She retreated a step. “I…I’ll just be going now…”

His hardness waned as every muscle in him tensed, poised to spring. Now that she was here, he should put her to use. Against a tree, against the ground, against the rock behind him. Perhaps all three.

Just as the heel of his foot lifted from the stream bed, he sensed another presence approaching from behind her. A ragged snarl tore from his lips, the girl’s eyes flaring wide at the sound.

“Hm? What is it, child?”

Drawing up beside her with a similar basket in hand, the old woman blinked slowly at the sight of him. Sesshoumaru resisted the impulse to gut her alive.

“Oh, my,” she spoke, her lone eye roving over him in unhurried appraisal. “Sesshoumaru-sama…”

His fangs clenched audibly, his curled claws biting into his palms. Not oblivious to his ire, the girl butted the elder miko with her shoulder, the motion fraught with tension.

“Baa-chan–let’s…let’s go a little further upstream to do the washing,” she said in an urgent plea, beginning to shove the old woman onward.

“Aye,” the crone muttered, keeping her eyes fixed upon him until the last possible moment.

With one final, frantic glance of apology, the girl disappeared through the thick trees. As her aura faded, he splashed angrily toward the bank, nearly shredding his clothes as he ripped them back over his dripping flesh. Breathing heavily through his distemper, he sank down onto a sun-drenched slab of stone, eyes flashing red as his hand shot down into a crack in the rock, extracting Myouga the Flea.

“Se-Sesshoumaru-sama!” the flea youkai squeaked in terror, hanging suspended between Sesshoumaru’s pinched claws. “W-what a pleasant surprise…”

“You dare to spy on this Sesshoumaru,” he growled, the flea’s eyes bulging as he tightened his grip.

“S-spy? Never, my lord!”

“Why are you here?” he demanded.

“To pay my respects,” the flea answered, bowing his head, “to your departed brother. When I heard that he had perished, I set out at once. But as you know…travel can be slow for a tiny flea such as myself. Eh heh.”

Sesshoumaru’s gaze narrowed. “Naraku’s scourge is ever-increasing. You have come to seek sanctuary with this Sesshoumaru.”

“Ah!” the flea exclaimed, his eyes shifting nervously. “Well, there was that as well…”

“Tell me, Myouga,” Sesshoumaru said, his voice pitching dangerously low. “Do you wish to live?”

“A-aye, my lord–above all else! I-if I may be so bold as to say it…”

“My armor is in disrepair. My sword, Tokijin, was destroyed in battle, and Tessaiga, which I have inherited, is even more useless to me than you are.”

“S-so you say…” Myouga whimpered, staring up at him in bleak confusion.

“Bring me Toutousai,” he ordered. “And perhaps I shall suffer you to live beneath my protection.”

The flea shot from his squeezed fingers, pinging along the bank in a series of bounces. Dazed, the minute youkai righted himself with a shake of the head, all six limbs bending toward Sesshoumaru in the deepest of bows.

“Certainly, my lord! I will bring him here with all haste.”

“That would be wise,” Sesshoumaru intoned. “Now, go.”

Myouga took off at once. A few minutes later, Sesshoumaru felt his youki began to fade from the back of a departing sparrow.

At least, if nothing else, the Lord of the Western Lands reflected sourly, he had attended to his defenses.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi