Shrinking! – Part Two: Babysitting

“An OLD woman!”

“Oh super.”

Kagome whacked Inuyasha in the back of the head, then shoved both ‘boys’ down in front of Kaede, who made quick work of diagnosing them.

“They have indeed regressed to a younger age.”

“How old are they?” Sango asked.

“By human years, I would assume them to be fifteen and thirteen years of age, Miroku being the elder of the two.”

“She knows my name too!” the monk exclaimed. “How fascinating!”

Sango ignored him and nodded, but Kagome didn’t accept it. “Wait! I thought Inuyasha was at LEAST sixty! He was asleep for fifty years before I got here, right? Why did he age at all?”

“HEY!” Inuyasha shouted, suddenly. “HOW do YOU know MY name, wench?”

“Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?!” the ex-priestess shouted at him. “You wanna kiss the floor, you can KEEP talkin’!”

He stopped, but it didn’t prevent the inevitable glare she had expected to receive.

Kaede nodded, tolerantly, ignoring Inuyasha. “My sister Kikyou put him to sleep, and he did not age, merely sat as if frozen in time. He was seventeen years at that date, and he remains. Judging by his looks, I would say he had regressed four years, making him at least thirteen years presently. Need I elaborate further?”

“No, I get it,” Kagome sighed. “So, we have two squirts to babysit?”

“If you wish to say it in such a manor,” the priestess said. “However, be ye warned that this may not be the end of their regression. The harpy that cast this upon them was most likely planning on using it to restore her own youth, and for a beast such as that, it would have to be very potent. The two inhaled a good amount, and judging by the effects, I would say that even a particle would do enough for one of the demon’s kind. That would mean that these effects may be ongoing, which in turn means further regression.”

“But if they regress too far, they’ll cease to be!” Sango objected.

Kaede nodded. “Master Shinji is attempting to find or make an antidote, and if all else fails, the harpy will need to be tracked down and asked where she obtained the dust, and the sorcerer that made it will assist us in reversing it. Until then, they will have to be protected and kept from danger, especially if the reverse aging does not cease.”

Kagome looked at the two boys, who exchanged glances. Miroku had spent the last few minutes playing with his rosary while Inuyasha messed with the non- transformed Tetsusaiga. She sighed. “So they don’t know who they are now, do they?”

“Nay, they know only what they knew at these ages, which is, regrettably, not as much as they would need to know to be safe. They must be catered to at all times, or they may very well die.”

“Hey, old lady,” Inuyasha said, suddenly, glaring at her. He threw a thumb toward his chest, lifting his chin cockily. “*I* can take care of myself, but THIS guy probably couldn’t take care of a kitten.”

“Neither could you,” Miroku retorted, “You’d probably eat it.”

“WHAT was THAT?!”

“ENOUGH!” Kagome yelled. They stopped, grudgingly, and she turned back to Kaede. “Would it be safer to take them back to my time? You know, to keep them out of harm’s way?”

“Perhaps. It all depends if they deteriorate any further. Then it may become necessary.”

“Got’cha.” Kagome stood, then grabbed Inuyasha’s ear and pulled him to his feet, whining and grumbling angrily. “C’mon, Inuyasha.”

“I still wanna know how the hell you know my name.”

“Hey, watch your mouth, twerp.” It was so weird yelling at Inuyasha for once, and it was even weirder yelling at him like he was a kid...which, technically, he was...but still! It was weird! For once, she had the upper hand, and he could do very little about it. It was sorta cool.

But still weird.

“Shippo, stay here with Kaede and help out with that cure as much as possible,” she said, glancing at the brat at her side, “You’ll be safer here.”

“No problem!” the fox-child exclaimed.

They left the hut and headed off out into the open field.

“Do I HAVE to stand so close to this cross-dresser?” Inuyasha screeched.

Miroku smirked, calmly. “You’re one to poke fun. I may be wearing a ‘dress,’ but at least I don’t have dog ears, a big mouth and urine-colored eyes.”

“Oh, that does it. You are SO dead.” Inuyasha tackled the young monk.

Sango looked at Kagome and sighed, then shook her head and easily pulled the struggling men--er...boys--away from each other and to their feet, Miroku by the ponytail and Inuyasha by his mane. They both wailed, apparently terrified and amazed at her strength. “Now, now, no fighting. If anyone will be beating anyone, it will be me.”

“What kind of woman IS she?!” the hanyou wailed.

Miroku’s eyes suddenly went starry and he clasped his hands before himself, sighing airily. “A perfect one...what a woman.”

Sango sighed and dropped him with an ‘oof!’ on his part, then dropped Inuyasha as he began to snicker. She sweatdropped. “Either they grow up or grow down, but if they stay this way, I will kill them both.”

“What are you gonna do, WOMAN?” the dog-boy demanded. “Strangle me with your pretty pink HAIR RIBBON? HA!”

Sango’s eye twitched and she reached back over her shoulder for the Hiraikotsu.

“I’d suggest taking that back,” Miroku whispered. “She may be pretty when she’s angry, but that beauty may not be healthy to YOU.”

“Aww, I’m not scared of HER!”

Kagome grabbed Sango’s skirt before she could so much as get a good swing at him. “Wait, allow me! SIT boy!”

“ACK!” THUMP.

Miroku burst out laughing, but Sango quickly fixed that. “Unless YOU’D like one of those, I suggest you stop.”

The monk blinked. “Do you have another?”

“Several,” she lied. “And unless YOU’D like to wear one, shut up.”

He didn’t snicker again.

Inuyasha got up, scowling all the way, and spat dirt in Miroku’s hair. The young monk instantly leapt on him. They were at it again!

“Get dirt on ME, will you?! I’ll show YOU, you stupid, miserable, dog-eared FREAK!”

“Freak? You want a freak?! I’LL show you a freak, cross-dresser!”

“PISS-EYES!”

“SUCK UP!”

“Oh NOW you pushed it! You’ve been a bad dog, so prepare to get your mangy ass STOMPED!”

“TRY IT, I DARE YOU!”

//Geez,// Kagome thought as Sango pulled them apart again. //We’re not even fifty feet from Kaede’s and they’re already more annoying than Souta. They get any smaller and I WILL take them home with me, just so HE can keep them company!//

****

They didn’t stray too far from Kaede’s village, staying in the main vicinity in the surrounding forest just in case. Shippo could find them that way if the doctor found a cure.

The younger version of Miroku seemed quite taken with Sango, because he wouldn’t stop asking her questions, some pretty simple like how she does her hair, and some very personal, like how heavy her breasts are and if he could weigh them for her for the record! He finally got slapped. And enjoyed it. That started a whole new line of questions, like how she was so strong and still so beautiful and where she’d learned to hit like that, with such powerful grace. He was less charming now, and more persistent, and a LOT less subtle.

As for Inuyasha, he was no where near as entertaining. He would scowl and scoff as usual, but he was more annoying than anything else. He shouted when he didn’t get his way, threw tantrums and hurt the nearby flora, and it had gotten to the point that she’d had to take the Tetsusaiga from him because he was cutting things up. He’d even attacked Miroku with it, but he’d been lucky, because Sango had given him his staff only minutes before the latest fit, so he’d blocked it. Kagome had taken the weapon away, and Inuyasha had suffered himself to be beaten stupid with the monk’s staff. It was a good thing Shippo wasn’t around, or he might have EATEN him!

Now it was dinnertime, and Kagome glared at him as he stared into the bowl of ramen. “Why aren’t you eating it?” she asked, testily.

He raised an eyebrow, poking into the saucer with his finger. “You’re feeding me worms!”

“They’re noodles, you twit,” Miroku said from Sango’s other side. He would NOT leave her alone. He took another mouthful of the supposed worms and gulped it down almost as gracefully as normal, excluding the juice on his face. “And they’re very good. You should thank Lady Kagome for making them for the likes of you, though I personally think you’re not worth the effort.”

The hanyou glared over at him. “WHAT did you just call me?”

“A twit,” he replied, as if it weren’t an insult. “We’re awfully single- minded, aren’t we?”

Sango palmed Inuyasha’s forehead to keep him where he was and away from Miroku. Kagome assumed that it was for two reasons: she was sick of the fighting and she didn’t want him to hurt the kid. Miroku may have been clever and a bit older, but Inuyasha was strong and pretty dense. That was dangerous. “Back off or you’ll get sat again.”

He scowled. “Stupid woman with the boomerang,” he hissed. “You should stay out of this. It’s between men.”

“I don’t see any around,” she retorted, using her right hand to take up some more noodles from the bowl in her lap with her chopsticks while holding the annoying thirteen-year-old at bay with the left.

“WHY YOU--!”

Miroku had no problem with this, having yet to develop that stupid male self-pride that Inuyasha had been born with. Normally, he would have politely objected, but he just didn’t care! He kept eating. Either he was more mature or less interested in the conversation.

Inuyasha plopped down with his bowl and looked up at Kagome, who was staring expectantly at him. “What do YOU want?” he asked, blushing at her proximity.

She leaned forward on her hands from her kneeling position. “Eat already! You’ll like it, I’m sure!”

“I like it,” Miroku hissed. “Then again, I am cultured, while that BEAST over there--” But Sango stopped his verbal onslaught with a single finger, pointing to him.

“Don’t bother, it’s not worth it.”

“You’re right, of course, Lady Sango!” he agreed, willingly, grinning up at her. “How silly of me to waste my words on him!” He stuck his tongue out at the other boy when she went back to her food.

“Eat, Inuyasha,” Kagome insisted.

With a sigh, he looked at the bowl, then dug a clawed hand into it and shoved a handful of noodles unceremoniously into his mouth. “Dere,” he said through the mouthful.

The young would-be monk scowled with distaste. “Use your chopsticks, cretin.”

“I’ll use ‘em all right if you call me another name I don’t understand!” Inuyasha shouted, spraying noodles into the fire. He swallowed the rest of them, then glared at him. “I’ll take your eyes out with ‘em!”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Inuyasha suddenly paused and looked at the bowl. “They aren’t TOO bad, I guess,” he said, suddenly. “Good food, woman.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she sighed. “And the name is Kagome, not woman.”

“Fine, whatever. Got any more of these noodle things?”

She sighed and served him some more from the pot. “There.”

He moved to dig his claws into it again, but Miroku stopped him.

“Oh, I can’t stand it anymore!” he exclaimed, setting his bowl aside. He got up and dusted his robes off, then crossed the distance between he and Inuyasha and knelt, picking up the discarded chopsticks. “Give me your right hand.”

“You touch me, Girl, and I’ll KILL you.”

“Truce, truce, for JUST a second,” the monk said, simply. He took Inuyasha’s dripping hand by the wrist and winced, then forced him to wipe it on his own pants and started setting up the chopsticks in his hand. “This goes here, and this you hold like this, then do this and they work, see?”

The hanyou blinked. “Nope.”

Miroku sighed, shaking his head, then took them from him and showed him the hand position. Then, he replaced them in the other’s hand and placed them correctly. “See, you move this one to grab food.”

“Sticks? Isn’t that worse than using your hands?”

“Maybe, but it’s less messy.”

“Oh.”

Kagome smiled at Sango slightly, but her smile turned to a frown quickly as soon as it happened.

“Oh, I see...they work like...this!” Inuyasha attacked Miroku’s face with the chopsticks.

“ACK!” He smacked them away. “I was TRYING to teach you, you ignorant whelp!”

The hanyou scowled. “I don’t WANT your help, so get away or else I’ll pull your eyes out and add them to this necklace here.”

Miroku growled and rolled his right sleeve up as Inuyasha started to cackle at him. “Why...you...dirty...mutt...”

“MUTT?! HOW DARE YOU!”

Sango quickly interceded, almost picking the ex-monk up. She pulled him away before he could hit the dog-demon. “Monks don’t fight!” she cried as the boy attempted to rip from her grasp. “They’re pacifists! They don’t fight!”

He stopped cold. Earlier in the day, Miroku had spent a good long time talking about how he was aspiring to become a monk. He thought it was an honorable thing, and that he had a reputation to build, therefore he had to help people and be polite, good and useful. He had nearly killed Inuyasha for putting a notch in his staff with the Tetsusaiga, because the ‘Shakujou’ was sacred and not to be touched by the unworthy or damaged. He’d told them about everything, about how he was sad he had to cut all his hair off, about how proud he was to become a servant of the gods, and about how it made him feel bad that he’d never have a wife as pretty as Sango. Needless to say, reminding him of his chivalry was the best way to stop a fight, now. “Then I mustn’t fight,” he said, flatly, folding his arms within the sleeves of his robe. “I’m much too benevolent to fight for no reason. I would disgrace my title.”

“You act like being a MONK is SOOOO cool,” Inuyasha spat at him. Miroku’s calm eyes suddenly narrowed and caught fire.

“It IS.”

“Is not. You get to wear a dress, shave your head and run around ‘blessing’ people. You can never have kids, or a family, all you get to do is hang out with old men and be smart. Big whoop.”

Sango scooted away from the boy as his head slowly rotated to stare at the hanyou.

Kagome jumped. The look in his eyes was scary. “Inuyasha, maybe you should stop...” she whispered.

He folded his arms, snorting indignantly. “I won’t stop! He’s so damn excited about nothing at all! He’s going to grow up to be a bald, smart man in a dress whose never had sex and that makes him happy! He’s stupid and I pity him!”

Miroku crushed his empty bowl with his bare hands, his eyes slitted like a snake’s and his teeth bared. He growled to himself, slowly turning around to look at Inuyasha with Kagome’s bowl-shards in his fists. “You...pity...me...?” he asked, his voice lilting slightly.

“Yeah, I pity you,” he agreed. Then, he looked up at Miroku and very visibly paled. He would come to regret ever saying those words.

The young monk drops the crushed chunks of the ceramic bowl, having snapped the chopsticks, seething. Without another word, he leapt on the other boy with a cry that sounded demonic, ripping into his kimono with his nails and sending them tumbling across the ground. He pinned him to the grass before either Sango or Kagome could move and started beating his head into it, holding his throat. “How DARE you?!” he demanded.

“Miroku!” Sango exclaimed, hurrying to pry him off. Kagome aided her, but for the life of them, they could NOT get him to let go if Inuyasha’s throat. “MIROKU! LET HIM GO!”

“NO!” He bucked and the girls lost their grips, falling backward into a heap as he kept on beating the dog-demon. Fists, elbows, the ground, he was using everything to hurt him, and Inuyasha looked flat-out terrified. Macho or not, he was only a kid, and he had a right to be scared. Miroku was smashing him! “BECOMING A MONK IS AN HONORABLE THING!” he shouted. “AND I WILL BECOME ONE NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY! I WILL BECOME A MONK, I WILL HELP PEOPLE, I WILL BE A GOOD MAN AND I WILL LIVE THE REST OF MY MISERABLE, CURSED LIFE HAPPY! HAPPY! YOU HEAR ME DOWN THERE, *I WILL BE HAPPY*!”

Kagome gasped, covering her mouth. The air-rip! She had completely forgotten, with the situation being as it was! //I’ve always wondered how he thought of it as a kid,// she thought amazed. “Miroku...”

He suddenly burst into tears and fell to the ground, burying his face in his hands and curling into a ball. “I don’t want to die!” he cried, hysterically.

Inuyasha scrambled away and Sango took his place, kneeling near the broken young man. The hanyou hid behind Kagome. “He’s nuts!”

“No,” the girl sighed, shaking her head. “He’s human.” A sad smile pulled at her lips. “I keep forgetting that.”

“What do you mean ‘he’s human’?” Inuyasha asked. “He’s insane! He attacks me then starts to cry! What’s the deal?!”

She sighed as Sango took him into her arms like a baby, cradling his head against her chest. “Pay attention and maybe you’ll learn.”

“I want to be alive!” Miroku wailed, pitifully, clinging to Sango’s slight form. “I want to have children and a wife! I don’t want to fight Naraku and I don’t want to die! I just want to be normal!”

The huntress nodded, sighing. “I know...I know,” she whispered, stroking his hair tenderly.

“Why’s he gonna die?” Inuyasha asked, looking confused.

“He has a curse on his hand,” Kagome whispered into his ear. “It’s like a black hole that will get bigger and bigger until it sucks him in.”

The hanyou blinked. “Wow...really?” She nodded and he blinked again. “Geez...”

“I don’t want to die,” Miroku repeated, softly, crying into her shoulder. “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die...”

****

Long after the boys had passed out, neither of the girls could sleep. They sat together in front of the fire, musing privately about the situation they were in.

Sango broke the long span of silence. “I never knew he was afraid of his fate...” she whispered, sadly.

“Wouldn’t YOU be?” Kagome asked. She nodded and the ex-priestess sighed, looking into the fire with a frown on her face. “But yeah, I get what you mean...he’s good at hiding his feelings...to think, he probably feels like that when he’s all grown up, too.”

“Yeah...” Her sadness was more than evident on her face. Kagome could sympathize. The way he’d just exploded like that out of no where...he really just wanted to live like any other kid...to be able to do things without wondering if his last moment was waiting only seconds away. It was so sad...even Inuyasha had felt bad for him, and he was a brat!

The younger girl looked at the sleeping pair only a few feet away, sharing the huge blanket she’d packed and lying back to back to keep from having to look at each other. Miroku had calmed down, but afterward he hadn’t felt well, so Inuyasha had offered him the blanket to have for himself...out of the kindness of his own black little heart. The monk-in-training hadn’t been ready to accept that, though, chivalrous as he was, so they’d agreed to split it, and there they were. All this trouble...and it was probably just the beginning. If they got younger, how would they handle an outburst like that? At ten? Or five, even? How do you explain to a five-year-old that they’re going to die because a demon hated one of their ancestors?

“I just hope they don’t get any smaller,” Sango sighed, as if reading her thoughts. Kagome nodded her agreement and they fell once again into silence.

But the silence was short-lived.

There was an explosion of noise from within the forest, a rolling ‘thump- thump-thump,’ accompanied by a roar so ferocious and jarring that the trees shuddered, and both boys leapt awake, clinging to their respective girls for protection. Trees fell, brush snapped and they all managed to get clear just as a horrid beast burst into the clearing. It was unnamable, with a lion’s face, three pairs of huge, hairy legs and a spiky shell, a dragon’s tail hanging out the back. It was an ugly sucker, and it was huge, standing taller than Sango on all fours--er, sixes!

“What’s that?” Inuyasha wailed. “It’s no demon!”

“I...have...no...clue...” Kagome slowly backed away, taking the hanyou with her, as the thing stared at them, narrow golden eyes peering at its prey. It hadn’t occurred to her that their main warriors were Miroku and Inuyasha...who were now teenagers without a hint of battle training. Kaede had warned them about this kind of thing!

“Damn!” Miroku swore.

Sango glared down at him. “Watch your mouth!”

“I can’t remember the name! I studied this kind of thing, it’s a chimerical monster!”

“No kidding,” Kagome said, softly.

The older boy placed a hand against either side of his head, closing his eyes. “Lion’s head, ridged carapace, reptilian tail, bear’s limbs...a tarasque! That’s right!”

The exterminator reached back over her shoulder, pulling her boomerang off her back to hold it at her side, pushing Miroku behind her. “Good to know its name, how do we fight it?”

“Uh...well...” He blushed. “I forgot that part.”

Inuyasha sighed. “Oh super. I thought you were supposed to be smart, dress- boy!”

“I’m smarter than YOU’LL ever be!”

“HEY! TAKE IT BACK!”

Kagome smacked Inuyasha upside the head. “Shut up, we have more important things to worry about!”

The tarasque closed in on them, growling, and it was a wonder it moved with all those legs sticking out. There were holes in the carapace for them to move. Those were the most likely places to be weak.

Sango read her mind again. “We have to get at the open holes, to the tender areas, and pierce the soft spots!”

Inuyasha unsheathed the rusted Tetsusaiga and held it up. “I dunno how to use this, but I guess I can try.” He ran at the creature, which froze and stared at the red-clad teen.

“Inuyasha!” Kagome called after him. “Stop! Come back!”

He leapt into the air and brought the blade down in its face. “HIE-YA!” THWACK.

The others sweatdropped as the hanyou blinked and the tarasque blinked back. He’d smacked it in the nose with the flat edge of the blade. “Use the sharp side, you idiot!” Miroku yelled.

The beast shook Inuyasha off its face, then lifted a huge foot to step on him. “EEEP!”

“Ah, damn it!” Miroku ran lightning speed, grabbing his fallen staff and slamming it against the bottom of the thing’s foot. It recoiled and stepped back far enough that he managed to kick the dog-boy out of the way. “Hey, ugly!” he cried, waving his arms dramatically, “Come and get me!” He stuck his tongue out at it.

This only angered it, and it reared up to crush him, roaring loudly, but the young ex-monk wouldn’t be moved. Inuyasha managed to get back to the girls because of the other’s distraction.

Miroku backed off as its mass slammed against the ground inches from him, then turned his staff upside-down and glared at it. “Remember, you made me do this!” As it brought its head down to snap him up with its huge jaws, he leapt up and stabbed it right in the eye.

It screamed, loudly, and he took off to hide behind Sango, who launched the Hiraikotsu at it the moment the boy was clear. The huge weapon cracked against the shell’s tail end, knocking it forward so its head sunk into the chamber. “Kagome, the sword!”

She blinked, then took up the untransformed Tetsusaiga and swallowed, hard. //I can’t believe I’m gonna do this...in a skirt, nonetheless!// As the tarasque roared in pain and bucked about, trying to force its head out of the hole in its carapace, she scampered beneath it to find a soft spot. From what she knew about things like this, you had to stab in the leg-holes where it was tender and hope to get at a vital organ. //I’ve been good, God, please don’t let me get squished!//

As it freed its ugly head, Sango quickly sent the boys to make nuisances of themselves to the dangerous creature while Kagome searched for a way to wedge the sword into its shell without getting crushed under one of six hairy, clawed feet. It was now missing an eye and it had two targets to choose from, so she had a better chance to get somewhere, but that didn’t mean it was easy!

Inuyasha bounced here and there around its head and whacked it with the Tetsusaiga’s sheath, annoying it to no end, while Miroku prodded at its face with his staff, both boys taunting it loudly with endless rude exclamations. They were using their annoying tendencies as weapons!

“C’mon, cat-face! Can’t reach me? C’mon!”

“Oh, did that hurt?” Miroku asked as he cracked it in its injured eye with the upper half of his staff, wielding it like a tennis racket. “I’m sorry! How about THIS?”

The thing kept trying to eat the twin troublemakers, but every time it turned for one, the other did something to grab its attention. Meanwhile, the huntress launched a rope weighed at either end at its back feet, tying them together and bringing it down far enough for the worried girl to attack it.

Kagome took a deep breath, “Here goes...” then drove the rusted blade up into one of the leg-holes.

The tarasque screamed and leapt into the air, ripping the hilt of the katana out of her grasp, and she barely had enough time to get out of the way before it began to slam on the ground, disoriented and in pain. She scrambled back and Sango unleashed her boomerang again, sending it spiraling into its head with a deadly crack. The beast fell down with a groan and stopped moving.

They all sighed, relieved that the battle was over.

“Whew!” Kagome exclaimed. “That was close!”

“Did we just beat a monster?” Inuyasha asked, blinking.

She nodded. “Yep, we did it! We make a pretty good team, eh, midget?” She patted his head. He tried to scowl, but it was a weak attempt and the expression quickly turned into a pout. She giggled.

Miroku inspected his staff, then sighed. “It isn’t damaged...thank gods...”

Sango retrieved her fallen weapon and strapped it to her back again, then glanced around, grabbing her pack from the ground. “We had better go talk to Kaede about getting to your time, Kagome.”

“Yeah! That was WAY too close.”

Inuyasha scowled at his bare feet. “I’m stayin’ right here.”

“Why?” Kagome asked.

He glared at her, pointing at the unconscious tarasque. “’Cause you stuck my crappy sword in that thing and I want it back!” He held the sheath up, as if using it as proof of her offense.

She glared back. “Hey, I saved your life, you ungrateful brat!”

“I woulda been just fine if Mr. Cross-dresser here hadn’t messed it up! I was about to rip that ugly thing up!”

Miroku scoffed, then turned his back on the hanyou, folding his arms and lifting his chin a bit, haughtily. “Yeah, you were doing a great job of ripping it up, screaming on the ground.”

“Why you stupid girl--!”

“I AM NOT A GIRL, YOU PISS-EYED MUTT!”

Sango grabbed the ex-monk around his waist and lifted him clear before he could attack Inuyasha, and Kagome managed to catch his ear before he could go after Miroku. Both boys complained as they were carted back to the village, leaving the beast behind to doze with a huge knot on its head.

Little did they know that they were being watched from high above...and that the spy was VERY unhappy.

****

To Be Continued

Xandra: I updated! Wow, huh? Ideas for young mischief are welcome!