InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Vivication ❯ Liasons ( Chapter 60 )

“We’ve had the usual issues—regional infighting that we’ve had to deal and re-deal with, over and over again.  Every time they agree to terms to end the fighting, someone or something happens to usurp the peace . . . There is no overwhelming sense of unity that could bring both sides together.”

The only ones in the room—the tai-youkai and their heirs along with the Inu no Taisho—were all listening, considering the situation, and that situation was fairly bleak . . .

Sesshoumaru nodded slowly, considering Sabra Kouri’s words.  It was really no surprise to anyone that the African tai-youkai’s statements were consistent to what he normally said at these summits.  Fai frowned as he sat back.  As unstable as his jurisdiction could be, it was nothing in comparison to the African region.  Political unrest, regional issues between local tribes, both humans and youkai alike, led to so many issues in keeping the peace, and then, underneath that, were the very real issues of youkai in general who used the discord to further their own agendas that may or may not meet up with Sabra’s policies . . .

In short, Africa was a huge logistical nightmare, as far as that went, one that Fai did not envy in the least.

“Perhaps you ought to consider breaking Africa into a couple—maybe a few—regions,” Ian MacDonnough remarked rather casually.  It was the first time he’d spoken since his arrival an hour or so ago.  “If the continent is . . . too much for you to handle, that is . . .”

The tension in the office was a viable thing—a near palpable thing.

“I daresay that wouldn’t really solve a thing,” Jude Covington said.  “It might well do the exact opposite of what you wanted to do.  If you were to do that, it might give those warring factions the feeling that they’d ultimately won.  Ignore MacDonnough’s region-envy,” he went on dryly.  “Dividing Africa is really not the answer.”

“And what would be your suggestion, Covington?  Since you’re apparently so much wiser than I?” MacDonnough challenged.

“I don’t know, Ian, but, given that you’ve managed to drive out another of your high-profile generals recently, I don’t think you’re really in the position to be doling out advice, do you?”

Fai shook his head as the two tai-youkai glared at each other, neither willing to back down for several tense minutes.

Sesshoumaru tapped the desk with his knuckles to break it up.  “What are your thoughts, Sabra?  Is there anything that we should consider?  That the others might be able to assist you with in finding some kind of solution?”
“It has long been African policy to allow the regions freedom in dealing with their issues, and I hate to impose my own will upon those who have a different ideology.  Even so, I’ve been meeting with my advisors, trying to gain a better feel for everything that has been happening.  Tribes go to war over the smallest slights.  They take hostages, selling some into black-market slavery, into the underground fighting institutions . . . Others indiscriminately kill off those who would oppose them, and there’s often as much youkai blood in it as there are humans . . . Hard to issue hunt orders when the offenders are often human, too.”

“Slavery,” Eduardo remarked with a thoughtful scowl.  “I’ve recently had it brought to my attention, as well.  It seems there’s a fairly large ring in South America—Venezuela, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Slavery?” Cain echoed.  “Are you serious?”

Eduardo nodded.  “A girl recently came to me.  Her owner had died.  He set his slaves free.  She told me some about where she’s from, about the camps and the training and all of it.  It’s an ugly, ugly picture she paints.  The thing is, they breed them.”

“What?” Fai blurted, shaking his head as he tried to grasp just what Eduardo was saying.

Eduardo shot him a small little smile.  It lacked any actual humor and was more apologetic than it probably should have been.  “She was bred there,” he reiterated.  “They have a camp—an island—where they do nothing but breed these slaves.  Frighteningly efficient, if you ask me.  They forego the need to capture people . . . I assume that it’s easier to remain unnoticed since they are not actively . . . recruiting . . .”

“So, they’re producing their own . . . stock, you mean?” Jude demanded.  “That’s . . .”

“It’s not unheard of,” Sabra added.  “Back in the day, the blood-youkai used to farm humans for consumption . . . Faine would know about that, wouldn’t you?”

Fai nodded slowly.  It was never a problem these days, but back before the blood-youkai were taken care of, it had been.  Their barbaric ways were what had ultimately led to their annihilation . . . “Even so . . .”

Eduardo sighed.  “Forgive me.  I didn’t clarify enough.  They’re not producing human slaves.  We’re talking youkai.”

“The hell,” Jude exclaimed.  “Youkai?”

“I’ve sent one of my hunters in undercover,” Eduardo added.  “From the nature of his reports . . . It’s a horrible, terrible place . . . and it’s far more sophisticated than you can believe.  They have different camps—islands—for different levels of training—everything from domestic slaves to . . . to sex slaves . . .”

“Sex slaves?  They’re youkai!” Cain growled.

“And does that matter if there’s money to be had?” Eduardo challenged quietly.  “A mate bond only exists if one cares to nurture it on some level.  If it lacks the emotion, do you think it would matter?”

“Of course, it matters,” Bas Zelig snarled.

“Actually, it makes sense that it doesn’t,” Gunnar Inutaisho added with a thoughtful scowl.  “Kichiro-oji-san has said for years that it’s the emotion that drives that bond—that reinforces it.  Even so, how are there no other ramifications of it?”

Eduardo shook his head, steepling his fingertips before him as he pondered Gunnar’s question.  “Your guess is as good as mine, unfortunately.  The thing that bothers me most, however, is the idea that these children who are bred strictly to be sold to the highest bidder?  The girl I’ve met has expressed the desire to go back, to be re-sold.  The free world frightens her.  She has no idea, how to cope in a world where she is not told what to do every second of the day . . . We’re talking about potentially thousands like her . . . and this is just one operation.”

“And it’s as basic as survival of the fittest,” Ian MacDonnough pointed out.  “Who are we to say what can and cannot be done?  Are you all really so self-righteous to try to say that what they do is so very different from the idea that we are entitled to dictate the morality of everyone who lives within our borders?”

“Are you kidding me?” Cain growled, narrowing his eyes on MacDonnough.  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Bas lifted his arm, pushing his father back a step as he started to stalk toward the European tai-youkai.  “He’s not worth it, Dad.”

MacDonnough broke into a rather nasty smile.  “Hiding behind your tainted spawn, Zelig?  Sounds about right . . .”

“That’s enough, Ian,” Sesshoumaru said in a tone that left no room for argument.

“Is that right?  Then tell me, Sesshoumaru . . . Aren’t you the one who never intervenes?  Aren’t you the one who believes that one should live and let die?”

“I believe that’s, ‘live and let live,’ Ian,” Toga corrected.  “So, I take it that you’re aware if there is a slave facility in Europe . . . and that you just don’t really care?”

“I neither know nor do I care,” Ian remarked, dismissing the question with a flick of his hand.  “Our kind has always ascribed to the idea that the strong rule over the weak, haven’t we?  Isn’t that why we are who we are?  If these slaves are displeased with their lots in life, then it’s upon them to rise up against it.  I, for one, have not the time nor the inclination to interfere.”

Eduardo cleared his throat.  “Entirely the kind of reaction that those who do this are hoping for, of course.  I, however, see it otherwise.  My ability to sit back and ignore it ends when that allows for these youkai to be bred and used and abused and, in the end, thrown away like common garbage.  They don’t have names, you see?  They’re given serial numbers, and those numbers are their only sense of identity.  Those numbers are branded on their feet as infants.  From the very hour of their births, they know only a life of pain and servitude, and how I can possibly sit back, knowing this?  Well, maybe you’re a colder man that I could ever . . . hope to be.”

“Let us know if you need any kind of assistance,” Cain said.  “I’ve not heard anything of the sort in my area, but . . .”

Eduardo nodded.  “I brought the video . . .” he admitted.  “The interviews we’ve conducted with Korin.  I . . . I took the liberty of giving her a name.”

“Let me see,” Sesshoumaru said.

Eduardo stood up, handed over the tiny jump drive.  It only took a moment to plug it into the video system on the control panel on the desk.

The room fell silent as the video began: a very small woman, sitting in what looked to be a stark little room, pale under the harsh fluorescent lighting that gave the video an almost grainy feel.  In her quiet voice, she gave all the information she knew of—things that turned Fai’s stomach as she described her life in the slave camps.  She was raised on an island with the rest of the children, taught from the onset that they weren’t allowed to think for themselves, that they weren’t allowed to show emotion or to even exist as real entities . . .

She went on to describe the islands: the slave islands where they were taught hard work, where the punishments were always brutal and designed to keep them under the thumbs of those in power above them.  Not one of them were ever taught how to actually be youkai . . . and then, there were the sex slave islands . . .

All of it was horrifying, disturbing in the extreme.  By the end of the nearly two-hour video, not one of the tai-youkai said a thing.  It was hard enough to digest everything that was presented, and, Fai suspected, what she’d said?  It was really only the tip of the proverbial iceberg . . .

“And you’ve sent someone in already?” Sesshoumaru pressed.

Eduardo nodded.  “I have,” he agreed.

“Keep me apprised of your findings,” Sesshoumaru stated.  “I want to know everything.”

Eduardo sighed.  “Niven’s handling parts of the fact finding.”

“I’ve been hunting down any other information I can get,” the future South American tai-youkai remarked.  “Most notably, looking for the other slaves that were freed with Korin—she’s the one who told us the most about the organization.  So far, I’ve found one, and he was dead—hanging from the side of a bridge in Panama . . .”

“Is it really such a good idea to entrust such important information to the discretion of others?” Ian demanded, arching a brow at Eduardo.

“And just how do you expect one person to field every bit of information and to handle all the things that come across our desks in one day?” Fai challenged MacDonnough mildly.

“Well, you would know about that better than anyone, wouldn’t you, Faine?  After all, aren’t you the one who . . . hired an outsider to deal with your orphan problem?  But I suppose that it’s different, given that you mated her, now isn’t it?”

“Saori’s done a damn good job of handling the placement of our orphans, Ian—although I must admit, I’m glad you turned her down flat.  I don’t think that placing any of our children in your jurisdiction would have helped them at all.”

“Yes, well, in the future, if any of you bother to ask me for a favor, best you do it yourselves instead of relegating me to the hired hands you feel are . . . adequate.”

“The day I ask you for a thing is the day I drop dead,” Fai replied pleasantly.

Ian chuckled.  “Oh?  So, it wasn’t your man who approached me, offering to sell the European side of your jurisdiction to me?  It should have been mine, to start with, anyway, given that it does belong with Europe.  How about you show your good will by just signing it over, Faine?”

Fai frowned.  “Evgeni, you mean?  He approached you?”

“Said you needed the funds, that you’d entirely mismanaged your jurisdiction for years now—did you know about that, Sesshoumaru?  If you wish to start interfering, perhaps you ought to start here . . .”

Bristling at the insinuation, Fai clenched his jaw as he counted to twenty in an effort to control his rising irritation.  A strange thought occurred to him, and he narrowed his gaze.  “Did you know, MacDonnough?” he demanded quietly.  “Did you know that Evgeni hid the tai-youkai account from me?”

“Does it matter if I did?  It’s not my jurisdiction.  If you’re gullible enough to believe everyone at face-value, then you truly don’t deserve to be in charge here, now do you?”

“One does not and cannot buy and sell parts of their jurisdictions just because someone else might will it to be so,” Sesshoumaru interrupted before Fai could respond in kind.

“A damn shame,” MacDonnough replied.

“Anyway, about those camps,” Jude said, leaning forward, rapping his knuckles against the coffee table to regain a semblance of order.  “Do you honestly think that you can save them?  Even if you are able to bring the facility down—free the slaves, as it were . . . What kind of lives do you expect them to have outside the confines of what they’ve been raised to know?  Have you considered, just what kind of psychological damage has been done to these slaves already?  How are you going to un-do a lifetime of only knowing what they’ve been taught to believe will be the entire existence of their lives?”

Eduardo sighed.  “We hope that they can be rehabilitated.  Extensive therapies, teaching them that they possess freedom of choice.  We don’t expect that it will be simple or even easy, but we’re committed to trying.  All beings deserve the fundamental freedom to live, to breathe, to choose their own paths.”

Jude slowly shook his head, and he didn’t look like he was scoffing at Eduardo, but he didn’t look convinced, either.  “Those are pretty words, Ed,” he remarked, sounding almost sad.  “Maybe a little too idealistic, is all . . .”

“Possibly,” Eduardo agreed.  “I still have to believe that it can be done.”

“Has anyone else heard anything?  Whispers or rumors that might have been easily disregarded?  Because, to believe that South America is the only place where something like this could flourish is idealistic, too,” Toga added.  “I know that I’ve heard some whispers of a black-market slave trade in Japan, and I’ve been trying to gather intel on it, but, as far as I can tell, it’s not nearly the size and scope of your problem, Eduardo-san.”

“That’s not exactly the same, Toga,” Cain remarked.  “From what you’ve said before, the slaves that enter that system do so willingly.”

Toga nodded.  “They work off debts for themselves or their families, and they are released from their contracts once they manage to pay it.  It’s more like indentured servitude, I guess . . . and I don’t think that they’re abused in quite the same manner as what your Korin described.  I still feel that it’s wrong, but . . .”

“If they put themselves there willingly, then that’s a whole other creature,” Jude allowed.  “I’d like to say I’m positive that something like this isn’t going on in my jurisdiction, but there are some isolated areas where it’s harder to police.  I’ll send in some of my men—check out those areas thoroughly.  Things like this abomination cannot be allowed to exist.”

“There’s a good chance that an operation like this could easily exist in Africa,” Raah Kouri, the future African tai-youkai remarked thoughtfully.  He was a quiet man, a very serious sort.  He’d barely said anything since being introduced.  He wasn’t unfriendly, no, but he seemed to be more inclined just to listen, to absorb.  It was a quality that Fai could fully respect . . . “Between the tribal wars and the general dissent between vying factions that’s so rampant . . .”

“And just how good is your man you sent in?” Sesshoumaru asked, leveling a no-nonsense look at the South American tai-youkai.

Eduardo shook his head.  “He’s a second-generation hunter.  His father is one of the very best.  He’s done well so far, but he’s only been in place a few months, so he hasn’t managed to dig too deeply into the identities of those in the highest reaches of the organization yet.”

“A second-generation hunter,” Gunnar remarked thoughtfully.  “And you’re sure that he isn’t in danger of having his identity revealed?  Even the best hunters eventually gain a level of notoriety that makes undercover work far more dangerous.”

Eduardo nodded.  “That occurred to me.  However, it was a calculated risk—one that he was more than willing to take on.  He is caiman-youkai, like his father, but those are fairly common around South America.  He’s banking on that to keep him safe enough.  We told him just to find out who the top people are and to get out as quickly as he can . . .”

“Keep us all informed,” Cain said.

“Like Zelig said, if there’s anything at all we can do to help, don’t hesitate to let us know,” Fai added.

Eduardo nodded, his small smile full of gratitude, even while his gaze was clouded with the inevitable concern he had to be carrying with him every moment of the day . . .

The office door opened, and Ryomaru stomped inside.  “Saori asked me to tell you that the families from South America are ready to leave,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, his hanyou ears flicking impatiently.

Eduardo stood up.  “Thank you,” he said, striding over, slipping past Ryomaru.  Since the South American families were all booked onto flights in the morning, then it was the last time for Eduardo to speak to them before they left.

Some of the other tai-youkai followed Eduardo, though, since the meeting seemed to be breaking up anyway, which was fine with Fai.  Given the things he’d heard, there were a few things that weighed rather heavily on his mind, anyway . . .

Sesshoumaru stood up to leave, as well, only to be stopped at the threshold when Ryomaru stepped past him, planting himself firmly in the doorway, blocking Ian MacDonnough, who had been following Sesshoumaru.

“Get out of my way,” MacDonnough growled, all the hatred, all the animosity, that he harbored, flowing freely in his aura, in his youki.  It was a vile and accursed thing, almost akin to jyaki, and it lingered in the air like a poison.

The only change in Ryomaru’s stance was the flicking of his ears again.  “Ask me how your daughter is, MacDonnough-sama,” Ryomaru said, his voice deceptively calm despite the anger that resonated in his youki.

“Ryomaru,” Sesshoumaru said, touching the hanyou’s shoulder.

Ryomaru shook him off without bothering to look at his esteemed uncle.  “Ask me about Meara, you bastard.”

MacDonnough’s expression didn’t change at all, his slate grey eyes as cold and impassive as ever.  “I have no daughter by that name,” he responded tightly, arrogantly.

“I’ll bet you don’t,” Ryomaru growled.

“It ain’t worth it, pup.”

Fai turned to stare over Ryomaru’s shoulder, past Sesshoumaru, at the Hanyou of Legend, who was leaning in the doorway.  “Give me one reason to cut you down.  It don’t even have to be a good one,” Ryomaru snarled under his breath, taking a step closer to the European tai-youkai.

The irate flare in Ian’s aura was unmistakable as he glowered past Ryomaru at his father.  “I don’t need the likes of you interfering on your son’s behalf,” Ian ground out.  “Disgusting vermin, the lot of you.”

“Keh!  I’ve defeated better than you many times,” InuYasha growled back.  “Issue a hunt for your own kin?  What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What I do is none of your business.  She made her choice.  Now she has to live with it.”

“It wasn’t about making a choice, you bastard,” InuYasha snarled, pushing past his half-brother, shoving Ryomaru aside as he planted himself directly before Ian MacDonnough.  “He’s her mate—do you get that?  Her mate!”

MacDonnough narrowed his already icy gaze on the hanyou.  “If she—if he—steps foot in my jurisdiction, ever again, I will have them killed on sight, period.  She is nothing to me—nothing . . . and you—the lot of you—are less than nothing to me.”

InuYasha reached for the hilt of his sword.  Ryomaru was faster, drawing his sword, leveling it at MacDonnough in one clean motion.  “Care to threaten them again?”

Ian opened his mouth to speak.  Sesshoumaru heaved a loud sigh.  “Don’t be a fool, Ian.  Either one of those two could defeat you with very little effort.  They, too, share the blood of my father.  Hanyou or not, it does not matter.  As I’ve told you, the blood of my father is far superior to the blood that runs through your veins.  However, if you are fool enough to try them, then I shall not interfere—and you will know that I spoke truth.”

Ian glowered at Sesshoumaru for a long moment.  Then he swept past them all and strode out of the office.