Miki's "Little" Adventure
"Everyone, the Student Council faces its greatest crisis to date." Touga Kiryu stood tall, imperious, proud, and not the least bit like a strutting peacock. "We have faced many obstacles in our quest to achieve the World Revolution, but none so truly insidious as this."
"This is even more insulting than the time with the curry." Saionji said with the greatest bitterness; anyone who dared bring up the matter of how he got back into his body after getting stuck in Chu Chu's would face his vengeful blade.
"Poor Miki!" Nanami caterwauled all around the Student Council table, spinning around inside a giant spinning wheel in a big repetitive circle. "We must avenge this outrage, we must make whoever's responsible for this, this disaster right away!"
"I don't know." Juri was smiling as she waved her finger back and forth. "The situation doesn't seem that bad; what do you think Miki?"
Miki giggled in a high chipper pitch as he reached out with a tiny little hand to take hold of Juri's finger, only for Juri to pull away, causing him to lose his balance and fall down onto his bottom on the table; yes, somehow, for some reason, Miki Kaoru was now a toddler dressed in an appropriately sized version of his Student Council uniform. One moment Miki had clicked down on his stopwatch, the next he was down on the ground looking up at everyone. Juri had picked him up and put him down on the table, and so there they were. "Juri, Juri!" Miki said again and again in that high practically baby boy pitch of his.
"When something strange as this happens," Touga said, "the hand of the Rose Bride is not far off."
"Oh, that foul witch! Bad enough that she keeps trying to get between me and my brother, but now she's targeting sweet innocent little Miki!" She popped out of her wheel and spun her way to the table that Miki was sitting on. "Don't worry Miki, Nanami's going to set everything right, just you wait and see!" Miki just stared at her, not saying anything. "Now then, where is Anthy anyway?" She marched over to the elevator. "It doesn't matter, there's nowhere in all of Ohtori that she can hide from me!" She laughed her haughty laugh as she made her way down the elevator.
"Well then, while we wait for Nanami to get to the bottom of all this, what are we to do in the meantime?" Saionji said with a distinct worry in his eyes as he looked over at the elevator.
"Juri, Juri!" Miki had waddled his way over to Juri and reached out to her, so she picked him up in her arms.
"I think I can watch Miki for as long as I have to." She smiled and poked him in the belly, watched him coo in response.
"Suit yourself." Touga said. "Let me know as soon as he's back to normal and interesting again." Touga said, and then he took out his cellphone, no doubt to call up yet another girl who after tonight would never hear from him again.
Juri was already gone, even her usual low-level contempt for Touga far away from her mind as she carried Miki off to her dorm.
"Arisugawa." Juri said. "You can do it Miki, I know you can."
"Awisuwawa." Miki replied, and Juri just beamed at the tiny little toddler as he made a determined face. "Awisugala." Miki frowned and stamped his foot on the floor; Juri had of course gotten looks and confused comments as she carried Toddler Miki to her room but somehow Juri had not found it in her to care one whit about them; after all, she was certainly never one to be concerned with appearances, to give consideration to what the world would think of her if she were to do this or that or express certain feelings for certain people; nope, that wasn't Juri Arisugawa at all. Thus, there was nothing the lest bit unusual about her indulging herself in this way. "Arisugawa!"
"Very good Miki!" Juri clapped her hands. "You're such a smart boy aren't you?"
"Yes!" Miki toddled his way up to her and wrapped himself around her leg. "I love you Juri Arisugawa!"
She reached down and rubbed his head. "And I love you too Miki." She saw Miki look up at her with absolute awe and she felt a warm shiver go up and down her spine.
"Where did all of these lousy platypi even come from!?" Nanami said as she ran around the corner while the lousy duck-billed marsupials continued in their unrelenting pursuit of her.
"I think that the proper plural for platypus is platypuses Ms. Nanami." Tsuwabuki was right there with her of course, not one to abandon his Ms. Nanami in her time of most dire need.
"Not helping Tsuwabuki!" She shouted, and though she could have told him to take on every last platypus and keep them off her back, she did no such thing; she was sure those things were poisonous somewhere on them and she wasn't about to let her Tsuwabuki face something like that no matter what.
Thus, the two blonde children kept on running for their lives, making no progress in their original goals at all.
"And here you go Miki." Juri said as she closed the door to her dorm with her hip while carrying the bulky package in her arms. Miki bounced where he stood as Juri set the package down in front of him. "Go ahead Miki, open it up, this is just for you and no one else.
"Really Juri?" He had a hushed awe in his voice. He started tugging and pulling on the box, and after a little while he worked out the proper way to open it up; he really was a clever boy, anyone who knew him as a teen knew just how smart he was going to become. "Wow!" There were two items in the package, both sized just for Miki; a toy sword and a toy piano. "These are really just for me?"
"They sure are Miki, play with them as much as you like." Juri took them out of the package and set them up in front of him. Miki smiled and nodded and sat down at his little toy piano; he sat in a proper way on his knees and even though the keys made little plinky sounds Miki still managed to make a song that Juri had no trouble listening to at all. "You really are a natural Miki." Juri thought to herself, not wanting to risk interrupting Miki's performance.
After a while though, Miki got bored with the toy piano and picked up the toy sword. "Hah!" Little Miki shouted as he spun and swung it about like any other child would before he realized that this sword was made to be thrust forward, and thrust he did. His little feet scooted one after the other all around the room, his sword poking at the air here and there and everywhere. "Don't worry Juri, I'll protect you!" He shouted when he'd worked his way back to her.
"That's sweet Miki, but I can protect myself." Miki stopped, he looked up at Juri. "But when you're all grownup again, we can protect each other."
"Again?" Miki tilted his head.
"Don't worry, Juri is just being silly."
Miki beamed at her again.
"Th-there you are!" Nanami cried out. "I've been looking all over the place for you!"
Utena and Anthy looked back at Nanami, at all the little scratches all over her from when she'd thrown herself on top of Tsuwabuki to keep him safe from the platypus horde. "Um, we've been here in the rose garden the whole time."
"That doesn't matter!" Nanami thrust her hand out at Anthy, pointed right at her face. "You need to put Miki back to normal right away!"
Utena blinked at Nanami, at Tsuwabuki as he continued to apply bandages to her. Then she looked to Anthy. "Anthy, do you know what Nanami's talking about?"
"Oh my, she must be talking about my pet Salamander Miki." She pulled the little amphibian out from who knows where. "The poor little thing got its tail cut off earlier today and we have to wait for it to grow back."
Tsuwabuki blinked a few times. "You, you named your pet salamander after Miki?"
"Why yes; don't you think it looks just like him?" It was the same shade of blue as Miki's hair, that much was the same.
Nanami stared into the little creatures eyes, then shook her head. "We're not talking about that Miki, we're talking about the real Miki that you turned into a toddler! Change him back, change him back now!"
"Uh, Nanami? Are you sure you're okay?" Utena said as Tsuwabuki applied a bandage to Nanami's face. "This sounds pretty out there even for you."
Nanami growled in Utena's face. "Hmm..." Anthy mumbled to herself. "That's right, I have a salve that'll fix Miki right up, it's back at our old dorm Miss Utena; we should go and get it, this little guy's waited long enough to get better."
"Huh? Oh, okay Anthy." Utena said, and she followed after Anthy out of the Rose Garden.
"Huh? Hey, we're not finished here , we're not done yet!" Nanami then fell to her knees in exhaustion and Tsuwabuki caught her, very careful about how he caught the older girl.
"Huh?" Miki blinked a few times and looked around; one moment he was at the Student Council Meeting, the next he was sitting under a tree with Juri. "Miss Juri, what just happened?"
She stared at him, almost in disappointment. "You've turned back to normal Miki; you could have warned me you were about to change back."
"What do you mean Ms. Juri?" Miki rubbed his head, then checked his stopwatch; almost 24 hours had passed on it. "I lost an entire day? What on Earth happened to me?"
"You don't remember?" Juri now had a playful expression on her face. Miki nodded. "You suddenly turned into a toddler, and Nanami went off to find Anthy while I took care of you."
"Oh." Miki took it in a lot easier than one would have expected. "Well, thank you Miss Juri for taking care of me like that; I suppose I owe you, don't I?" A faint dusting of pink showed up on his cheeks.
"Not at all Miki, it was my pleasure." Juri's smile grew. "I especially enjoyed our bath together."
"Eh?!" Miki's face threatened to burst into flames from how red it had gotten. He stood up and Juri did the same. "Miss Juri, you don't mean we really took a bath together do you?" Visions, horrible imagined visions invaded his mind and would not leave no matter how hard he tried to get rid of them and he really was trying hard, he tried so hard with all his might, no one could be trying harder to make them go away than Miki in that very moment! Juri just kept on smiling as she turned around and walked away. "Miss Juri!" Now she was gone, Miki was all alone, still being assaulted by thoughts that he definitely did not want to be thinking about in the least little bit.