InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Fruition ❯ Isolation ( Chapter 54 )

"Word is that, once Tetsuo heard of Hidekea's death, he fled to Europe," Toga said, shaking his head as he scowled at the cup of tea in his hands.  After being apprised of what had happened in the last few days, he'd decided to come here himself to assess the situation, despite warnings from his father, not to do any such thing.  But Toga had also wanted to make sure that Charity—and Ben, by extension—were all right, and that was the main reason that he’d come.  "In fact, it looks like most of the dissidents did."

"Afraid of reprisals, I'd imagine," Ryomaru growled as he stood beside the door, arms crossed over his chest.  The general consensus was that the main danger had passed, but that didn’t mean that anyone was comfortable enough to forego the weapons they all still wore.  "Damn cowards . . ."

Ben stepped into the room: the only room with actual furniture.  Everyone turned to look at him as he closed the door and slipped into the nearest chair with a sigh.

"How's Kyouhei-san?" Toga asked, rising to his feet to get Ben a drink.  He started to pour a glass of tea, but thought better of it, veering to the side to pour brandy into a snifter instead.

"He hasn't said much," Ben replied, taking the drink with a curt nod of thanks.  Then he sighed.  "He hasn't actually said anything, and he still hasn’t moved, either."

"Where's the girl?"

InuYasha grunted.  "I locked her in that cell for the time being."  The hanyou's ears flicked as he scowled at the tai-youkai.  "She ain't a danger.  I don't know what set her off, but she ain't the kind to fly off like that, if you want my opinion.  Your brother tell you anything?"

Ben shook his head.  "I . . . I almost think that he's in a state of shock," he admitted.  "Maybe I can talk to her . . . See if she'll explain anything at all . . ."

"I don't know, Ben," Toga began slowly.  "I mean, she may not want to talk to you, either."

"Better me than Kyouhei," he insisted.  "I . . . I don't know what to do for him."

"She said that she killed her mother," InuYasha interjected.  "I'd say that's pretty well self-explanatory."

Toga frowned.  "What worries me is that she was able to incapacitate Kyouhei-san with a simple senbon.  That takes some skill . . ."

"But it's not something that could easily kill someone, either," Ryomaru added.  "She just wanted him out of the way so he couldn't stop her.  He was fine once I yanked the needle."

Toga grimaced.  "Is anyone in our ranks skilled enough to pinpoint someone’s system that accurately?"

"That's neither here nor there," Ben muttered, setting the snifter on the small table beside the chair.  "There was no one else here, but those two, and as the new head of this house, it's really up to Kyouhei, what kind of punishment she should be given."

"Why didn't you take over?" Toga asked.  "You're the first-born son . . ."

"You think I want or need this?"  Ben shook his head, waving a hand in a rather vague gesture that pretty well encompassed everything.  "It's his birthright more than mine.  After everything they put him through . . . Well, in my opinion, he's earned it."

"Understood," Toga replied.  He stood up and headed for the door while the others veered off into a discussion about the prisoners that had been brought back.  Neither of them would say much, so there wasn't anything really to talk about on that front.  Besides, he hadn't had a chance to speak with his daughter since he'd arrived, and he needed to know that she was all right, too . . .

He found her, sitting on the walkway around the back of the building, holding the infant boy in her arms as he fussed and generally complained.  He wasn’t crying, at least, but it was pretty obvious that he just wasn’t content, either.  She was talking to him in hushed tones, in a soothing voice that wasn't really working.

"How is he?" Toga asked, nodding at the child she held.

Charity sighed.  "He's upset.  Not hungry, not soiled, just . . . not happy . . ."

Toga crouched down to peer at the infant over her shoulder.  "Are you and Ben going to take him home with you?"

"That's what we thought," she said, sparing a moment to smile wearily at her father.  "Three babies is a lot, I admit, but . . . I mean, he's Ben's brother.  We can't just abandon him."

"I didn't think you would," Toga replied.  Stroking the baby's cheek with the back of a crooked knuckle, he chuckled softly.  The same light brown, almost blonde but not quite, hair as Kyouhei, the same blue eyes flecked with blue-green close to the pupils as Kyouhei . . . In fact, Toga had to wonder if the boy weren't the spitting image of his big brother . . . "Cute little thing . . ."

Charity turned her head, stared at Toga as though she were trying to figure something out.  Finally, though, she sighed.  "When I think about all the horrible things that happened in this house . . . When I think that Ben—that Kyouhei-san—had to endure that kind of a family—that kind of upbringing . . . You know something?  We’ve had to look through so much of their things, and . . . and there’s not one picture of Kyouhei?  Not one, and . . .” She trailed off, her face, registering all the confusion, the pain, that she just couldn’t fathom.  “Every time Em and Nadia do something, I’m reaching for my phone, to take pictures, to take videos—even if they’re just playing or sleeping . . . and I can’t . . .”

Toga sighed.  “You can’t understand them,” he said softly.

Charity nodded, gaze carefully trained on the fussing infant in her arms.  “You and Mama . . . You're the best parents," she said with a wan smile.  "If I can be half the mother that Mama is, I'll have done something right . . ."

He chuckled again, pulled her over to kiss her forehead.  "I think you're doing just fine . . . The girls miss you, though."

She grimaced.  "I miss them, too," she said.  "It's just . . . I don't think that we can leave Kyouhei-san here alone yet."  Again, she peered up at Toga, her expression clouded with worry.  "He's not okay," she murmured.  "I don't know what to say to him to help him be okay . . ."

"I don't think there's much of anything you can say to make him okay again, Charity," Toga admitted.  "I don’t know that anyone can say much to do that, to be honest.  All you can really do is to be there for him, to offer him your support."

She frowned, obviously not liking her father's advice.  "When we got back, Yukina-san was gone, and . . . and Kyouhei-san was standing there, holding this child, with blood on his hands, with . . . with the scent of Yukina-san, still lingering . . . and it was so, so heavy, Papa . . . like nothing I’ve ever felt before . . .”  She winced, lifting the infant to her shoulder when he started to cry just a little.  “Bad enough to have to sit there and watch your mother be killed in such an awful way," she murmured, her gaze fixing on a point on the horizon without actually seeing it.  "But when the person who does it is your best friend . . .?  And then to have to cut your mother open to save your brother's life . . . How do you even begin process something like that, Papa?  How do you make sense of something that will never, ever make sense, to begin with . . .?"

Toga's answer was a long sigh, a defeated kind of sound that he rarely actually made.  Being optimistic, for the most part, the sound was even more disturbing, coming from him.  "There isn't an answer I can give you, daughter of mine," he replied quietly, the scowl on his face telling the story of the father who had run out of answers—and hated it.  "Unfortunately, that's something that Kyouhei-san's going to have to deal with on his own."

She blinked furiously as the scent of tears hit Toga hard, but she stubbornly held them back somehow.  "They treated him so horribly . . . If you had seen . . . They'd strung him up, beat him till he was black and blue and until his skin hung off his back in shreds, and . . . and I don't understand . . . I think about the girls—about their smiles and their laughter, and I can't . . . I can't . . ." She winced as Toga slipped a protective arm around her shoulders.  "Is our kind—your kind—so terrible that doing such a thing is possible?  To do that to a child you raised, you fed, you clothed, you hugged, you cried over . . .?  Is that something I should fear?  That half of me that is like . . . like them?"

"You're nothing like them, Charity.  You never will be.  Ben's not like them, either.  They're the exception, not the rule.  Somewhere along the line, they began to believe that their way was the only way, that their beliefs were more important than other people's basic right to live.  Just live as you always have.  Wake up in the morning, and find the beauty in that day—in that moment.  If you can find more beauty than you can find ugliness, then you'll remember what it means to value your life, your family, your loved ones . . . and maybe through that, you can help Kyouhei-san, too."

She thought about that, and she finally smiled, albeit wanly, leaning her head against Toga's shoulder.  "You're a wise man, Papa," she said, drawing from him the belief that maybe he couldn't fix everything, but he could always help her to regain her perspective.  "I'm going to go look in on Kyouhei-san—see if he needs someone to talk to . . . Or maybe he would just rather not be alone . . ."

He watched her go as he frowned, wishing for the world that he could make things better for her—for everyone, really.  As much as he had appreciated the information that Kyouhei had provided, as much as it had helped in their planning and strategizing, he had to wonder just what kind of personal cost it came with, just how much damage had been done to the man—the one person who had been caught in the crossfire, the one who had sustained the most injuries, both inside as well as outside . . .

And Toga wondered, just how much of the blame should be placed upon him for it all, too . . .

"Kyouhei-san?  Can I come in?" Charity asked, poking her head into his room when he didn't respond to her knock.

He didn't answer her, simply staring off into space as he sat in seiza in the middle of the floor, his gaze fixed on nothing at all.  His expression was carefully blanked, his eyes, vacant and empty.  Golden brown hair neatly clubbed back with a bit of black velvet ribbon, wearing the archaic garb that seemed perfectly matched to this cold and lonely house, he could have been a million miles away as he slowly blinked.

He'd been sitting in here, unmoving, for the last two days since they'd returned home from their trip into town, only to discover that all hell had broken loose during their absence.  When Charity had stopped just inside the door, gasping at the sight that greeted her: of Kyouhei, standing there, staring down at the infant in his arms, his hands still slick with his mother's blood while Ryomaru quietly told Ben everything he knew, she'd seen it then: the tears that stood in Kyouhei’s eyes but didn't fall . . .

She'd gently taken the infant and handed him off to InuYasha, then led Kyouhei out of there, scrubbed him down, helped him to his room, and all the while, he hadn’t said a word.  Then she'd taken the baby and bathed him, too, and she'd tried to get Kyouhei to hold him, only to be summarily ignored as he closed himself away the only way he could: inside his own mind.

The trouble was, she didn't know if it was helping him or hurting him to leave him alone like this.  The mind was nothing like the physical body that could repair itself if left alone, and whatever was going on in his mind, only kami really knew . . .

"We still haven't given him a name yet," Charity said, wondering if her words were reaching him.  "Ben suggested Satoru.  I thought Akio was nice.  Even oji-chan suggested Daiki, but none of those . . . It's just that none of them seem right . . . Maybe . . . Maybe you have a name you think would be best . . .?"

'I think he's listening, Cherry, for what it's worth . . . The mind is fragile, sure, but it can also be very resilient, too, and he's made of stronger stuff than that . . . He just needs a little time . . .'

Drawing some faith from her youkai-voice's words, she drew a deep breath and went on.  "He's a little fussy, but then, I guess he's had a lot happen in the first couple days of his life . . . but he's here, and he's beautiful . . . and you saved him, so I guess . . . I guess that makes you his hero . . ." She trailed off but uttered a quiet laugh.  "Maybe you should name him," she suggested, "since you saved him."

She sat with him for awhile longer, saying nothing as minutes ticked away.  The baby in her arms still fussed but not quite as badly as he had been.  Whether it was because of the proximity to Kyouhei or not, she didn't know.

Finally, though, she drew a deep breath.  "I guess it's probably about time to make some dinner," she concluded as she got to her feet, careful not to jog the baby too much.  "Try to eat something tonight, please?  I'll . . . I'll bring you a tray when it's ready."

She paused in the doorway, tears springing to her eyes as she turned to look at him.  Then she turned and hurried out of the room before she broke down in tears . . .

Ben stood in the small room, hands on hips as he frowned at the woman, huddled in the corner, trying to make herself as small as possible.  She hadn't spoken in the last couple days, either, but then, he didn't think that anyone had actually tried to talk to her.

"Hana," he said, careful to keep his voice lowered.  She still flinched and shrank back.  If she could have crawled into the wall, she probably would have.  "Can you tell me what happened?  They said that you said that she killed your mother . . . Can you tell me more?"

The sound of her sniffling broke the silence as her tears hit Ben hard.  "She . . . She killed my mother," Hana replied.  "She . . . She said she broke a vase, and so she . . . she killed her . . ." Lowering her face into her raised knees, she sobbed.  "I . . . I didn't mean to do it," she cried.  "I was just . . . So angry . . . I'm so sorry . . . What have I done?  Kyouhei-sama . . ."

Ben stood for a moment before stepping toward her.  She flinched and tried to retreat a little more as he hunkered down in front of her, his hands dangling limply between his knees.  "Your punishment is not mine to decide," he told her gently.  "If it means anything to you, I'm sorry that hahaue hurt you."  Gaze dropping to his hands, he frowned.  "She, uh . . . She hurt a lot of people . . ."

He left her then, figuring that he had gotten all the answers that he would get out of her.  It boggled his mind, the perfidy that had comprised his parents' lives.  So many people hurt, so many lives damaged by them—the both of them.

And how much of it was Ben's fault, too?  After all, he was the one who had walked away, even unknowingly at the time.  But they'd meant those things they'd said: that he was dead to them.  Even so, if he had intervened sooner, if he had fought his father long before now, would it have saved any lives?  Would it have made any kind of difference at all?

Hindsight was twenty-twenty.  That was the old saying, wasn't it?  So many times in his life that he could have changed things if he had just chosen to do something differently . . . If he had stayed in Japan for Manami . . . If he had returned a little faster that night when Akinako-chan had died . . . A lifetime of moments that were all decided in a split second.  Sometimes he got it right.  Sometimes, he'd failed in some way.

Striding out into the falling evening, the red sunset that carried a blood moon, Ben heaved a sigh, raked his hands through his hair, wondering why it was that a few days could possibly feel like an eternity.

He stopped in the courtyard, frowned at the rising moon, the falling dusk.  Somehow, he felt so much older than he ever had in his life: felt a bone-deep weariness, even as he realized in a vague sort of way that maybe the worst was behind him if only he could hang on to see the dawn.

'Cherry . . . Cherry's your dawn . . . Cherry and the girls . . . If you can focus on them—on your future—you'll be okay.'

Ben blinked as the words of his youkai-voice sank in.  'Charity and the girls are my . . . future . . .'

"That's an ominous-looking moon."

Ben nodded as Toga stopped beside him.  "Seems like it," he allowed.  "Or maybe it's just telling us that the worst of it is over.  For now, anyway . . ."

"Somehow, I don't feel as though Tetsuo and his people are really done stirring up trouble," Toga admitted.  "If it weren't for your brother . . . Well, safe to say that we owe him a hell of a lot . . ."

"But if they've fled to Europe and petitioned for asylum, then there's no way to touch them, barring Sesshoumaru himself going in and sussing them out . . ."

Toga nodded slowly.  "The best we can all do right now is just to keep on our guards because, if they're being protected in Europe, then there's a good chance that they're going to try to regroup in a year, in ten years, in twenty . . . They have all the time in the world . . ."

Toga was right, of course.  There wasn't really much anyone could do about it now.  Even if they hadn't fled, en masse, it wouldn't have mattered much.  Tetsuo had kept his nose far too clean in all of it to do a thing to him without having it look like blatant aggression on their side of things.

"So, will you be taking Charity back to the States soon?"

"I . . . I don’t know.  I guess it would depend upon Kyouhei . . ." Rubbing his forehead, he frowned at the moon, wishing absently that the answers were as clear as the stars above.  There were none.  There was just a fool's hope that it would all come clear eventually.  "I didn't even know of his existence until he was already nearly a hundred years old," he ventured quietly.  "It's stupid for me to think that, had I known, I might have saved him from a lifetime of being kept under my parents' thumb, but I can't seem to help thinking that everything that happened—all of it, up until this very moment—is somehow my fault, that I should have seen or known . . .That I should have acted long before now . . ."

"Kyouhei-san . . . He's strong," Toga remarked, digging his hands into his pockets as he, too, scowled at the moon.  "I don't doubt that he'll be just fine."

Ben sighed, then chuckled, but the sound was tempered by a level of sadness, too.  "It's funny.  If someone had told me last year at this time that I'd be here now, that everything would have happened the way they have, I'd have told them that they were full of it.  Good things, bad things . . . Maybe it's nice to know that some things can still catch me off guard, even now."

Ben's cell phone chimed, and he dug it out of his pocket, only to grimace at the text that Chelsea had sent him.  

'Have Evan write a song for you to sing to her to propose!'

He sighed.

"Surely not more bad news?" Toga questioned when he saw the expression on Ben's face.

Ben snorted.  "Hardly . . . Just Chelsea, giving me more suggestions on how to propose to Charity . . ."

"Oh," Toga remarked.  "I . . . I wasn't aware that you were considering it . . ." He grimaced and waved a hand.  "I mean, I guess I should have, but . . . Well, I suppose you’ve managed to catch me off guard this time . . ."

Ben frowned as he slowly turned to look at Toga, who was looking a little sad, all things considered.  "Uh, well, since we're, uh, talking about it . . . I . . . I meant to ask you . . ." He shook his head, drew a deep breath, wondering just why he suddenly felt ridiculously nervous . . . "It's entirely old-fashioned, but . . . I . . . I'd like to ask for your blessing . . . I'd like to marry your daughter."

Toga didn't answer right away.  In fact, he stiffened as he crossed his arms over his chest and stubbornly stared at the moon.  "And if I say no?"

Ben blinked since he really hadn't thought that Toga would say anything of the sort.  "Would you say no?"

Toga seemed to be considering Ben's counter-question.  "I might."

"With all due respect, Toga, even if you said no, it doesn't change the fact that Charity's my mate."

Toga nodded slowly, then he finally smiled, just a little.  "Then it's a good thing that I have no issue with it," he relented.  "And just for the record, I think she made a damn good choice."

"Thank you, but I think that I'm the lucky one here," Ben muttered.

Toga chuckled and clapped Ben on the shoulder.  "Just . . . One little thing."

"What's that?"

He let out a deep breath and leveled a no-nonsense look at Ben.  "Don't do anything weird, like call me, 'otou-san' or anything.  Considering our ages, I think that'd be kind of creepy."

For the first time in days, Ben uttered a real chuckle.  "You're right . . . It would be—otou-san."