Daddy Dearest – Part Twelve: The Air Rip

Xandra: All right, I have something to say that applies to every one of my readers, and I'm sorry if this seems a bit repetitive, but it looks as if a few people weren't listening when I first started this whole thing. Recently, I received an email from an anonymous reader (I will not make it personal this time, but she knows who she is) primarily arguing with me about an issue with the off-timeline appearance of Kaorushin and I was quite taken aback by this. In her review, she had told me that I was wrong without asking, and in my prior chapter I responded, albeit rudely (I apologize for that rant, by the way, to anyone that was polite and/or uninvolved in the conflict). A few weeks later, I received the email in question with a few very impolite implications, including unconstructive criticism on my writing style and my way of handling things in the story as a whole. I answered her in my fashion with a reply, but for the record, I will state that there is a big difference between criticizing as a fan and flaming because you're having a bad day. The situation could have been avoided had the aforementioned party simply toned down the use of the ever- popular FFnet writer-mallet, used to bash writers--ESPECIALLY those of us who really don't appreciate it.

I will state this as clearly and nicely as possible: I love reviews, I appreciate criticism and I like getting feedback, but I will not--REPEAT, WILL NOT--tolerate being flamed publicly. If you have a problem with anything in my story, you don't understand or you just don't like something that's happening (I don't mean Miroku's predicted death, either ^_~) email me privately and express it, but be ready for a response that may be equally and/or more impolite. Answers will almost always be given in this manner, so please, remember that criticism is one thing and flaming is another, and if you're having a bad day and just deciding to be a jerk, don't take it out on ME. It doesn't impress anybody. If you have a problem with the way I write, YOU try writing something and see how it feels to be treated that way; it's no picnic. Furthermore, I apologize to my readers for the ever so rude return-fire that I issued last go-round. It should have been private and, hopefully, this will be the last 'rant' I will have to write.

Now that THAT is handled, I'll start. No matter what anybody says or thinks, reader, basher or otherwise, I hope you all like my chapter. Sorry it took so long, I have a lot of catching-up to do on my Gundam Wing stories, even if I HAVEN'T done much of that. Thank you, and enjoy, because this one is pretty short. ^_^

//I have to tell the others,// Miroku thought as he paced the length of his designated room. //But what do I tell them? I heard something moving in Kagome's room, so I came to investigate and Miss Emily was next to her bed, reaching for her chest? No, that would sound like a lie, and I'd prefer not to get my skull cracked today.//

Therein lay the problem. He had caught Emily in Kagome's room in the dead of the night with a loose alibi, and he could sense now that she was no normal girl, now that he thought about it. She was up to something, and it was definitely not good, whatever it was.

A knock came at the door and in seconds, Shippo was hanging off his shoulder, beaming at him childishly. "G'morning, Miroku! Did you sleep well?"

//Not a wink,// he thought. But why tell him that? "Fine, thank you."

"Yeah, me too! I was out like a candle when I laid down! I wonder why I was so tired!"

//So do I.//

"Emily is making us breakfast now! Come on!" Shippo hopped down, clinging to his wrist and gesturing out the door. "Come on! Come on!" He hopped down and ran away.

Miroku frowned, then followed the hyper kitsune from his room to the tables, where he took a seat next to Inuyasha. He realized that everyone seemed to be in a good mood, even the hanyou. Mikiro was even grinning, whispering to Shippo and giggling. That lightened his discontent slightly, but he still knew that something was wrong with this Emily girl.

She beamed at them all as she served them breakfast, but when she reached him, he shook his head.

"I find myself lacking an appetite," he said. "Thank you, but no."

Her smile faltered, suddenly coming to resemble a vicious snarl, and her left eye twitched. "W-what?"

"I'm not eating," he said, resolutely, pinning her with a stern stare. The others looked at her, curiously.

"...Oh..." She forced her smile to radiate sunshine again, though the words 'slow and agonizing death' were flashing in her eyes. "I see. All right, then! I hope the rest of you are hungry!"

They nodded and she served the rest of them.

Miroku frowned. //I have to warn them somehow...she may even be poisoning them--// The monk paused mid-thought as he recalled the night before. Everyone had eaten, all except him, and they had all been out cold within hours. Emily had looked surprised to see him up, and had even asked why he was awake. It all added up now! She'd drugged them to sleep to get to Kagome! //Now I REALLY have to warn them!//

He quickly snatched the chopsticks from the table next to Inuyasha, making certain Emily was occupied, then took a chunk of stiff bread and nudged him, drawing his attention.

The hanyou looked at him, raising an eyebrow and opening his mouth, but Miroku gestured him silent and quickly carved the problem into the loaf. With every figure he set down, Inuyasha's eyebrows drew closer and closer together. He explained it as quickly as possible, and by the time he was done, the dog-demon was glaring at the table, glancing at his food with contempt.

"I smell a rat in this situation," the monk whispered to his companion.

Inuyasha scowled. "I smell a DEMON in this situation."

That would explain why Emily had been in Kagome's room the night prior. She'd been trying to steal the jewel fragment! "We have to get out of here." He glanced at their hostess, who was washing dishes in a tub across the room, her back to them. "We can't afford to let her get the jewel shards, and I'd prefer not to put Mikiro in any more unneeded danger."

"Since when do YOU care about HIM?"

"He's my son, it's about damn time I did."

Inuyasha nodded his agreement, smirking and clapping a hand on his shoulder momentarily before silently turning around and pulling a loose board in the floor up to dump the food into. He emptied his rice-bowl and dropped the loaf of bread, then replaced it.

Emily turned around just in time to see him fold his arms and sit back. "Are you still hungry?" she asked. "I have more food."

"No thanks, I'm full," Inuyasha lied. He was never full, and he hadn't eaten, but he knew just as well as Miroku did that it was probably perilous to eat.

Therein came the problem. Everybody else was eating the food! //I hope it isn't poisoned...// the monk thought, tensely. The last thing he needed was dead friends...and dead children...he shuddered to think.

The others finished and Emily cleared away their dishes, then offered them a polite. "I'm so glad you chose to stay with me last night," she said, her expression void of all feeling. "A terrible thing happened, I hear! A gypsy camp burned to the ground last night!"

Sango and Kagome both gasped and Miroku started, gulping. //But...I was just there last night...// But before he decided to read further into his own thoughts, he sensed an underlying joy in their supposed kind hostess. His eyebrows drew together and his mouth turned down into a harsh scowl, and it took all he had not to stand up and accuse her of the deed right there.

"She's a demon, no doubt about it," Inuyasha muttered. "I smell ashes, like burnt cloth."

"We have to get out of here, NOW."

"Yeah." He stood up suddenly, then covered his mouth, coughing. "Oh my gods! I'm gonna be sick!" With that, he ran outside, gagging melodramatically.

Miroku sighed and shook his head. Effective as it was, that was pathetic...

The girls blinked and Kagome got up, quickly excusing herself to make sure Inuyasha was all right.

Sango looked down at the food with a suspicious look on her face, then glanced at Kirara, who sniffed it and mewed at her. Her eyes narrowed dangerously and she got up, scooping Shippo up by the tail, then followed after Kagome.

That left Emily, Miroku and Mikiro alone. The boy shrunk back a bit, apparently feeling abandoned, but the monk was almost too busy staring at the hostess to worry about that.

Her eyes narrowed on him. "Is something the MATTER?"

He stood, keeping his eyes on her, and circled the table, then reached down and picked up a quivering Mikiro, who whimpered upon his touching him. He held the boy protectively to his chest, taking his staff from the ground quickly and wielding it like a weapon against her. "I know what you are," he said, softly. "Stay back or suffer the consequences, demon."

She smiled at him, brightly, but there was malice hanging in the air. "Demon? What makes you think I'm a demon?"

Miroku circled her as she suddenly grinned at him, and darkness seemed to fill the room around them. "Mikiro, hold onto me," he commanded. The boy did as he was told, clutching around his neck and squeezing his eyes shut.

She giggled. "Aww, being the protective father, finally? How sweet!"

The dark-haired man continued to step carefully away from her, reaching into his robe in attempts to locate one of his few weapons; a demon ward. He'd used many of them up to guard the old woman's inn and the kind lord's manor, and many others had been ruined after he'd tried to drown himself. He prayed that he had at least ONE left.

The cabin door snapped shut behind him as she took a step on dainty slippers toward the man and boy. "I wonder how my lord would reward me if I took that little boy to him."

His son whimpered and Miroku snarled at her, clutching him closer. "Lay a finger on him and I SWEAR you will live to regret it!" he barked.

She laughed, her voice suddenly warping from high and sweet to dark and cruel. "Silly mortal man! My lord NARAKU will be pleased when I hand him your pretty little HEAD!"

"Naraku...I should have know."

"But I'm SUCH a good actress!" she cackled. Her green eyes flashed red and he swallowed hard, holding the staff out before him with more determination.

She began to move toward him, but he moved back against the door, wishing with all he had that he had a demon ward. //I know I've been a terrible person, but please, if not for me, help me for my son's sake...//

And then, as he tucked his staff under his arm to check again, his hand slipped over a smooth sheet of paper.

//YES! Thank you!// He ripped it out and smacked it right onto her face. "Reveal and bind!"

It lit up like a candle in the darkness and she shrieked in agony, her cute, innocent form melting away, revealing a beautiful, slender woman with pale sunshine hair and claws like Inuyasha's in place of her fingernails. Her tunic was sleeveless and short, revealing a good amount of her thighs, and she had an hourglass figure. The perfect woman was a demon.

Eh, what else was news?

Miroku took his chance. He swept her feet out from under her with the foot of his pole, then turned and slammed his shoulder against the door, blasting it open and sending he and Mikiro sprawling to the ground.

Inuyasha quickly ripped the Tetsusaiga from its sheath, putting himself between the fallen monk and the demon, sword held high, ready to battle. "I KNEW it! She IS a youkai!"

Sango helped Miroku up and quickly carted he and the child away from her to where Kirara was waiting with Shippo and Kagome. "That was sickeningly brave of you," she murmured to him.

"And just what was I SUPPOSED to do?" he asked, setting Mikiro on the demon- cat's back and patting his head, absently. "Put on a dress, curtsy and pray for a miracle?!"

"My, aren't we a bit touchy?"

He rotated his staff a bit to loosen up his arm and shoulder muscles. "If you had just been threatened with having you son AND your head handed to Naraku, you'd be touchy too!"

"Naraku?" Kagome asked. "She works for him?"

"As if that's a shock."

"That's true...seems like everybody works for him nowadays! OH!" She gasped and covered her mouth. "Inuyasha! I sense Shikon shards! She's got one, maybe two! Wow, I can see them right through the walls!"

The demon stepped from within the cottage, which disintegrated in a flash of fire, removing the ward with her claws and throwing it aside. Her eyes lit up red and she growled, turning toward him instantly. "I will make you suffer for that, you sniveling little twerp," she hissed at him.

He held his staff up in front of him, menacingly. "You're welcome to try."

"It's her!"

Miroku glanced back at Mikiro, who was beginning to shake uncontrollably, his eyes locked on 'Emily.' He blinked. "What?"

The boy brought his hand to his neck and gasped. "She took away my wish necklace!"

Before he could ask, Shippo answered, "It's a present from his Mom, a little pink rock on a rope. It means a lot of him."

Miroku scowled, then whirled and leered at her as Inuyasha moved to attack. He recalled seeing her holding a little stone with straps of buckskin tied around it when she had invaded Kagome's room.

/'Oh, I found this outside and I remembered that Miss Kagome had a necklace that looked like this little pink stone. I was wondering if it was hers...'/

So she'd stolen it and lied about it, then used it as a pretext to be in Kagome's room when she'd been caught trying to steal the jewel fragment. She was LOW to steal from a three-year-old!

"Is she the one that cut your arm?" Sango asked.

He nodded.

"Inuyasha!" Miroku called. "She has a necklace on her somewhere! Get it back!"

Mikiro's eyes brightened, but he stayed silent. The monk smiled, momentarily.

The hanyou inspected the oncoming female demon. "Where is she HIDING the thing?!"

She smiled and leapt at him as he swung the sword at her, landing on the huge blade of the Tetsusaiga. She laughed as he growled, then brought a hand to her neck, where, lo and behold, the little gem was sitting, the necklace so small it became a choker on her. "You want it back, cutie?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "You'll have to take it from me!" With a dark cackle, she jumped up into the air and flipped over his head.

He growled and spun to chop her in half, but she did a cartwheel and evaded it. "You're a spry little slut, aren't you?"

"Well, I try!" she laughed as he swung again. She pulled a whirling backflip, landing gracefully on one foot. "At least I'm not an overweight mutt swinging a big stick to feel macho!"

"Oh, NOW you're dead." Inuyasha leapt into the air and brought the sword down, but she sidestepped it and bounded away like a deer, grinning playfully. "Sit STILL so I can KILL you, you bitch!"

"Stop CHASING me and I WOULD, you ass!"

He went after her again, but she jumped up and launched herself over his head, then kicked him in the back of his skull and send him stumbling across the grass. "Damn it, why is she so fast?"

"Because I'm not FAT like YOU!"

"AAAAAAAAARRRRRRG!"

Miroku sighed and quickly searched his robes for another demon ward. Luckily, he had just one more. With a sigh, he shook it out and aimed at the demon, who continued to evade Inuyasha and was now running around with him chasing her, giggling all the way. "Hit her, not him," he muttered, concentrating in attempts to get it to hone in on her. "Hit her, not him." He threw it. "Confine!"

SMACK. It hit the wrong demon. Inuyasha cried out and hit the ground in a heap, and the female youkai laughed, bouncing away. "MI-RO-KU!" the dog- demon shouted.

He sighed and put a hand to his forehead. "Oh boy."

"Goodbye, humans!" she cried. "Hear my name and remember it well; I am Sakura, and that name will be your death!" With that, she disappeared into the forest, cackling all the way.

There was a long silence, but the kitsune broke it. "She's really nuts!"

Sango rolled her eyes and glared at the dark-haired man, who was leering at his feet. She smacked him upside his head. "Nice going, monk."

"Oww! Well, at least I tried!"

Shippo and Mikiro sighed, the boy frowning sadly.

Miroku frowned as well, then put a hand on his son's knee, drawing his attention. "I'm sorry we couldn't get it back," he sighed. "However, I promise, we will track her down and retrieve it forthwith. All right?"

The child blinked at him. "Y-you will?"

"Of course we will." He glanced at the girls, neither of whom looked ready to break the heart of a boy who was no more than a toddler, then at Shippo, who nodded his agreement and gave Mikiro a tender hug with a big smile on his face. "Right, then!" He helped both girls onto Kirara's back and scooted the boys up, jumping on himself. He pointed his staff in the direction she'd gone. "After that thief!"

Mikiro beamed and Shippo cheered as the flying fire youkai leapt from the ground, bounding into the forest. Sango grabbed the stunned Inuyasha on the way past and stuck him between herself and Kagome. Then, they were off, soaring into the air to track down the demon Sakura.

//Perfect!// she thought, happily, glancing down over the sheer cliff. Her sharp hearing picked the sounds of voices and looked up, spotting them in the distance. //They'll walk right into my trap!//

"Sakura!" the persistent monk shouted at her as their transport--the huge tiger-like steed the huntress kept in her company--neared. "Return the necklace and surrender your shards of the Shikon jewel or prepare to be punished for your sins!"

"Come and get me, human man!" she called, tauntingly.

The tiger-beast landed and the huntress and monk dismounted, leaving the stunned but cute half-youkai with the children and woman. Both turned to face her. "Turn the shards and the necklace over to us and we won't have to kill you," the huntress hissed.

Sakura laughed despite herself. "Oh, come ON! A little girl in a body suit who can swing a big board and a full-grown man in a dress with a gold- plated stick versus me, the great warrior of Naraku? How dare you even ASSUME you could stand up to me? Kagura cannot even come close to becoming my equal."

The dark-haired man cracked a crude smile. "Funny, then, how we've met her and not you."

She scowled. "Shut up, you! I'LL show you who is more powerful!" With that said, she changed form, taking the shape of a great, winged, serpentine dragon, the act taking both of them by surprise. She grinned, baring her huge teeth, and the huntress flinched. "NOW I can PLAY with you foolish little people!" Her wings kicked into life, yanking her up into the air high above them, where she laughed before charging toward them, claws unsheathed and stretched for the soft human flesh.

The monk gulped. "THIS might be a problem!"

"NO KIDDING!" The two separated as she dived for them, barely missing the woman's leg and the man's left arm--purposely--as they scattered.

The huntress launched her boomerang at Sakura, but she merely dodged it and used her tail to bat it away, sending it flying into the forest. She laughed. "Silly, silly humans!"

The monk's little boy looked terrified as he sat with the girl Kagome, under the protection of she and the fire-beast. The dog-boy was still unable to move, though his keen eyes followed her motions as he lay against their pet's head.

The look on his little face gave her an idea. //Hmm...yes, that should suffice...//

The monk grasped the rosary twisted around his right arm and looked up at her, his eyes calculating her size versus the power of his cursed Kazaana, the hole in his palm, but she wouldn't let him get away with such an act. "Sakura, this is your last warning!" he cried.

She took a deep breath and grinned as he moved to snatch the blessed bead- necklace off and release the devastating power she had witnessed before, facing an older monk who had looked similar. As his fingers brushed the beads, she exhaled, loosing a wall of dark energy. Her grin widened as his eyes widened in shock and fear as he and the demon exterminator were both hurled into the trees with frightened cries. "That was simple enough," she cackled. Slowly, she lowered her eyes to the tiger, who growled dangerously and stepped backward, conscious passengers petrified with fear. Her eyes fell upon the girl. "Give me the fragment or you all die!"

She clutched onto the tiger's mane, holding the little one, Mikiro, behind her with one hand. "Back off, demon!" she exclaimed, but the bravery in her words was the only bravery she owned. She was just as afraid as the boy she harbored was. Her hand dug into the huge bag she carried with her, apparently searching for a weapon of some sort.

Sakura tsked and took another breath to blast the beast, the woman, the dog- boy and the child into the trees as well, but before she could exhale, the damned boomerang of the youkai-warrior shot from within the forest and smacked into her head, sending her reeling, dizzily, through the air. She cried out and quickly caught her balance, then shook her head, violently, regaining her sight in time to see both of the prior fighters standing ready to challenge her. Growling, she leered at the monk, who grasped his rosary again in warning. "You will live to regret her mistake."

The huntress looked surprised, fear crossing her face as she retrieved her weapon, but the look on his face changed from dangerous and warning to dangerous and inviting, as if daring her to try something. "Miroku--?!"

Sakura dived for him and he dodged her as she barreled past like a train, missing him intentionally. If she chased him enough, the task would be easily done. He was awfully spry for a man wearing a robe, but then again, she'd been counting on that--just like his father before him, he was a fighter, only this Miroku was quite a bit younger and much more determined. That would work in her favor.

He spun and flipped and dodged at a speed almost beyond any normal person, maneuvering expertly away from her sharp claws until he could do it no more, at which point he simply ducked and dodged. Finally, her front claws managed to catch the lower hem of his robe, cutting it and nicking the back of his right calf, at which point he tripped and fell to the ground.

However, instead of going for him, she snatched up his staff in her front claws and turned, launching it at the huntress, who was so stunned by the odd move that she couldn't evade it. It cracked into her chest with amazing force, knocking her to the ground with a gasp. Then, she turned and went for the tiger, who was too weighed-down to get out of the way.

"Kirara, look out!" the hanyou exclaimed.

A moment too late. Using her back claws, she ripped into the thing's side, tearing it shallowly but deep enough to hurt and stun the beast, then snatched up the woman and child, knocking the helpless kitsune to the ground. The tiger-beast collapsed in pain. Both Kagome and little Mikiro screamed in terror, but Sakura just grinned as she soared to the edge of the cliff. There, she snatched the girl's necklace with her back claw and threw her at the recovering huntress, slamming her to the ground again.

Miroku recovered in time to see the screaming boy in her grasp dangling over the edge of the cliff. "MIKIRO!"

"Can you fly, monk?" she demanded, hooking a talon in the back of his robe and shaking her claw.

He gasped. "NO! DON'T!"

She cackled and tossed the child into the air with all her might, sending him up a good distance with a shrill shriek, then shook the glittering jewel at him and headed off, flying fast and far. "Make the choice--the Shikon or your BRAT!" With a dark cackle, she soared away.

Miroku ran as fast as he could, the chaos and pain around him fading into the background as Mikiro came down, screaming in absolute terror. He skidded to the edge as the boy passed it and continued to fall.

Mikiro cried out to him as he passed, his little fingers barely missing the monk's. "FAAAATTTHHEEER!"

"I'm coming!" Without a thought, he jumped after him.

"Miroku!" Sango cried after him. "Oh no, he jumped!"

The monk reached for the boy as he fell, plummeting faster thanks to the weight difference between them, and in moment, he caught him, pulling him into his arms. "Hold onto me, Mikiro!" The boy clung on around his throat as Miroku reached upward toward the cliff's edge with his right hand, using his left to remove to rosary in a desperate attempt to save their lives. "Everyone up there get away!" He glared at his wrist before opening his hand. "Don't fail me, damn you--AIR-RIP!"

The curse didn't fail him, but gravity fought for the right to drag them to the rocky shore below, leaving them hanging in mid-air as the air-rip struggled to pull the stationary cliff-side into itself as it did with everything else. He'd hoped that the reaction was the same as that of two opposing magnets, a stronger and a weaker. The weaker magnet would be drawn to the more powerful one, and his curse was cooperating as the weaker magnet, proving his hypothesis. Thank gods.

But still, it didn't seem to be enough, and he had been using it a lot lately, once or twice a day thanks to all the fights and ambushes they had been in. The koketsu, the ice-snake, the youkai attack--all within a few days. Like a muscle, it was tired, and nothing like this had ever been staged before. //Please, please, please,// he thought, desperately, feeling the quivering boy in his arms as they jerked slowly and unstably upward, only to plummet again moments later. They were getting no where, and eventually, his arm would give out, as it always did when this weapon was overused. He had to do something--even if he died, his son HAD to survive!

Wait, his son?

His SON! The curse! "Mikiro!" he cried over the roaring of the force in his hand. "Your air-rip, can you use it?!"

"My WHAT?" the boy cried, staring at him with impossibly wide eyes.

Miroku sighed, aggravated, but kept his patience for the sake of both their lives. "The hole in your right hand--like mine! Do you know how to use it?!"

"It won't work the way yours does!"

"WHAT?!" Mikiro cringed and he calmed down as much as possible. "How DOES it work?"

"It makes stuff disappear if it goes in..."

Miroku blinked. "It's inactive?!"

"I guess so!"

//Oh great...// the monk thought, exhaustedly. His arm was starting to burn and he wondered if using it this much would make it grow. The thought was frightening, but--he had to save them. How to get it to work, how to get it to work...he himself could control his air-rip if he concentrated hard enough--that was what kept it from sucking everything in sight up when he removed the rosary...so maybe somehow Mikiro could will it to work.

But could the boy handle the stress? Miroku himself had been GIVEN a rosary the day of his birth to keep him from killing himself, and it had taken him YEARS to master it, even WITH help! This was a three-year-old genius, nothing more! He was a baby!

"Mikiro," he called to him. "I'm sorry, but you have to make it work! We will DIE if you DON'T!"

He winced as tears began to pour down his cheeks. "I can't! I don't know how to do it!"

"You have to want it to happen!" Miroku racked his mind for a way to explain how. Wanting it was the same as willing it, only it took more need, more desire...what would the boy want?

/'Mommy...I wish she was here.'/

HIS MOTHER! "Mikiro, you will NEVER see your mother again if we DIE here! YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT WORK!"

The boy gasped, then nodded, vigorously, leaning close to Miroku as they jerked down another few feet. He held him close with his free left arm as he removed the cotton bindings his little hand, allowing them to fall to the rocky waters of the raging river far below them. He held his right wrist braced and looked at his father, who nodded, quickly, then pointed it up at the cliff-side. He squinted his eyes, tears pouring down his cheeks. "What's the word?!"

"WHAT word?!" he demanded.

With a soft cry, his eyes snapped shut, and he screamed, "A-A-AIIIIIR- RIIIP!"

Miroku gasped as the dark energy exploded and created a vortex greater than even his own, sending them both rocketing up into the air from the force of the pull. They soared past the edge of the cliff and higher, but the bottled force died back, leaving them to fall again as he lost control of it. //Oh no!// Ignoring the fact that they were falling toward the edge of the ledge again to their deaths, he smacked the rosary over the boy's arm, fisting his own right hand and stopping the pull before it could kill anyone.

There was a roar and Kirara came shooting out to catch the two of them, injured but mobile, and quickly dumped herself and the two to the ground, where the others were waiting for them.

Everything seemed to fade into a dull buzz as Kagome and Sango flittered around the boy and his father, who felt everything grow dark as the pain and exhaustion overcame him. Before his arm could fall off or devour itself, he threaded his wrist through the rosary, twining it around it once before he lost all consciousness.

"Miroku!"

"Oh God, he fainted," Kagome sighed. He was sickeningly pale and his right arm was shaking violently, probably in shock from the overexertion, and Mikiro was practically clinging to his still body, looking no better. He resembled Buyo after listening to one of Souta's war video games. She moved to take him, but he whimpered and clung all the tighter.

Then, she saw it. Their right hands were bound together by the rosary, which was awkwardly twisted around both of their wrists, sealing the curses back in one fell swoop.

She sighed and patted Sango's shoulder, gesturing to her finding. "He's a smart one, all right."

"Yes, and that may have saved both their lives."

Inuyasha, who had been forced to watch the entire ordeal from a spot on the ground, finally managed to force his spellbound body into motion, crawling up on his hands and knees, eyes half-open and breaths ragged. "I-is Mikiro okay?"

"Yeah, thanks to his Dad," she sighed. He smiled, weakly, only to faint himself, merely a few feet from the quivering boy and his father. She smiled herself, albeit weakly. "I think we had better get to the nearest temple and get another rosary..."

Kirara, who had been lying nearby, groaned and shrunk back into her smaller form, and Sango quickly scooped her into her lap, using the skirt of her yukata to mop up some of the blood. Since she had been full-grown upon being injured, it had grown small with her, making it easier to tend to. "Hopefully there is one in the area. I'll go look around and see if I can't find a village somewhere around here--every village has a temple of some sort. Come on, girl." With a soft smile at the three men of the group, all of whom were now unconscious in one way or another--Mikiro had fallen asleep, she noticed--she headed off, grabbing her boomerang and slinging it over her shoulder on the way.

Sighing heavily, Kagome patted Mikiro's little head, then brushed Miroku's bangs from his face, noting that he looked neither disquieted nor comfortable lying there on the ground. With a sad smile, she looked off in the direction Sakura had gone. "We almost lost you guys today...and now Naraku practically has the Shikon jewel." She sighed. "I just hope he doesn't have the rest of it yet...if we can get just one piece, then we should be okay--if only for a little bit.

Xandra: Can you believe it? I updated. ^__^ Not so bad if I do say so myself. There's going to be a few more adventures before Miroku's predicted death.

Miroku: Do I have a choice in this matter? If so, I would prefer not to die.

Xandra: *holds up the Mallet of Doom* No. And hey, shut up over there. You should be proud, you're a hero.

Inuyasha: *messing with the bandage on his head from getting nailed with the stray ofuda* Hero my ass, he was supposed to stop the bad-guy and instead he stopped me.

Miroku: Well you should be happy. You were silent for a record fifteen minutes. *nods*

Inuyasha: Why I oughta--

Xandra: You OUGHTA shut UP, you macho morons.

Miroku: HEY, I happen to be VERY intelligent, thank you very much.

Inuyasha: Yeah, I'm not a moron! ^-_-^

Miroku: *smirks* Well...

Inuyasha: Shut up, cross-dresser.

Miroku: Where did THAT statement come from? //O_o\\<

Xandra: Hee hee! My other story, 'Shrinking!' It's his favorite insult for you in that.

Miroku: //~_~\\< I don't appreciate being called a cross-dresser!

Inuyasha: You KNOW it's true--I saw your underwear when you fell off the cliff.

Miroku: All right, THAT does it. *tackles him*

Xandra: *smirks* Yep, that's what you did when he said it, too. *turns to the readers as the 'manly' bishy-boys go rolling across the floor, pulling each other's hair and swearing* If you're bored, check out my other Inuyasha fic, 'Shrinking!' and pass my stuff around, man. If all else fails, REVIEW! Actually, review anyway! (((^_^))) Thanx for reading.