InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Vivication ❯ Russian Princess ( Chapter 30 )

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

“Wel l, well, well . . . Welcome home, Saori.”

Breaking into a bright smile, Saori set her suitcase on the floor and darted over to hug Yerik, who was leaning against one of the ornate staircase newel post.  “Yerik-kun!  I missed you!”

The younger Demyanov chuckled.  “Yerik-kun?” he echoed, arching an eyebrow as he broke into a slight grin.  “That’s interesting . . . and I missed you, yes.  Not as much as Fai, but of course, I did.”

She giggled, pinking slightly as she managed to quell her exuberance.  Taking a step back, she scrunched up her shoulders in a little bob, giving him a happy little bow of her head as she remembered her manners a little late.  “Thank you!”

“Vasili, take Saori’s things to her room.  I’m sure she’d like to freshen up,” Fai commanded, striding past his brother, heading for his office.  “Yerik, brief me.”

Yerik rolled his eyes, but spared a moment to wink at Saori before heading off after his brother, leaving Saori to follow the stoic butler, who had already retrieved her suitcase.

“I can get that myself,” she said, hating the feeling that she was somehow inconveniencing the man.  To be honest, she wasn’t entirely sure, just what to make of Vasili, and she had to admit that she really wondered if he even liked her at all.  Somehow, she felt like maybe he didn’t, even though he didn’t really make any outward overtures to indicate as much.  Then again, maybe she was simply reading too much into it . . .

“It’s quite all right, my lady,” he replied.  His tone was brusque, but he didn’t seem entirely aloof, as he had before, either.

“I don’t want to put you to any trouble,” she insisted.  “Thank you.”

“No thanks necessary,” he assured her.  “On the contrary, it’s my job—my pride.”

She considered that and relaxed just a little.  “How long have you worked for Fai-sama?” she asked instead.  “I mean, you worked for his father, too, didn’t you?”

“And his grandfather,” Vasili said.  “My father worked for the family, all the way back to the days of the first Asian tai-youkai.  It’s been the honor of my family to care for the needs of the Demyanov family, and, God willing, we will continue to do so in the years to come.”

She sighed.  “I apologize if my family gave you any trouble,” she said, thinking back to the impromptu rescue party—and wondering if her grandfather and father had behaved themselves when they were here, too.

“I assure you, it was an experience I will never forget, meeting not only the Inu no Taisho as well as the hanyou of legend.”

She grimaced since she wasn’t entirely sure that his words could or should be taken at face value.  “Ji-chan tends to get a little impatient,” she admitted.

To her surprise, Vasili chuckled.  It was the first real crack she’d ever seen in his otherwise stony façade.  “Most people can only dream of having seen the legendary sword, Tetsusaiga.  I, on the other hand, can attest to having not only seen it, but to have seen it brandished in glorious form.”

Pressing her lips together so that she wouldn’t burst out in a giggle, Saori nodded, but she bit her lip when he opened the door that led to the antechamber.  She’d noticed before that this room setup was different than the other bedrooms in the castle.  It almost felt more like a hotel room suite—a good sized space with a comfortable sitting area in the center with a large television, mounted on a wall.  On the one side by the door that led to Fai’s room, there were a few massive bookshelves, some with books, some with various knickknacks and collectables arranged on the shelves.  On the other side of the room near another door exactly like Fai’s stood a huge stone fireplace.  Before that was a low, square table that almost reminded Saori of a kotatsu with a bunch of colorful pillows arranged around it.

Vasili, however, didn’t stop, leading the way to the other door, and he opened it and stepped back, allowing her to slip past the butler into a very pretty, very feminine room.  Decorated in varying shades of dusty rose, in miles of antique cream-colored lace, even the furnishings were far more delicate, daintier, than she’d seen anywhere else in the castle.

“This was her room,” he ventured.  “His Grace’s mother, Faina . . . Of course, Her Grace and His Grace Alexei had shared the master chamber, but this room was her sanctuary.  Oftentimes, when he was away on business, she would stay in this room instead . . . If it doesn’t please you, do let me know.  These were her favorite colors, but if you prefer otherwise, I’ll be more than happy to make certain that it suits you . . .”

She wasn’t sure why the idea that she was being given Fai’s mother’s room surprised her—and bothered her.  The assumption of intimacy was loud and clear, and for a girl who didn’t have that much experience with men in general, she couldn’t help the overwhelming sense of shyness that crashed down on her hard.

“Should I . . .?  Should I be in here?” she couldn’t help but ask, biting her bottom lip as she shifted uncomfortably.

The old butler looked surprised for a moment before he managed to mask the emotion behind the blank expression he tended to favor.  “When I spoke to His Grace on the phone, he asked me to see that this room was readied for you, so yes, this is where you should be—unless you wish otherwise?”

“He . . . He did?”

Vasili smiled.  The expression brightened his gaze, softened the edges of his rigid stance.  “If I may say so?  In all my time, serving His Grace, I have never seen him go out of his way for anyone, save Master Yerik—no one but you.  It is my honor to serve you, too.  Is there anything else you require?”

For some reason, Vasili’s statement made her unaccountably happy, and she finally relaxed.  “No . . . I . . . Vasili?  Thank you . . .”

He looked genuinely surprised, and he shook his head.  “My lady?”

She shrugged.  “For being kind to me,” she replied simply.

To her surprise, the man actually blushed the tiniest bit.  Then he made a low bow and let himself out of her room after telling her that he would send someone named Marta—a maid—up in short order he help her get settled in.


“Saori seems very happy,” Yerik remarked as he closed the office door behind them.  “Are you?”

Fai glanced at his brother, arching an eyebrow while Yerik wandered over to pour two glasses of vodka.  “I’m behind; that’s what I am,” he replied dryly, reaching for the stack of mail, arranged neatly on his desk.

“You’re not,” Yerik challenged mildly.  “Vasili sent you the important things that needed immediate attention.  You just hate the idea that you were able to take an impromptu vacation and Asia didn’t fall to pieces while you were gone.”

“Shut up, Yerik,” he grumbled, taking the drink his brother offered to him.

Yerik chuckled, tipping his glass to his lips.  “You had Saori installed in Mother’s room,” he mused.

“Is it a problem?”

Yerik shook his head, and his smile widened.  “Not at all.  I’m . . . I’m glad for you.”

“Except you don’t sound like you are,” Fai pointed out, draining his glass in one fluid gulp.

“No, I am,” he insisted.  “I was just thinking that it’s the first time I’ve ever known you to do anything, just for yourself.  That’s all.  You should do things like that more often.”

Fai grunted, setting the empty glass down with a heavy thud as he sank down in the chair behind the desk and leaned back.  “Your hunt?” he prompted, opting to ignore the subject at hand.

Yerik’s smile didn’t fade, but he nodded.  “Laquan was able to tell me where Qiang was staying.  It was simple, actually—a little anticlimactic, really.  For someone who was said to have bragged often about the number of humans he’d killed, he went down without much of a fight, which was a little disappointing.  I mean, I assume that’s why he targeted humans.  They were the only creatures on earth who were weaker than he was.”

Nodding slowly, processing the disgust in Yerik’s tone for what it was, Fai figured he could understand his brother’s sentiments well enough.  He’d often thought over the years that the youkai who targeted humans tended to be a cowardly lot, too—targeting beings who were weaker, just like Yerik had said.  It took a particular kind of despicable, in his opinion.

“Good job, hunter,” Fai said.

Yerik sighed as he settled into his chair a little deeper.  “There was something I wanted to talk to you about . . .”

“What’s that?”

Yerik shrugged in a rather offhanded kind of way.  “I heard rumors of a man in Japan named Togareshi,” he went on.  “Said to be an old sword master in the kendo style.  Would you be all right with me, inviting him here?”

“You trained under Master Ling, just like I did,” Fai reminded him.  Master Ling had taught them both the Taijijian martial arts as well as the sword arts that went with the training.  “He’s the best there is.”

Yerik nodded.  “He is, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to broaden my experience, either.”

Fai frowned.  “Did you have trouble you didn’t tell me about?”

“No,” Yerik replied.  “I just think it’s a good idea to keep progressing, to keep learning.  That’s all.”

Fai nodded slowly.  “If that’s what you want to do,” he allowed.

Yerik hauled himself to his feet, grabbing Fai’s empty glass before heading over to refill both of them again.  “You know, if I could, I’d ask Saori’s uncle to come here and give me a few lessons,” he ventured.  “I mean, he’s legendary . . .”

Fai grunted since he wasn’t nearly as impressed with the skills he’d seen as Yerik seemed to be.  “Spending weeks, repairing things around the castle, all because her uncle can’t be bothered to knock on a door?  No, thank you.”

Yerik chuckled.  “He was worried about Saori, that’s all.  You can’t fault him for that.”

Fai snorted loudly.  Given that the headache of the workmen that had invaded his home still loomed large in his mind, he could and he did fault him for it, even if he had to admit, at least to himself, that the damage that he’d single-handedly wrought was fairly impressive . . .

“Vasili said that it was a sight to behold,” he went on, entirely missing Fai’s obvious irritation.  “I wish I had seen it . . .”

“Keep wishing,” Fai grumbled.

“They say he defeated Naraku, almost single-handedly!  What kinds of stories has Saori told you?”

“None—not about him, anyway,” Fai said.  “If you want to know, why don’t you go find her and bug her about it?”

Yerik blinked, turning his head to stare at his brother for a long moment, before resuming his task of sloshing vodka into the glasses.  “You sound a little put upon, Fai . . . Why is that?”

“I’m not,” Fai lied.  “Any other business you need to fill me in on?”

Yerik chuckled.  “Not really, but then, I just got back last night myself.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, I’ll get my official report for you tomorrow, if that’s all right,” Yerik went on, setting the refilled glass on Fai’s desk before he sank into a chair across from him once more.  “It was a little sad, if you want the truth,” he went on, a pensive sort of frown drawing his brows together as he scowled at the glass in his hand.  “Kept saying, over and over, he had a mate, didn’t want her to die . . . and it made me wonder: did any of those humans he killed have families?  Did they beg for their lives, too?”

Fai grimaced.  He’d heard those things, too, hadn’t he?  Over time and often enough that he’d learned quickly to harden himself against those pleas . . . “Don’t dwell on it, Yerik.  He made his choices long ago . . . Even if we wanted to pick and choose, we cannot.”

“I know,” he replied quietly.  Something about the way he continued to stare at the cup in his hand, though . . . “I realize that it wasn’t more than a last effort to sway me, and I don’t feel sorry for what I did—what I had to do . . . Even so, I can’t say that I don’t feel sorry for his mate . . . I mean, it’s not my job as a hunter to go find her, to tell her that her mate is gone, right?  But . . . But I have to wonder if someone should do it.  How fair is it to her when, as far as we know, she hasn’t done anything to warrant our complete apathy . . .?”

“I’ve . . . I’ve wondered that, too . . .”

Fai scowled as he lifted his gaze, only to spot Saori, lingering in the doorway.  She seemed reluctant to enter, and yet, the expression on her face was troubled, thoughtful.  Without another word, she slipped into the office, closed the door quietly, before shuffling across the floor and slipping into the chair beside Yerik.  “Sometimes, I’ve overheard discussions—probably that I wasn’t meant to hear—where they were talking about hunts and stuff, and . . . and I’ve always wondered, just what happens to those mates that were left at home?”  Giving a little shrug, almost a helpless kind of shrug, she shook her head.  “I know what happens to them in the end, sure, but . . . but I wondered before, how would that feel?  To sit there, day after day, and you know in your heart that something’s not right, but you’d hope, wouldn’t you?  If it were me . . . I think I’d still sit there, right up until the end, and I’d hope, and I’d pray, and I’d wait . . .”

Fai sighed.  “What do you want me to do, Saori?  Go and find every potential mate for someone who has had to pay for crimes they’ve committed?  Should I make that a common thing, for a hunter to have to do that, too?”

“No, of course not,” she insisted quietly.  “I’m just saying that it seems a little . . . a little heartbreaking for the ones left behind—that unknowing, that feeling that will stay with them until the end . . .”

Yerik nodded.  “There are no good answers for it, I guess,” he admitted.  “On the one hand, it does feel unfair, and yet, on the other, there really is no one to blame but the one who committed the crimes.  After all, it’s not like you issue a hunt unless it’s warranted.”

But the hell of it was, Fai could understand and appreciate exactly what both Yerik and Saori were saying.  He’d even thought about those same things, too.  His thoughts, however, usually ended up in the realm of anger—anger and disgust that someone would put someone else in that precarious of a situation, having no regard for their lives, at all.  Where were their thoughts when they’d decided to do the things they’d done?  In his considered estimation, they’d made their choice—they’d opted to condemn those whom they professed to love—with their own actions, and as cruel and cold as that sounded, it was the honest truth, too.

“You’re thinking pragmatic thoughts again, aren’t you, Fai?” Yerik remarked dryly.

Blinking away the lingering things that he couldn’t quite put away, Fai rolled his eyes.  “I’m just thinking that the two of you can give it some thought and figure out if there’s a better way to go about it,” he said instead.  “If you want to be assigned the task of hunting down the next of kin for everyone you hunt, then do let me know, Yerik,” he said.

Yerik grimaced, not that Fai could blame him.  After all, the very idea of having to deal with an unpredictable mate after just having to hunt their loved one?  No, Fai didn’t figure that Yerik wanted any part of that, either.

Letting out a deep breath, Yerik stood up.  “I’m a hunter, not a grief counselor,” he grumbled under his breath.  “And I’m exhausted, so if you have no more need of me, I’m going to go get some much-needed rest.”

“You do that,” Fai called after him.  “Don’t forget your report.”

Yerik lifted a hand to indicate that he’d heard him without deviating from his path as he headed for the door.

“I understand why things are done the way they’re done,” Saori said into the quiet that lingered in the wake of Yerik’s departure.  “I . . . I shouldn’t have said anything . . .”

“You know, I want you to speak your mind,” Fai remarked.  “And for the record, I do understand what the two of you were getting at—and I agree with you, too, at least, in theory.  The thing is, I don’t really believe that doing things differently would make that much of a difference.  People react to things in a million ways, so for every one person who might welcome the knowledge, even if it’s bad, there are others who may not want to be confronted with that kind of truth.”

“I suppose,” she said, but she still sounded dubious.  Pulling her feet up in front of her, propping her heels on the edge of the seat, her toes, wiggling in the confines of the pink socks on her feet.  There was something overwhelmingly cute about the pink sweats she wore, the gray and pink oversized sweatshirt . . . She reminded him of a child, playing in her father’s oversized clothing . . . Folding her hands atop of her knees, she propped her chin on her fingers and sighed.  “It’s still just sad to me . . .”

“Because you grew up on the fringes of the tai-youkai’s circle,” he concluded.  “You have an interesting point of view on things that many others haven’t ever stopped to consider.”

“Maybe . . . but even if I do, I really haven’t talked about it much.  I mean, it was always stuff that the men discussed behind the closed office doors while the women visited and laughed and played with the children . . .”

“Sounds entirely sexist,” he remarked, arching an eyebrow in such a way that it made her laugh.

“Not really,” she said.  “I mean, maybe, sort of . . . but then, it wasn’t like any of the women really showed any interest in sitting in on those meetings, either . . .”

“It can get pretty unpleasant, depending on what you’re discussing,” he mused.  “Can’t say I blame them for wanting to spare you women from the gory details.”

She let out a deep breath, but she did finally smile at him.  “I suppose you’re working again?” she mused, nodding at the stack of correspondence on his desk that he had yet to touch.  “I took a shower, and I meant to lie down a bit, but after that, I got my second wind, I guess you could say . . . so, I was wondering if you had the numbers of the other tai-youkai offices so that I could go ahead and call them?  See if there’s any interest in any of our children?”

“Oh, uh, sure,” he replied, digging around in one of the drawers to find his phone book.  “Here you go.  Let me know what they tell you.”

“I will,” she replied, flashing him a brilliant smile as she untangled her legs and leaned forward to retrieve the leather-bound book.  “I’ll update you over dinner—would that be all right?”

He chuckled.  “That’ll be fine, Saori.”

She nodded as she stood up and hurried out of the room, too.

Fai smiled as he watched her go, but that smile faded shortly after the door closed behind her.  Glancing at the clock, he slowly shook his head.  It was only noon now, which meant that dinner was hours away, and, unfortunately, he couldn’t think of a single reason why he should put off the work that was waiting for his attention.

Sometimes, he really hated his job.