CHAPTER FIVE

x.

"What are those things?" Kagome said, peering at the cave. The threads were half invisible, but in the sunlight she could see little shiny white lines.

"They're special charms," Sango said. "They're meant to be like those barriers that monks and priestesses put up, and they have been set as a trap."

"But they aren't much like a trap -- it just looks like someone tangled dozens of little threads up, and left them here."

"I know. That's part of the trap -- that the victim thinks it's just an annoyance until it's too late." Sango sighed. "Evidently, this one is rigged to de-age the victim until they're just babies, unable to move into the cave and attack."

"So," Kagome said, reaching out to touch a thread, then pulling back, "you think this is what turned Inuyasha and Miroku into babies?"

"I know it is."

"But that doesn't make any sense! I touched the threads, and I haven't turned into a baby yet."

"That's because the charms only work on one thing."

Kagome frowned. "Men?"

"No, demons."

"Then why is Miroku a baby?"

Sango pondered this for a moment. Then she said, "It might be... if Miroku grabbed Inuyasha just as the charm triggered, then the spell would have affected them both. Even though Miroku is a human...."

"Wow," Kagome whispered. She moved away from the cave a few steps, thinking to the look of sheer horror on Inuyasha's face when he had seen his wobbly baby body. "Did demon-slayers ever use these charms to capture demons?"

"Very rarely. These charms can only be put in places where you KNOW a demon is going to pass through, like a cave mouth or a den. But in those situations, usually there were easier, less risky methods for dealing with a demon. Like poison powder, or fire. It was sheer bad luck that Inuyasha ran into these charms."

Kagome reached out and plucked one of the taught threads. "But... now that they've been transformed into babies... how do we change them back?"

Sango sighed. "That's just what I was wondering..."

x.

It was a curse. It had to be.

Inuyasha couldn't imagine anything else that would explain his life. For as long as he could remember, it was just one disaster after another -- or worse, disasters that lasted for years. Maybe someone had put a curse on him when he was a baby or something. Because he didn't think it was possible for one person to have so much rotten luck in one lifetime... unless he was paying off some major bad karma...

"Hey, Inuyasha," Shippo said, poking Inuyasha's shoulder. "How are you feeling?"

Inuyasha glared balefully at the kitsune. The last thing he needed was Shippo babysitting him. Hell, I'm almost as big as him, even like this! he thought angrily.

He felt as if he had died and ended up in a particularly nasty hell, although he was fairly sure that he had done nothing in his life horrible enough to condemn him to THIS. Now he was tiny and helpless. He had no fangs. His claws were all puppy soft, and he was pretty sure he couldn't strike anything accurately with his weak little hands.

Plus, he was fairly sure that he couldn't even sit up without help. Let alone walk or... well, crawl. Frustrated, Inuyasha began flailing his arms and legs around -- but that only frustrated him more, since he could barely control them.

Suddenly Kagome was looming over him. She looked a lot.... bigger than he was used to. "Feeling okay, Inuyasha?" she asked.

Inuyasha stuck out his tongue at her.

"Well, I can understand that," Kagome said, picking him up.

Looking at his grim little face, Kagome tried not to flinch. His little pointed ears were barely poking out of some very unruly silver hair. And for one moment, she had the urge to start playing with his ears. Quickly she set him down on his back, and was overcome by another temptation -- to tickle his stomach.

Don't even think about tickling him, girl, she thought. Tickle Inuyasha when he can't get away, and he'll never forgive you for it.

So Kagome settled for ruffling his silver hair, and explaining about the charms they had found in the cave. The half-demon listened with grim attention, until she had finished up with, "And Sango says that she's trying to figure out a way to reverse the spell, or find out who could do it. So just try to stand it a little longer, huh?"

Inuyasha seized one of her thumbs in each tiny fist, and grunted loudly. Slowly he pulled himself up into a sitting position. His face seemed to say, "I'm not letting anything keep me down!"

TO BE CONTINUED