InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Vivication ❯ Bitterness ( Chapter 68 )

A harsh bark of incredulous laughter issued from the griffon-vulture-youkai as he slowly shook his head, still rubbing his throat with a slightly shaking hand.  “That bitch!  She—”

“Might I suggest you watch yourself, Feodosiv, before you offend me more than you already have,” Sesshoumaru cut in coldly.  “You have already slighted my granddaughter far more than is wise, so curb your tongue before I decide not to wait for answers as to why you would think that you had the right to lay hands on Saori in the first place.”

“Your . . .?” Evgeni rasped out, an expression of absolute loathing on his face as the gist of what Kagura had said—of what Sesshoumaru had verified—finally sank in.  “She . . . The . . . The granddaughter of the . . . Inu no Taisho . . .”

“The Inu no Taisho has nothing to do with this,” Sesshoumaru remarked, narrowing his eyes dangerously.  “I am her grandfather, and you will answer to me.  Rinji, get your sister.”

Rinji nodded and started forward, only to stop abruptly, erupting in a harsh growl, as Evgeni’s backup pulled out guns and aimed.

Evgeni coughed, rasped out a harsh chuckle as he slowly pushed himself to his feet, flicking two fingers over his shoulder.  In response to his gesture, one of the youkai—a woman—a ferret-youkai—stepped behind Saori, cutting the ropes that bound her with a flick of her claws.  Then she grabbed Saori’s arm and hauled her to her feet and pushed her around, in the opposite direction, toward the small door off to the side, holding onto Saori as she cocked the damned gun and pressed it to the side of Saori’s head.  Saori, to her credit, didn’t make a sound as she was herded out of the building.

Evgeni shuffled back a few steps, his chuckles echoing in the otherwise silence.  Damned if the bastard didn’t think he’d won when the battle had yet to begin at all . . . “She’ll kill her if you do anything to me,” he pointed out.  “Your precious Saori will be dead,” he said, his eyes bright as a gloating kind of smile surfaced.  He touched the earpiece secured around his ear to emphasize his point.  “All I have to do is say the word.”

“And just what do you think you’ll accomplish with any of this?” Kagura demanded, flicking open a fan, but making no move to attack, tapping her mate in the center of his chest to warn him back with her other hand.  “Let me guess: you want power.  That’s it, isn’t it?”

Evgeni snorted, the hostility that drove him, radiating off him in waves.  “Demyanov and his predecessors . . . They cannot control this region.  They’ve never controlled this region!  To dream of a new leader—a more powerful leader—Is that wrong?”

“You mean, one that you can control, don’t you?” she countered, arching an articulated eyebrow to emphasize her point.

He blanched for a split second, just before the mad rush of color flooded his face, as righteous indignation drew him up straight—but not before Kagura saw it—the flash of guilt that he sought to cover up.  “It’s for the greater good!  Even a strong leader needs—requires—men who are able to see the bigger picture, the grand scope!  It . . . It is my destiny to be such a man!  It’s—”

Kagura had heard quite enough.  All of this, all because he wanted to be able to dictate the law of the land without having to defend his own twisted agenda?  “Oh, please!  Do you think that you’re the first miserable bastard to try to play puppet master behind the scenes?  I assure you, you’re not.  You’re not even good at it.  Let Saori go . . . or I’ll make you wish you were dead,” she warned.

Again, that arrogant chuckle.  He thought that he had the upper hand, and perhaps he did—for the moment.  The connection between Evgeni and that woman needed to be severed . . . “You’re hardly in a position to make demands, Kagura-sama.”

She ignored the venom fairly dripping from the man’s acerbic tongue and shifted her gaze over the others stationed behind Evgeni, standing still as statues with their guns still aimed and ready.  “How dishonorable are you?  Guns?  Is your guard so pathetic that they cannot fight?”

“Times have changed.  Perhaps you ought to get out more,” Evgeni growled.

“What is it that you want in exchange for allowing Saori to go free?” Sesshoumaru interrupted before his mate could reply.

Evgeni didn’t look like he trusted Sesshoumaru’s question, but he slowly nodded.  “I want you to replace Fai with a worthier tai-youkai—one of my choosing.”

“It is my policy not to interfere with the tai-youkai,” Sesshoumaru pointed out.  “Even so, in this region, there is no one more fit for the position than the one who is currently tai-youkai.”

“That child?” Evgeni scoffed.  “He’s hardly a man, much less a leader!  Too busy, living in the past and the mistakes of his father!  There is no—”

“The mistakes of my father?  Maybe he wasn’t perfect, but he was right in one thing: you cannot be trusted.  Now, where is my mate?”

Striding into the building, Fai took in the damage, the surroundings, with a very quick glance.  The guns that were trained upon Sesshoumaru and the rest of them shifted ever-so-slightly.  They hadn’t counted upon his arrival, had they?  Now, they were trying to figure out who was most important to hold at the other end of their ignoble weapons.

Sesshoumaru glanced and Fai and slowly nodded one time.  “A woman took Saori out the back door.  Go find her, Faine.  We’ll see to this rabble.”

Fai nodded slowly, started to move forward, but the guns all shifted, aimed at him, and he paused.  “Guns would nullify your . . . challenge, Evgeni,” he pointed out.  “There will be no change in the House of the Tai-Youkai today, no matter what you do.”

“Blasphemy!”

It was sheer instinct that kept Fai on his feet as Konstantin bellowed and dashed forward, heaving his mighty battle axe over his head, only to bring it down hard against the old wood floor that creaked and groaned, shivered and shook.  He unleashed what amounted to a small-scale earthquake that reverberated out from the point of impact, catching Evgeni and his minions off-guard as they struggled to remain standing.  The decrepit old structure could not hold—Fai could feel the foundation buckling, the very walls, trembling as they fought to remain upright—and he barely had time to extend his arm out behind him, his palm, open wide, as the golden dome of light enveloped them in the Demyanov barrier a split second before the rubble crashed down around them with a terrible crack and moan forced from the structure itself.  The roof crumbled apart as it fell in clumps, raining down, blowing up like a cloud of cloying grit and grime, so much so that it was hard to discern much of anything outside of the barrier that protected them.

A high-pitched hum, the flash of neon green light streaked past Fai’s face and through the barrier.  It caught guns and tossed them up in the air—Sesshoumaru’s energy whip, wielded with a frightening accuracy.

“Fujin no Mai!” Kagura yelled, whipping her fan, blasting a barrage of wind blades at the youkai who weren’t fortunate enough to be protected under Fai’s barrier.  Those razor-sharp blades caught the guns before they could fall, sheering them into pieces and rendering them completely useless in the process, clattering to the ground in soft thuds, in harmless clinks.

One of the youkai—a deer-youkai who Fai recognized from Evgeni’s Ivan Kupala celebration—dashed forward, yanking a pair of nasty-looking curved daggers from his belt, charging at Fai as though he were going to attack him, and Fai reached for the hilt of Kamennyy-Nozh as he let the barrier dissipate, but Rinji dashed past him, bringing up the blade of his sword to block the daggers.  The metal collided with a shower of sparks, the screech as the weapons clashed.  Rinji, however, was not well matched, and it took little effort for him to heave the deer-youkai back . . .

“Despicable bastards,” Konstantin growled, lumbering forward to face-off with an equally-large bull-seal-youkai.  “Do not sully your hands with vermin such as this, Your Grace!”

“Do you want to surrender, or do you want to die?” Aiko asked calmly, holding up a hand, cracking her knuckles as she stepped over to block the way before a rare quartz-youkai—he’d have been a jeweler back in the old days . . . Too bad he was one of them . . .

“By all means, Princess—if you think you can . . .”

The woman smiled insincerely—an entirely chilling kind of smile, actually—as the claws on her hand illuminated in a vivid yellow-green . . .

A flash of another wind blade shot out, along with a piercing scream as Evgeni suddenly clutched the side of his head.  His ear was lying on the ground, along with the earpiece that had been hooked over it.  Another zip of Sesshoumaru’s energy whip disintegrated both of those things.

“I’ll leave that to you,” Kagura said, jerking her head at the last of Evgeni’s lackeys.  “I have a score to settle with Feodosiv-san.  Fai-sama . . . Go find your mate.  The rest of this is nothing but collateral damage.”

Fai wanted to object, simply because the idea of walking away from Evgeni was just a little more than he could stand.  Even so, Saori came first, and, without a second thought, he dashed forward, through the fighting, breathing deep to locate Saori’s trail . . .

“I’ll bring her back,” he called over his shoulder.

“Be sure that you do,” Kagura replied.  “Be careful.”

“I will.”

“You bitch!” Evgeni shrieked, still clutching the side of his head.

The crack of the energy whip resounded in the din, snapping just past Evgeni’s head, close enough to singe his cheek, but not close enough to cause lasting damage otherwise, though Sesshoumaru made no move to approach.  It was a warning—no more, no less.  A reminder that the griffon-vulture-youkai was dangerously close to crossing the line—a reminder of just who he was dealing with.

Kagura tapped her closed fan against her mate’s chest.  “Stand down, Sesshoumaru,” she said, taking a step forward as she flicked her fan open once more.  “That one belongs to me.”

“Kagura—”

Her head snapped to the side, pinning him with an icy stare, magenta eyes, flickering, flashing, her defiance clear—and absolutely magnificent.  “He drew her blood.  I’ll even the score.”

“You already did, you realize,” he pointed out in a rather reasonable tone since she had effectively cut off Evgeni’s ear.

“That?  That wasn’t even close.  Men like him . . . They need to choke on their arrogance.”

The vaguest hint of a smile quirked the corners of his lips as he stared at her for a long, long moment.  “Even so, Saori is my granddaughter, too.”

Kagura quirked a delicate black brow.  “Then perhaps you should have called it before I did.”

The remaining unoccupied youkai started to dash forward, apparently thinking that he could take advantage of the moment of seeming preoccupation between the two of them to make his move.  The flash of his sword—a nasty-looking black double blade—was like a shadow in the settling dust.  He lunged at them, drawing that sword over his head, holding onto it with both hands.  Sesshoumaru didn’t even glance at him as he caught the youkai by the throat easily, hefting him up high as the unfortunate youkai struggled against the hold.

“I want his blood, too, and this isn’t really a contest, Kagura,” Sesshoumaru went on, entirely ignoring the youkai held aloft.  He raked at Sesshoumaru’s wrist, his arm, struggling to gain his freedom and burbling nonsensical sounds in a pathetic attempt to get away.  “This one is not worth my effort.”

The man gasped, shook, choked, as the Inu no Taisho’s hand tightened, erupting in a toxic green glow.  His screams were garbled, cries of agony as the flesh of his throat, of his jaw, literally melted under the spray of venomous poison.  His cries died away slowly, his voice taking on a thickened, shredding wheeze, his body convulsing, as his skin, his bones, liquefied in a grayish-greenish glop streaked with crimson blood, dripping down Sesshoumaru’s hand, even as Sesshoumaru let go without a second thought, let what was left of the youkai’s body fall in a pitiful heap among the wreckage.  The Inu no Taisho carelessly shook his hand, sending sprays of the youkai’s face, his skull, his brain, all over the rest of him—all over Evgeni, who stared in a state of shock, horror, at what he’d just witnessed.  That the youkai’s body remained was of no issue to Sesshoumaru, who flicked his energy whip once more, disintegrating the untoward mass in a flash of light and a tepid wind.

Then, Sesshoumaru shifted his gaze to the side, meeting Evgeni’s, straight on.  In those moments, he allowed the concealment he normally held as an afterthought to fall away, revealing the crests, the markings, the shadings, the blues and the deep pinks—Sesshoumaru Inutaisho.  “Now, tell me, Feodosiv,” he said, his voice low, even, almost silken as that barest hint of a smile surfaced once more, and this time, the flash of fangs seemed to glitter in the hazy light.  “How would you like to die?”

Konstantin grunted, jamming the stock of the fierce battle axe into the ground before locking hands with the bull-seal-youkai.  It was a battle of brute strength—one that Konstantin would be damned if he lost.

They were evenly matched, it seemed.  The seal-youkai wasn’t as tall as Konstantin, but he was burly enough, and he had the strength to match as he heaved against Konstantin but didn’t move him.  “You wish to fight me?” he goaded, digging in his heels, bracing his stance against the seal.

“You are the only one worthy to stand against me!” he gloated.

Konstantin grunted, then chuckled, the light of challenge igniting in his eyes.  “I should be saying that . . . You give up honor to serve in darkness!  Miserable fool . . .”

“Don’t lecture me, stupid bear!  You’re content to whimper and whine at the feet of the Demyanov!”

“You dare to insult His Grace?” Konstantin growled, giving the seal a good push.  “Bastard!”

“Truth hurt, does it?” he retorted, letting go of Konstantin’s hands, reaching back to put his weight into a hard punch.  His arm snapped forward, his fist connecting hard with the corner of Konstantin’s mouth with a loud thud, sending out a shockwave of pain, reverberating through his head.

Konstantin’s head snapped to the side, but he was not moved from where he stood, as though rooted to the spot.  Bearing his fangs in a vicious snarl, he slowly turned to face the seal-youkai once more, as he retaliated in kind—with a hammer-like force that sent the seal staggering back a couple steps before he could catch himself, righting his stance, and swinging at Konstantin again.

They exchanged punches a few more times.  The seal split Konstantin’s lip, drew blood from his nose.  Konstantin blackened his eye almost instantly in retaliation, heard and felt the crack of the seal’s cheek bone under the might of his fist.  With an enraged, almost frenetic cry, the two locked hands again, shoving against one another, and this time, Konstantin managed to walk him back a few steps before the seal dug his heels in, stopping Konstantin’s momentum, even if only for the moment.

“You will never win against me,” Konstantin pointed out in a low rumble.

“I, Jasha Kochenkov, cannot lose to the likes of you!” he spat.  “Upon the grave of my great grandfather—the mighty Jorga of the North!  You will fall, just like all that rose to oppose him!”

“Never heard of him,” Konstantin growled, merely holding the seal at bay but not giving an inch, either.  “If he’s in his grave now, then he wasn’t that mighty, don’t you think?”

“You dare slight my kin?” Jasha roared, his youki spiking dangerously, the jagged edges grating against Konstantin’s own.  “You will pay for that!”

Grasping the hand in his a little tighter, Konstantin gave a mighty yank, a twist, bringing the hand down and around, refusing to let go as the snap of bones echoed in his ears.  “Don’t lose your head, Jasha,” he ground out.  “Now, you’ve lost.”

The seal gasped, growled, but he did not scream, letting go of Konstantin’s other hand and taking a wild swing at him.  Konstantin yanked hard on the broken arm, upsetting the seal’s balance, as his arm snapped out straight, catching the seal in the middle of his chest with the heel of his hand, sending the miscreant flying back, straight into what remained of the far wall.  He broke through it with a resounding crash, an explosion of debris as Konstantin wrenched his axe free and dashed forward, swinging it around, above his head, the blade whistling and whirring, spinning faster and faster.

Jasha started to push himself to his feet as Konstantin let go.  The weapon shot forward, spinning like a helicopter blade, whirring in a high-pitched shriek.  The sound alone was enough to disorient many opponents, and this time was no different as the seal-youkai swayed on his feet.  He looked up just in time to see the approaching blade, but he could not avoid it as it cut through his throat cleanly, his body, committing itself to dust and wind before his severed head hit the ground.

“Hmph,” Konstantin growled, slowly shaking his head.  “Pathetic.”

He wasted no time in retrieving the axe, kneeling down to wipe the blade of the axe clean in the soft grass.  The others were still battling, but Konstantin had little doubt in his mind what the outcome would ultimately be.  That family was formidable, after all—real men amongst men, even if Konstantin hated to admit it.  Those sad little cowards didn’t stand a chance.

Besides, there was something else that required his attention, wasn’t there?  He’d be damned if he allowed Fai to walk into his fight alone . . . After all, if these youkai were low enough that they would resort to using guns, then there really was no telling, what they’d do when cornered . . .

Then, he set out, following Fai’s trail.

“Not bad, pretty boy,” the deer-youkai scoffed, slowly shaking his head, spinning the daggers on the palms of his hands as he slowly straightened up, sizing up Rinji, but lingering a fair distance away.  “Damned if you aren’t just . . . fucking . . . pretty . . .”

“Not into guys, thanks,” Rinji growled, refreshing his grip on his sword, Kiryuken—a weapon forged from Sesshoumaru and InuYasha’s fangs and imbued with Kagura’s wind.

The deer chuckled.  “Saori’s your sister, is that right?  So, that would make you . . . Sesshoumaru’s grandson?  A little princeling, huh?  But then, you’re one that’ll never be king, now will you?”

“Senkuro Rinji,” he corrected.  “I don’t need to hide in ojii-sama’s shadow.”

“Rinji, is it?”  The deer chuckled and made a mocking bow.  “Well, Prince Rinji, I am Feliks Yelchin . . . Don’t think I’ll be defeated as easily as Kochenkov was.”

Rinji wasn’t impressed by the deer-youkai’s long-winded speech, nor was he cowed even a little by the ill-natured teasing.  “Are you stalling for time?  It won’t matter.  You understand, I was trained by ojii-sama—and InuYasha, along with Ryomaru when he wasn’t out, hunting down bastards like you.  So, if you think you can beat me, think again.”

The deer uttered an entirely amused, if not entirely arrogant, chuckle, as though something Rinji had said was highly amusing, and the sound of it grated on Rinji’s nerves, just the same.  “It’s been my experience that pretty boys like you aren’t really good at much but flashy moves and finesse,” Feliks mused.  “Almost makes me feel bad for this—almost.”

He whipped two shuriken at Rinji, who managed to deflect both with relative ease.  They landed harmlessly on either side of him—then exploded.  Rinji gasped as fragments of metal impaled his arms, his sides, his legs.  As though from a distance, in a hazy kind of realization, he heard Aiko scream his name.  The pain, however, was secondary—a mere nuisance, at best—as Rinji’s fury grew, and he sprinted forward, ignoring the twinges as the shards of metal dug in deeper, like they were burrowing into his flesh.

Feliks laughed triumphantly.  “My shuriken are made of special metal, designed to rip a path, straight through your body, right to your heart.  They’ll impale it—make you bleed to death from the inside out . . . So, enjoy your last moments on earth, grandson of the Inu no Taisho!”

“We’ll see about that,” Rinji growled, slapping way the next volley of shuriken and veering to the left to negate the subsequent explosions.  He could smell his blood, dripping from the wounds, but he ignored that, slapping the third round of shuriken back at Feliks, who had to jump to the right, even as three of them exploded directly where he had been just seconds before.

“Shisha no Uta!” Rinji yelled, slamming Kiryuken hard into the ground.  He grunted as the glowing yellow crescents shot out, speeding across the distance fast—spinning and whirring so rapidly that they looked like perfect discs of fire—wind blades that decimated everything in their paths, and as they cut through, they seemed to sing, hence the name: the Song of the Dead.

Feliks screamed as those blades cut through him, severing limbs, nearly severing his head from his neck.  The blades sang louder, spun faster, sending blood, spraying in a macabre mist.  They broke free of the deer-youkai’s body, skimmed over the ground, only to smack into the ground fifty feet behind him in a groaning explosion as Feliks’ body exploded in a glittery dust and a gust of gale wind.

Only then did Rinji jam Kiryuken into the scabbard on his hip and turn back to make sure everyone else was still all right, grinding his teeth together as the metal shards dug in, deeper and deeper . . .

Evgeni slowly stared around at the rapidly dwindling number of his guard.  Once Feliks fell to Rinji’s attack, Aiko stopped, carting around, dashing over to her son.  She’d been making a good show of fighting Taras, but it was pointless now, given that everyone else was dead and soon enough, Evgeni would join them.  Even from the distance, Kagura could feel her daughter’s fear, her consuming worry.  She’d heard what the bastard had said about those shuriken of his, but Aiko, with her particular skills, could probably save Rinji . . .

The griffon-vulture-youkai’s eyes flared wide as he glared at Taras.  “You . . . You’ve betrayed me?”

“I worked for you,” Taras corrected mildly, dropping the pretenses as he sheathed his sword and crossed his arms over his chest.  “Her Grace offered me a better deal—one where I live, and you don’t.  That’s all.  It’s hardly betrayal—just good business.”

“I don’t think you’re going to get anything else out of him,” Sesshoumaru remarked slowly as he leaned toward her, shaking his head and looking a little disgusted.  Then he straightened his back, narrowed his formidable stare on Evgeni once more.  “You’ve lost, you know.  You’ve lost bigger than you ever thought you’d win, Feodosiv.”

“Go to hell, all of you!” Evgeni spat, drawing himself up proudly, as though his show of bravado would mean a thing.  Suddenly, though, he laughed—mad laughter.  Tossing his head back, the high-pitched, nearly hysterical howling laughter . . . And it took a minute for him to wind down.  Leveling a smug look at them all, he continued to chuckle.  “Sorry about your grandson, oh mighty Sesshoumaru . . . Let’s just call him collateral damage, shall we?”

“Your henchman did not kill him,” Sesshoumaru remarked evenly.  “Rinji will be fine.”

Evgeni’s laughter died away, and he narrowed his eyes as he turned his head, expression shifting into an angry grimace when he saw Aiko, her hand, bathed in the same green light as Sesshoumaru’s.  She’d shot her own acid poison into Rinji’s body—just enough to dissolve the metal shards and was in the process of extracting the toxin.  Rinji did look a little pale, a little off—considering the process, it wasn’t surprising—but he’d be fine soon enough.

“Damn you and all of your kind,” Evgeni growled, lip curling up in a defiant sneer as he turned his attention back to Sesshoumaru once more.  “Rot in hell, the lot of you!  This is not over!  Even now, your precious granddaughter is as good as dead!  Dead!  And then, the house of Demyanov will fall!  Mark my words!  The revolution—"

Kagura slowly blinked, entirely apathetic to his blustering.  “Your mistake, you know, is that you dared to touch Saori,” she said, drawing his attention as she stepped toward him.  “But you don’t care about that, do you?  Why should you care about that when you don’t even care about your mate—I assume you have one, don’t you?  So, you plot all of this, and you think that you’ll get what you’re after, and all the while, you, alone, are dooming not just yourself but also your mate to die.  I’m not entirely unreasonable, you see.  Had you thought to keep your hands to yourself, I might have had pity for you—for her—but you . . . You are not kami.  You’re not even a martyr.”

“And you, so high and mighty . . . What gives you the right to make your decrees?  To inflict your whims upon us all?  You don’t live here.  You have no idea, just what goes on here, but you are so sure that you’re right!” Evgeni hissed, addressing Sesshoumaru and summarily dismissing Kagura entirely.

For a moment, Sesshoumaru said nothing.  In fact, he didn’t seem like he’d even heard Evgeni at all as he watched his daughter administer to his grandson.  Finally, however, his gaze shifted, locked with Evgeni’s once more.  “I earned the right a long time ago,” he finally said.  “I earned it through fire and blood and through battle against better than you.  You, who prowls in the shadows, who plots and plans and resorts to your lies and deceit . . . You are not worthy to challenge Faine, and you certainly are not worthy to challenge me.  Now, are you prepared to die?”

Drawing Tokijin slowly, the blade erupting in a bright blue light, flashes of lightning wrapping around it, crackling in the air, Sesshoumaru drew back to unleash Soryuha . . .

“Stop!  Stop!  My God, what are you doing?  Zhenya—Evgeni, what’s going on?”

The aura surrounding Tokijin’s blade dissipated as a small woman—a golden-fox-youkai—dashed forward, throwing herself against Evgeni’s chest as she trembled and shook, her beautiful face, streaked with tears as fear, harsh and abrasive, radiated in her youki.  “Who . . .?  Who are you, and why are you . . .?” she rasped out, glancing fearfully at Sesshoumaru, at Kagura, as she pressed in closer to her mate.

Sesshoumaru’s expression remained impassive.  “Your mate has been plotting against your tai-youkai,” he said.  “He had Faine’s mate kidnapped and is holding her hostage.  He must pay for his crimes—his treason.”

She shook her head, her confusion evident.  “But . . . His Grace . . . He’s . . . He’s your friend . . . Zhenya?  His mate?  You don’t mean Saori . . .?”

“He’s gone to great lengths to make it seem so,” Kagura remarked.  “All this long while, he’s done nothing but betray your tai-youkai and everything Fai-sama stands for.”

For the briefest moment, Evgeni glanced at his mate, almost seemed a little sad as he slowly shook his head.  “I . . . I’m sorry, Arrida,” he murmured.  “Stand aside.”

She shook her head, choked out a sob that she couldn’t restrain.  “No,” she whimpered, burying her face against his chest, bringing to mind another soul, another moment so long ago—a fate that couldn’t be altered—but why that moment, standing in the courtyard, watching helplessly as a young Zelig had clung to his dying father, came back to Kagura now, she didn’t know.  Or perhaps . . . perhaps the same desperation, the same sense of futility, that lingered in this woman’s youki . . . It was the same as the child Zelig’s, wasn’t it . . .?

“Arrida . . . please . . .” Evgeni rasped out, almost as though he’d forgotten that the rest of them were there, watching, waiting . . .

“No!” Arrida wailed, attempting to press herself even closer to her mate’s chest.  “God, no . . .!”

Evgeni hugged her tight, kissed her forehead.  “Don’t follow me, Arrida.  Live . . . Live . . .” Then he shoved her away hard, yanking a gun out of his pocket in a fluid motion, that he brought up, held against the side of his head.

And then, he pulled the trigger.