InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Vivication ❯ Quiet ( Chapter 32 )

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

Saori yawned and opened her eyes, arching her back as she stretched her arms over her head, hands balled into fists as she savored the feeling of absolute comfort that cosseted her while she slowly climbed up through the gossamer layers of sleep that faded deliciously slowly.

She was alone in the bed, but still surrounded by Fai’s scent, and she smiled to herself as she rolled over, as she started to close her eyes, only to blink, to giggle softly when she spotted Fai, casually leaning against the tall, thick post at the foot of the bed, arms crossed over his chest, an inscrutable kind of expression on his face.  “Morning,” she breathed, moments before a wide yawn interrupted.

“Hmm,” he intoned.  “Sleep well, did you?”

“Mhmm,” she murmured, digging her arms up under her pillow, letting her eyes drift closed since the bed was far more comfortable than it ought to have been.

“Good, good,” he replied.  “Going back to sleep?”

“Mhmm . . .”

“Oh, then I suppose I shouldn’t disturb you, should I?”

She lifted a hand, fluttered her fingers rather vaguely in his general direction before stuffing them up under the pillow once more.

“Saori?”

“Hmm?”
“. . . What did you do yesterday afternoon with Yerik while I was working?”

That question was enough to make her eyes flash wide open, and she went still, biting her lip as she wondered if she pretended to be asleep, if he would buy into it.

He sighed.  “Saori, I know you’re not sleeping,” he pointed out.

Giving up with a heavy sigh, she rolled over and sat up, clasping her hands together in her lap as she waited for the proverbial gauntlet to fall.

Satisfied that he’d gained her full attention, Fai sighed and very deliberately shook his head.  “What did the two of you do to Vasili?”

“V-Vasili?” she echoed, trying her level best to look entirely innocent of whatever it was Fai seemed to suspect.

He wasn’t falling for it.  “Yes, Saori—Vasili.  What did you do to that old man?”

“Well, I didn’t actually do anything, Fai-sama,” she protested, straightening her back, lifting her chin a notch.

“Are you going to blame the whole thing on Yerik?” he countered, raising an eyebrow again as he slowly shook his head.

“He did say that Vasili needed to get laid,” she pointed out reasonably.

Fai’s nostrils flared, but to his credit, he didn’t burst out in laughter, either.  “Something I don’t even want to think about,” he muttered instead.  “Saori . . . Vasili is an old and very respected member of this household.  The two of you very nearly gave him a heart attack this morning, when he turned on the television, only to see Janette Jugs and Juan Hugejuan, going at it in brilliant technicolor.”

Her lips twitched.  “You . . . knew their names, Fai-sama?” she asked as innocently as she could.

He snorted.  Loudly.  Shouldering himself away from the bed post he looked like he was struggling to hold onto his composure.  “Vasili told me, and no, I didn’t ask him how he knew their names, either.”

“You know, I tried to watch it yesterday, but I couldn’t get through the first five minutes,” she admitted.  “I mean, I tried, but—”

“You’re hurting my brain, Saori,” he interrupted, rubbing at his temples as he paced the length of the floor and back again.

“Yerik said that Vasili might loosen up if he got laid, so we thought that maybe, you know, a little, um . . . self-gratification?  That maybe it’d do the trick for him . . .”

Fai sighed.  “Saori . . . Let me explain this to you.  Vasili is old—very old.  He’s so old, in fact, that he might well have a heart condition or something that I don’t know about, and if you harass him in such a way, there’s a good chance that he could keel over, dead, and then you’d feel bad about that, wouldn’t you?”

She wrinkled her nose.  “He’s not that old,” she insisted.  “Ojii-chan is older than Vasili, and I don’t think it’s possible for a youkai to have a heart issue, hidden or otherwise.”

“You never know,” Fai insisted.  “Anyway, I want your word that you won’t ever, ever do something like that to him again.”

Saori rolled her eyes.  Then she giggled.  “Okay,” she agreed easily enough.  “But . . . did he look surprised?”

“Surprised isn’t exactly how I’d describe it,” Fai grouched.  “No more porn on the house television network.”

“Okay,” she said, flopping back into the softness of the bed.  “You know, though . . .”

Satisfied that she wasn’t going to continue to try to give poor Vasili a heart attack after all, Fai let out a deep breath and slowly sat down on the edge of the bed beside her.  “What’s that?”

“They were fake, weren’t they?” she blurted, cheeks pinking despite her desire to ask the question on her mind.

“What were?”

She wrinkled her nose.  “Her . . . Her breasts,” she forced herself to say.  “I mean, they had to be, didn’t they?  It’s not normal for those to be that big . . .”

Fai didn’t answer right away.  Coughing delicately into his balled-up fist, he cleared his throat.  “They . . . They come in all shapes and sizes, so I’d guess that they could have . . . have been natural,” he mused.  “Then again, in her case?  I can’t say for sure, no . . .”

She snorted, trying to burrow her face a little deeper into the pillow, stubbornly keeping her eyes closed.  “Do . . . Do men . . . prefer . . . breasts that big . . .?”

“We—I—That is to say, I’m not—N-Not all men, no,” he finally said.

She cracked one eye open, only to blink when she saw the ruddiness in his cheeks, even though he was staring off to the side, his expression distinctly uncomfortable.  “And . . . you . . .?”

“Me?” he blurted.  “Oh, uh . . . I-I-I don’t think . . . I mean, I don’t really have a . . . a preference . . .”

“You don’t?”

He sighed.  “Saori, can we drop it?”

She giggled, which might have had a lot to do with his obvious discomfort with the present topic at hand.  “Sorry,” she said, sounding anything but.  “Fai-sama?”

She heard him stifle a groan.  “Yes?”

Biting her lip, she leaned up on her elbow.  “That guy in that video . . . He was . . . well, really big, you know, down there . . . Is that . . . normal?”

Shifting his gaze to the side—he didn’t turn his head—he looked like he was about to tell her that he didn’t want to talk about it.

She shrugged.  “I can’t help it.  I just . . . I can’t say I’ve seen many men like that . . . none, actually . . .”

He stared at her for a long second before slowly shaking his head.  “Like women, Saori . . . All . . . All different sizes.  Can’t say that I saw his penis, so . . .” He made a face.  “Anyway, I’m sure that he was neither the biggest guy, nor was he likely the smallest, either.”

He must have seen the wheels of her mind, turning, and he reached out with a sigh, covering her mouth with his hand as he deftly shook his head.  “Enough about that,” he told her.  “Now, either go back to sleep or get up, but we’re not talking about porn anymore.”  That said, he stood up and strode out of the room, and he didn’t look back at her, even when she erupted in a swell of giggles when the door closed behind him.

-==========-

“Get your sword up, or I’ll hack you to bits,” Fai called, blocking Yerik’s attack with the side of his sword.  “What’s the matter?  Did you sleep in too late this morning?”

“Considering you were in my room, waking me up at the crack of dawn?  Hardly,” Yerik scoffed, flicking his wrist, spinning his blade with a deft motion.  “Is this your idea of punishment for the porn on the television this morning?”

“That would be entirely petty, don’t you think?” Fai countered, raining down a series of light taps that Yerik neatly blocked.  “By the way, Vasili wasn’t impressed.”

Yerik grinned.  “Saori made me do it.”

Fai rolled his eyes.  “Somehow, I doubt that,” he said, grimacing when Yerik caught the guard and very nearly succeeded in disarming him.  With a neat flick of his wrist, he unblocked the sword and caught it in his left hand without missing a beat.  “You’d really blame it all on her?”

“I figure you’d be more lenient with her,” he quipped.  “She’s cuter than I am, right?”

“Absolutely,” Fai shot back.  Dropping his sword into the scabbard on his hip, he caught a couple of the bow staffs on the nearby weapon rack and kicked them into the air.  He caught one in each hand and tossed one to his brother, who had just sheathed his own sword, too.  “She blamed you, by the way.”

Yerik chuckled.  “Did she?”

“And I’m inclined to believe her over you.  Leave that old man alone, Yerik.”

“All right; all right,” he relented despite the lingering amusement evident in his tone.  Then he cleared his throat.  “You know, they say that her uncle is the undisputed master of the halberd,” Yerik said as the two smacked the poles against each other, trying to disarm only.  “Honestly, I’d love to see her family’s skills, first hand.”

Fai gritted his teeth as Yerik managed to smash his fingers between the pole on a well-placed tap.  “I’ll ask if he gives seminars,” Fai said.

Yerik chuckled.  “If only it were that simple . . .”

“Oji-chan is very talented,” Saori remarked, using her hands to heft herself onto the wide stone fence nearby.  “He doesn’t really like fighting, but he can easily hold his own.”

“And your grandfather?” Yerik said, sounding a little distracted since the majority of his focus was on parrying Fai’s attacks.

Fai blocked neatly when Yerik tried to spin around, to catch him off-guard.  He’d learned long ago that, with poles, it was best to avoid any hits.  After all, even though the poles were blunt didn’t mean that being hit by one of them didn’t hurt—a lot . . .

“Ojii-chan?  What about him?”

“Is he really as tough as they say?” Yerik asked.

Saori laughed.  “Well, he is Inu no Taisho . . . What do you think?”

“I can’t decide who I’d rather see in action: Sesshoumaru or InuYasha . . .”

Fai rapped Yerik on the knuckles, drawing a sharp breath from the younger Demyanov—a reminder that he needed to pay attention, Fai figured.  “Talk later, Yerik.  You’re losing focus.”

Yerik shoved against the staff, the wooden weapons groaning under the pressure.  Using the pole, he pushed off, flipped backward, landing neatly on his feet in a crouch as he spun around, kicking out at the same time, the staff whistling in the air.  Fai managed to hop back, out of the way just in time to avoid the weapon that he knocked away.

It flew out of Yerik’s grip, end over end until it clattered harmlessly to the ground.  Yerik stood up slowly, grinning widely at Fai.  “You win,” he said, conceding the match.

“That’s it?  You’re giving up that fast?” Saori blurted, sounding irritated enough by it that Fai glanced at her, only to do a double take at the pronounced frown on her face.  “How can you possibly be a hunter if you’re giving up so easily?”

Yerik blinked, looking almost as surprised as Fai was.  Holding up his hands, he shook his head.  “We were sparring to disarm,” he told her.  “Fai did, so he won.”

Saori snorted.  “Yes, but you were careless.  That’s why he was able to do that.  You can’t just swing that staff and think that you’re going to be able to keep a hold of it if he were to counter you, which he did.  It’s your job to make sure you always know exactly where your opponent’s weapon is at all times!  If you had, then you would have been able to easily counter him instead of losing to a simple flick of the wrist!”

Covering his mouth as he controlled the urge to laugh outright at the absolute shock on Yerik’s face, Fai watched in silence as Saori hopped off the wall and stomped over to retrieve the lost staff.  “If you had paid attention to what he was doing—to where he was—while understanding exactly what his reach is with his staff, you could have easily flicked yours upward at the end, which would have blocked him.  If you had given yours a little turn—” She demonstrated.  “—you would have disarmed him, instead.”  Then she thrust the staff into Yerik’s hand and stomped back over to the fence once more.  “Try again, hunter.”

Blinking as he turned to face Fai, Yerik slowly shook his head.  “She’s tough,” he muttered under his breath.

Fai chuckled and readied his stance, nodding once at Yerik to indicate that he was ready.  “Apparently so,” he replied.  “Apparently so . . .”

-==========-

“I̵ 7;ll ask Ben to look into it, to see if there are any families he knows of who are looking to adopt children,” Cain Zelig said in his usual thoughtful tone.  “He keeps track of stuff like that a little better than I do . . . although, Gin might know of someone, too.  Women talk . . .”

“That would be wonderful!” Saori exclaimed, hoping against hope that she’d be able to find placement for a few more children.  “I know that it’s harder since we have a number of older children, but . . .”

“Oh, I don’t know.  I think that we might well be able to help you out there, but I wondered . . . Have you considered talking to your . . . to InuYasha?  His school is capable of accepting boarding students, aren’t they?  Gin mentioned that he was looking into getting funding for a dormitory, right?”

“I hadn’t thought of that!” she said.  “Thanks for the suggestion, Zelig-sama.”

He chuckled.  “Any time, Saori.  I’ll talk to Ben and Gin and see if they know of anyone.  You’ll send me some files so I have information for anyone who might be interested?”

“I’ll do that,” she insisted.  “Thank you.”

“Any time.”

The call ended, and Saori giggled to herself.  Sure, it wasn’t a definite thing yet, but so far, all the tai-youkai she’d talked to had seemed very receptive to the idea of placing some of the Russian children in homes in their areas.

It didn’t take long to attach the orphans’ files to an email to send to Cain, and she sighed happily.  With any luck, she’d be able to find placements for most of the children under five, at least, which would be enough to take a good amount of pressure off of the orphanage overall, and if she could make arrangements with InuYasha, then maybe she could even get some of the older children into the Tokyo Academy, too . . .

The trill of her cell phone interrupted her planning, though, and she smiled as the name flashed on her caller ID.  “Kaa-chan!” she exclaimed softly when she connected the call via video feed.  “I just got off the phone with Zelig-sama about placing some of the orphans in his jurisdiction.”

“Oh?  Does he think he might have someone who is interested?” Aiko asked with a bright smile.  She looked like she was sitting in her office.

“He’s going to check, but he said he thought maybe there was at least one family who would be interested.  Hopefully, there’s more.  So far, I’ve called all the tai-youkai—well, except for MacDonnough-sama . . .”

Aiko made a face, her amber eyes clouding slightly at the mention of that name.  “I don’t know if you should try to approach him, Saori . . . He isn’t the most pleasant person, and I’m not sure he’d be open to working with you on this . . .”

She nodded.  To be honest, she’d already thought as much herself.  “Still, if there’s a chance he’d have a family or two . . .”

Aiko sighed.  “Maybe ask Fai-sama what he thinks?  If he has a decent relationship with MacDonnough-sama . . .”

“I will,” she promised.  “Zelig-sama suggested something, though, that I hadn’t thought of.  Do you think jii-chan would be interested in boarding a few of the older children at the Tokyo Academy?”

“Oh . . . That’s a really good idea,” Aiko allowed.  “Would you like for me to talk to him about it?”

“I can do it,” Saori insisted.  “I mean, it’s my job.”

“I guess I don’t need to ask you how you’re doing.  You look and sound very happy . . .”

“I am,” she agreed.  “I do miss you, though . . . Tou-chan and nii-chan, too . . .”

Aiko made a face.  “Yes, well, it was all I could do to convince them that they didn’t need to go, drag you right back home,” she admitted.  “Suffice it to say that they were a little less than impressed.”

“Thank you,” she said, unable to squelch the pang of guilt at the idea that her dear, sweet mother had been forced into the middle.  “I’m sorry, kaa-chan . . .”

Aiko laughed.  “Don’t worry, Saori—and I’m not the one you should thank.”

“You’re not?”

“Nope . . . They weren’t really interested in listening to me.  It was actually your grandmother who told them to settle down and to leave you alone.”

“Obaa-chan did that?”

Aiko nodded slowly.  “She did.  She threatened your father with her fans, actually . . .”

Saori giggled as the image of that sprang to life in her mind.  “Tell her I said thank you—and that I love her.”

“I’ll do that,” she promised.  “I’ve got a meeting here in a few minutes.  I just wanted to hear your voice, to see your face.  Give your father a call soon, please.  He misses you, too.”

“I will,” she promised.

The call ended, and Saori sighed as she dropped the phone into her pocket.  She had to admit, she’d been rather avoiding both her brother as well as her father, almost as though she was afraid of one of them, demanding that she come home.  Common sense told her that they wouldn’t really be able to do any such thing.  After all, she was a grown woman, even if they did forget that from time to time.  Even so . . .

‘It’s just because they’re concerned about you.  Thank kami your mother and your grandmother understand . . .’

That thought, however, was enough to make her frown.  They understood?  But what, exactly, did they understand?  How could they understand when Saori herself didn’t fully comprehend it all?  Sure, it was simple to say that she’d come with Fai, just because he needed her for the job, but that wasn’t all of it.  She knew it.  The trouble was, putting a face on the rest of it—the things that spoke to her in whispers that were as fleeting as the breeze—and, try as she might, she still couldn’t quite make out the words . . .

‘One thing at a time,’ she told herself brusquely.  Right now, the most important thing to her were the placements of the children.  It had to take precedence over everything else.  After that?  After that, she could try to figure things out . . .

Which, of course, led right back to the question regarding Ian MacDonnough.  She’d heard enough stories over time to know that there was a rather strained relationship between pretty much everyone and the European tai-youkai, and, having heard some of the stories about her second-cousin’s mate, Meara, who was MacDonnough’s daughter, Saori was pretty convinced that she didn’t want anything to do with the man, either.  Personal feelings aside, however, she couldn’t afford to be that picky, could she?  After all, the children’s needs had to come first, even if she had to admit that she felt more than a little reluctant about calling the man in question . . .

It was sound advice, though, from her mother.  She might as well go find Fai, ask him how his dealings were with MacDonnough.

Stepping out of the antechamber of the master suite that she had commandeered as her office for the duration, she hurried down the hallway, appreciating the understated elegance of the castle yet again.  It never escaped her, and she hoped it never would.

The place was silent, interrupted only by the tick of the grandfather clock in the foyer below.  The sound of it grew louder as she descended the stairs.  One of the maids that Saori hadn’t actually met smiled at her as she looked up from her task of dusting.  Saori smiled and ducked her head in passing as she headed down the hallway that led to Fai’s office.

The door was slightly ajar, but she still tapped on it.  From where she stood, she could feel the stranger’s youki, could hear his voice, though his words were slightly muffled . . .

“Come in,” Fai called.

She hesitated just a moment before pushing the door open wider, before stepping over the threshold, stopping just inside the room as the strange youkai slowly stood, slowly turned to face her.  He was some sort of bird youkai—a vulture, maybe?  She wasn’t sure, but the way he stared at her, the sudden flash of surprise in his golden-brown eyes, the hint of suspicion that she felt for only a moment before he carefully schooled it away . . . For some reason, he made her feel uncomfortable, though she couldn’t really say why that was.

Fai glanced at her before returning his attention to the stranger once more.  “Saori, this is Evgeni Feodosiv, an old family friend.  Evgeni, this is Saori Senkuro.  I hired her to help me find placements for some of the orphans.”

A slight narrowing of the eyes, a flare of an emotion that was gone before Saori could discern it . . . “Senkuro?  Is that Japanese?”

She nodded, her manners dictating that she offer the man a polite bow.  “That’s right,” she said, managing an uncertain little smile as she shot Fai a quick glance.

“The orphans,” Evgeni mused, sinking back down, summarily dismissing Saori, just like that.  “I see . . .”

Fai jerked his head to indicate that Saori should sit.  She slipped into the other chair, opposite the desk.  If he noticed anything amiss, she couldn’t tell.  Or maybe she’d simply misinterpreted the man’s aura . . .

“Is there something you needed, Saori?” Fai asked, holding up a finger to silence Evgeni as he turned his full attention to her.

She sat up a little straighter.  “I just . . . I wanted to ask you what kind of relationship if any you have with MacDonnough-sama?  He’s the only one I haven’t contacted yet, but I’ve heard that he’s a little . . . difficult to deal with at times,” she said.

Fai nodded.  “Well, that’s an understatement,” he muttered.  “What did the other tai-youkai say?”

“They all were receptive to the idea, and they offered to look into it, see if they had families looking to adopt.”

“Call him.  If he is willing to listen, then it’s fine.  If he’s not, then at least you tried.”

“All right,” she agreed, standing up once more.  Fai stood, too.  Evgeni didn’t.

“Aren’t you worried that reaching out for help in this might make you look like you cannot handle Asia’s problems?” Evgeni remarked rather casually.

“Actually, I don’t,” Fai replied.  “I’d hardly call, trying to place these children into homes of their own is showing any kind of weakness.”

“Your Grace—”

“It’s not your call, Evgeni,” Fai cut in.

Saori bit her lip.  “I’ll, um . . . I’ll go make that call then,” she said, pasting on a bright smile that she hoped was enough to convince them that she didn’t notice the sudden contention that hung thick in the air.

“Whatever you say, Fai,” Evgeni said.  “Nice to meet you, Saori.”

She nodded and hurried out of the office, her smile fading as she escaped into the hallway once more.  To be honest, Saori wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it; not really.  That sudden tension . . . Was it something that happened a lot between those two?  And if it did . . . But Fai said that Evgeni was an old family friend . . . Maybe she was reading too much into it, letting her imagination run away with her again.  After all, Fai wouldn’t allow anyone near him that couldn’t be trusted, now would he?

Even so, she reasoned, her family was tight-knit, and they had disagreements from time to time, too.  Maybe it wasn’t so strange . . .

Still, she hadn’t imagined that tension; she knew she hadn’t.  Just . . . Just what was it . . .?

~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~ =~
A/N:

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Final Thought from Saori:
What was that …?
==========
Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Vivication):  I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga.  Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al.  I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

~Sue~