InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Vivication ❯ Hubris ( Chapter 5 )

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

"This area is dangerous."

Fai didn't move, didn't look up, as he continued to devour what was left of the rabbit.  Saori blinked and stepped forward.  "Is . . .? Is that why you came to find me?"

He finally glanced up at her, hazel eyes dark in the wan light.  "Yeah, let's go with that," he muttered, turning his attention back to the rabbit in his hands.  He seemed to be considering something for a long moment, and then he sighed.  "You want some?" he asked almost grudgingly, holding up the carcass in her direction.

She waved a hand and pressed her lips together to stave back the smile that threatened.  "I already ate," she told him.  "Help yourself."

He didn't argue with her as he bit into it once more.  "Needs a little salt," he said around a mouthful of meat.

"I'll get some if we come across a town," she assured him, stacking the wood she'd gathered carefully before arranging a couple of stout logs on the fire.  "Before I left the orphanage, the director warned me about this area.  Is there a reason?  Is it just tougher?"

He gave a little shrug.  "The Bershetoyevs and the Kyranyovitch factions," he replied, tossing a few bones into the fire.  "They've been at it for . . . Well, for longer than I've been alive, I guess.  They're two packs of wolf-youkai—the Bershetoyevs are tundra-wolf-youkai led by a woman named Tanja who claims that the region has always belonged to her pack, and the Kyranyovitch faction—Tibetian wolves that migrated north from China after their leader at the time took a grey wolf to mate, thus giving them rights to the same land—or so they claim.  They're led by a man named Bojing, who is not a people-person.  They tend to have flare ups now and then, then they'll fall silent for a time.  Given that it's been awhile since their last altercation, it's just a matter of time before it starts up again."

She considered that and nodded slowly.  "Why haven't you put a stop to it?"

The look he shot her told her quite plainly that she was being a little simplistic, at least, in his opinion.  "You work with children, right?"

She nodded.

So did he.  "Then you know that children pick at each other over and over again until someone snaps, right?  Consider these two groups to be like children who never learned how to play nicely with others."

She snorted.  "But you're tai-youkai.  Can't you—?"

"Can't I, what?  Slap their hands and send them all to time-out?  No, I can't.  So far, they've only actually hurt each other, and as long as they keep it that way, then I'm not inclined to bother with them.  They're not interested in getting along, anyway, so it wouldn't matter what I said to them, none of them will listen to me, no matter who I am or what title I might have."

Sinking down on the ground, she wrapped her arms around her raised knees and shrugged.  "Maybe if you sat them all down and talked to them . . ."

"They're beyond sitting down and talking," he assured her.  "It has been awhile since they've actually killed anyone, so at this point, I'll take what I can get."

"They kill each other?"

"Yes.  I mean, what do you think they do in a fight?  Play 'rock, paper, scissors'?"

"That's barbaric," she mumbled.

He sighed, giving the bones a last turn in his hand before tossing them into the fire with the others.   "Things here are not like they are in Japan or . . . or anywhere else you've probably been," he informed her, taking his time, licking the rabbit juice off his fingers.  "The fighting is fair enough.  They only engage in hand-to-hand combat."

She fell silent, biting her lip as she considered what he'd said.  To him, it had sounded so pragmatic, so matter-of-fact.  To her, it was . . . was horrifying on some level . . .

He sighed, making a face as he wiped his hands on his slacks.  "You've seen the numbers of orphans that we have here.  That should be enough to tell you that life here is a lot different.  They don't have orphanages for our kind in Japan or anywhere else, really—maybe in Africa . . . They're able to place their orphans easily enough.  It's not that simple here.  Most people barely have enough money to support themselves, never mind a child, and those who have the means?  They're not interested in someone else's children.  If it were up to me . . ."

"If it were up to you . . .?" she prompted when he trailed off.

He leaned forward slightly, balancing on the balls of his feet, shoulders hunched forward, hands dangling between his parted knees as he frowned thoughtfully at the dancing flames.  "If it were up to me, I'd find homes for them all so that there was no need for the orphanage, to begin with."  He gritted his teeth, shook his head.  "Again, it's not that simple."

"What about . . . What about approaching the other tai-youkai?  I mean, maybe they can help you find homes for them all?"

"We don't need their charity," he retorted stiffly.

She winced since she really wasn't trying to offend him.  "It wouldn't be charity.  It would be finding homes—real homes—for these children," she explained.

He didn't look convinced, and she stifled a sigh.


Shrugging off the brand new backpack, Fai let it fall onto the ground with a heavy thump.  Saori's bag landed next to his along with the makeshift pack she'd fashioned out of a sweatshirt that held the children's precious things, and she braced her hands against the small of her back so that she could stretch.  "This looks like a decent spot," she said to no one in particular as she slowly scanned the small clearing.

Fai grunted something entirely unintelligible as he started gathering kindling for a fire.  Given that he'd have rather stayed in the small village they'd found, he wasn't exactly in complete agreement, but they'd wandered into the town early this morning, and suggesting that they pack it in for the day just wasn't exactly feasible.

'And just why were all your account cards declined?' his youkai-voice prodded.

He frowned.  He didn't rightfully know, and it had grated on his nerves even more, given that everything they'd bought in the small store—the only store in the town—was paid for by Saori.  He'd pay her back later, he told himself stubbornly.  It irritated the crap out of him to be beholden to anyone, especially a female someone who had kidnapped him, to start with.

She'd even offered to see if she couldn't buy a car off one of the locals, which had only furthered his overall pique.  He wasn't sure if it was good or bad that they hadn't found anyone willing to part with their automobile, but at least, he supposed, it had spared his pride just a little.

The small department store hadn't had any tents, which figured.  They had bought a tarp, though, so he figured it would have to do, especially when the overcast skies still hadn't let loose yet, though he had little doubt that a good rain was on its way . . .

"There's a stream over that way," she said, breaking through the silence that had fallen.  "Do you want to go catch some fish for dinner?  I can work on building a shelter for the night . . ."

Draping his hands on his hips, he cocked an eyebrow at her.  "And just how will I do that when we didn't buy any fishing line or anything?" he countered.

She blinked and turned her head to stare at him, the plastic-wrapped tarp hanging from her hands.  The expression on her face said quite plainly that she was trying to decide if he were serious or not, and he narrowed his eyes.  "But you don't need anything to fish," she finally said.

"Of course, you do!" he scoffed.  "How else are you going to catch them?"

She looked genuinely confused by his claim, and she slowly shook her head.  "With your hands . . ."

Snapping his mouth closed on the retort he'd been forming in his head, Fai could only shake his head slowly.  "What?"

She shrugged, turning her attention back to her task as she yanked the plastic bag containing the tarp open.  "You just stand there, wait for the fish to come to you, and grab them," she said, as though it was the simplest thing in the world.

"And who told you that crap?"

She glanced at him before sticking the corner of the plastic pack into her mouth to tear it open.  "Oji-chan," she replied.

He grunted.  "Oji-chan is full of shit."

She giggled.  "Are you going to tell him that?"

"If he were here, I would."

For some reason, that amused her even more.  Her cheeks pinked as she waved a hand in front of her face, her giggles filling the air in a very pleasant kind of way that still grated on his nerves.  "If you ever do, I want to be there to see his reaction," she chortled.

He snorted.  "All right, if you're so smart.  You go fish, and I'll set up the shelter."

Her smile didn't diminish as she handed him the tarp and headed off toward the stream.

Heaving a sigh, he turned his attention to building a shelter.  They had bought a large ball of twine, so it didn't take him long to lash together two long, stout branches to an even longer third one that he let rest on the ground.  Then he lashed the tarp to the branches and secured the edges with a few bright yellow tent spikes.

All in all, he was pretty pleased with his efforts, and he spared a moment to survey it before using his feet to scrape away debris from a small circle for the fire not too far away.  A few minutes later, he had a decent fire going, too, and, all in all, he felt rather accomplished.

'I don't know, Fai . . . Maybe we should go see if we can't hunt down a rabbit or something because she's never, ever going to catch fish with nothing but her hands . . .'

He grunted, crossing his arms over his chest as he slowly shook his head.  'I just single-handedly set up camp.  Do I have to do everything?'

'It would depend upon just how hungry you are.'

He sighed.  'Point taken.'

It didn't take long for him to catch the scent of a rabbit, and tracking it down was no problem, either.  As he crouched in a thicket of brush, he narrowed his eyes as the fat ball of fluff emerged from a small den and slowly glanced around.  He was downwind, so she couldn't smell him, but she still hesitated before turning around slowly.

Fai braced himself, ready to launch himself at his prey, only to stop at the last moment when five little, tiny heads popped out of the den behind her, and he frowned.

'You . . . You don't want to go after her because of those babies?'

Making a face, he sat back as the tiny bunnies hopped around their mother.

'You're going soft!'

Ignoring the disbelief in his youkai's voice, he scooted away from the rabbits.  After all, there were other things around.  It would be fine.  All he had to do was find something else—something without babies—and it would all be good.


"Here."
< br> Fai shot Saori a rather pointed look as he slowly reached out to take the staked fish from her without a word.

She stifled a sigh and sat back, having already eaten two of the five fish she'd caught, cleaned, and cooked over the open fire.  For reasons she didn't really understand, he hadn't said much more than a few words to her since he'd wandered back into camp.  At the time, she'd figured he was just off, answering nature's call or something like that.  Now, though . . . Well, she really didn't know what to make of his strange and almost angry behavior . . .

Digging a bottle of water out of her bag, she broke the seal and sipped it, casting Fai a sidelong look.  What unsettled her most about him was just how hard it was to read his expression.  The frown on his face seemed to be his general expression, and she bit her lip as she wondered just why it would be that someone like him should look like that most of the time.

'Are you kidding?  He's tai-youkai, and you know that this region isn't nearly as docile as Japan or even North America . . .'

That was true enough.  She'd heard whispers from time to time, hadn't she?  Though she hadn't really paid as much attention to the topic of tai-youkai business, she had been around it all of her life, especially when she spent time with her grandparents or even her great-uncle and great-aunt.  She supposed that it was normal, given who her family was, and, while she couldn't remember specifics, she did recall vaguely how Asia had been spoken of as a harder region to manage, to the point that she remembered one discussion in particular where her uncle, Toga had suggested breaking Asia into two regions to make it easier.  Sesshoumaru had nixed that idea, saying that he had every faith that the current tai-youkai could manage very well, even if he was a little young.  To her knowledge, that discussion had never been revisited, either . . .

Looking at Fai, however, she had to wonder what he'd think of such an idea . . .

"You bought fishing line and hid it, didn't you?" he finally asked, breaking the silence as he stripped fish off the bones.

Her mouth dropped open for a moment before she snapped it closed.  "You know I didn't," she reminded him since he'd been standing right there with her when she paid for the supplies.  "I caught them just like I said I would."

He grunted.  Then he heaved a longsuffering sigh.  "Thank you," he growled, sounding even more irritated by the second.

She sighed, stretching out her legs, leaning back on her hands.  "I guess in my family, we're used to fishing like that and stuff, so it didn't occur to me that we should buy fishing line," she explained.  "We liked to go camping when I was younger.  My whole family, really—well, maybe not all at the same time, but . . . But oji-chan taught us all to fish and so I grew up, thinking that his way is normal . . . Did you go camping and stuff as a pup, too?"

Tossing the carcass of his demolished fish into the fire, he shrugged.  "Not much," he confessed, but at least, he sounded a little less put-upon, so that was something.  "There wasn't much time for playing."

"You had to start training really early, didn't you?" she asked quietly.

"I guess.  Never really thought of it that way.  It's just how it was.  I'm not complaining."

"No, you didn't sound like you were," she agreed.  "It's a lot of responsibility, being tai-youkai."

He reached for the last fish, pausing just long enough to offer it to her.  She waved it away, and he bit into it.  "Yes, well, it's much easier now than it used to be.  Becoming tai-youkai at twenty . . . There were a number of people who didn't agree with my right to inherit my father's position."

She frowned as the gravity of his statement sank in.  "You mean, they challenged you?"

He nodded, scowling into the gamboling flames of the fire.  "Not as frequently these days, but back then . . ."

She flinched.  She wanted to ask him how often that had happened, wished that she knew him well enough to try to make him feel better about it, which was kind of a silly notion, given that it was all in the past.  In the end, however, she sighed, figured that maybe a slight change in topic was the best course of action.  "You said your brother's a lot younger than you?  How old was he when your parents . . .?"

For a long moment, she didn't think he was going to answer.  Taking his time as he stripped the rest of the meat off the bones, he tossed the carcass into the fire and dusted his hands together before digging a bottle of water out of his bag.  "He was two," he replied in almost a monotone.  "Two years, two months, and a few days old, to be exact . . ."

"And you've cared for him since then . . ."

Fai nodded.  "He had a nanny, of course, but he didn't like her.  He always wanted to be with me, so I let her go.  The doctor said that he thought it was due to the trauma of our parents' deaths—well, Mother's, anyway.  My father wasn't very hands-on, I guess you could say."

Her frown deepened.  "He didn't . . . didn't love you?"

Shaking his head, Fai drained half of his water before taking his time, replacing the cap once more.  "I wouldn't say that," he ventured.  "I mean, looking back, I know he cared.  He just . . ." Offering a little shrug, he seemed to be deep in thought for several moments before he sighed, gave a little shrug.  "A tai-youkai cannot afford to lean on anyone.  There isn't anyone else to do so.  I was in college when Yerik was born, so I don't know how he was with him, really, but . . . but he never wanted me to be coddled.  Mother would hug me, of course, hold me on her lap, but Father . . . He discouraged such things, but it wasn't because he didn't care.  He wanted me to learn to depend upon myself; that's all.  I mean, he was strict, but he was also the first one to tell me when I'd done well, too."

"Is that how your brother was raised?" she asked.

He seemed surprised by her question, and he shook his head.  "Not really.  Given what happened, it wasn't really possible.  Yerik . . . I don't know what he does or doesn't remember, and he's never said, but he had nightmares for a long time, and . . . and I couldn't leave him alone—not at that age.  That would have been . . . cruel . . . Once he reached a certain age, though, he didn't really need me like that anymore."

That she supposed she could understand.  Maybe her family was different in that respect, but Sesshoumaru tended to be a little like that—maybe not to the extent as Fai's father was.  Even so, she didn't doubt for a moment that there were moments that he'd stood back, allowed Toga to deal with things on his own to teach him to rely upon himself, too . . .

He let out a deep breath, his expression almost disgusted—almost.  "That's more than I think I've ever told anyone," he admitted.  "I have no idea why I told you any of it . . ."

She smiled a little sadly.  "It's lonely, isn't it?  Being tai-youkai . . ."

The look he shot her was surprised, almost taken aback, and she blinked as a hint of a blush rose in his cheeks, though, in the wan light of the fire, she couldn't help but wonder if she weren't seeing things, too.  "Yeah, it . . . It is . . ."