InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Misery Loves Company ( Chapter 43 )

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

"Jessa!"

Uttering a sound, caught up somewhere between a whimper and a groan, Jessa squeaked out a sigh as Kells jettisoned himself from somewhere across the room, only to land directly on her, splayed out like a flying monkey from the old Wizard of Oz movie . . .

"Oh, Kells . . . ugh . . ." she muttered, wishing that she could go right back to sleep since she felt pretty well like hell warmed over.

"What's the matter, Jessa?" Kells asked, ferreting his way up under her chin, snuggling as close to her as he possibly could.  "Are you gonna have a baby now?"

"Wh-What?" she rasped out, struggling to clear her groggy mind since the effects of her sake-binge was still entirely too heavy to shake off.  "What?"

"That means I'm gonna be the brudder!" Kells exclaimed happily  as he squirreled his way off the bed, feet thumping heavily on the floor as Jessa winced.  "An' Daddy can be the daddy, and you can be the mommy!  An' I can name him Blinker Trotsky, but we can call him, 'Trots' instead!"

That decided, he darted out of her room before she could stop him to disabuse him of that insane notion.  For all of a second, she considered, tossing the duvet aside and chasing after the overzealous child.  Then she groaned again and opted instead to bury herself under the comforter once more . . .

She really should have learned her lesson the last time she'd thought that drinking sake was a good idea, but no . . . It was, however, the easiest thing to grab out of the liquor cabinet at the time . . .

"So . . . Kells tells me that you're . . . expecting . . ."

She groaned, but the sound was completely ineffectual, trapped as it was in the pillow she'd smashed her face into, and then, she flew him the bird.

He chuckled.  "Do you need some Tylenol?"

Again, something entire unintelligible . . .

The bed sagged beside her, and she scooted a little further away.  "Come on, Jessa.  You can't sleep all day.  Everyone's already left, and they said to tell you goodbye."

A half-whine, half-growl as she tried in vain to block out the sound of his voice since it was just a little too loud at the moment.

"Besides, you haven't heard the most fascinating thing yet."

She heaved a sigh and rolled her head just far enough to glower at him.  "Go away, Ashur."

"You might be interested to know that your friend, Carol and Laith both smell a little . . . different today . . ."

Rubbing her forehead, she didn't quite catch onto his meaning since she was too busy, feeling like she'd be much better off if she just chopped off her own head . . . "That's nice . . ."

He grunted.  "Nice? That's nice?  Your friend and Laith become mates, and you think that's just 'nice'?"

She frowned.  "Wait.  What?"

He rolled his eyes but chuckled.  "Mates, Jessa.  Mates."

"O . . . Oh . . ."

He shrugged and peered over his shoulder at her.  "I'd like to open my present now, if you'll come out of hiding . . ."

She sat up, glaring daggers at him as she gripped her temples in her fingertips and furiously massaged.  "Why didn't you open it last night—you know: on your birthday?" she grumbled.

The look he shot her told her quite plainly that he thought that she was simply being disagreeable.  "Because I wanted to open it alone with you, without everyone else watching.  Is that so bad?"

She wrinkled her nose.  "You made it look like I didn't give you anything," she muttered, stubbornly refusing to meet his gaze.

He sighed, but pulled out a wad of blue tissue paper, letting it drop on the floor before pulling out the wrapped box—the big one: the Bas-Armagnac.  Reaching over, she neatly plucked it out of his hands and set the box on her other side.  He shot her a quizzical glance, but said nothing as he reached for the next one: the snifters that she also whipped out of his grasp and gestured at the bag once more.  "Those first," she said when he set the bag aside and crossed his arms over his chest.

He didn't smile, but he did look rather amused as he retrieved the gift bag once more and pulled out the small boxes.  "A fountain pen?  I haven't seen one of these in years," he remarked, tugging off the cap and giving the pen a good once-over.  "I like it.  Thank you."

She shrugged and poked a finger at the other small box: the ink in a beautiful crystal inkwell.  "Oh . . . Very nice . . ." he said, looking a little surprised.

She kicked at the bag with her duvet-covered-foot, and he chuckled as he retrieved the last present out of it and let the bag fall onto the floor.  Digging into the wrapping paper, he pulled out the leather journal and blinked, slowly running his fingers over the velvety surface.  "This is . . . Thank you . . ."

She frowned.  "Do you like it?"

He nodded.  "I, uh . . . Yes, I . . . I do . . ."

Her frown darkened.  "You don't sound like you do."

He glanced at her and smiled just a little.  "I used to have one of these—not exactly like this one—not nearly as fine . . . I always meant to get another, but I just didn't . . . It's perfect."

Biting her lip, satisfied that he wasn't just pretending to like her gifts, she handed him the snifters.

"More drinking glasses?" he asked with a wry chuckle.  "After last night, I'm assuming you won't want to be drinking with me for awhile . . ."

She wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes, but handed over the last present.

"Uh . . . Oh . . . I haven't tried this before," he said, carefully pulling the bottle out of the box.  "It's a little early in the day for tasting, I guess, but I'll have to sample it later."

"I tried it in the store," she said.  "It was a lot smoother than your usual."

He smiled as he gathered the gifts up and slipped them back into the bag.  "Thank you, Jessa."  Stretching out beside her, leaning on his elbow, he stared at her for a long minute, his expression a little foreboding, though he reached out, ran his fingertips down the length of her cheek.  "We need to talk."

Somehow, she didn't particularly like the tone of his voice, the gentle but assertive quality of his tone.  "Can we do this later, Ashur?  I don't—"

He sighed.  "No, we can't," he said.  "When did you talk to Hana, and what, exactly, did she say to you?"

And just like that, the slightly-less-guarded feeling that he'd fostered while opening his birthday presents vanished as Jessa leaned away, drew up her knees, tight against her chest.  "I ran into her when I was shopping for your gifts," she mumbled.  "She wanted to have tea, so I did."

"And what did she say?"

"Does it matter?"

"I think it does," he replied.

Shoving aside the duvet, Jessa stumbled out of bed, scowling at the rumpled clothes that she'd worn yesterday, as she strode around and toward the bathroom.

He sighed.  "Jessa, I want to know."

"Drop it," she stated flatly as she closed and locked the bathroom door before he got any ideas.

Heaving frustrated grunt, she considered simply hanging out in here, maybe for the rest of the summer. Given that the man was demanding answers that she wasn't entirely willing to share . . .

'And just why should I, I'd like to know?  He knows the truth of their relationship more than I do, so why in hell would I have to tell him?  To humiliate me?  To prove, once and for all, what a stupid, idiotic girl I am?'

Her youkai-voice sighed. 'Oh, honestly, do you really think that's what he's saying?  Didn't you hear what he was trying to say to you last night?'

She wrinkled her nose, stripping off her clothes and slapping the wall panel to launch the shower.  'Of course, I did.  He said he didn't love . . . me . . .'

'He did not say that, Jessamyn!  You cut him off before he could finish!'

'Because I didn't need to hear him say it, damn it!'

'Oh, quit being such a baby, won't you?  Here's a novel idea, Miss Bitch.  Why don't you let the poor man talk and listen to him for once?'

'Because he doesn't want to talk,' she shot back, scrubbing at her scalp with a vengeance.  'He wants to listen to me talk—about Hana, and I'm not talking about Hana!  I can't even think about everything she said without—without—'

Her youkai sighed—a long, drawn-out, weary sound.  'I know, Jessa . . . I . . . I know . . .'


Scowling at the closed bathroom door, Ashur got up, strode over to it, kneeling down to pick the lock since he'd heard it very distinctly.

'You realize that that may not be the best course of action right now,' his youkai-voice pointed out.

'Yeah?  And why would that be?'

'Because, you ass, she's already upset with you.  You're just going to make it worse if you barge in there and start demanding answers from her—answers that very obviously hurt her, don't you think?  Or weren't you there last night?  You saw it, didn't you?  The pain in her eyes—the hurt at whatever Hana told her . . .'

'Hana . . .'

The last thing—the very last thing—he wanted to do was to talk to her for any reason, whatsoever, but Jessa . . .

The sadness in her expression, the uncanny brightness in her gaze . . . and her gentle pleading for him to just not push her away dug at him, rubbed him raw.  Even the simple memory of it was enough to make him grimace.  Just what had Hana said to her . . .?

'You know, though . . . Hana doesn't know much English, if she knows any at all, and you know as well as I do, just how some things translate . . . or don't, as the case may be . . .'

He sighed and made a face, forcing himself back to his feet.  He grabbed the gift bag off the floor and headed out of the bedroom and down the hallway, toward the stairs and his office beyond.  No, he really needed to find out just what was said, and there were only two people who could really answer that.  One would rather set him on fire than to tell him—or at least, that was the impression he'd gotten.  The other one was Hana . . .

It didn't take long to run a check of all the hotels in Quebec City for Hana's name—one of the perks that came with being a general, he guessed.  Because of his position, he was able to access the secured server as well as a program that one of the hunters, Moe Jamison had written that had the capability to hack any websites that utilized online reservation features.  Ashur didn't know how he'd done it or if it was even legal, but the point was, it worked, and he dialed the hotel's phone number and waited.

"Gran Fal Skyplex Hotel," a very smooth-voiced woman greeted him.  "How may I help you today?"

"Yes, can you put me through to room 706?  Thank you."

"Room 706 is currently unoccupied," she said.  "Can you tell me the guest's name?"

"Hana . . . Hana Satou."

He heard the click of keyboard keys for a few moments before she spoke again.  "I'm sorry sir.  Ms. Satou and her companion checked out early this morning."

Stifling a frustrated growl as he gritted his teeth for a second, Ashur rubbed his forehead.  "All right.  Thank you."

Ending the call, he sighed.  He didn't have her phone number—hadn't wanted it—and he didn't know where she lived now—nothing.

"Damn . . ."

Rubbing his face, he slowly shook his head.  'I swear to kami, the entire universe is conspiring against me . . .'

'Kind of feels that way sometimes, doesn't it?'

'Just . . . one thing . . . Can't one thing be simple, easy?'

Turning in his chair to get to his feet, he nudged the gift bag with his foot and frowned.  He reached down, retrieved the journal, the pen, and the inkwell and set them on the desk, but the journal was what interested him the most.

He hadn't lied about the one he used to have, but he hadn't been entirely honest, either.  Hana had given him one years ago, but after everything that had happened, he'd thrown it away.  He simply didn't want the reminders of her, of the friendship that had been lost.  Some things weren't meant to be forgiven.  He'd realized that.  Some things really couldn’t be fixed, couldn't be smoothed away with a simple, 'I'm sorry' . . . He'd learned, first-hand that sometimes, a lifetime of friendship really meant nothing in the face of what she'd ultimately done . . .

That Jessa had thought to buy this for him . . .?  Just what did that mean . . .?

The computer beeped at him, announcing the delivery of an email.

He sighed, hand still resting atop the fine leather, as he clicked on the notification and waited for it to load.

He didn't recognize the address, which didn't mean much; not really.  There was an attachment—a picture file—but he ignored that for the moment and frowned as he read the message.

'The old Laughner estate, 2 p.m.  Be there or I may have to pay the hot red-head a visit.  Let's talk,' it said . . .

"Hot red-head," Ashur muttered, clicking on the attachment and narrowing his gaze.  The image opened up as he erupted into a low growl.  It was taken by the pond: him, flat on his back, Jessa straddling him, her head bent back, eyes closed, cheeks flushed, mouth slack, and very, very naked . . .

Closing out the email with a click of the mouse and a harsh growl, a muttered curse, Ashur couldn't help the absolute rage that shot through him.  Whoever it was . . . And he hadn't sensed a damn thing, had he?  Nope, too busy, too caught up in her that he hadn't paid a bit of attention to anyone or anything in the area . . .

A sickened feeling opened up in the pit of his stomach.  Threatening him, he could stand.  That was fine.  Threatening Jessa . . .?

Glancing at the clock, he shot to his feet, chair sliding across the floor, only to smack into the wall.  He didn't know where the old Laughner estate was, but it was already well after one o'clock.

Striding out of the office, he paused at the base of the stairs.  "Jessa!  I've got to go.  Keep an eye on Kells!" he hollered.

She stepped into the hallway, hairbrush in hand.  "Okay," she said.  "Will you be out long?"

"I . . . I don't think so," he replied.

She nodded and went back into her room.

He yanked his shoes on and grabbed his sword out of the hall closet before striding toward the door and out into the sunshine.


Striding past the ruins of an old French-style mansion, Ashur willed himself to be calm, to maintain his composure, even as the need to tear something to bits tried to overwhelm him.  Every time he thought about that picture, he grew a little hotter, a little angrier.  Whoever had dared to intrude on his land, to watch them during a time that should have remained a beautiful moment . . . That he had dared to look at Jessa at a moment like that . . . Well, there was a good chance that whoever it was, was going to die . . .

It was a beautiful space—he'd have enjoyed just wandering through it—if circumstances were different.  He couldn't sense anyone near yet, which wasn't entirely surprising.  Whoever it was had ample time to set up things to his advantage, didn't he . . .?

Sparing a moment to adjust the sword on his hip, Ashur stopped beside a low stone fence that was crumbling and breaking down.  The sword, a combination of Hidekea's claw and Ashur's fang, was different from most youkai blades.  Because he was an earth-elemental-youkai, Ashur's sword reacted to and could be used to channel earth and, to a lesser extent, other elements, as well.

Hidekea had always told him, however, that he wasn't nearly as strong with the weapon as he should have been, and Ashur supposed that there was truth in that.  The thing was, he tended to be equally adept at every weapon he'd trained with in an effort to find the one that suited him best, so maybe he wouldn't be considered a master swordsman, but it didn't hinder him that much, either, and with the added ability to channel elements, the sword had served him well enough over the centuries.

The wind picked up, lifting his golden-brown bangs, tossing them haphazardly.  The shifting of the breeze carried the unseen youkai's scent easily enough, and Ashur crossed his arms as he waited.

Ray Johnston, a bison-youkai, stepped out of a grove of trees.  Ashur recognized him easily enough.  He had been present at a couple of the meetings at the Muira compound back in Japan during the ill-fated youkai uprising four years ago.  Mud brown eyes set back in the deep recesses of his eye sockets, overshadowed by the shaggy, frizzy black hair that stuck up in crazy tufts all over his head, he was huge, almost as big as Bas Zelig, and he puffed out his chest in a move of subtle intimidation.  The tactic was completely lost on Ashur.

"So, you did come," Johnston said, his tone, mocking, belligerent as he swaggered toward him, hands on his thick hips, a condescending smile on his wide face.  "I was hoping you wouldn't.  Kind of hoped you'd be stupid enough not to—give me a chance to get to know that hot little number—the red-head . . . See if she ain't as fiery with me as she was with you . . ."

He was deliberately goading Ashur, and he knew it.  That didn't really make the rage that rose in him any easier to control.  "You'll never find out," Ashur growled.

Johnston kicked his foot in the tall grass, his grin turning just a little nastier.  "I'll rip her pussy wide open and make her scream for more.  Show her what it's like to fuck a real man."

"Suppose you just tell me what you want so we can get on with this," Ashur growled, unable to keep the irritation out of his tone.

"Well, that depends," Johnston drawled, "Suppose you tell me just what happened?  I know your damned brother butted his nose in where it didn't belong, but you . . .? How is it that you were able to walk away from all of it?  Why were you the only one out of everyone who lived?  Shouldn't you have died, too?  I mean, you said you were with us, didn't you, Kyouhei-sama?"

"I owe you no explanations," Ashur replied in an entirely flat tone of voice, ignoring the blatant barb Johnston inserted with the use of the honorific.  "I don't owe you a damn thing."

"Now, see, that's where you're wrong.  Allen Yates was a friend of mine, and he was caught up in that little tussle.  He's dead now, thanks to that no-good hunter, Ryomaru."

"That's where you're wrong," Ashur said, his voice dropping to a low rumble.  "Every single person makes their own choices.  No one made any of them fool enough to get involved in something that could and did blow up in their faces.  No one asked you to trespass on my land, to take pictures of something that was not meant for you to see—for anyone else to see . . . and no one asked me to end you, either—but I will."

Johnston threw his head back and laughed, as though the very idea that Ashur could and would fight him was little more than a joke to him.  "Even if you could beat me—you can't, but it is what it is—there are a hundred more people out there who want answers, and now that you're demeaning yourself by working for the Zelig?  You're easy pickings . . . You, that bitch, the brat . . . Tell me something, Kyouhei-sama . . . Just who is that kid?  Want to hear my guess?"

Narrowing his gaze as the air around his youki seemed to crackle in the otherwise brilliant afternoon, Ashur squelched the rising anger that Johnston or anyone would have the nerve to make threats against people who had nothing at all to do with the situation.  "You and your kind can threaten me all you want.  I'm not afraid of any of you, and I never will be, but you and those like you will stay the hell away from her and from him.  You have something against me?  Fine, but if anyone—anyone—threatens them?  I'll knock you down."    

"That kid . . . He's your baby brother . . ."

"Actually . . ." Ashur drawled, purposefully allowing his youki to soak into the earth under his feet, "he's my son."

"Your son, is he?  With all the hallmarks of a true Muira . . ." Johnston goaded.  "Is that right?"

"I have walked away from that life," Ashur replied.  "Ordinarily, I'd suggest that you do the same, but, well . . ." Trailing off as he cracked his knuckles by simply flexing his fingers, he smiled just a little—a bitter smile, as full of irony, of grim satisfaction.  "You already dug your grave, Johnston."

"Cute," he laughed, throwing his tree-trunk-like arms out wide, only to bring them forward fast, back and forth, like a prize fighter warming up before the title match.  "If you think you can . . ."

He shot forward in a blur of motion—admirably fast for such a large youkai.  Ashur flipped out of the way as the bison's fist smacked hard into the dirt where he had been standing, a groaning tremor at the point of impact, a rain of dirt and grass, blowing up, showering down in a wide arc.  "Fast little shit, aren't you?" he said, sounding more amused than he ought to.  Then again, Ashur had the distinct feeling that the bison really believed that he held the upper hand.

Sprinting toward him once more, Johnston let out a bellow, almost a war-cry, leaping high into the air, legs bent, fist drawn back, as a ball of light formed on the opened and outstretched palm of his forehand.  He released it, and Ashur jumped, but he wasn't anticipating the volley of smaller energy spheres that Johnston fired off within moments of the first one: spheres that expanded at a horrifying speed as they hurled toward him.

He eluded the largest of them, hissing in pain as three of the smaller ones struck him in the leg, in the arm, in the side of his chest.  He felt his flesh tearing, could smell the stench of burning muscle.  Flung back from the impact of the exploding spheres, Ashur caught himself as he slid over the ground, as he raised a dirt wall behind him to stop the slide.

The dirt wall crumbled seconds later when Johnston's fist smacked into it.  Ashur rolled out of the way, coming up with a grimace as the electric pulses from the energy blasts continued to reverberate throughout his body, wreaking havoc on his nerves as he struggled to make himself move.

Johnston lunged at him again, but this time, Ashur stomped the ground, sending an explosion of earth directly at him, a furrow that grew and expanded, opening up wider as it shot away from him, a gully, a fissure, that the bison couldn't avoid.  Failing wildly, arms up, waving, feet that lost their footing, pistoning in a crazy dance before he plunged into the gash that was easily ten feet deep and twice as wide.  The sounds of the man's screams echoed in the air as Ashur raised his hands, slammed his palms together.  The earth groaned and grunted as he locked his hands together, and with a final creak, the crevice snapped closed, silencing Johnston forever as a subterranean blast, almost like a tremor, reverberated up through the earth as the buried youkai exploded.

Letting out a deep breath as the final rumbles slowed then quieted, Ashur glanced down, only to grimace at the crimson stain that was slowly spreading on the pristine white shirt.  For some reason, that fight felt a little anticlimactic.  Given the bison's tough talk, he should have put forth more effort than he did, but then, Ashur had learned over time that the bigger, brawnier opponents usually leaned a little too heavily on brute strength alone.

With a grimace, a grunt, he sat down hard on the crumbling stone wall to yank open his shirt to inspect the damage.  The wound was clean enough, he supposed, though the energy ball had burned into him before exploding just below the surface.  He didn't pull up the leg of his pants to look at it, but he figured it was the same, which was probably why his nerves had gone haywire for a moment, too.  The dampness of his blood was pooling in his sock in an entirely unpleasant kind of way, but he ignored that, giving his arm a little shake, sending droplets of blood, flying.

He was a mess, wasn't he?  And yet, the idea of going home wasn't nearly as appealing as it ought to have been, either . . . He didn't have to be brilliant to realize that Jessa would likely freak out, and he never wanted Kells to see such things, either, and he sighed.

Lifting his gaze, he waved his hand then let it drop heavily onto his thigh, releasing the remnants of the earth wall he'd brought up.  It crumbled slowly, and when it was done, the entire field looked exactly as it had before the fight began.  There were no marks, not a blade of grass disturbed, even where he'd opened up the gash in the earth that had become Johnston's final resting place.

He grimaced.  It was one of those things, wasn't it?  One of the many things that Hidekea had scoffed at over the years—all throughout his training, whenever he'd stood there afterward, frowning at the destruction of the earth that was invariably left behind, it had come as second nature to him, to fix it, to smooth it away once more.

"What do you think you're doing?" Hidekea demanded, crossing his arms over his chest as he glowered down at twelve-year-old Kyouhei.

"It was ruined," he replied, resisting the urge to shuffle his feet nervously, painfully aware of the censure in Hidekea's voice.

"It's a mark that a battle took place here," Hidekea stated.  "You bow not to the earth; the earth shall bow to you."

". . . Hai, otou-san . . ."

Hidekea snorted indelicately as he turned on his heel to stride away.  "Too damn soft. That one will never be anything but a failure," he muttered under his breath, and whether he intended for Ashur to hear him or not, he had . . .

As the ugly memory faded, Ashur pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the twinging nerves that nearly hobbled him, the twitching spasms that still ricocheted through his arm, his leg, his chest as he slowly turned and walked away.