InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 3: Forever ❯ Answers ( Chapter 34 )

~~Chapter 34~~

~Answers~

 

A soft sound woke Ryomaru from a restless slumber. Blinking in the darkness as he tried to discern the noise in the otherwise silent house, he brushed away the disorientation of waking in Nezumi's room with her scent, both comforting and yet somehow intoxicating, wrapped around him like a security blanket. `It was a . . . growl? But not quite a growl . . .'

 

`It was you, baka---the inu-hanyou equivalent of contented snoring. Are you really so dense you didn't realize that?'

 

`Feh! I don't fucking snore.'

 

`Okay, not snoring, exactly, and sorry to say, you do.'

 

`Great . . . It's a miracle I get any sleep at all, then . . .'

 

`. . . I'll say.'

 

`Shut up, will you?'

 

`Fine, but if I shut up, then I suppose you don't need me to tell you something that you might find of sovereign interest.'

 

Ryomaru wrinkled his nose. `All right, but it had better be damn good.'

 

The voice chuckled. `Yup, of course it is. Nezumi's asleep---sound asleep.'

 

`If you were a real person, I'd kick your ass right about now . . .'

 

`Hold on, hold on! Before you blow that ass gasket, I want to point something out.'

 

`Get on with it, will you?'

 

`Fine . . . If Nezumi's asleep, where do you suppose that box of hers is?'

 

Ryomaru's eyes snapped open. `Balls! You've got your uses, don't you?'

 

`Sure, I do . . . and stop saying `balls'. Where the hell did you pick that up, anyway?'

 

`Who cares? Where's that fucking box?'

 

The voice sighed and didn't answer. Satisfied that the annoying intonation would leave him alone for a bit, Ryomaru cautiously leaned up on his elbow and peeked over Nezumi in search of the wooden box.

 

It rested beside her, beckoning him. He reached out to grab it but hesitated. `Damn . . . If she finds out, she'll never forgive me.' He glared at the box and snorted. `Then again . . . she doesn't have to find out, does she?'

 

He shook his head and pulled his hand away. `No, I can't do it.'

 

`Didn't figure you could.'

 

He couldn't do it. How could he when all he could see was the frightened expression on Nezumi's face as she tried to retrieve the box? Her eyebrows drawn together in a panicked frown, her eyes pleading, desperate . . . He could smell the anxiety rolling off her in waves, and because of that, he just couldn't---couldn't---do it.

 

Turning his troubled gaze on the woman beside him, Ryomaru blinked in the darkness. Sooty bangs brushed the pale skin of Nezumi's cheeks, the somber light of the filmy haze. The delicate hollows and ridges of her profile silhouetted in moonlight glowed as the darkest shadows and the lingering highlights caressed her skin in hues of blue and white.

 

The girl he knew had become a woman he desired. The confusion he'd felt in the restaurant returned to him---the war between the need to shield her from the eyes of men and the fierce anger that she would so willingly put herself in a situation where she was anything but sure of herself had been tinged with the hotness of something more heady, more wanton.

 

It was the show of legs that did it, he supposed. He'd always been a sucker for legs, and Nezumi's . . .

 

Unable to help himself as his gaze slipped down her lithe form, it only took a discerning eye to see what she hid so well. Lost in the folds of the plaid flannel pajama pants, the contours of her body were unmistakable. Thinking back to the night that had changed everything, he could remember the feeling that something inside him was dying only to be reborn, all from a single look when she had changed the rules to the game. Maybe she hadn't done it intentionally. Maybe it wasn't something that she had tried to use to her advantage, but the fact remained crystal clear in his mind, and he couldn't help but feel as though she had done it on purpose. She threw him for a loop, lulled him into a sense of complacency then changed the playing field in one precarious moment.

 

By rights he should be angry. Friends weren't supposed to change things around. He ought to be furious, actually. She had turned his world upside down and inside out with a turn of her calf, a flash of vulnerability that she rarely let anyone see.

 

But he couldn't be angry, could he? He couldn't condemn her or curse her. He couldn't blame her for her reluctance or her cautious control. He had made more than enough mistakes in the past, and Nezumi was the one left holding the bag. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew why she was so hesitant to believe him. He'd been just a little too bad a little too often, a little too thoughtless a little too frequently. Somewhere along the line, he'd forgotten that she wasn't just a friend, she was also a woman, and even the most secure women couldn't stand to hear men boast about their conquests, and if there was one thing that Ryomaru knew about Nezumi, it was that she wasn't exactly what he would call `secure'. More given to fighting than she was to dabbling with makeup, too busy tinkering with old watches as she tried to fix them, she'd spent the bulk of her childhood hanging out at his house with him and Kichiro---with the guys.

 

If he were completely honest with himself, he would have to admit that most of his unsettling reaction had been caused by the strange sense that she was somehow beyond his grasp. She was a familiar face wrapped in a package that he didn't know, a girl who was out of his league: Deirdre. The change had shocked him, stunned him, and even though a small part of him had reveled in the mystery of her, the part of him that knew her best the part of him that longed to touch her, to love her . . . That part of him had also been afraid.

 

`Afraid?' he thought with an inward snort. `I've never been afraid in my life!'

 

`Oh, really? So you weren't afraid that Nezumi---that Deirdre---would realize that she really is something special? You weren't afraid that she'd escaped the nice little box you put her in years ago?'

 

`I have not,' he argued as he gently stroked her hair.

 

`Haven't you? You have. You know you have. You keep Nezumi on a shelf, and you get her down when it pleases you to play with her. When you're done, you put her away, and you don't spare her another thought until someone looks at your toy . . . until someone else wants to borrow your possession.'

 

`That's not . . . I don't . . . I wouldn't . . .'

 

`Stammer in all the righteous indignation you want, Ryomaru, because you know I'm right. You've perfected the art form of keeping her to yourself. You've done it since the day you met her, and you did it again tonight. You whisk her away from everyone and everything that could ever really care for her---selfishly and childishly, Ryomaru . . . and you say she's your best friend.'

 

But it wasn't really true, was it? Nezumi hadn't ever complained. `Kich was always there, too,' he thought, hating how weak his excuses sounded. Sure he was. Kich came part and parcel with the deal. And still . . .

 

Ryomaru frowned. Still was the nagging realization that even Kichiro had been kept at a distance. Even his twin . . .

 

`Why, Ryomaru?'

 

Shaking his head as he stared into the darkness, Ryomaru struggled to find reason, to find a way to defend himself. `I never meant to do that . . . I never . . .'

 

`Oh, hell, you know you did. You know why, too, if you'd only stop to listen. Remember the day you met her? Do you remember? Do you remember what you thought?'

 

`She was just a girl . . . just a girl who didn't have anyone . . .'

 

`She was familiar to you, Ryomaru. You felt like you'd known her all along . . . and you did know her, didn't you? You knew her then because even at that age you realized---'

 

Ryomaru's eyes flared as a soft groan slipped past his lips. Yukitora lifted her head, staring at him out of one green eye before she resumed her pose again, curled up beside Nezumi. “Because I chose her . . . even way back then.”

 

A sickened feeling churned in his stomach as total realization washed over him. `Kami . . . how could I not have known?'

 

`Don't beat yourself up over it, Ryo. It was easy to overlook a voice you've heard ever since you could remember. Maybe you just never realized who I am.'

 

`Who are you?'

 

`Who am I?' the voice laughed. `I'm you, Ryomaru. I'm your youkai blood.'

 

His youkai blood.

 

The knowledge was hard to grasp. Had it been harder to realize since he couldn't remember a time when he hadn't heard the voice? He had always thought the voice sounded like Kichiro.

 

`There's a reason for that.'

 

`Oh? Care to share it?'

 

A deep chuckle. `You're a twin, Ryomaru; an identical twin. Kichiro is the other half of you, just as you are the other half of him. Your youkai blood balances who you are. Does that make more sense to you?'

 

Ryomaru's scowl darkened. `Maybe . . . a little . . . That don't really help me now. If I---if you---chose Nezumi way back then, why didn't I know it? Why didn't I sense it?'

 

`And what would you have done about it, Ryo? You were a pup. You couldn't claim her. You did the only thing you could have done. You protected her. You made sure she was always safe, and you watched out for her even when she didn't know you were doing it. Do you really think that your mating her was accidental? Do you really think it wasn't meant to be?'

 

Ryomaru sighed. `I don't know . . . Nezumi . . . She's been against it from the start. I just don't know why. I thought I was making progress with her, at least until she found out that I was a hunter. The way she looked at me then . . . She said I wasn't the same person she knew, but I hadn't changed, had I?'

 

`You know, Ryo, maybe your feelings aren't any weirder than hers were. When you saw her in that dress tonight . . . when you saw the gorgeous woman she had suddenly become . . . Maybe your feelings are exactly how she felt the night she found out that you were a hunter.'

 

Could that be? He'd felt as though he hadn't really known her at all. He felt as though she had become a dream, a vision. The changes she made might have been for the better if she had made them for the right reasons. He could sense it in her, the feeling that she was a stranger in her own skin, and wasn't that a feeling he understood completely?

 

`She told you to hunt again,' his youkai prodded.

 

Ryomaru's smile was full of irony, full of bittersweet recrimination as he gently ran his knuckle along Nezumi's jaw. `She told me to hunt, but . . . she didn't say she wanted me to do it. If I walk out the door to hunt again, I'll be leaving her here to worry and wonder and wait, and I . . . what right do I have to do that? It ain't about me anymore. It's about us, and Nezumi . . . Nezumi deserves the peace of mind that comes with being able to believe in us . . .'

 

 

-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-0-=-

 

 

The cold and clinical atmosphere of the richly appointed office lent a surrealistic feel to the air as Ryomaru paced the floor. The restless energy that surged inside him had become harder and harder to squelch, and the longer he was kept waiting, the angrier he grew. So far as Ryomaru knew, Nezumi had always had a distant relationship with her father. Always too busy with things that kept him out of the house or away on business trips, Mitako-san wasn't more than a dusty shadow in the background of youthful memories. In fact, other than the casual greeting and stilted superficial pleasantries, Ryomaru hadn't had reason to speak with Mitako-san before.

 

`What's taking so fucking long?' he fumed as he stomped away from the window on his trek past the front of the desk.

 

The door swung open, and Mitako Yoshi strode into the office, casting Ryomaru a sparing glance as he deliberately crossed the room to his desk chair and sat down. “What brings you by, Ryomaru? It isn't enough that you've moved my daughter into your house? If you're asking for my blessing, I'd say it is a bit late for that.”

 

Ignoring the anger that seized him as he stared at Nezumi's father, Ryomaru smiled tightly and bowed. “Mitako-san.”

 

“I have a meeting in twenty minutes, so I shall get right to the point: what are you doing here, really?”

 

Ryomaru stopped pacing and nodded, bracing his stance as he draped his hands on his hips and stared speculatively at the man, Nezumi's father. “I want to know where Nez's mother is buried.”

 

His question surprised Mitako-san, and the man sat back in his seat, turned his gaze out the window. “You take a lot upon yourself, Ryomaru. Why do you need to know this?”

 

Ryomaru shifted his weight from one foot to the other and shrugged. “Why? Because you never bothered to tell Nezumi any of it. She's never known, and it bothers her. Have you seen her? Do you know her? Have you ever talked to her?”

 

“I've done the best I could. There weren't any good options at the time.”

 

“You never let her say goodbye. How could that possibly be the best you could do?”

 

Mitako-san's gaze was angry, remorseful: the look of a man who felt as though he had no other recourse. The look of a father who didn't want to admit that maybe he had been wrong. “You don't know anything, do you? You know what Deirdre has told you, but do you know what it's like, to lose your wife and to know that your daughter witnessed the entire thing? To know that you were at work when this child needed you most? I wasn't there to protect her from that. All I could do in the end was to protect her from seeing her mother buried. She'd seen enough, and right or wrong, I did not think she needed to see that, too.”

 

Ryomaru shook his head. “It doesn't matter. What does is that Nez has walked around all these years without understanding anything. She didn't know why you did all that. She didn't know why you hid stuff from her or tried to shield her. All she has ever known is that she was alone after her mother died, and you left her alone, too.”

 

The man looked stunned. His normally stoic expression faltered, and for a moment, Ryomaru could see the upset of a father who felt like a failure. Had he really not known? Ryomaru sighed and relented. As much as he hated to believe as much, the proof was right there. Maybe Mitako-san really hadn't known, after all. “Kate . . . is buried in Hillview Cemetery on the outskirts of Austin, Texas,” he said quietly. “I never wanted to keep it from Deirdre . . . I always meant to tell her, but she never asked . . .”

 

“Hillview Cemetery,” Ryomaru repeated, committing the name to memory. “Thanks.”

 

Mitako-san's gaze cleared as he frowned at the hanyou. “You . . . you'll take her there, if she wants to go.” A slow, sad little smile clashed with the well of tears in the man's eyes---tears that Ryomaru pretended not to see. “You've taken better care of my daughter than I have, haven't you?”

 

Ryomaru nodded. “I'll try like hell to,” he agreed, `whether Nezumi likes it or not . . .'

 

“What are your intentions with my daughter?” Mitako-san asked, his tone curious and lacking any contention. The tears that had been there mere moments before were gone, replaced with a candid expression, a resigned sense of finality.

 

“She's my mate,” he replied without a second thought.

 

“Mate? As in soul mate?” Mitako-san smiled just a little. “I never would have thought you'd harbor such beliefs as that. I cannot say it makes me unhappy. You . . . you will protect my daughter.”

 

Ryomaru's eyes lit with deep resolve. “I will.”

 

Mitako-san nodded. Moments ticked away as he stared out the window, frowning slightly, fingers steepled together. He sighed once, twice, shook his head as he struggled for something to say. Ryomaru waited. “I believe you will. Just make her happy . . . happier than I was able to do.”

 

“Nezumi is safe with me, and I'll make her happy,” he promised.

 

“I never really knew what to do with a little girl,” Mitako-san admitted as his gaze dropped to his perfectly manicured hands. “I thought that providing for her was enough. I thought . . . I thought I showed her honor.”

 

Quick flashes of memory filtered through Ryomaru's head: InuYasha teaching him how to hold a sword, how to track people or youkai . . . Kagome giving him cookies and smiling as she ruffled his hair, tweaked his ears . . . Sesshoumaru giving in and chasing the boys around the yard while Toga howled in laughter and as Kagura watched from the patio . . . The things he had known growing up were the things that Nezumi hadn't had with her own father, and the memory of her expression as she closed the door so many times after he'd walked her home from school. So lonely, so desolate, so young . . . `Don't open the door to strangers, Deirdre . . . Don't answer the phone unless you know the number on the caller-ID . . .'

 

`Don't think, Deirdre, don't feel, and don't you dare show anyone that you really are lonely . . .'

 

Sickened anger twisted his stomach. Ryomaru bit it back and drew a deep breath. “She'll never be lonely again,” he vowed. “She'll always be with me, forever.”

 

 

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A/N:

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Reviewers

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LadyBlade (MMorg):
This is more question than review, although you've yet again put out a wonderful chapter. Props to Diana for the creative put-down and taking the time to explain what exactly she'd said. ^_^ Ok, my question is this, you mentioned you liked Anne Rice and her 'incarnations'... does she write as JK Rowling? My sisters claim no, but I figured I'd ask the person who wrote the statement for clarification.. Please?

 

No… JK Rowling is not one of Anne Rice's pseudonyms. Anne Rice also writes under the names Anne Rampling and A. N. Roquelaure.

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adamile(MMorg):
Sue, I have two questions for you. 1. I know this probably sounds stupid but what is a "Beta"? 2. Have you published any works and if so can you please tell us? Thank you, Sue.

 

Beta readers are the people who check my chapters for errors before I post them. No, I'm not published and really have no desire to be.

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Wolf's Rain Kagome (MMorg):
Wow, I was hoping that Ryo would finally tell Nez how he feels, or visa versa(sp?). I do hope that you continue to write fanfictions after you finish the purity series. I enjoy your stories so much. I was just wondering, have you ever written a fic because someone requested it? One more question, are Nez and Ryo going to have kids in P4? I mean, even consider having kids at all? Do they ever really warm up to each other or is there always going to be this angsty-type thing between them? I don't think I have anything more to ask you right now, so GREAT CHAPTER!! As always I love your work.

 

No, I don't take requests. No, they aren't having kids, either. I don't think either of them is really in a rush to have kids. They do have forever, right?

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MMorg

foamyfan15010 ------ DarklessVasion ------ cjflutterbye ------ Descendant of Darkness ------ futekioosha ------ inuyashasluverforever ------ Zirra Nova ------ Acheronlover (He sees Nezumi like a sister. There are no feelings of romantic love there) ------ OROsan0677 ------ DragonHostile17 ------ Kurisu no Ryuujin (Hmm, more like this one had more OC's that I adored from the get-go. Not to say I'll never write a sequel to Chronicles, but I doubt I will. How do you follow up something like Chronicles, anyway?) ----- Lisa C ------ trinigirl524 ------ Sari-15 ------ CJ Finnegan ------ EAP ------ Jason C ------ Terrasina Dragonwagon, (Nope, I chose it because it was a girlie name) ------ freethephoenix ------ Jason C ------ rage2velvet

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FFneteave

katie janeway ------ Valdimarian ------ SilverStarWing ------ Drake Clawfang ------ Flames101 ------ Kalara ------ xxXDark SlayerXxx ------ agent-doo ------ My Own Self ------ Toya's Gurl ------ ILOVEINUS589 (they see it as silver, and it was normal since she always saw him with silver hair. What wasn't normal was him with black hair, and yes, that would be plenty shocking, IMO) ------ kestral-tudorica ------ Ryguy5387 ------ Jasmine Fields ------ Shilyn ------ MysticJon15 ------ breezy99 ------ InuyashasChic612 ------ PlaidDragon25 ------ Dogiegurl26 ------ Inuyashas' Plaything ------ BakaYasha ------ Starr Stealer ------ DragonMisstress325

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Final Thought fromRyomaru:

My … youkai blood???

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Forever): 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~