InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Vivication ❯ Destruction ( Chapter 69 )

Peering up without raising his head, Fai frowned as he watched the woman on the riverbank as she carefully cleaned the fish.  Hair catching the early evening sunlight that caught in the long locks, shining gently, lending her a bluish hint, she quickly tipped her head to the side, using her shoulder to push her hair back out of her face.  His frown deepened.  It wasn't black, that hair—almost, but not quite.  No, it was more of a dark, deep, glossy gray, kissed with those bluish highlights, incredibly long, ridiculously soft looking, perfectly paired with those silvery eyes, too.  Along with paleness of her skin, it gave her a dramatic kind of presence, and when she smiled, those same eyes of hers seemed to light up, sparkling like diamonds—like precious gems . . .

The memory had come to him, unbidden, unprovoked, and yet, something about it unleashed a stabbing ache somewhere around Fai’s heart as he dashed blindly, driven by the insular knowledge that Saori needed him.

‘Saori . . .’

‘Calm down, Fai.  We’re close.  We can feel her.  She’s all right for the moment.  Just . . . Just settle yourself because you can’t afford to mess this up . . .’

No, he really couldn’t.

It made no sense; not really.  That Evgeni was desperate enough to kidnap Saori?  And didn’t he realize that it was akin to signing his own death warrant?

‘Desperation makes people do foolish things, Fai.  Don’t you know that yourself?’

He grimaced.  Yes, he supposed he did.  If he hadn’t insisted that she’d be safer with her grandfather, in his house . . .

A million recriminations ate at him.  He never should have sent her back to Japan.  He really had thought that she would be safer there, and yet, she wasn’t.  Never mind that the first thing he’d recognized when he’d neared the threshing house was the unmistakable scent of Saori’s blood, and even if it was merely a trace amount, it was enough to enrage him, too . . .

Where the hell was she?

Saori sighed again, her lips gently parting, allowing, maybe beckoning, the kiss to deepen.  The contours of her lips, of her teeth, the overwhelming sweetness . . . There was an innate innocence in her that spoke to him, even as she almost clumsily accepted what he gave her.  The moment he touched his tongue to hers, she shuddered, her hands slipping down to his shoulders, her fingers wrapping around fistfuls of his shirt.  The elevation in her breathing held him in check, uttered such a soft reminder that she was Saori, that she was precious to him—that she was the fairy tale that he hadn’t realized that he’d even wanted—wrapped up in bright smiles and silly notions, in impetuous freedom of spirit . . .

The taste of her was almost enough to drive him mad, the reluctant flick of her tongue against his, and she held nothing back from him, laid at all bare.  One kiss melted into another as a moment stretched on a gossamer thread.  Kissing her slowly, savoring every sigh, ever shiver, every quiver, every quake, he winced inwardly when a pang so sharp, so deep shot through him: a bittersweet sense that he couldn’t recall he last time he’d felt so sheltered, so cherished, as he did in that moment, and that was all right, too, wasn’t it?  Saori . . .

Grinding his teeth together as he impatiently brushed aside the lingering memory, Fai kept moving.  At some point, she’d been put into a vehicle—the pervasive reek of engine exhaust all but obliterating Saori’s gentler scent.  It didn’t smell like a car, though—maybe some sort of ATV—so he figured that she had to be near enough.

“Your Grace!”

Fai didn’t stop, but he did glance over his shoulder, only to find Konstantin, lumbering toward him.  “Move faster, Kostya,” he growled back.  “Took you long enough.”

“My apologies.  I tried to hurry,” Konstantin insisted, falling to step beside Fai, struggling to catch his breath since he’d had to run all-out in order to catch up with Fai.

“You’re fine,” Fai muttered tersely.  “Are the others—?”

“They’re still fighting,” he replied.  “I left after I dispatched the seal-youkai.”

Fai nodded.  “Good, good . . . but did you have to destroy the building?”

Konstantin grunted, then broke into an entirely self-satisfied grin.  “It was manly, yes?”

Fai rolled his eyes but snorted out a sharp laugh.  “This is why you’d make a terrible hunter,” he pointed out.

Konstantin chuckled, but the deadly seriousness in his youki didn’t wane.  “I would defeat every one of your enemies, Your Grace!  I would teach them the error of their ways!  I would use their bones to pick my teeth!  I would—”

“And you would destroy whatever buildings they happen to be in,” Fai concluded.  “Forget it, Kostya.”

Konstantin looked entirely too pleased with himself to credit, and Fai shook his head.  “It was effective,” he defended himself.

“I suppose it was,” Fai grudgingly agreed.  “Wherever they’ve taken Saori, though, make sure you restrain yourself, will you?  I barely had time to put the barrier up around her family, you know, so if you do that again, you could easily hurt her.”

“Bah!  A true man is ready for any contingency, Your Grace!  And your reflexes were excellent.”

Fai snorted and rolled his eyes again, increasing his speed as he closed in on Saori, following the innate sense of her more than her scent.  “And you’re missing the point entirely.”

“Your Grace is a man amongst men!”

Shaking his head, Fai reached over, slapped Konstantin’s bicep with the back of his hand.  “Come on, you tank . . . She’s close.  I can feel her . . .”

“You 217;re a lot more trouble than you’re worth,” the woman—a ferret-youkai—remarked as she slowly, deliberately, paced around the pole where she’d secured Saori.  She looked like the type of woman who would be more at home in the midst of a big city, maybe working in some office, twenty-five stories off of the ground, taking jets around the world to sit in on the biggest board meetings, and yet . . . The only real sense of her impatience was a quick flip of her wrist as she glanced at her watch, frowned at the time.  “Damn that Zhenya . . . It would save a lot of grief if I just killed you right now, but he has to make everything a big, theatrical production . . .”

Wiggling her hands in the cuffs—Taras had made sure to fasten them a couple notches looser than he probably would normally, just enough that she could escape them with effort—Saori didn’t take her eyes off her captor.

She didn’t know where they were, exactly.  They were still on Evgeni’s property, but she hadn’t seen this area before.  On the edge of a fairly good-sized lake that was connected to the river that flowed up by the cottegi, the boathouse they were in opened directly onto the water with only one small door on the far side, and the entire structure was built over the lake, supported on metal beams below.

She didn’t doubt that she could easily defeat the woman—if it were a fair fight.  But she still held that gun of hers, and that upended the playing field fairly drastically.  Even so, Saori was fast.  If she could catch the woman by surprise . . .

‘Fai’s coming.  You feel him, don’t you?’

She did, and it bolstered her resolve a hundred-fold.  She could feel the brush of his youki against hers, and that was more than enough.  One way or another, she was going home—back to the Demyanov estate—where she belonged—with her mate by her side, damn it . . .

“Why do you work for someone like him?” Saori heard herself asking, trying to preoccupy the woman while she worked her hands free, all while trying not to draw attention to the slight movements of her shoulders as she sought to keep the handcuffs from making too much noise, too.

The question earned a very loud snort from the ferret-youkai.  “Work for him?  I don’t work for him!  Oh, he may think I do, but I assure you, he’s easy enough to manipulate.”

Her arrogant claim caught Saori off guard, and she blinked, slowly shook her head.  “If not him, then who—?”

“Who do you think put the ideas into his head?” she snapped, obviously irritated that Saori didn’t see the grand scheme of things that she apparently did.  That was it, wasn’t it?  She was . . . gloating . . .? “He’s so simplistic!  He thought that it’d be enough, just to plant the seeds of doubt in the Demyanov’s regents—the men that he should have trusted but doesn’t.  He thought that it’d be enough—raise enough challengers, and one of them would have to defeat him.  He thought that it’d be enough—make the Demyanov look inept—bleeding his accounts dry, being forced to cut funding wherever he possibly could . . . Stupid, simple man.”

Saori slowly shook her head.  “So . . . So, you . . . made Evgeni-san think that everything was his idea?”

She chuckled.  It was a nasty sound: arrogant and condescending, as she flicked her hand, examined her nails, letting her gun flop rather carelessly from side to side in the process.  “For years, all he did was talk.  He wanted revolution—thought that it was all as simple as waiting it out—but he wouldn’t do a thing to expedite the process . . . He believed—honestly believed—that if he could get the right person into the office of tai-youkai, that he could whisper in his ear, make him his puppet!  He tried to do that with Fai in the beginning, too, but Fai wasn’t as simple to maneuver as Evgeni had hoped.  So, instead of trying to take care of the situation, what does he do?  He sits back, thinks that if he can just get Fai out of office that the next one, surely, would fall into his plans.  He played it all as if it was nothing more than a game of chess!  The fool!”

The handcuff was caught on the slight protrusion of the bone at the base of her thumb, and Saori could easily get it if she could yank in one good, solid motion, but it would give her away, too, and that was something Saori couldn’t afford.  She needed to keep the woman preoccupied, but interestingly enough, the woman seemed more than willing to gloat over her role in the whole plot.  If Saori could keep her talking . . . “But you can’t be tai-youkai.  Women aren’t physically strong enough to win it,” Saori pointed out.  “Just what do you think you can accomplish, then?”

That statement earned Saori a very hostile glare.  Apparently, what she’d said had hit home.  “Oh, don’t I know it?” she shot back, unable to repress the bitterness that tinged her voice.  “But then, I don’t have to be tai-youkai to wield the power of one.  All it really takes is . . .” Suddenly, she laughed, eyes narrowing dangerously as she very deliberately looked Saori up and down, as if she were sizing her up.  “All it takes is a few little smiles, a roll or two between the sheets.  Well, you know, don’t you?  After all, isn’t that how you hooked dear Fai?”

“Fai’s my mate,” Saori replied.  “I don’t attempt to tell him what to do.  Why would I when he does a fine job, all on his own?”

“Then you’re a foolish, stupid little girl,” she shot back.

“If you’re the mastermind, then who are you?” Saori asked.  “I mean, if this is all your master plan, then shouldn’t I at least be told who you are?”

For a moment, Saori didn’t think the woman would answer her.  Slowly pacing the floor, she seemed to be considering just how much she ought to divulge, but that seemed a little short-sighted, given that she’d already told Saori much, much more.  “Me?  My name is Katja Petrova—not that you really need to know that.  After all, you’ll be dead, your esteemed mate will die, and Yerik will either do as I say—or he’ll die, too, just like their darling mother, all those years ago.”

“Their mother?  What do you know about that?” Saori goaded, even as her arms, her whole body, suddenly rioted in an explosion of gooseflesh, even as a flood of foreboding swept through her.

Katja laughed that wicked, wicked laugh of hers once more, and she leveled a bright-eyed, almost manic kind of look at Saori.  “It’s so easy to bring down a dynasty, you know.  All it really takes is one loose wire—the right one, that is . . . and the cards come tumbling down.”

Staring at the woman, a slow understanding dawned upon her, and Saori shook her head, absolute disbelief slowing her mind to a crawl as a sickening sense of trepidation seeped through her.  “A loose . . .? You . . . You killed their mother?  Faina-sama . . .”

Konstantin reacted upon impulse, grasping Fai’s shoulder, yanking him back before he could charge the door of the rickety old boathouse.  Arriving there, just in time to hear those damning words from within, Fai wasn’t interested in stopping or thinking about what could happen if he were to go running in there blindly, recklessly . . .

“It’s so easy to bring down a dynasty, you know.  All it really takes is one loose wire—the right one, that is . . . and the cards come tumbling down.”

Uttering a terse, fearsome growl, Fai tried to shake Konstantin’s hold off, but the latter yanked him back hard.  “Your Grace!  She has a gun!” he growled, barely above a whisper as he dealt Fai a curt shake to emphasize his point.  “And more than that, you—"

“That woman—!  You heard her!  She killed my mother!” Fai hissed back, glowering at Konstantin.

“Keep your head!” Konstantin warned, dealing Fai’s shoulder one hard shake.

For a long moment, Konstantin thought that Fai was going to disregard the warning.  Frankly, it was a miracle that the woman hadn’t yet noticed that they were outside.  Too busy, gloating over her own misdeeds, Konstantin supposed absently.  Fai tried to shrug off Konstantin’s hand, but the bear had anticipated it, and he refused to let go. Before either of them could reach an understanding, though . . .

The sudden upsurge in wind whipped off the lake like a strange warning, but it wasn’t a natural thing—more like a vortex that surged around the boathouse.  The building groaned and creaked as an unseen pressure built inside.  Konstantin felt it, grabbed Fai tight, and sprang back, away, just as the entire structure exploded.  Shards of wood, of metal and glass, bits of broken cinderblocks, clouded the air as two streaks of light—one a luminescent, almost sparkling white, and the other, a deep shade of orange—shot out of the ruins . . .

The two sparks flew up into the skies over the lake, and in a flash, they appeared: a huge grey dog that exactly matched the shade of Saori’s hair, though she had no tail, and the fur around her throat seemed sparser than it should have been—the lack of her Mokomoko-sama, Konstantin realized—and a sleek ferret—much smaller than Saori’s visceral form.  The dog—Saori—lunged after the slithering creature as Fai erupted in a loud growl and finally shook off Konstantin’s hold.

Konstantin blinked as Fai ran forward, into the lingering dust, disappearing in a flash of burnished golden light as what was left of the platform groaned and creaked under the weight of the rapidly transforming Asian tai-youkai.  A huge dog—maybe not as large as he might one day be, given that he was still fairly young in youkai terms.  He lunged into the air, wuffing harshly at his mate—the great red dog, easily triple Saori’s size—also missing his tail, his ruff, and yet, no less majestic as Konstantin blinked, gasped, thumped his fist against his chest and held it there.

There was something about the sight of them—Fai and Saori—as they stood, side by side . . . It was beautiful to behold, and not for the first time, Konstantin couldn’t help the insular though that those two . . . They truly were perfect for each other.  

Fai circled around the ferret as Saori lunged for the creature, catching her in her jaws, dealing her a good, hard shake.  The ferret managed to twist around, even as she screeched in pain, planting paws against Saori and heaving hard, an arc of blackened blood, spraying against the late afternoon sky as the ferret started to fall, only to catch herself as she unleashed a volley of dark orange energy balls, but they were wild, an attack released in panic, unguided, and easily avoided as Saori shot toward the ferret once more, issuing a warning growl at Fai, as though she were telling him that this ferret was her prey . . .

It looked like an intricately choreographed dance, almost—such grace, such power, laid bare for anyone to see.  Fai darted in, gnashed those powerful jaws, grasping the ferret’s tail, giving her a mighty yank as she shrieked in pain.  He tossed her to the side and lunged at her once more, but she was too fast, springing out of his path, only to be smacked back by the thump of Saori’s paw.

“Well, I’ll be damned . . .”

Konstantin nodded in agreement as Rinji skidded up beside him.  He could feel the collective youki of the others closing in fast, but he didn’t look away from the sky.

“I didn’t think transformation into the visceral form was possible without one’s Mokomoko-sama,” Rinji went on.

“It’s possible, but you give up a portion of your power,” Sesshoumaru explained.  “Doesn’t look like either of them is missing a thing since they’re together, though.  They’re more than a match for her.”

Even as they spoke, Fai bounded closer, only to back away slightly when the ferret swung a paw at him, unleashing a thunderous hiss that shook the earth and water.

Saori responded in kind, and the growl she uttered was enough to make the group steady their stances upon the trembling ground as she lunged at the ferret once more.

This time, though, the ferret was ready, catapulting herself at Saori, lighting on her back, digging in claws, teeth.  Saori shrieked, tried to shake the ferret off.  Fai shot forward, but the ferret sprang away just in time to avoid his powerful jaws.

The two dogs growled at each other—Konstantin couldn’t tell if they were arguing or simply checking to make sure they were all right, and slowly, they turned to look at the ferret, who was crouched, ready to spring again.  She did, darting between the dogs, trying to both attack and defend at the same time.  Howling once more—a sound meant to disorient her opposition—she dug her claws into Fai’s side, but Saori hit her hard, sent her flying across the sky, while both dogs dashed after her.

“Magnificent,” Konstantin breathed, more to himself than to the others.

“They are perfectly matched,” Aiko commented, a reverent quiet in her tone.

“But Saori-chan . . . She’s angry—very angry,” Kagura mused.

“That ferret . . . She killed His Grace’s mother.  She admitted it,” Konstantin said without taking his eyes off the dogs and the ferret.

“Is that so?  Then, that ferret will not see the sunset,” Sesshoumaru remarked rather casually.

Even as the words hung in the air, Konstantin’s eyes widened.  Both of the dogs stood, mouths agape, bright balls of energy, growing larger and larger while the ferret summoned a ball of energy of her own.  The crackle of them created a rise in the electricity in the air—Konstantin could feel the hairs on his arms, standing straight up—and all three seemed to release them in unison.

The ferret’s orange orb flew fast, closing the distance over the lake, but Fai and Saori’s seemed to melt together, erupting in a bigger golden light, and as it did, it gained speed, colliding with the ferret’s energy blast and obliterating it entirely, seconds before it hit the ferret in a flash of brilliance.

The ferret’s pained shrieks were lost in the void of the giant explosion of light and wind, so bright that he had to shield his eyes, his face, as the wind nearly swept him off his feet.  Waves rose on the water, washing over them up to the knees, the chest, trees bent outward, away from the force of the blast.  By the time the light died away, the ferret was gone, leaving behind a rain of dust that trickled down and was carried off by the capricious fingers of the breeze.

The great dogs lit on the ground not far from the group, and Konstantin smiled proudly as they shrank down, reverting back to their humanoid forms.  With a gasp, a roughened cry, Saori threw herself against Fai’s chest, and he hugged her tight . . .

The silence in the cozy office was almost deafening.

Sesshoumaru stood by the window, holding a glass of vodka, staring out at the night, but he hadn’t said much since they’d retired for the duration of the discussion.  Rinji sat on the sofa, looking a little worse for wear, probably due to the poison his mother had used to dissolve the metal shards from the shuriken—or so they’d told Fai.  Konstantin stood next to the door, silently guarding it.

Taras Stepanovich sat directly across from Fai, completely calm, while Fai contemplated what to do with the quartz-youkai.

Saori had told him on the way home, just what Taras’ involvement had been, and she told him that he wasn’t doing more than earning a paycheck, that he’d opted to help her instead.  It was a big deal, what he’d done, and as tai-youkai, Fai wasn’t sure he could completely forgive Taras for his part in it.   Sesshoumaru had held his own counsel on the matter, and Fai had to wonder if the Inu no Taisho weren’t testing him, waiting to see what he’d do . . .

“You worked for Evgeni, but you knew nothing about his plans?” Fai finally asked, breaking the silence that had fallen.

Taras shook his head.  “He never volunteered information, and I never asked.  Sometimes, it’s better not to know too much.”

Fai could understand that.  Even so . . .

A soft but curt knock sounded on the door, and Konstantin reached over to turn the knob.  Yerik stepped in with Kagura in tow.  “Sorry for the interruption, Fai-sama.  Saori-chan’s sleeping, and Aiko’s laying down with her, talking to Seiji, telling him everything, but your mate asked me to come down, to speak on behalf of Stepanovich-san,” Kagura said as Yerik poured himself a glass of vodka and sat down next to Rinji on the sofa.

“You mean, there’s more that Saori didn’t tell me?” Fai asked, only half-joking.

Kagura nodded, gliding forward—the woman was ridiculously regal in bearing, in movement.  Fai noticed it before, but it was something that struck him every single time he was around her . . . She stopped just behind Taras.  “Saori believes that Stepanovich-san can and should be forgiven for his part in this.  After all, he didn’t actually harm her, and even then, she’s come to think that you might even be able to find use for him in your employ.”

Fai blinked.  “In my—?  How is that?”

“Given his line of work, he might be fairly useful in more clandestine tasks—intelligence, subversive measures . . . Am I wrong in assuming that you’ve built a bit of a network in the years you’ve been working, Stepanovich-san?”

Taras seemed surprised by the question, but he nodded.  “I guess you could say that.  I have certain connections, of course.”

“Is that right?”

“It’s rather unavoidable,” Taras explained.

Fai nodded slowly, thoughtfully.  True enough, having someone who might be able to gather information that Fai himself couldn’t might be beneficial, but the question really was, could he trust him?  After all, if someone came along and offered him more money to work for the other side . . .

The thing was, Fai wasn’t up to making a decision about him yet, not when the only thing he really wanted to do was to go upstairs, pull Saori into his arms—and sleep, possibly for the next hundred years.

He sighed, dragging his hands through his hair as he frowned at the errant youkai.  “Let me think all of this over for now,” he finally said.  “Kostya, can you keep an eye on Taras?”

“It is my honor!” the Siberian said, pushing himself away from the wall.  “Come.”

Taras stood, but he said nothing as he turned and followed Konstantin out of the room, and after they were gone, Fai sighed again and started to rise to his feet.  “I know that I need to figure out what to do with him, but right now, if you’ll all excuse me, I’m tired, and I . . .”

“Saori told me what Katja Petrova told her about your mother—and about her part of Evgeni’s scheme,” Kagura cut in when Fai trailed off.  He stopped and dropped into his chair once more.  “I knew she was angry.  She’s not in the habit of taking to her dog-form, so she’s exhausted . . . But about Faina-sama . . . I’m sorry, Fai-sama.”

“Don’t be,” he told her, pushing himself up out of his chair once more, dragging his hands through his hair, feeling so much older than he had this morning.  “Nothing will bring her or my father back, and . . . and they’ve been avenged.”

This time, no one made a move to stop him as he strode out of the office and down the hallway, heading for the stairs.

It was all so much to take in, and, to be honest, he’d tried hard, not to think about that part of it since the fight in the skies.

So much destruction over such a foolish reason and trying to place the blame was just a little more than he could stomach at the moment.

“It’s so easy to bring down a dynasty, you know.  All it really takes is one loose wire—the right one, that is . . . and the cards come tumbling down.”

Those words . . .

‘So, she arranged your mother’s death, just to ensure your father’s death, too . . . and Sesshoumaru told you what Evgeni had said—what he’d wanted.  He’d wanted to rule the region, using you as his puppet.  As if you wouldn’t have seen right through that . . .’

‘But I didn’t, now did I?  I never saw it because I didn’t think to look for it.  And . . .’

His youkai-voice sighed.  ‘Don’t, Fai.  What you’re thinking . . . It won’t happen.’

He frowned.  ‘Won’t it?  Just because we put an end to Evgeni and Katja’s plotting doesn’t mean that the threat is gone.  What if they were just the start?  Saori . . .’

‘Saori’s strong, you know.  You saw her.  You fought beside her, and you know, too, don’t you?  If it had come right down to it, she would have won, all on her own.’

Pausing outside the door to his antechamber, Fai squeezed his eyes closed for a long moment.  True enough, he’d seen it himself.  She really was strong, and yes, she could hold her own among the best of them.  But . . .

But the fear, the overwhelming desperation during those hours when he hadn’t known . . . It was all still just a little too real, a little too fresh in his mind—a little too painful to bear . . .

His hand faltered as he reached for the handle.  He’d seen the cuts on her face, the swollen jaw, the bruising where Evgeni had struck her, and suddenly, he was ashamed.  His mate, and he’d failed to protect her . . .

Yet, just as those thoughts came to him, so did the brush of Saori’s youki—soft and gentle.  She . . . Sleeping or not, she was calling to him, and he suddenly had to blink fast, staving back the suspect moisture that filled his gaze and hazed over his vision, the constricting of his throat as she’d found a way to humble him, to remind him that it wasn’t about him, wasn’t about what he’d failed to do, and next time, he’d do better—if there was a next time.  If he had anything to say about it, there never would be . . .

And it was Saori who gave him the courage to open the door, to step inside.  He could hear Aiko’s voice, soft and reassuring, well before he stepped into his room—their room.  She glanced up at him and smiled, but she looked exhausted, too.  Then she stood up, pausing long enough to lean up on her toes, to kiss him on the cheek, before letting herself out of the room.

Letting out a deep breath as he closed the door, as he shuffled over to the bed, Fai spared a moment to stare at the sleeping woman.  She’d had a bath—he could discern the scent of her soaps, and in the dim light of the one lamp left burning, she looked entirely fine other than the trace discoloration still visible on her jaw.  The abrasions on her cheeks were gone, healed, and Fai smiled, just a little.

Then, he crawled into the bed, not bothering to remove his clothes, pulled her into his arms, against his chest, and in the wan light, he thought that maybe she smiled.

He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of her, savoring the steady beat of her heart.

And as he fell asleep, his last, lingering thought was just how perfect she felt, nestled close to him.