Little Miroku and the Wandering Child

Chapter 2

Miroku found himself mumbling in his sleep, which he had not done for many years. The sound woke him up. His eyes opened up, but immediately closed at the sunlight pouring in through the treetops above. "Ugh," he groaned, covering his face with his large sleeve and rolling over onto his side. Now that the sun was out of his eyes, he could get up calmly. He felt a large cloth over him, but did not remember sleeping with one of Kagome's blankets last night. Absent-mindedly he reached his hand down, grabbed the cloth on him, and made a motion to throw it off of him.

His robes stretched when he did that and his brows furrowed. He never knew his robes to be so large that it felt like a blanket lying on top of him. Rubbing his eye, he pushed himself up and looked down at himself. His eyes immediately widened and he let out a small cry.

Inuyasha's eyes opened quickly and, Tetsaiga in hand, he stood up from his sleeping position. He noticed the sunlight and cursed himself for sleeping in. Then he looked over to where he had heard the cry and his Tetsaiga dropped as if it was too heavy for him. "M... Miroku?"

Miroku slowly turned his head to look at Inuyasha. "Inuyasha," he replied in shock. He used his hands to push himself up to a standing position and pointed at himself. "Look!"

Inuyasha was looking. Miroku's height had greatly decreased, and he looked as though he would just reach the height of Inuyasha's stomach. In fact, not only did Miroku look shorter, he looked younger, and his voice was no where as deep as it had always been.

"Damn," Inuyasha mumbled without being able to think of anything else to say. The commotion woke Sango and Kagome up.

Sango jolted up, being a demon slayer she was not one for slowly waking up. She looked at Inuyasha first, but seeing his gaping expression, followed his line of sight to Miroku. She gasped, but covered her mouth so no one knew, though everyone heard her. Miroku looked over at her and frowned. "Sango," he whispered.

Kagome rubbed her eyes, not only to get sleep out but to make sure she was not imagining anything. Shippo jumped on top of her head and laughed. "How come your clothes are so big, Miroku?"

Miroku looked down at himself again. "I... don't know."

Sango came out of her shock. She stood up and walked over to him quickly. "Tell me," she said angrily. "What were you doing last night, hm?"

Miroku's mouth opened, but he paused and thought. That girl, that berry he ate. 'Could that be what has caused my current state?' He thought. 'But why would that girl do that? No . . . '

"Well?" Sango asked, obviously vexed.

Miroku looked back at her and gave her a weak smile. "Such anger, Sango. Shouldn't you be concerned about my position here?"

By now, the others had joined into a semicircle around Miroku now. "Wow, I'm almost as tall as you now," Shippo boasted.

"Poor Miroku-sama," Kagome said, shaking her head.

"Let me guess," Inuyasha growled. "It was a woman."

Miroku chuckled nervously. Sango's anger showed she had been thinking the same thing.

"This is just like the time he got his hand stuck to that scroll because that demon woman made him drool too much for him to realize she was sending his attack back at him," Sango said in an annoyed tone.

"Yeah," Inuyasha agreed with the same tone. "Or the time that woman asked us to rid her home of a demon, which we spent three nights looking for, only to find it was an everyday rat."

Sango scoffed. "And then there was that time that woman assured Houshi-sama her potion would make him so desirable to women . . . "

"Oh yeah," Shippo piped in. "We were fighting off hogs for a week."

"Okay," Miroku snapped. "We get it. I do stupid stuff because of women, we know. I don't think I can be so certain that it was a woman who did this, though. She seemed so sweet, and why would she want me to be . . . like this?"

Sango crossed her arms. "That pretty girl with the potion was certain it would work on women and not swine."

"Okay," Miroku put his hands up. "Look, I'm sorry. I know, I err. Won't you accept my apology? Come on, now."

Kagome sighed. "Where is that girl who made you turn like this, Miroku-sama? We'll turn you back now."

Miroku told them exactly where he had seen the girl, and Inuyasha volunteered to go look for her, although everyone knew the reason he wanted to search was because he did not want to spend a lot of time on it. He was gone for a short amount of time, in which time Miroku was being eyed by Kagome and Sango and measured by Shippo. A couple times Shippo turned into Miroku's normal size and joked about his height now.

Inuyasha jumped from a tree to land in the center of their campsite. "No sign of anyone or a village nearby," he growled. "We'll just keep going."

"What?" Miroku stood up in excitement. "You mean you're just going to leave me like this?"

"It will most likely wear off," Kagome replied. "Besides, we can head back to Kaede. She would know what to do."

Miroku looked around. "But . . . you want me to stay . . . like this."

Sango snubbed him. "Sorry, that means you can't flirt with village girls for now."

Miroku frowned. "It's not that . . . I'm, what, seven-years-old now? I can't do anything!"

"Good point," Inuyasha smirked. "We'll leave you here."

"Oh, Inuyasha," Kagome sighed. "Don't worry, Miroku-sama. We'll see Kaede soon. She'll tell us what to do."

Miroku looked down at his kazaana. It was much smaller now and had a much lesser chance of sucking him in. Nevertheless, he would rather be bigger. "Hopefully . . . "

"Well, let's go," Inuyasha snapped. "The sooner we get there, the sooner Miroku'll be normal, and the sooner we can get going."

"Sure," Sango said nonchalantly, following Inuyasha immediately.

Kagome kept looking over her shoulder and smiling. Shippo continually asked Miroku to play with him, to which every time Miroku replied with a dry "no." Kagome turned to Inuyasha and giggled. "Miroku was such a cute little boy."

Inuyasha glanced back at the miniature monk. "Whatever," he grumbled.

Kagome looked ahead of her. "At least he only appears to be his childhood self. Can you imagine what it would be like if he were completely reverted to it?"

"Yeah," Inuyasha replied, "I can. And I definitely would have left him."

"Please, Miroku, play a game with me and Kirara."

"Once again, no." Miroku crossed his arms and looked away. "I'm in no mood."

Shippo sighed. He clasped his hands together. "Please?"

"Curses, Shippo, no," Miroku growled. This frightened Shippo and he picked up pace to catch up with Kagome.

Miroku cooled down immediately and tried to apologize to Shippo for getting angry at him. Then he heard a soft giggle behind him and turned to see Sango. Now, not only did she need to carry her Haraikotsu and virtually all her weapons and taiji-ya equipment, but she had Miroku's staff in her hand, due to Miroku being too short to carry it and dragging it along, slowing him down.

"What's so funny?" He asked.

"You with such a squeaky voice," was her response.

Miroku lightly blushed at her comment. "My voice is not squeaky," he protested.

She smirked. "It is, but it's rather adorable."

Miroku gave her a grin that seemed out of place on his young, innocent features. "You think I'm adorable?"

Sango gave him a serious look. "Don't get a big head, I just mean –"

"Just think, Sango," Miroku continued. "If our sons have my devilish good looks and our daughters have your elegant beauty, we'll have the nicest looking kids in the world." He wiggled his eyebrows up and down suggestively.

Sango's eyes widened and her entire face blushed a bright red. She immediately looked off to the side. "Whatever are you talking about?" She asked, the words spewing out so fast they sounded as if they were one large one instead.

Miroku now walked with his head hanging down. Sango's comment about his voice made him feel a bit self-conscious. It was bad enough that Kagome, in order to allow him to walk and not trip over his own robes, tied cute bows on each side of his robes to fit his new size better. He did, however, feel humiliated.

After a few moments of silence, Miroku glanced over at Shippo, who was now sitting on top of Kagome's backpack trying to tell Inuyasha which way to go. He did feel bad for how he had acted. He had no reason to shout. The thing was, the more he thought about it, the better playing a game sounded. He could not understand where this newfound feeling came from, but he knew that it was what needed to be done; in order to make him, yet again, look like a better person than Inuyasha.

"Shippo," he finally spoke. Shippo peered down at him, cowering a bit. "About that game, do you still want to play?"

Shippo's expression changed quickly. His frightened expression changed to ecstatic happiness as he leapt off of Kagome's backpack, yelling "Yeah!"

Kagome grinned as she watched Miroku and Shippo playing tag, running around them in circles. Occasionally, Shippo would run off the road, but after Miroku tagged him Miroku would return to the group and run ahead of Inuyasha. No one had ever seen Miroku so playful in this type of manner. However, after an hour of this game, Miroku began to slow and at one point he strolled over to Kirara and whispered something to her. After he finished, Kirara changed into her large form, and Miroku clambered on top of her back and found a comfortable position to fall asleep, which he did quickly. After watching this, Shippo dashed by Sango, hopped on top of Kirara, and curled into a ball next to Miroku, also falling asleep quickly.

Sango looked back at them and gave them a warm smile, thinking of how sweet they looked like that. She knew that they could have easily arrived at Kaede's village within the day, Sango and Miroku riding on Kirara and Inuyasha carrying Kagome, but Sango knew Inuyasha would have rather found a person to cure Miroku close by instead of going all the way back to where they started.

Kagome looked over at Inuyasha who had been looking completely vexed thus far. She sighed and asked him what was bothering him. At first he just glanced over at her, giving her a glare that she was used to by now. He looked behind him to see the sleeping two on Kirara and Sango gave him a curious look. Turning back to Kagome, he grumbled.

"Damn Miroku, always wasting my time."

Kagome offered a smile. "Don't be silly, I think it's sweet how you help people."

Inuyasha snorted. "Don't think I'm doing this because I want to."

Kagome shook her head and looked off to the side, it would be a long trip with that attitude. She was tempted to hang back and talk with Sango, but Sango looked too deep in thought for some reason.

It was a good hour before Shippo woke up, slamming Miroku stomach with his hand, yelling at him to wake up and hopping off of Kirara's back to go see what Kagome was doing. Miroku sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes. He looked off to the side and saw Sango walking right next to him. He watched her for a second before speaking up.

"Sango, what's the matter with your leg? You're limping."

Sango gave Miroku a puzzled look. How could he ask her such a thing? That had been his major deal of the previous day, was whether her leg would be in a fine state to travel after the demon attack. How could he possibly ask that? Nevertheless, she answered him. "I got attacked by a demon yesterday . . . don't you remember?"

Miroku blinked twice and nodded. "Oh yeah," he replied. 'How could I have forgotten that?' He had been acting strange lately and just could not pinpoint the reasoning. Could turning back his years have troubled him so that he could not act properly anymore? Then he thought about his sleep, and realized the sun was so high in the air. He never got tired during their walking, and definitely never napped for such a long period of time. Confused and a little upset at himself, he thanked Kirara for allowing him a ride and slid off of her back.

Kirara mewed happily and decided to reside on Sango's left shoulder, curling up into her own little ball and falling asleep. Miroku tried to walk next to Sango, but he seemed to lag a bit behind due to the fact that her strides were longer than his now. He was certain there was no way she could still be angry with him, so he tried to think of something to say. Alas, no matter his size, Miroku was the same. His eyes fell on a part of Sango's anatomy that not only did he gleefully take looks at every once in a while, but now was not too far away from his height anymore.

Double stepping to catch up with her now, he tried his best to keep her pace, for every one of her steps he had to take two, but he caught up to her in no time. He reached his hand out to her backside, always knowing it to be a good size but not as nicely-sized as it seemed now, and with a sigh he rested his hand on it and got two rubs.

That was, only two rubs until Sango realized what was happening and whirled around quickly grabbing Haraikotsu in the process and bringing it down almost connecting with Miroku's head. Miroku's eyes became huge and he let out a weak cry as it hovered above his head. Sango froze and stared down at him. Something in her could not hit him. It had to be the fact that he was a child. Well, even though he was obviously the same perverted monk that she knew, still, he had the innocence of a child somehow, and Sango was not one to hurt a child at all. Angry at Miroku and confused with herself, she put Haraikotsu back around her shoulder and sped up her walking so as to catch up with Inuyasha and Kagome.

After a little while of not encountering the little monk, Sango found herself looking over her shoulder for him. She was very surprised to see him many yards away, walking slowly and shuffling his feet with his head hanging. "Inuyasha," she said.

Inuyasha stopped and turned to look at her, but he only saw the back of her head. He followed where she was looking to see Miroku lagging behind in the back and growled. "Hang on," he said and jolted back to Miroku rather quickly. "What is your problem?"

"For some reason," Miroku breathed, bending over to rest his hand on his knees, "I have the stamina and endurance of a child . . . "

Inuyasha raised his eyebrow. "What?"

"Well, I've been thinking about it," Miroku replied. He wet his dried lips and stood up to look at Inuyasha as best he could. "There's no other way to explain this. I can usually keep up with you all, but too much and I get too tired to do anything. Shippo hasn't stopped hanging on Kagome since he woke up, you see, but even he could not have gone on this long."

"I don't get it, why would you looking younger have anything to do with your power and all that?"

"Well, I can't be sure... Maybe it's an effect of this curse I have."

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. "Well, hate to break it to you, idiot... but you're slowing us down. Dramatically. I was tryin' to be nice, but this is too much."

Miroku blinked. "What exactly are you saying, here?" Then his eyes widened in surprise as in one swift movement Inuyasha grabbed the back of his robed and lifted him up. Miroku did not know what to say when he found himself sitting on Inuyasha's back.

"Don't ever bring this up, and don't frikkin pull my hair," he growled as he stomped over to the girls whose faces were both showing the same amount of surprise as Miroku's.

"Inuyasha?" Shippo asked, as if it weren't really him but he had been taken over by some other creature.

"Sango," Inuyasha began, "can you and Kagome ride Kirara?"

"I suppose," Sango replied. "Where are we going?"

"Where are we going?" Inuyasha taunted. "Kaede's village, have you been paying attention?"

Kagome and Sango narrowed their eyes at him. "There's no point in talking to him when he's in a bad mood," Kagome mumbled. "Let's just get Kirara all set then, Sango."

"Right," Sango replied.

Kirara hit the air in a moment's time. On the ground, Inuyasha began running at a steady speed that just barely surpassed Kirara. Miroku looked up at the large fire cat in the air and eyed Sango for a moment. They always rode together, he felt kind of alone without her. Not to mention, he could never recall being carried by Inuyasha, so deep within him he was nervous.

"May I ask what is wrong with you?" He whispered into one of Inuyasha's upright ears.

"Sure," Inuyasha growled. "When was the last time we found any trail of Naraku?"

Miroku looked away, even though there was no way Inuyasha could see the lament on his face. "Quite a while..."

"Yeah, and when was the last time we got a jewel shard?"

"Again, quite a while..."

"And what the hell am I preoccupied doing? Carrying you back to Kaede so you can be a normal, useful size again."

Miroku frowned. If the whole reason Inuyasha decided to carry him was to lecture him, then he was definitely upset by all of this. Sango had not hit him earlier from his antics, and he could have gotten a couple more good feels in if he was riding with her. Not to mention, the whole day had been quite odd enough without Inuyasha of all people telling him he made a mistake. He stared down at Inuyasha quizzically for a little while, but then a smile slowly spread across his face.

"I know why you're so hostile. The new moon is coming soon, isn't it?" Inuyasha's ear twitched in annoyance of the matter-of-fact way Miroku had said it. Nevertheless, he remained quiet and Miroku took his silence as a verification of his assumption.

Suddenly, a feeling arose in Miroku he was semi-used to, but there was something different about this manner. He could not place it exactly, nor stop himself from blurting out in an almost whiny sort of way, "I'm hungry."

Inuyasha slowed dramatically to allow what was just said to sink in. 'Miroku never complains about hunger,' Inuyasha thought suspiciously. He turned his head to look at him. "What was that?"

"I... um," Miroku felt embarrassed, he had no idea why he had said that or where those words had come from. He shrugged his shoulders and looked off to the passing by trees and even a random traveler who gave the group a raised eyebrow and nice, long stare as they passed.

End of Chapter 2

A/N: Sorry this one should be the longest of all the chapters. The plot thickens in the next chapter! Dun dun dun... hee hee. Thanks for reading!