InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Seemingly Insignificant ❯ The Forlorn Flea ( Chapter 6 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

A/N: At long last, the next chapter is up. Thanks for the reviews. I have taken great liberties with the past of Myouga and Inu Yasha's father in this chapter, and I hope it doesn't veer too far from canon. This is also an experiment at a writing style I've never really attempted before - I hope it isn't too bad.

Do read and enjoy!

6: The Forlorn Flea

Age wasn't always a metre for tolerance.

I snuggled even deeper into the warm feathers of the crow I was riding on, the cold raindrops coming down faster and harder. The occasional drop that slid across the bird's sleek feathers soaked me to the bone (a figure of speech, mind you) and only the frequent sips of blood that I took from the creature kept me from freezing to death. I've faced this situation many times before, but that didn't necessarily mean I was used to it.

But such were the things I had to endure for my master.

Energy swelled behind me, evil aura extending its tendrils through the cascading sheets of rain. I willed the bird to go faster. There was not much more distance before…

“Master Inu Yasha!”

He was there, standing outside Priestess Kaede's hut, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the pounding rain. He looked as if he was about to go in again, and a severe desperation seized control of my body. Making my way to my steed's head, I waited for the moment it would pass over my young master's head. The sizzling of the rain behind me, as it evaporated in the heat of the evil, was a substantial reminder of the risk I was taking, but some things had to be done, and they had to be done now.

When the opportune moment arrived, I leapt off my faithful steed, overcoming a strange desire to laugh out loud. Was a part of me actually enjoying this? Kami-sama, it seemed like Inu Yasha and his friends had been much more of an influence than I had originally thought…

With unfailing precision (of course - I had no doubt about that) I landed on my Master's head, which, belying what he did to it with his vigorous daily activities, was agonisingly sleek - made even more so by the rain. Sliding down onto his nose, I took a long, satisfying drink, waiting for the inevitable.

It came.

Inu Yasha removed his hand from my crushed body, allowing me to float and recover on his open palm. A scowl graced the face that held the proud aggression that had made his father so feared. “Well, Myouga? What is it now?”

“M-Master Inu Yasha,” I gasped, mostly for the benefit of Kagome who had just come out of the hut, “You must save -”

The sky ripped apart above us with a deafening blast of thunder. Lightning forked down, limning a dark figure that approached with slow, deadly rhythm. A pair of ruby-red eyes glowed from within the darkness, and dozens of tentacles writhed around it, coiling and uncoiling themselves like vipers. With a flying leap, I settled on Kagome's welcoming shoulder - anything other than Inu Yasha's person was safe for the moment.

The young hanyou drew out his Tetsusaiga in one fluid moment, holding it in middle guard, eyes narrowing. The figure approached…

“You have saved my life, and it is time I repaid the debt.”

“But - but you cannot defeat it! You may be the great Dog General, but it…”

“I have the Tetsusaiga, my life, and my courage. That is all I need.”

A blinding flash of light, pounding of limbs against the unstable ground, a proud roar ripping through the stale air, rancid with the smell of freshly-spilled blood…

“Die, you scum!”

Inu Yasha embarked on a headlong rush to the creature, swinging his gargantuan sword in sweeping, deadly arcs. The sword's glow reflected in the raindrops made for a very impressive aura, and the young master's swings were surprisingly accurate - I might have even predicted a sure victory for him, if it were not for the fact that…

The sword passed right through the… creature, inflicting absolutely no damage!

“Myouga!” Inu Yasha cried, voice sharper than usual from irritation and exertion. “What the hell is goin' on here?”

I didn't answer - the memories…

“It would seem that this is not a time for orthodox measures.”

A beam of destructive light blazed through the ground, and before it could complete its fiery trail - in an infinitesimal, impossible instant - he rose up in the air, spearing it with the incredible spiritual power of the Tenseiga…

And the world exploded in a fusion of gold, green and black.

“Myouga?”

Kagome's far gentler voice aroused me from my spiralling memories, and I immediately recognised the situation in hand.

I wished I were a thousand miles away, at the very least.

“This demon - if you can call it that - is not of the usual type.” I sighed. “A combination of the spiritual powers of one of your arrows and the brute strength of the Tetsusaiga might be more effective.”

“Right.” Nodding determinedly, the young priestess pulled back her bowstring and carefully placed an arrow in it. The tip glowed with the force of her aura, and I marvelled at the trust with which she had treated my words. Words had such power… the power to change destinies…

Just as they had mine.

The arrow sped from bow with an incredible speed, and I was surprised to see master Inu Yasha respond almost immediately (dear Lord, he is improving, after all) with a spectacular Windscar that cleaved into the demon. Tendrils of the aura of the arrow intertwined itself around that beam of destructive energy and the creature disappeared behind an explosion of light the brightness of which rivalled a party of fire-cats at their most frivolous.

The air rippled behind it, and it was gone as abruptly as it had arrived, leaving us standing alone in the pounding rain. The monk and the demon slayer - followed closely by a nervous-looking Shippo - rushed out of the hut, ready for combat. Upon realising there was nothing there, bemused looks flitted across their faces, to be replaced by supreme annoyance.

Hmph. Humans.

Inu Yasha slid the transformed Tetsusaiga back into its sheath and turned around to face Kagome - er, me - eyes narrowed and arms crossed over chest. “You've got some explaining to do, Myouga.”

Isn't that what I've been doing the whole of my substantial life? “That was a demon from a different dimension,” I started. “It could not be killed by mere force.” Feeling that I had said enough, I jumped off Kagome's shoulder (if regretfully - she did smell delightfully exotic) and onto the ground. “If you will forgive me, master Inu Yasha - I should be on my way…”

No such fortune was going to favour me, however - Inu Yasha's increasingly familiar palm had me in its grip once again, and he stepped into the hut, followed by Kagome and the others. Really, such little respect for one who had been one of his father's most trusted advisors! One whose words had saved his life countless times!

- One whose entire life had been changed by knowledge and circumstance -

Inu Yasha deposited me on the floor and sat down, scowling. “You can start by answering, Myouga,” he said, “why exactly that… demon was chasing you.”

“I would like to know as well,” the monk added, blatant curiosity in his eyes. “I might have caught but a glimpse of it, but I know that such a demon to appear on this plane is very rare.” He frowned. “Unless…”

Thanking the Lords that he didn't continue, I jumped onto Kagome's delightful shoulder once again. “If you must know, Master Inu Yasha - then I must start my story from before the first time I met your father.

“At the time, I was but an ordinary demon - not a flea as you might think - weaker and more melancholy than most, but a demon nonetheless.”

Shippo interrupted with a loud cry. “You weren't a flea then?”

“No, young Shippo, I was not.” I waited for further response, but Inu Yasha's face was almost unreadable - his father would've been so proud to see how his young son had changed - and the others wore expressions of mild shock and curiosity. I continued.

“I lived for knowledge then - the pursuit of awareness of all the secrets the world held dominated every aspect of my life… I wandered, I saw, I learned… before I happened upon your father, in what was decidedly the darkest - yet the most influential - day of my life.”

This was it.

Lying on the ground before me was knowledge of the type I had been working my entire life to acquire - the power to summon demons of unimaginable power from worlds little knew existed; the power to control the destiny of millions, the power to control power itself!

I lifted the gently glowing Sacred Jewel in my clawed hands - the Shikon no Tama - and the stone tablet I had acquired after much distress and travel, on which was inscribed the Lost Texts of the Priestess Midoriko. With these, combined with my unparalleled knowledge of spiritual magic, I would achieve my dreams!

“What business do you have here, demon, with the Sacred Jewel?”

The growled words, with their haughty overtones were frighteningly familiar. I looked up to see the great Inu Taisho stand in front of me, and in his eyes was shining supreme disdain. His spectacular countenance radiated power and confidence - something that I had never possessed.

Lord of the Western Lands…

My grip on the Sacred Jewel tightened and desire exploded within my veins. The Jewel darkened. I wanted…

I wanted it all!

“Prepare to die, Inu Taisho.”

“What? You tried to… kill Inu Yasha's father?”

I winced as Kagome's voice resounded in my ears. A major disadvantage of being small - a fact that not too many people seemed to notice - is that voices and sound are amplified over a dozen times, causing torture to already-sensitive demon ears. “My dear Kagome,” I protested weakly, “I was under the influence of the Jewel then.”

Inu Yasha let out a loud - and decidedly undignified - snort. “We all know your intentions were never pure, Myouga, so spare us the excuses.”

While Kagome glared - quite rightly! - at the hanyou, the demon-slayer spoke up. “The Lost Texts of Midoriko? They really did exist?”

“Of course,” I replied. “But they were destroyed not long after my meeting with the great Dog General - most unfortunate, that, for they contained secrets about the usage of the Jewel that would put even Naraku's strongest efforts to shame.”

“You would use Naraku as comparison,” Inu Yasha muttered, before Kagome urged me to continue. “What happened? He did defeat you, right?”

“Of course. But it was not before the most frightening battle that I - if not he - had ever witnessed…”

The General smirked, his amber eyes glinting with barely-suppressed amusement. “I, preparing to die? At your hands, demon?” His clawed hand rested on the hilt of one of his three swords. “You will regret those words.”

“Oh, will I?” Laughing at the way he bristled at my audacity, I lifted the Jewel and the stone tablet above my head. My lips formed the words of mantras and spells long forgotten by man and demon-kind, as the air around us crackled with a strange energy.

Finally, the very sky above us seemed to tear itself apart and blood red tendrils writhed out of that hole in space, spewing dark venom.

My laughter reached a crescendo as I lifted the Jewel - glowing with a sudden black aura - higher… summoning hell's worst demons out of their fiery pits, to vanquish all of my enemies. Blood spurted out of my eyes and ears and pain lanced at my insides, but I didn't care.

This was Power, and I was in control of it.

I recited faster and louder and the hole grew wider and wider, and the demon General grew angrier and angrier and…

With one last blood-tinted explosion, the hell-demon emerged. It was when I discovered that… that I was not really in control at all…

It charged at an enraged Inu Taisho, who dodged and responded with a flurry of attacks with the legendary sword, Tetsusaiga. It was of no use, of course, as the blade passed through the creature like a spear through fog, not harming it at all. Despite my pain, I laughed some more as I saw the calm and ready demeanour of the great General deteriorate with every failed stroke…

At the moment, the Jewel fell out of my hands.

Despite the noise and the darkness, the tinkle of the Jewel as it bounced on the rough ground seemed to echo a million times over, until it sounded like the lowest scream of a bat-demon, piercing in its intensity. The hell-demon turned toward me, its glowing eyes promising sure death. The tablet tumbled from my now-shaking hands… all courage and confidence had left me, leaving my body a pained, bloody shell…

“What… what is…?” The General's half-formed question was interrupted as the hell-demon took advantage of his momentary distraction to try and attack him once again. This time, it seemed as if the Dog General would surely die.

I couldn't stand it, somehow.

With an impulse that I surely wouldn't begin to comprehend even centuries from now, I leaped to land in between the advancing hell-demon and the distracted General. Claws tore into my already-tortured hide, and white-hot pain exploded across my consciousness.

“So you first tried to kill him, and then you saved his life?”

The monk's thick eyebrows rose impressively. I wished that I could snap at him, but he was one of Inu Yasha's most loyal friends - besides, the Black Hole of his right hand easily made him the equal of almost any demon alive. I certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of his ire. “It is not something I can fully comprehend myself, but I think that my dropping the Sacred Jewel had considerable influence in my action.” I stroked my moustache. “You know that the Jewel amplifies the power of any demon - or human, for that matter - many times over. It also amplifies their strongest emotions - mine being, at that time, desire. A thirst for the unattainable.”

“Basically, you were one greedy little demon,” Inu Yasha muttered, rolling his eyes. A crude way to put it - but correct in essentials.

“So,” Shippo cut in, practically squirming in his curiosity, “what happened after that? Did Inu Yasha's father defeat the demon? Did you die? Did he bring you back to life with the Tenseiga?”

“Yes, the great General did send the hell-demon back to the dimension where it came from - if not killed it - using the combined powers of the Tetsusaiga and Tenseiga. The Tetsusaiga provided the brute force, and paved the way for the spiritual magnificence of the Tenseiga, and its natural desire to protect its wielder, to come into play. Much like how Inu Yasha's Windscar and Kagome's arrow combined their powers to defeat the demon.

“I was nearly dead at the time, and the great General brought me back to life using the Tenseiga.”

“That still doesn't explain how you became a flea,” Kagome said, shaking her head.

If I had visible lips, I would've given her a sad smile.

“It's… it's too late for me, now…”

The General looked down upon my limp form, no trace of his hostility in his golden eyes. “You have much knowledge - you will be useful. As an advisor.”

But how? Even if he could use the legendary powers of the Tenseiga, my body was too tainted, wasted, for my soul to return to. There was only so much the sword could do, after all…

The Dog General did not seem to mind this, though, as he lifted the glinting Tenseiga into the air and brought it down upon my dying body.

At first, all I could feel was an overwhelming numbness, then a sensation of diving headlong into a cool pool of water, floating in its comfortable confines… before sensations of the outside world struck my body once again, and my collapsed lungs burned with the need for air… pain racked my body, increasing in intensity until all agony was concentrated in a single point, searing within my chest.

I opened my mouth in a silent scream as I felt my body fading, shrinking, dissolving… until the pain stopped abruptly, and I was able to breathe again. I opened my eyes to look up at the great Dog General, wondering why he had grown so large, all of a sudden, and why everything seemed twice as loud, or thrice as big…

“You have come back to life… Myouga - as you shall henceforth be known.”

“L-Life…?” Not comprehending the smallness and timidity of my voice, I looked down at my body…

… only to wish that I really had died.

I flexed my new pairs of limbs and fingered the sucker on my face. “But… but… how…?”

“Your body was too damaged and corrupted for your soul. The Tenseiga, instead, transferred it to the only other source of life it could find on your body - a flea.”

A flea…

I looked up once again at the General, who seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

Well, there was only one thing left to do.

“That… that was an amazing story.”

Kagome smiled. “I had never really imagined that you'd had such a past, Myouga…”

I shrugged. “Nobody does. But what's done is done, and I must admit that I do not mind this way of life too much, after all - there's no way I can go short of food, for one.”

Inu Yasha snorted once again. I'd come to realise that this was his way of demanding attention, rather than an expression of blatant disrespect. The young master could still be such a child, at times. “So if my father defeated that `hell-demon', or whatever you call it, why was it chasin' you today?”

“When I opened the hole into this dimension, I suppose it never fully got repaired. Let's just say that… I `ran into' the very place the fight had occurred, centuries ago. My presence there was a catalyst to its re-awakening, I suppose.”

While Inu Yasha still looked at me with something akin to suspicion, Kagome stood up with a decisive air. “No need to worry about it, now - it's gone.” She kicked open a mattress at her feet. “I think we should be getting to sleep, hm?”

The others agreed, and the lamplights were soon off (after Inu Yasha and the monk were driven out of the hut, of course) and a peaceful silence descended upon the room, punctuated by the steady rhythm of the two women's - and Shippo's - breathing. In a way, I had grown rather used to this little group of people - despite their obvious shortcomings, it was still a group that complemented and supported each other.

I wondered if my destiny would've been any different if I had travelled with company, if the undying quest for ultimate knowledge had not blinded me to everything else in life.

Maybe, maybe not. No one could say for sure.

Almost involuntarily, I lowered my face down to Kagome's neck and took a sip of her sweet blood. Her cheek twitched and she gave a small smile of pleasure as she slept. Whatever could've been, or could be, I still had a life to live, duties to fulfil, and masters to serve… and I will continue to do so, whatever form or shape I maybe in. I will survive, persist, advise, live, for…

I am a forlorn flea, after all.