InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Vivication ❯ Sidetracked ( Chapter 27 )

“I apologize for only being able to meet you this way, but I have a number of my men coming in for a meeting later today, so I’m a bit busier than usual,” Jude Covington said, foregoing a proper greeting, as he slipped into an open seat at the small table in the quiet bistro that overlooked Sydney Harbour.  Light green eyes flicking coolly over the already seated couple, he managed a tepid sort of smile that looked entirely perfunctory, flipping the long, low hanging, auburn ponytail over his shoulder as though it was little more than a nuisance to him.

Fai had already taken the liberty of ordering a rather vast assortment of breakfast platters, ranging from fruits and vegetables to eggs and various breakfast meats and breads.  Saori was busy, munching on a very tasty sausage link while Fai was simply drinking a cup of very strong coffee.

“It’s fine,” he said over the rim of the fine china cup.  “On the contrary, I apologize for the short notice.”

Jude waved off Fai’s apology, sparing a moment to pin Saori with a very candid look.  “Well, I know you,” he said to Fai, without taking his eyes off Saori, “but I can’t say that I know who you are.”

Saori blushed and quickly ducked her head as she hurriedly tried to swallow a bite of sausage.  “I’m sorry,” she said, holding her napkin before her mouth.  “I’m Saori Senkuro.”

“Senkuro,” he repeated thoughtfully.  “That name . . . Oh!  Seiji’s daughter?”

She nodded and lowered the napkin.  “Yes.”

“The reason I wished to meet with you is because I wondered if you have people in your jurisdiction who would be interested in adopting some of our orphans,” Fai cut in.  “Saori has better knowledge of our children and is helping me with their placements.  In fact, it would be better if you think of anyone, that you contact her.  She used to work at the orphanage, so she has a better grasp on their various situations.”

“How old are they?”

“There’s a wide range of ages,” Saori replied.  “I understand that the older children might prove harder to place, but the younger ones would do very well, even though it may take a little patience while they learn new customs and a new language.”

“When you say, ‘younger’, I will assume we aren’t talking about infants,” Jude said.

“We do have a few that are under four years of age, a number of them are between five and twelve, and then, of course, older children, too,” she told him.

“Russian children,” Jude remarked.  “We do have a few families who are looking to adopt, but I cannot say without looking into it if they’d be willing to accept older children.  I’ll be happy to have one of my people ask around, see if anyone is interested.  I know of one family who will likely be agreeable to taking even an older child—maybe not a teenager—but one in primary school.  I’ll be honest with you.  This couple consists of two gay men, so you can understand why they cannot simply have children of their own.”

“I have no issues with that, providing they are able to adequately care for the child, financially speaking,” Fai replied.

“Good, then,” Jude said.  “They may actually be interested in siblings, if you have anything like that.”

“I’ll give you my number,” Saori said.  “I’ll be more than happy to answer any questions regarding the children.  The older children have a basic grasp of common English, but the younger ones don’t.  However, I think that if we ask them to, the caretakers they’re currently with could work with them all on their English skills to make any transition a little easier.”

“Then I shall have my man get in touch with you,” he replied, slipping the business card that Saori had given to him into his pocket.  Then he turned his attention back to Fai once more.  “Will you be here long?”

Saori glanced at Fai, who gave nothing away in his unaffected demeanor.  “A few days,” he allowed.  “Saori has never been here, so I thought it would be nice for her to take in the city.”

Jude smiled.  “Well, I hope you won’t be disappointed,” he told her amiably.  “Where are you staying?”

“The Sydney Harbor Imperial,” he said.  “Suite 619.”

Jude jotted that down information with a very expensive looking ball-point pen before stowing the paper napkin and pen into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.  “And how are matters in Asia?” he asked, reaching for the coffee carafe.

“Everything’s fine,” Fai intoned.  For the vaguest moment, Saori thought that she’d seen a flicker of irritation in Fai’s expression, but it was gone almost instantly, leaving her wondering if she hadn’t imagined it.

If Jude had noticed anything amiss, he didn’t remark upon it, casually sipping his coffee as his gaze shifted over the café and back again.  “Very good.  I met your brother a couple years ago—Yerik.  How’s he?”

“He’s fine.  He’s opted to become a hunter, but you knew that already, didn’t you?”

Jude chuckled.  “I assure you, he was never in any danger.  The hunter he was with is very, very capable.  I never would have allowed it if he weren’t the very best.”

Fai didn’t look pacified.  “That’s very conscientious of you,” he muttered dryly.

“He was determined to do it, consent or not.  It was the least I could do, to make sure that he was with someone who was quite capable of keeping him safe,” Jude replied.  He didn’t laugh, but he did still look rather amused.

“Then I appreciate your concern,” Fai said.

Setting his cup aside with a soft clink, Jude stood, reached over to shake Fai’s hand, and then, Saori’s.  “I hate to cut this so short, but I really must be going.  Was there anything else I could do for you?”

For some reason, Jude’s question rankled him.  If he were to stop to think about it, he supposed that it might well just have to do with the idea that he hated to ask anyone for anything, to begin with.  “No.  I’m only here on behalf of the children.”

Jude nodded.  “Again, my sincerest apologies.  Please, do enjoy your time here, and if there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.  I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Ms. Senkuro.  Give my regards to your family.”

They watched Jude walk away, and Saori let out a deep breath.  “That went well,” she remarked, picking at her sausage as she frowned at the almost foreboding expression on Fai’s face.  “Are you okay?”

He blinked, then shot her a quick glance.  “I’m fine,” he replied, reaching for the carafe of coffee.  “I could have done this over the telephone, though.  It would have been much less of a hassle.”

Saori nodded.  True enough, she figured, but after her mother’s warning . . .

“Here you go . . . It’s nothing fancy, but our cook went home hours ago . . .” Aiko said as she set a plate with a few onigiri on the kitchen table in front of the Asian tai-youkai when Saori had brought him down to the kitchen.

“This is fine,” Fai assured her.  “Thank you.”

She poured tea and sat down while Saori fidgeted beside her.  “So, did the two of you discuss Fai-sama’s job offer?”

“I accepted it,” Saori replied.  Glancing at her mother’s face, she wasn’t surprised to see the gentle little smile that quirked her lips.

“I thought as much,” Aiko admitted.  “In that case, I should warn you both: otou-san and Seiji are both in Russia right now.  It seemed that they wanted to speak with you, Fai-sama.  They wished for reassurance that you have no intention of trying to punish Saori further for her. . . lapse in judgement.”

“That’s an interesting way to put a nice spin on someone appropriating someone else,” Fai muttered, biting into one of the rice balls.

Aiko cleared her throat, but for a moment, Saori had to wonder how close her mother was to laughing outright.  “Anyway, if you want to avoid an unpleasant encounter—I assume that Saori will be leaving with you—then you may want to stay away from your home for a few days,” she went on.  “I would imagine that if you show up with my daughter in tow before you manage to speak with them about it, they might well jump to conclusions.”

“Does your entire family have these impulse control issues?” he parried.

Aiko laughed.  “Only the men—and Saori, at times.”

Saori made a face.

Aiko’s amusement died quickly enough, only to be replaced by a thoughtful frown.  “I really hate to rush you off, but I’m not entirely sure how long Rinji will be gone, and if you wish to avoid that unpleasant confrontation, then you’d best get going soon.”

“Oh,” Saori gasped, understanding exactly what her mother meant as she shot to her feet.  “I should change then . . .”

Aiko stood up, too.  “I’ll help her pack her things,” she told Fai while Saori hurried out of the kitchen.  “It won’t take long . . . Fai-sama . . .”

Blinking away the lingering memory, Saori smiled.  “I know that it shouldn’t be, but it’s kind of exciting,” she said.  “Have you been here before?”

“Not in a long time.  I was too young to remember much of it.  My father had to come here to speak with Jude about some trade business, so he brought my mother and me along,” he replied.  “Your mother said she would text and let you know when we can go back to Russia, right?”

She nodded.  “Won’t Vasili tell them that you’re going to be out of town for a few days?”

Fai shrugged.  “He would have if I had told him.  As it was, I didn’t really tell him much of anything before I left to go to Tokyo.”

She slowly shook her head.  “That poor man is going to have a heart attack or something if you don’t stop disappearing on him, don’t you think?”

Fai shrugged it off.  “He’ll be fine.  I was planning on calling him later, having him fax any urgent business to me here since we’ll be staying a few days.  I’ll just tell him to let your grandfather know that I’m here on business, and that should be that.”

She nodded, but her mood turned a little pensive.  “I doubt that’ll be necessary, actually,” she admitted.  “In fact, I’m pretty sure that they’ll be heading back to Tokyo just as soon as nii-chan realizes that I’m gone . . .”

“Sounds like, ‘nii-chan’ needs a hobby,” Fai said as he lifted his cup of coffee to his lips.

Saori giggled.  “He’s always been a little overprotective,” she mused with a little bounce of her shoulders.  “It can’t be helped, I guess.  He’s a lot older than me, so I guess he’s always thought of me as more of a child than an adult.”

“Hm, well, your mother is nice enough.  So is your grandmother, come to think of it . . .”

“Obaa-chan?  When did you . . .?”

He set the coffee cup down and leaned forward, arms cross on the table.  “She gave me your address,” he told her.

Saori blinked, trying to digest the idea that her grandmother really had done such a thing.  Then again, maybe it wasn’t that surprising.  Kagura had always been a little slower to pass judgment, a little more willing to hear both sides of a story before she made up her mind, and, more often than not, she tended to be good at reading between the lines, in finding the truth that lie somewhere in between the two extremes . . .

“Are you done here?” he asked, lifting a hand to gesture at the array of food.

“Did you have something else you wanted to do?” she challenged, grabbing a pancake and slowly nibbling off of it without bothering to cut it up or to put any syrup or fruit on it.

He smiled just a little, eyes brightening as he watched her antics.  “I thought I might as well take you sightseeing or something,” he replied.  “I mean, there’s not much else we can do at the moment, is there?”

She raised her eyebrows and let the pancake fall onto her plate.  “Sightseeing?  That sounds like fun!”  Hopping up out of her chair, she giggled.

Fai shook his head as he got to his feet, but he still retained the amused light in his gaze.  “All right, but I think it’s fair to warn you: I’m not very good at the whole, ‘tourist’ thing.”

Saori grabbed his hand and tugged him through the bistro.  “It’s not that hard,” she assured him.  “You just stop whenever you see something you want to explore, keep your eyes open for signs that say, ‘tour’, eat ridiculous amounts of strange street food, and take lots of silly snapshots of everything.”

“That sounds . . . awful, actually,” he grumbled but followed her out onto the sidewalk, lifting a hand to shield his eyes for a few minutes while they adjusted to the bright daylight.

She giggled again, tugging on his hand to get him moving once more.  “Come on, Fai-sama.  Let’s see what kind of trouble we can find to get into here.”

His answer was a very loud groan, but he let her lead the way.

Fai smiled slightly as he leaned on the railing, watching as Saori played with some children. They were playing a sort of kid-hacked version of kickball-meets-soccer in a small park that they had been wandering through.  One of the children had accidentally sent the ball, flying at them, and Saori had intercepted it, kicking it back in a flash of movement that was enough to impress the children into asking her to join them, and, while they’d asked Fai to join, too, he’d opted to watch, instead.  Somewhere during the game, they’d decided that trees on either side of their playing field were goals, and, from what he could tell, Saori’s team was winning.  Maybe.  Well, to be fair, he wasn’t entirely sure how they were keeping score, but he figured that the fun they were having overshadowed the need to break it down into winning or losing.

Saori had pulled her hair up into a quick but messy bun, secured in place by a couple of twigs she’d found.  It wasn’t staying in place well, though, as tendrils of her smoky hair flew around her, and she didn’t seem to care at all—something Fai found entirely endearing.

They’d spend the better part of the day, wandering wherever they just happened to go, admiring the eclectic array of varying architecture that seemed to comprise the majority of the cityscape.  While it was easy to see the towering skyscrapers, it was an almost whimsical of juxtaposition of old versus new.  From classical design to Romanesque, Edwardian to Italiante to the more cutting edge and modern structure, the city was such an interesting mix, much like the denizens of Sydney itself.

Saori had made good on her word and had managed to snap more pictures of him in one day so far than had been taken of him over the course of the last ten-plus-years since he’d become tai-youkai despite his protests, and he, of course, had retaliated in kind, capturing a ridiculous number of images of her on his own phone.  Then she had decided to ask a few perfect strangers to capture a few pictures of the both of them, and he was sure that it was simply Saori’s endearing nature that had gained their cooperation in the end . . .

He’d even sent a couple of the images to her mother and grandmother—the two women who had helped him find and spirit her away—even as Aiko’s words still echoed in his ears: words that he didn’t think he’d ever forget . . .

Just after Saori had sped off to pack her bag, Aiko had lingered, had smiled at him, waiting till her daughter was out of earshot before she spoke in a quiet tone.  “Fai-sama . . . You told her you wanted her to work for you, and she accepted your offer.  Is that all there is to it?  Is that the only reason you would go to the trouble of sneaking in here in the middle of the night?”

Fai wasn’t entirely sure, how to answer that.  Staring at her mother, however, he felt the same thing that he’d felt when he’d talked to Kagura earlier.

“I apologize if it feels like I’m putting you on the spot.  That’s not my intention, at all,” she went on when he didn’t answer right away.  “She . . . She is my daughter—my baby—you see?  And I want to know that I am not being foolish in placing my faith in you.”

“That . . . That wasn’t the only reason,” he admitted, “but I don’t . . .”

Aiko smiled.  “Well, it probably is a little early to try to define your feelings,” she said.  “I doubt that Saori could, either—not yet, anyway.  That’s okay.  I can understand that.  I know you’re strong.  You’re tai-youkai for a reason, and I have every faith that you can keep Saori safe.  That’s why . . . That’s why I entrust her to your care . . .” Then she winced, sighed, and still smiled.  “I’m not going to lie, though . . . Her father?  He’s going to raise the roof when he finds out that she’s gone off with you . . .”

The buzz of his cell phone broke him out of the memory, and Fai pulled it out of his pocket, frowning at the message that he’d received from Evgeni.

‘Update re: Konstantin Korinovich . . . Has been reported to me that he has been issuing challenge, if not formally yet, is just a matter of time.  Your immediate attention, required.’

‘Korinovich . . . How foolish,’ his youkai-voice remarked.  ‘His family . . . the regency . . . Is he really that careless?’

Fai stared at the message for a long moment before firing a text back: ‘Nothing can be done unless and until he issues formal challenge.’

Dropping the phone back into his pocket, he drew a deep breath.  Yes, it would be entirely foolhardy for him to issue that challenge, which wasn’t really here nor there, was it?  More perplexing, really, was the fact that Konstantin’s father, Maxim was one of the Russian regents, tasked with governing over the youkai in their areas.  Fai was, of course, kept apprised of the larger issues, but for small disputes, the regents were more than adequate to ensure the peace.

‘Except that you’ve yet to make time to talk to any of them—at least, the ones who are left . . .’

Fai frowned.  In the earliest years of his tenure, he’d been challenged by a number of the regents.  Their remaining kin had lost all rights to their regencies, and Fai had dealt with everything in those areas ever since.  Korinovich, however . . . Maxim was regent to Siberia, easily the largest regency in Russia—and also easily the most difficult to police, too, given the raw scope of it . . .

Besides, his father hadn’t really leaned very heavily upon those men, either.  He’d thought that the whole system was archaic and had considered abolishing the regencies for a long time, but he just never got around to it . . .

“Bye bye!” Saori called, waving at the children as she stepped backward, heading toward Fai.  She was laughing, her entire aura seemed to glow with happiness, and when she turned to face him, her already broad smile widened even more.  Strands of hair floating around her, she reached up, pulled the twigs out of her hair to let it spill down her back like a downy soft cloud.  “That was so much fun!” she said, letting the twigs fall from her fingers.  “I think we lost, though . . .”

“Oh, I don’t know.  A smile like that?  I’d say you won,” he told her as she hurried around the railing and back onto the packed cobblestone path.

She wrinkled her nose.  “You think so?  You should have played, too.”

“It’s all right,” he assured her as they started walking once more.  “Should we go find something to eat?”

She shrugged.  “All right . . . Let’s go back to the hotel first, though.  I’d like to take a shower.”

‘Aren’t you going to tell her about the threat Korinovitch poses?’ his youkai prompted.

Fai considered it, but discarded the idea almost as quickly.  ‘It’s just a rumor, and even then, she’d just worry.  What’s the point in that?’

‘Do you think she’ll thank you later?’

‘If and when it becomes an issue, then I’ll tell her . . . maybe.’

His youkai sighed.  ‘You’re not forgetting, are you?’

‘Forgetting?  Forgetting what?’

‘The promise you made her.  You’re not forgetting, are you?’

Scowling at the reminder, Fai wasn’t sure how to answer that.  Sure, he had promised that he wouldn’t worry her like he had when he’d taken off to see to that challenge before.  Still, it wasn’t exactly the same.  There wasn’t a formal challenge yet, anyway.

‘And if it comes down to it?  If there is one?’

Fai sighed.  Saori didn’t seem to notice, nor did she seem to notice his silence as she chattered on about the children, the city, about everything.

If the challenge did come from it, then he’d tell her about it.  For now, however, there wasn’t much he could say or do that made sense.  If there was one thing he’d learned over the course of his short tenure as tai-youkai, it was that nothing was ever set in stone—at least, not until there was something concrete to back it up.

“Fai-sama?”

Blinking away the dark thoughts that plagued him, Fai glanced down at Saori, only to find her, peering up at him, all hints of her smile gone, her brows drawn together with a concerned sort of frown on her face.  “Uh, you were saying?”

She shook her head.  “What is it?” she asked instead.

He forced a wan smile, solely for her benefit.  “It’s nothing,” he told her, willing away the things that had yet to come to pass.

She didn’t look like she believed him, but she seemed to understand that he wasn’t about to tell her more than that, and she sighed softly.  “Okay . . . I . . . I’ve had fun today,” she said, but a measure of her usual ebullience was conspicuously gone.

“Me, too,” he said, and, looking down at her, he was vaguely surprised when he realized that he meant it.  “Me . . . too . . .”