A screaming infant was placed in the young monk’s arms.  “What of the mother?  Is she all right?” he asked eagerly.

“She is dead,” the midwife stated.

The monk’s eyes flickered with remorse as he clutched the child closer to his chest.  “So… this little one has no one… except me.”

“The father should come forth and claim him.  It’s the honorable thing to do.”

The monk nodded.  “I shall.”  He passed the surprised midwife his child.  “But first…”

“But you’re a monk!”

“Yes, I am.  Now if you’ll excuse me a moment… I need to attend to her last rites.”  He swept passed her and entered the small hovel of a hut.  The air was hot and thick with the smell of blood.  He knelt beside the woman’s still form.  She had traded her life for another.  “Please forgive me,” he whispered.  He gently touched her forehead, still damp from her hard labor.  He crouched on the hard, dirty ground, resting his head on her chest in a brief moment of unrepressed familiarity.  “I am so sorry… Please forgive me.”  His lips touched hers for the last time.  He sat up and wiped away the tears in his eyes.  He fumbled with his prayer beads.  

^.~

Only a few years had passed and the monk already felt like an old man.  His hand ached constantly.  The pain in his hand barely compared with the ache in his heart.  She was dead… the only woman he had ever loved.  Each day he watched the child grow… her child.  Everything about the child reminded him of her.  Her smile… her laughter… all were housed within this little miracle.  Monks weren’t supposed to feel pleasures of the flesh, but he needed an heir.  He wasn’t prepared for what he received from the tiny person that shared his life.

“Father!” the boy cried, vaulting into the monk’s arms, trusting that loving arms would catch him.

The monk smiled at the child.  “You must be careful, Miroku.”

The boy pouted cutely.  “Yes father.”

The monk smiled at his son’s grasp of charm.  “What did Master Mushin teach you while I was in meditation?”

“I learned that Buddha is like a fine sake.”

“Miroku!”

“Well, he DID teach me that.”

The monk shook his head.  “Don’t let that corrupt monk get you into alcohol, boy.”

“I didn’t taste it,” the boy responded with a small pout.

The monk smiled at his child.  He tickled the boy’s ribs lightly and lifted him in his arms as the child laughed.  He carried his son out to his favorite meditation spot.  The landscape rose up and around them.  He sat on a rock with Miroku safe in his lap.  Around them butterflies danced above grass, hissing in the breeze.  The land fell away into a rocky gorge and wild water.  “I leave you with a heavy burden, my son.”

Miroku stared thoughtfully at his father’s right hand and compared it to his own unblemished palm.  “Are you really going to die?”

“If that is what is planned for me, yes.”

“I don’t want you to go!” the boy cried, turning to catch at his father’s robes.  “Don’t leave me, papa…”

Warm arms encircled the child’s back.  “It’s something completely out of my power.”

“Can’t you try?  Don’t you want to be with me?”

“Miroku… I have been honored to be your father in this short life.  But I knew it was a short life…  I pray that you will have more time to love your children and teach them.”

The child stared at him, his brown eyes heavy with tears.  “You’ll leave me alone?”

“Oh, Miroku…” the monk whispered, tenderly wiping away the boy’s tears.  “I’ll always be with you.  Your mother and I… Just quiet your mind like I taught you and listen.  You’ll hear us.”

^.~

“Good, now lift the staff a little higher,” Mushin instructed.

Miroku bit his lip in concentration.  The hot summer air clung to his skin, making him feel sticky.  He quieted his mind, raised his staff and… “Father!”  The staff clattered to the ground with a crash.

“Miroku?” the old master stared at him in concern.

Miroku paused for a moment, letting his thoughts assemble.  He felt a slight breeze and turned to run towards the source.  He ran out the door and saw a swirling vortex of energy.  A man stood in the middle.  “Father!” 

“Don’t go, Miroku!” Mushin panted, running behind him.

The vortex seemed to call out to Miroku to join with it… follow his father.  He raced towards it.  “Father!”

“Your father’s void will suck you in too!”

He didn’t care.  He couldn’t be left behind.  He didn’t want to be alone without father.  Father was in pain… he needed Miroku.  “Father!”

The ground before him exploded out and then imploded back in on itself in swirling mass of energy.  In an instant there was a clap of something like thunder and nothing was there.  Only a crater remained without a hint of dust.  

Mushin rushed forward and wrapped beads around Miroku’s right hand.

“What are you doing?” the child cried.

“Your air rip will form shortly.  Keep these on.”

Miroku stared at the beads that crisscrossed his palm, too shocked to say or do anything more.

^.~

“Are you paying attention?”

“Yeah, yeah…” Miroku said, absently playing with earrings in his newly pierced ears.

“You aren’t.”

“Neither are you,” the young monk responded.  “You repeated that parable at least three times in the past ten minutes and you changed the monk’s name.  You called him ‘magical monkey boy’ the last time you told it.”

Mushin took a swig from his jar.  “Point, hit.”

“The big bad monkey…”

“All right.”

“Flying monkey man…”

“I get it.”

“Super monkey in the tree, stealing all the peaches…”

“Miroku.”

Miroku smiled softly.

“Are you really going, boy?” the old monk asked him.  “Can’t you stay?”

“I can’t just sit around here and meditate my whole life.  I have to get out there are make a difference.”

“So much like your old man…”

“And if I don’t succeed, I have to find myself a woman…”

“So very much like your old man…”

Miroku frowned a moment in thought.  “How does one get a woman?”

“I hear flattery and honesty work.  If not that, then a good fondle.”

“Really?” Miroku asked with wide eyes.

Mushin shrugged.  “How should I know?  I took a vow of celibacy.”

“You’re a lot of help…” Miroku mumbled as he stood.

“Miroku…”

The boy turned and looked at Mushin.

“You are still so young.  Take care of yourself out there.  And never be too proud to come home.”

Miroku smiled and waved as he left.

^.~

The girl struggled with a large bucket of water.  She was too small and young to be carrying such a large bucket.  Water sloshed over the sides, soaking her.  

Miroku looked up from where he sat, focusing his mind for the exorcisms.  The tiny girl with the bucket made him feel sad and lonely.  He stood and walked over to her.  “I’ll carry that for you.”

The girl looked up at him with surprise and something close to fear.  

“Don’t be afraid… I won’t hurt you,” he said, reaching out for her bucket.  She allowed him to take it and followed as he carried it to the kitchen.  He emptied it out in the cistern.  “Do you need more?” he asked.  

She nodded at him.

He smiled and walked back out the way he came, to the well.  “My name is Miroku, What’s yours?”

“Koharu…” she said quietly, watching him work for her.  

He glanced back at her and gave a slight frown.  “Are you ok?  You don’t look well.”

“I’m just… my stomach hurts, Miroku-sama.”

“Are you hungry?”

The girl nodded.  

He smiled and reached into his robe, pulling out a bit of food.  “Here, eat this.”

The girl took it shyly and followed as Miroku went back to the kitchen to dump the water.  

Miroku wiped his hands on his robe.  “That should do for now… shall we go sit?”

The girl nodded eagerly and followed him back outside, plopping down beside him on a grassy hillside.  She ate the food he gave her with great relish. 

“I’ll bring you more tomorrow if you want…” he said, smiling at her.

Koharu nodded shyly.

Miroku leaned his elbows in his knees.  “Do they ever feed you?”  

Koharu swallowed a bit of rice.  “When I do my work well… they let me have the scraps from the table.”

Miroku frowned, sadness filling his eyes.  “That’s not right.”

“I need to earn my keep… that I should be grateful for the roof over my head.”

“Koharu!” a man’s voice called from the house.  

Koharu scrambled to her feet and Miroku followed.  

“Where have you been?” Aburachouja-sama demanded.

Before Koharu could find her voice, Miroku jumped in.  “She was with me.  I need an assistant for my exorcism.”

Aburachouja-sama gave the monk an appraising look.  “A little young for that, aren’t you?”

“I assure you, I learned from the best.”

“I’m sure you did…” Aburachouja-sama said with a small smirk.  “You may have the girl’s complete services for as long as you are here.”

“Thank you…” Miroku said, wondering why the whole conversation sounded strange.  “Now if you’ll excuse us…” he took Koharu’s hand and walked with her away from the house.

^.~

“So… your parents died in war?” Miroku asked as he prepared another incense ball.

Koharu nodded and ate another dumpling.  “What about your parents?” she asked with her mouth full of food.
  
“My mother died when I was born…”

“And your father?”

Miroku stopped his work and stared at his right hand.  “The void got him.”

“Void?”

“My family line has a curse.  We’ll all be taken by the void in our hand unless we defeat a demon named Naraku.”

“You have a void?”

“Yes,” he said reshaping his incense ball.  

“Does that mean you’ll be taken?”

He looked at her.  “Unless I can defeat him.”

“I don’t want you to be taken.”

Miroku smiled.  “Thank you.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

He stared at her thoughtfully.  What had Mushin said?  Be honest.  He took her hands.  “When you grow up will you give me a child?”

“I’ll do anything for you.”

Miroku smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.  He hugged the girl to himself.  “Someday I’ll take you away from this terrible place and you’ll never be hungry or unhappy again.”

^.~

He was no longer so naïve.  A couple of years had brought him through puberty.  His body seemed foreign to him.  It had urges and desires he didn’t understand.  He was no longer the innocent child who cried over his father.  He was on the edge of manhood.  Women threw themselves at him and he was confused.  He asked them to give him an heir and they all giggled or laughed at him.  Sometimes they would slap him.  It was nothing like when he was with Koharu.  

He understood now what Aburachouja had insinuated.  He understood all the innuendos.  It was amazing what men would say if you gave them a few cups of sake.  At first he had been shocked, but then he started absorbing it.  He had to find a woman someday, so he might as well learn all he could from the other men.  He was fascinated with their stories of conquest, even though something nagged at the back of his mind.

His father had spoken very rarely of his mother, except to say how wonderful she was.  

Mushin’s tongue was easily loosened with sake.  He knew from the old monk that she had been a lady of the court on the run.  Because it would have meant her death to be caught, he tucked her away in a small village.  She died giving birth to him.  His father had taken him back to his master after he buried her.  “It was a damn shame.  He was never the same after that… his womanizing days were over for good once he met your mother.”

Was Miroku a womanizer?  Mushin would often comment on how much he was like his father and grandfather.  Would he ever meet a woman that would change him forever as his mother had his father?  It was hard to believe that as the geishas all hung on him.  Not one of them held the spark he wanted.  They all cooed and fondled, but there needed to be something more… something lasting.  This was the nagging feeling.  He needed something more than one night… he needed someone he could trust and have commitment from.

^.~  

He stopped for a moment, wondering which way to go.  Years on the road, blindly searching, made him tired.  He was no closer to finding a cure to his curse than when he started.  

Something in the sky caught his attention.  Bright light radiated out and a sense of dread crossed his heart.  Something landed at his feet with a small “tink.”  He picked it up.  “Shard…” he breathed.  His eyes watched as last bits of shard went their separate ways.  “Shit…” he breathed.  This was not good.  He had to act.

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