "Still no response?"

Charity sighed as she wrung out a cloth in a bowl of cool water and replaced the one on Kyouhei's forehead.  "Nothing yet," she allowed.  "You look upset."

He shook his head. "Nothing more than I expected," he said.

A low groan interrupted the moment, and Charity gasped, leaning toward Kyouhei as his eyes slowly opened.  Sucking in a sharp breath, he couldn't smother the moan that slipped from him.  "N-Nii-san . . ." he murmured with a wince.

Ben's chin dropped, and he couldn't look Kyouhei in the eye.  "I . . . I'm sorry I was too late . . ."

Kyouhei started to chuckle, but groaned instead.  Then he gasped and tried to push himself up.  Charity caught his arm and held on.  "No, you need to lay back down," she insisted.  "You're going to reopen your wounds if you don't, and—"

"You can't be here," he insisted, body shaking with the effort he was exerting.  "Otou-san—"

Ben cleared his throat.  "He's dead."

Kyouhei hissed in pain as his arms gave out, and he crashed back down again.  "Wh . . . What?" he asked, scowling in confusion.  "Otou-san . . .?"

Ben couldn't meet his brother's gaze.  "After what he did to Manami, and when Hana showed up to tell us . . . I had to stop him, Kyouhei . . . I had to—"

Kyouhei sighed.  "He said he was trying to make me understand," he admitted quietly.  "That's why . . ." he grimaced, lips trembling as a pain shot through him.  "He . . . He stood there with the antidote . . . Said if I swore my loyalty to him that I could . . . could save myself . . ."

"He had the antidote . . ."

"I knocked it away.  It broke when it hit the floor," he replied.  "He . . . He wouldn't have believed me, even if I did swear . . ."

Ben made a face, ducked his head a little lower.  "If you . . . If you can't forgive me, I . . . I understand.  Maybe I should have been here when you were younger.  If I hadn't gone with Keiji . . . I’m . . . I'm sorry, Kyouhei . . ."

Kyouhei snorted.  "If you hadn't left when you did, you would have ended up just as twisted as otou-san," he replied.  "I . . . I'm not angry.  I'm just . . ."

Ben swallowed hard, blinked fast to disburse the tears that threatened to choke him.  "Me, too . . ."