A/N: Oops. I started another story. Well, this one came to me in a dream, and I should be able to dispose of it in three chapters, tops. The whole premise is already outlined, unlike most of my attempts at fanfiction. So, it will be over swiftly, for all concerned.

Disclaimer: Huh. Can't even disclaim the owners/creators because I haven't paid enough attention. Still, I think 'they've' done a lovely job of providing toys to play with and, since my play involves no commercial intent nor desire to infringe copyright - it appears I should be home-free.

Whatever You Do

"Whatever you do…" Miroku stressed as forcefully as he could to his half-demon friend, flanked as he was by the local headman's guards, well-armed with weapons far beyond the usual farm implements. Well, it was rather a larger village than usual. "…Do not intimate to Sango or even Kagome as to why I have been detained."

"'Intimate'? Sorry, chum, you blew past me on that one. Just what exactly do you want me to tell the girls? That you've been jailed for being a thief? Hell, they've known that for months!" Inuyasha pretended to clean the wax out of one ear with his claw. While he was, in fact, quite as anxious as the monk as to how to resolve this particular problem, he couldn't stop himself from resorting to a certain amount of teasing.

It wasn't as if Miroku wouldn't do the same in his place. Later, assuming Miroku got out okay, they'd both chuckle a bit as they sipped purloined sake after the girls had gone to sleep. It was all part of this male-bonding thing that he'd missed out on during most of his life. Although, when he thought about it, bonding with a reprobate itinerant monk was probably not the smartest thing to be doing. Then again, it wasn't like he was in a position to pick and choose.

And, when you really thought about it, for all his faults and deceptions as a monk, Inuyasha was hard-pressed to think of anyone he'd rather have at his back than Miroku. He had watched as his friend had closed his eyes, visibly gathering patience as the muscles rolled beneath his monk's robes. One of the things he liked most about Miroku; while the guy could more than hold his own in a fight, he insisted in downplaying his role, spouting nonsense about Buddha's abhorrence of violence. Miroku didn't make a big deal out of kick-ass fighting. Thus Inuyasha was content to ignore the simple fact that any valuables after a fight always disappeared when Miroku was concerned. As far as he was concerned, it was one worry less, after all…

"Okay, okay. Don't get your kesa in a twist. Sango ain't gotta know that you're suspected of thievery and kidnapping because the local lord's daughter is missing,.."

The silence should have been encouraging, if Inuyasha hadn't known him so well! "Pity that, along with treasure-trove it takes a rather experienced eye to value, you were observed escorting the princess through the moon-garden just hours beforehand."

Inuyasha stated the facts as baldly as they appeared to him. Surely Miroku could provide an alibi once he appreciated the seriousness of the situation.

Unless, of course, the alibi would have netted him yet greater retribution from Sango.

Hell, they had promised to raise a family together once Naraku was dead. Thinking about Miroku's options made Inuyasha lower his ears firmly against his scalp. This whole friendship thing was rife with hidden dangers, such as worrying about the veracity of those you know were far too fluent at lying…

"Inuyasha! I don't know this girl! It's not just me we have to worry about – what has actually happened to her?" Inuyasha noticed Miroku was rather too quick on the uptake there. "Find her! Talk to her! And… and help me!" Inuyasha hadn't spent the last months in Miroku's company without learning to recognize that the monk was speaking on several different layers to him. Sadly, the reality was that he could probably have figured out one layer, but he was reasonably sure that Miroku's truth lay buried at least another layer down.

Damn. What was he to do?

That the local court resumed before the area's lord was likely to have had breakfast was, at least to Miroku's way of thinking, a bad sign. When his case came up he was only partially through the morning's recitation of sutras. On the other hand, the local lord delegated pre-breakfast cases to a subordinate who, of religious orders himself, lacked the courage to decide questions that might raise questions of bad karma, shoddy evidence, or intimations of scandal. This case wallowed deeply in all three.

Miroku was bound over for trial, pending future revelations. Given his status as an itinerant monk, pre-trial release was not an option. In modern parlance, Miroku was a prime flight-risk. Just because the setting was sixteenth century Japan was no reason to assume the concept was unknown or not considered.

Inuyasha knew that Miroku was damned lucky he was a monk. That and the fact that the girl was still missing along with a rather absurdly valuable lot of crockery (Inuyasha's words) saved Miroku from summary execution. Sad to say, neither Miroku nor Inuyasha knew just which the lord was more interested in seeing returned, the pretty girl or pretty pots.

Miroku had sworn yet again he did not know the whereabouts of either. Recognizing his friend's ability to lie plausibly, even to him, Inuyasha opted for the possibility that the monk had, for once, taken the high road. After all, his behavior since the whole rescue-of-an-old-lover-from-the-fish-yukai debacle had been largely on the up and up. Mostly. And, as Miroku was quick to remind Inuyasha, while long-time habits were exceedingly hard to break, one was more likely to cheat on a small scale, inhibited both by guilt and fear of being caught. It simply did not make sense that a determinedly reformed Miroku would seduce the princess and run off with the lord's treasure all in the same night, leaving his friends and allies behind.

Did it say something sad about their friendship that Inuyasha found the monk's logic more compelling than his appeals to their long-standing association? Well, if it did, it merely gave them something else to laugh about over the sake.

While Miroku had forbidden Inuyasha from informing Sango or Kagome of his troubles, he'd said nothing of keeping Shippou in ignorance. With the kit off plumbing the depths of the castle's rumor mills, innocent eyes all a-shimmer (after Inuyasha had brought him up to date), the half-demon credited the monk again for shaving his calculus of risks and rewards finely. Shippou was an excellent choice for ferreting out speculation and hints of facts, but the monk would owe the young fox substantially if he meant to keep the whole affair from their companions. And Shippou was nothing if not diligent in collecting on debts. The fact that Miroku had not requested Shippou's aid put Inuyasha in the middle, a place Inuyasha was more likely to settle with a fist than a word, a fact Miroku was more than well aware of. So Inuyasha had had to convince Shippou on his own to participate - Kagome's regard for the bastard monk had been surprisingly adequate as motivation - and that was yet another reason to demand the monk pay for the sake!

Enforced lack of activity for some hours had denied the monk's usual surcease of stiff muscles in his morning yoga exercises. He looked to the change of routine for positive aspects. For example, any active delay would work in his favor; it gave Inuyasha more time to consider a defense and marshal resources in support. Since he was going to have to suborn witnesses as to his activities of the previous evening this would, in fact, take some time. He sighed. It was to be hoped that Inuyasha would understand that business about suborning witnesses – he did not want the truth coming out. It generally took time to find effective false witnesses if you had not previously prepared the ground.

But delay was not necessarily the order of the day. How…inconvenient.

Miroku's arms had been bound – particular attention paid to his kazanna – and a yoke or collar, had been placed around his neck as he was led to the criminal's stool.

As he walked a bucket had been overturned, dumping a rather noxious muck on Miroku's head, he found himself smiling ruefully, and murmured a blessing for rogues that tripped all too familiarly off his tongue. It did not escape his notice that it referenced rather explicitly something regarding universal justice and convenient scapegoats.

Years of discipline allowed him to avoid ending his pious chant with anything so untoward as a chuckle as he faced his fellow monk in the personage of the magistrate. Miroku ignored this as he considered the array of witnesses against him, and what it said about his possible defense.

A line of witnesses clearly demonstrated the princess' intent to defy her father. Another rather shorter line provided testimony regarding yet another influential potential lover of the princess, along with a distinct shift in ideological balance during the crucial time period. The prosecution's impetus appeared to be towards a combination of greed for the lord's treasury and political unrest. The upshot was the motivation involved regime change financed by the local lord's treasure, as opposed to revolution on the backs of the local peasants and landholders. A tug-of-war revealed itself between several sets of landholding minor lords.

The witnesses against him were surprisingly few. Well, he coughed to himself, few considering reality and the benefits of finding an apolitical and plausible villain. Miroku was rather flattered to find he'd been chosen to fit the bill. Flattered and equally disappointed. He'd hoped he'd been more accomplished in hiding his exploits in the shame of his 'clients' at admitting they had been bamboozled. He looked forward to discussing that particular problem with Mushin. After all, it had been the high monk's brain child that rank and pride would not allow the lords to even whisper at being defrauded by those they perceived as below them. Of course, Miroku had found himself constantly tempted to raise the stakes of such pilfering into the ranks of grand larceny, but Mushin had never complained.

Guilt compelled Miroku to wonder if perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised to find this modus operandi was not completely unknown. Mind you, Miroku wouldn't have been surprised to discover that pure greed had been the driving force behind the whole escapade. He had, after all, been given a tour of the lord's ceramics, including a striking collection of continental jade pieces of exquisite color and delicacy, by the now missing princess. He sighed heavily. Had this opportunity presented itself but six months earlier…

But, he reminded himself, that was another life. And he had other priorities now.

Miroku had found the second set of witnesses particularly intriguing. He looked around for Inuyasha and was annoyed to find him absent. Apparently he had not been able to drag himself away from breakfast.

Despite a sighting of Miroku examining the palm of the princess, the state's case was paused, apparently hinged upon Miroku's reading. Her tour of her father's collection of antique ceramics had yet to be revealed. Of course, neither was the princess herself. That tour had been quite private. And she was still missing. The only real question was why her guest remained unconvicted.

It struck Miroku that perhaps he had merely found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and had never been planned as the original scapegoat to begin with. After all, how likely was it that more than one or two people knew that this particular princess was yet another good friend of the personable young monk? He'd been a bit surprised himself that she'd remembered him, and a rather awkward portion of their tour had been spent in his earnest protestations of his attachment to the demon slayer Sango.

He'd thanked every relation of Lord Buddha he could think of that this particular princess had waited to succumb to his previous blandishments until this subsequent visit, when he had no blandishments to offer.

Which did not release him from the duty to determine just who in fact had taken the girl from her father's house.

The monk laughed silently as he was led back to his cell. Fuckit. They'll believe whatever they want. His primary concern was advising Inuyasha to track down the lawyer presenting the secondary group of witnesses. He didn't think there was much use in investigating the primary accusers, beyond, perhaps, establishing what had happened to the princess herself. This would not likely help him – she was either dead or discredited, no good witness to his defense.

Still, her fate should be ascertained and, if possible, her freedom obtained. A fragment of his personality wondered if his easy attention to her had perhaps somehow led to her seduction by whatever villains had chosen to rob her father of his greatest assets.

Still, for all Miroku's easy charm he had yet to receive real evidence that he'd had impact on others' lives beyond a fleeting night's pleasure.

His religion had trained him thus, and he had yet to hear of any repercussions otherwise.

Nevertheless, absence of evidence would not prove evidence, not when the prime witness was missing, and the spoils unrecovered.

Miroku breathed deeply, wondering how much freedom his bonds would allow for a meditation stance. More to the point, he found himself wondering just what in the hell Inuyasha had been doing with his time.-