JMJ

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

Nyaasu

Musashi? Bossy.

Kojiro? Fop.

Nyaasu (that's me, nya)? Well, I considered myself the brains, of course!

Musashi? Extrovert

Kojiro? Introvert.

Me? Extrovert, I suppose, but I can be introverted if I want to be. Nya.

Musashi? Choleric.

Kojiro? Melancholic.

But both have a touch of sanguine to keep them from being too heavy and from thinking too deeply most of the time.

Nyaasu? Nyaasu is in between. I suppose that makes me mediator.

I could use it to be helpful. Sometimes I do, but more often than not I just used my influence on both with my knowledge of both extreme personalities to get what I wanted. Extreme personalities are easy to convince of stuff they would not normally think by getting them riled in one way or the other.

Musashi, you're the tough one, aren't you?

Kojiro? Are you losing you're nerve?

To be honest, I never thought of myself as being a mediator until that day. In fact, before that, if anyone could be called mediator ever it would have be Kojiro who leaped between Musashi and me to keep us from ripping out each other's throats when we lost our tempers with each other.

Nya, this did not go exactly how I planned it.

Oh, well!

I'll start again!

Nya!

Ny-eah, ny-eah, I kny-ow you kny-ow the story. I was abandoned on the roadside crying all cute and kitten-like. I ran to that dismal city that looked a lot more bright and hopeful on screen (what doesn't?). After a few months that felt like years of wandering around scraping for food, then I find what I thought I had always wanted: love in the form of that pampered pet, bows in her whiskers, the healthiest shine in her clean, softly brushed fur, the cutest purr in her contented bejeweled throat as she sat sunning herself in the window. Sure, you kny-ow. I told you all this crap before. If it had not been for her, I would never have learned to talk. I never would have learned to walk upright, eat with chopsticks and spoons in dishes, or read, or write, how to build or later from Mondo how to sing and play instruments, how to cook, and even how to mend broken things. All the things that humans do. Nya … don't get me wrong, I wouldn't give up being able to talk like humans for the world, but I also learned others things that humans can and often do. I learned to destroy. Was I even capable of anything else now even when man, who had taught me my ways, no longer wanted to fight?

Talking about myself is harder than it used to be.

#

Musashi glared down at Kojiro, arms crossed firmly over her chest, and her stance cocked at the hip. Contrary to her angry posture however, her voice was soft. Though the strain it caused her to keep it gentle proved more than obvious.

"Kojiro?"

"Musashi," Kojiro said, looking ever more the dejected puppy as he turned around from where he had been seated, staring blankly at the wall, hands in his lap, legs crossed, and back arched.

"I'm …" Musashi began. "I'm sorry about earlier."

She paused, glancing mildly at Nyaasu in his little hammock and who only stared back as emotionless as possible so as not to cause another explosion from Katie Kaboom. She turned back to Kojiro, but her eyes fell to her twiddling fingers rather than to her partner.

"I know you've been through a lot," she went on. "I know you must have been scared and that they must have done awful things to you, but …"

Kojiro's eyes scrunched up as he tried to keep the moisture from building and releasing into another cry.

Musashi stopped. "You're not going to cry again, are you?" she demanded.

Biting his lip, Kojiro continued only to stare with no word to say, but he did not cry … yet anyway.

"Kojiro," Musashi said again as soothingly as she could manage. "I think we should go. Aren't you tired of being here?"

A choke escaped him, and his head jolted as if attempting to push the emotion downward from exploding like last time. He closed his eyes and nodded stiffly. Turning around he gasped for breath and leaned his head against the wall.

"Then why aren't you coming?" Musashi demanded of the shaky shoulders and mop of blue-purple she was now faced with. She frowned. "You're not physically hurt!" Stepping right up to him, temper rising fast, Nyaasu could see the gage reaching its limit and could not help but wince, she growled, "Just get up and come on! What? Do you want me to drag you out of here!?"

"Musashi …" Nyaasu grumbled. He had meant to keep his mouth shut, but he couldn't help it. "Where are we gun-nya go, nya? It's ny-ot like we can just hitch a ride home?"

Musashi threw a set of barred teeth to Nyaasu, then turned roughly back to Kojiro, then throwing back her head she screamed, "You two are impossible!"

"But Musashi!" cried Kojiro, spinning around violently, a few stray tears flying from his face as he did.

"What?!" Musashi screamed in return.

Instantly, Kojiro stopped. He lowered his head. He said nothing.

"What?" Musashi said again, much calmer and reserved but still gruff.

"I feel sick …" Kojiro murmured without lifting his head again.

With an exasperated growl, Musashi spun around for the little empty doorway. "I can't stand it!" she cried, her hands wrenching through her hair, and with one last growl, she flew out of the room.

"Musashi!" Nyaasu called, but she wasn't coming back.

With a shake of his head somewhere between annoyed and sad, and he turned back to Kojiro.

Kojiro did not look like he was in the mood for company, as he thrashed out a hand angrily and pounded it in a fist on the mat. It seemed even more improbable when he sunk his head, his legs still beneath him, to the pillow, and great sobs started to choke him again.

Hopping off his hammock, Nyaasu crept carefully toward Kojiro, but just as he lifted a paw to say something, his mind was made up. Turning around, he made for the door as well. He could not help but look back once at the doorway, but that did not stop Nyaasu from continuing on out of the room, as sluggish as his exit was.

But as his head returned in front of him, Nyaasu jumped.

A round, white face had practically materialized in front of him.

"Tailmon!" he cried, fur on end.

"Nyaasu," she returned, and she looked away. "About Kojiro."

Nyaasu's face darkened and he rolled his eyes. "What about him, nya?"

"Are you going to abandon him like your other human friend did," she said.

"Nya …" Nyaasu muttered. This was put in place of something along the lines of, "Oh, Musashi will be back soon, she's just being a stubborn girl."

"Nyaasu, he needs his friends," said Tailmon. "He needs you. Look at him."

With a loud groan, Nyaasu pulled a paw over his face, "What do you think I've been doing for that past day and a half, nya?"

"Just look at him," hissed Tailmon, she nudged toward the door.

Nyaasu reluctantly obeyed; though, he did not actually have much of choice in the matter. Kojiro with face buried in his arms, continued to cry, and it was a terrible thing to watch. Shaking every now and then, he let out moans and mutters that Nyaasu was glad were inaudible, but all were self degrading and painful to listen to even if he did not understand the exact words through Kojiro's sobs.

Turning back to Tailmon, Nyaasu looked pretty sorrowful himself, but he quickly cleared his face, shaking the tears from building up in his own eyes.

A small gulp escaped Nyaasu as he glanced once more into the room and stepped close to Tailmon to whisper, "Tailmon, what did they do to him?"

Tailmon shook her head. "The evil digimon, the viruses. They destroy humans. It's what they do."

"But what's the point of it?!" Nyaasu hissed, thrusting a paw toward the door. "Wouldn't it've been easier just to kill him and be done with it? Nyah. They're crazy! It's … it's disgusting what they did to him. Can he even recover, nya?"

"Yes," said Tailmon. "He can."

Closing his eyes tight, Nyaasu held down his own feelings of nausea and fear that began swimming around inside of him.

"Aeromon said that they wanted to make him the second digimon Kaiser," Tailmon explained.

"What is that, nya?" Nyaasu demanded.

"The last digimon Kaiser was a human who was so controlled and debased with virus influence that he ruled a tyrant over the digital world with blind malice and cruelty. Rage and despair that had built up inside him with the help of the viruses had driven him completely insane!"

A spine numbing chill ran down Nyaasu's spine at the very thought of Kojiro ruling this place. Nyaasu could see an insane grin, and a wild look in Kojiro's eyes like that of when he got especially crazy normally only at least ten times worse.

Dressed like a Nazi or a Chinese communist except with a broad, ridiculously bejeweled crown on top of his head and a sweeping cloak made of digimon skin, he roared out orders and laughed maniacally from his throne.

"I want that statue of me to reach the clouds!" he screamed, hands thrust with emphasis above his head.

"But Kojiro-sama!" said a slave digimon, "We've run out of the entire world's supply of jade."

"I don't care!" Kojiro roared with a machine gun leveled in his hands. "Make it or suffer the wrath of Kaiser Kojiro! Find more! Make more! I just want it done!"

Nyaasu and Musashi stared at each other, first fearfully then slowly but supremely annoyed.

"Kojiro!" snapped Musashi, shaking her fist. "Get out of that getup and let's go! You're making a fool of yourself!"

"N-yeah!" agreed Nyaasu. "Stop being an idiot, nya!"

"Can't you see I'm busy!?" Kojiro cried.

"Kojiro, we're your friends! Let's go!" cried Musashi.

"Team Rocket, remember? Nyah!"

Kojiro frowned, and his frown deepened into a scowl that was almost a pout, except that his eyes blazed with an unquenchable insanity.

"The racks! For both of them!" shouted Kojiro. Even as a tyrant, he held himself up with ridiculous pomp as he let out the words, "You're no friends of mine! All you ever did was make me feel inferior. Well not anymore! NOT ANYMORE! Now you'll be the ones to feel inferior and beg for mercy at my feet!" And he laughed maniacally as he threw a leg over the other and clasped triumphantly onto the golden arms of his throne.

"Nya! Wait! Kojiro, this is a mistake, nya …!"

Nyaasu blinked, wide-eyed and quickly shook the terrible images out of his head. What really had happened was bad enough!

"But what can I do about him, nya?" he demanded of Tailmon.

"Be there for him," Tailmon whispered. "Help him. Talk to him. Just be with him. I know you're not a digimon, but you're still his friend, or least one of the two closest things he has to friends."

"Nya …" Nyaasu sighed. "I don't kny-ow what to say to him. He won't listen to anybody without falling apart again."

"Well, maybe if you both stopped treating him like crap while he's writhing in misery," said Tailmon.

Nyaasu lowered his head shamefully.

Slowly, he turned for the doorway. "Okay, Tailmon," he said, glancing at her over his shoulder. "I don't kny-ow what good it will do, but I'll try."

Tailmon nodded. "Just try."

With a resolute air and puffing out of his chest, Nyaasu marched into the room. A few paces in he slumped; however, and by the time he reached Kojiro's side, he looked quite timid as he peered around Kojiro's back towards his face.

"Nya …" Nyaasu started.

"Hmm."

"Say, Kojiro, how's it going, nya?"

Kojiro turned slowly and although he said nothing, his expression proved more than enough to express the sentiment: "Uh, Nyaasu, what kind of question is that?" With one brow raised high above the other and mouth slightly ajar in an awkward manner.

Defensively, Nyaasu held up his paws. "Okay, nya. Okay, bad question, but seriously, tell me, uh … do you want company, nya?"

Releasing a sigh, Kojiro crossed his legs under him and ran his fingers through his hair before slumping forward over his lap. "I don't know," he muttered.

"Don't you kny-ow anything, nya?" Nyaasu asked with slight impatience that did not go unnoticed by Kojiro whose grimace down at his stocking feet did not encourage the situation.

Nyaasu groaned loudly, and turned back to the doorway. Tailmon with a deep glare, motioned with her head for Nyaasu to stay before she herself disappeared.

"Nya …" Nyaasu said, his shoulders sagging again.

"You don't have to stay," said Kojiro, "if you don't want to. Don't let Tailmon make you. I can just sit here. I don't mind."

Fur rose angrily along his back, and Nyaasu turned roughly back to his teammate. "Ny-o! I want to stay here!" he snapped. "And you don't want to sit here alone, nya!"

Kojiro shrugged and leaned back against the wall. "It doesn't matter anyway," he said gloomily. "Here, our world, what's the difference?" Tears were beginning to form in his eyes yet again. "At least here we don't have to deal with our lives!"

"Oh, come on, Kojiro, nya," Nyaasu said. "It's ny-ot that bad. Okay, so we aren't exactly as ny-umber one as we'd like to be, but hey! We can't all be ny-umber one! We do our job, that's all that matters! Somebody has to do it, nya."

With a sniff and a shake of his head, Kojiro looked up with a cloudy, faraway gaze. A long pause followed, and Nyaasu sat down on the edge of the mat; his head was in his forepaws and his eyes on his hind paws.

"We were so bad," Kojiro whispered.

Nyaasu raised his eyes. "What?"

Kojiro waved a hand aside and shook his head. "Nothing."

"Of course, we were bad," Nyaasu muttered, and he straightened up. and with a leg tossed casually over the other, he turned around to Kojiro. "Bad to the bone, nya! We lie, we cheat, we sneak, we plot! We're good at disguising! Ny-o one ever recognya-izes us!" He grinned. "It's what we do, nya! Say the motto! Get Pikachu! Steal rare pokémon! …" Though, he sounded enthusiastic about it, in the back of Nyaasu's mind he did not feel as enthusiastic as he used to be. Somehow thinking on their old lives did not fill him with as much yearning as it had even a week ago. His grin fell away with his words at the end of the little speech, and he looked up at Kojiro inquisitively.

Kojiro did not even seem to have heard him.

Clearing his throat and coughing slightly into his paw, Nyaasu smiled just a little. "Say, Kojiro," he said in an entirely different sort of mood. "You kny-ow what's therapeutic? Petting. You kny-ow, like when they bring cats and dogs and other creatures into hospitals …? Nya?"

Only an odd stared came as a response.

Licking his lips, which had suddenly become quite dry, Nyaasu added, "I'll be generous and let you pet me."

"I feel so alone," Kojiro sighed wearily.

Nyaasu slapped his face and growled.

"Kojiro," he said simply, ignoring his disgust as well as he could. "You're ny-ot alone, nya. I'm here. Musashi's … well," he glanced behind him briefly and returning to Kojiro, he shrugged, "she'll come around, nya, and the koromon are here and Tailmon's here and Aeromon's here … How are you alone exactly, nya!?"

A visible shiver ran over Kojiro.

"Everyone's worried about you, nya," said Nyaasu.

"But, Nyaasu," said Kojiro, intensity building. His fists began to clench, his teeth to set, his shoulders to stiffen. "… I've been thinking."

"Nyah? See, there's the problem, nya," Nyaasu explained.

A strange change came over Kojiro then. Flaring up to the point in which his face completely glowed red with passion, he glowered at Nyaasu with the sulk of a child and the anger of a dog poked one too many times.

"SEE?!" he cried. "SEE?! There you go again! Both of you! You and Musashi! You were right, Nyaasu! No one respects me! No one really cares!" He slammed his fists on the ground. "Everyone thinks I can't think for myself! And maybe they're right! Maybe I can't!" His yell was quickly turning into a pitiful wail. "Maybe I am good for nothing … maybe I … Oh! Nyaasu!" he gasped, and then he started to cry. "Why do I have to suck so bad?"

Nyaasu rolled his eyes as the tears began rolling down Kojiro's face, and after a moment or two of this melodrama, Nyaasu finally shouted at the top of his lungs, "KOJIRO!"

Kojiro stopped, staring blankly. He almost looked like old times, except for the fact that his eyes were still red and the rings around his eyes were the color of Weezing's natural complexion (certainly not a good thing in human beings).

At first Nyaasu did not know what to say now that he actually had Kojiro's attention. He twiddled his fingers a little and his eyes, almost as wide as his partner's, slowly looked away.

"Just shut up and pet me, nya," Nyaasu muttered, and he situated himself about as catlike as he ever became. Sulkily throwing his head onto his paws and curling his tail around his body, he leaned against Kojiro's leg.

Kojiro was hesitant at first, and it took a long time for him to snap out of his shock, but after a moment or two, he gently rested a hand on Nyaasu's head. Compliantly, he scratched Nyaasu behind the ears while resting his chin in his other hand with the slightest pout as he stared out across the room.

Soon forgetting the past conversation, Nyaasu began to purr loudly, not expecting to love the scratching so much even though it was not entirely conscious on Kojiro's part. Maybe that just made it better, Nyaasu decided. He pushed his head into the nails scratching hard behind his ears. He purred even louder and stretched out his paws in front of him, flexing them in the manner in which cats often do when content.

It was more than the simple scratching. This was what cats lived for, and it had been so very long since Nyaasu felt this needed attention from anybody. With all this weirdness in being treated like the human he always pretended to be (well, not human but the dominant species with responsibilities and required explanations) he was more than happy to be a little kitty cat for a while.

Maybe to be a little kitty cat was all Nyaasu really needed …

Maybe just home and hearth and a full cat dish would be enough to make Nyaasu happy.

Maybe … but it didn't look like that was about to happen any time soon.

Kojiro knew how to pet. His best friend in childhood had been a puppy dog, after all, and he had a special natural gift in understanding what pokémon wanted, which was incredibly ironic since he mostly tried to kidnap them. But on the special occasions when he was not in the mood for rocketing, he knew how to make a pokémon happy, and after a while, Nyaasu figured that Kojiro was doing this for Nyaasu and not for himself. That was when Nyaasu came down from his dreamy place in kitty cat instincts. Opening his eyes he glanced up at Kojiro.

Blinking slowly, Kojiro continued to stare forward very lost in thought, and whatever he thought had to be quite deep by the look in his eyes and the rhythmic manner in which he pet.

"Kojiro?" Nyaasu said. "We don't think you're stupid, and we do care, nya."

The scratching stopped.

"If you really want, I'll listen to what you have to say, nya," said Nyaasu. "Go ahead; I'll listen with open ears."

Kojiro closed his eyes. "I … I've just been thinking … what are we going to do when we get back home." As he spoke he began scratching Nyaasu behind the ears again, but it seemed that now he did it out of nervous energy. He could have been scratching because of this all along, Nyaasu then realized. "What … what are we going to do when we get back home? If … we ever get back home."

"Pfft," Nyaasu said, making himself more comfortable, yet trying very hard not to loll out his tongue in the long needed head massage. "We'll get back home, Kojiro, nya." He smiled in spite of the situation. "Then, I guess we'll go back to the same stuff we always do."

"Do you really want to?" asked Kojiro distantly.

"Sure, I wan-nya go back home, don't you?" asked Nyaasu.

"Yes, but … Team Rocket."

"What about Team Rocket?"

"We're so bad …" Kojiro said.

Nyaasu shrugged. "Ny-eah, so? You said that, nya. It's in our motto, isn't it? 'Lovely and charming villains'. That's you're part too, remember, nya? Though, I wouldn't go so far as to call either of you lovely or charming, but, nya … whatever, nya."

Bleary-eyed, Kojiro turned to Nyaasu. The scratching once again stopped. Nyaasu stopped his lazy attitude, and looked up with concern. There was a long pause, and Nyaasu looked away. Kojiro started to pet him, slowly along his back. He did not suppose that Kojiro could have ever thought of Nyaasu as just a pokémon, but he seemed to forget whom he was petting, and then quite suddenly without warning, the tears broke loose again.

With a loud sob, Kojiro snatched up Nyaasu who let out a surprised cry of his own, and Kojiro held him tightly like a little boy holding a beloved pet. Still quite hard, but gentle enough not to make the one held too uncomfortable. Kojiro pet the cat very hard as he continued to cry. Softly this time; though his shoulders shook with each exhale.

"We're no better than them," Kojiro loosed through his choking breath.

Nyaasu lifted a confused brow.

"Nyah?!" he cried, still pushing away with his hind paws in the typical manner of any cat who really doesn't want to be held but does not feel it quite worth the effort to escape all the way.

"It's true … we're no better than them," Kojiro barely reiterated loud enough to make out.

"Kojiro?" Nyaasu demanded. "What are you talking about, nya?"

Only sobs and chokes came as a response.

"Nya …" Nyaasu grumbled, finally giving up and allowing himself to become a limp comfort blanket for Kojiro, or whatever Kojiro was using him for. A replacement for a growlithe? He sighed heavily.

"Even when we're good we're bad," Kojiro cracked. "We can't do anything honest for anything other than our own gain or ease some guilt."

"Kojiro …" Nyaasu muttered. "You're starting to scare me. Even more than you already were, nya. I'm gun-nya use fury swipes on you if you don't kny-ock it off, nya."

"But it is true." Kojiro's tenseness eased a little, but the tears were far from over in their washing down his face. Nyaasu found it hard to believe that this many tears could come from a person. "Except that no matter how many times we try, again and again over and over it just goes on in the cycle forever and ever, Team Rocket forever —"

"Are you comparing us to those viruses, Kojiro?" Nyaasu demanded, a sudden realization lighting a bulb above his head. "We're ny-othing like those viruses! We don't brainwash people, nya!"

"Yana kanji!" screeched Kojiro, throwing his head straight up, and he dropped Nyaasu on the ground.

"Nya!" Nyaasu cried again in surprise, and just as he swung his head back up to Kojiro from the slump where he landed, Kojiro's face was right in his own, causing Nyaasu again to let out a startled meow.

"We would!" Kojiro said.

Nyaasu backed away. "All we do is steal pokémon, nya!" he protested.

"No!" Kojiro snapped. "We tried to kill that, that Satoshi."

"The brat boy?" grumbled Nyaasu. "Ny-o we didn't."

"Yes, we did! Don't deny it! We tried to kill that little kid and his friends just take his stupid pikachu that the boss doesn't really want anyway! If he didn't want Togepi why would he want Pikachu?"

"Well, Kojiro, that was ages ago, and besides that's still different than brainwashing, nya!"

"Trying to kill a little boy? Stalking him like creeps?"

The wave of guilt was uncontrollable now. "Nya, nya, nya …"

"And we tried to convince pokémon and people to think our way," said Kojiro. "We've lied and confused people. We convinced people we were good. We cheated when no one was looking. If we could have …"

His face looked very dangerous now, more dangerous that Nyaasu had ever seen him, more deranged than Nyaasu even thought him capable of, and that was saying a lot. His eyes with the dark, sickly rims, his face as red as Musashi's when someone insults her hair, and his teeth set like an Ursaring while protecting his territory from unsuspecting travelers, all this made Nyaasu, jaw dropping clean to the floor, quiver with fright and his fur to stand completely on end from this quite changed human that was supposed to be anything but serious, especially as serious as he was now. More serious, Nyaasu knew, than he had been about anything in his entire life, and on top of that he was making Nyaasu feel such guilt as to make him take back his whole life right then and there!

"If we could have," Kojiro hissed, "we would have brainwashed them all. And you know it, Nyaasu."

Only then did Kojiro digress, and he looked rather sheepish and more Kojiro-like. He placed his hands in his lap and looked down wearily. Another long silence passed between the human and the cat. Then after a long while, Kojiro spoke again almost normally.

"I can still pet you if you want me too," he said.

Nyaasu shrugged, only now realizing just how hard his heart was pounding in his little chest and how short his breath had become. He clamped his mouth shut and tried to calm himself, but calmness proved some time in coming.

"I'm ny-ot really in the mood anymore, nya" he admitted.

But regardless of his words, Nyaasu sat down beside his partner. Kojiro again started to scratch his head, and Nyaasu still enjoyed it even if it was far more soberly.

"I'm sorry, nya," muttered Nyaasu, "y'ny-ow, about what happened to you. I don't like seeing you like this, Kojiro." He sighed heavily, and he paused for a while, looking up at Kojiro who did not respond. "You're a good petter, though, nya." He turned back to the floor, tapping his toes together childlike. "I'm … glad that we found you, and you're with us again. I … I was worried about you, nya." Although he spoke the words with more matter-of-fact than emotion, he meant it more than if he had spoken with emotion.

He blinked slowly, and Kojiro's hand stopped scratching and lifted from his head.

"Arigato, Nyaasu," Kojiro whispered.

Nyaasu shrugged. "You're welcome, nya."