Warnings: Complete crack and existentialism. Tread waters carefully.
In a place that really wasn't a place because the author was too lazy to establish a setting, the narration began. In this world, which thus far was pretty dull, our characters appeared, quite literally. From the huge mouth of a trans-dimensional rabbit, they emerged, mostly intact: One princess, one archeologist, one mage, and one ninja.
"Hey, manjuu!" Kurogane clutched the hilt of souhi nervously as his red eyes scanned the vast nothingness. The color of his eyes was insignificant to this paragraph and should have been removed as useless padding; however, editing takes time. "What the hell? Just what kind of story did you drop us in, and how the hell do I know that?"
"It's meta world!" said Mokona, proud of her sudden insight. She bounced around on what presumably could be ground.
"Just what is meta?" Fai asked. He craned his neck to see if the setting was established yet. Nope.
Realizing that he had yet to establish his character, Syaoran added, "Fai-san, I think we all know what meta is. After all, we are in a meta fanfiction." He thought Fai was acting awkward. Usually, Fai was more genre savvy than the rest of them. It was as if he purposely acted out of character for the sake of exposition.
"I am doing this for the sake of our readers who may not know what meta is," Fai explained cheerily, winking at a blank space.
"What are you doing?" Kurogane asked, expressing more annoyance as exposition delayed the plot. He could be cutting the head off something right now…
"Acknowledging the readers." He patted the ninja on the back, amused. "Please, don't interrupt too much, Kuro-tan, or the readers will lose focus on the question."
Kurogane shook with repressed and very comical retorts. Not wanting to delay the plot any further, (My name is Kurogane, you damn frustrating love interest!) he kept his retorts inside parenthesizes.
Sakura sighed. This had better not be one of those stories where she was demoted to a supporting role. In canon, she did not receive the best lines, or the cool action scenes, but she did try her best. She was the underdog, so she had her own charm. People rooted for underdogs, right? Right? She tried her best in every task. Certainly, her character wasn't just a prop or an object of angst for the male characters. Granted, she did not remember Syaoran, but she could not help the unfortunate plot device that kept her from her one true love. She was a MAIN character, damn it!
"See what Sakura just did. She acknowledged herself as a character and her role in the story. That is meta," Fai explained.
"What?" Sakura asked, "Sorry, I was busy being existential."
"That's okay, Sakura-chan," Fai said, smiling warmly. "You were a big help."
"Thank you, Fai-san. I do always try to help."