Author's Notes: Written for iyfic(underscore)challenge's theme "Bad Day"—because Renkotsu needs some of the spotlight now and then.
Enjoy :)
In life, there are two things you must abide by.
First, you must die. All living things will always die, sooner or later. No matter how hard people try, immortality just isn't something you can buy at the local market.
Second, you have to pay taxes. But, for those who live outside the law- such a rule doesn't exist.
They'd already broken one of the world's rules, yet not a single one of them could figure out how to break the first rule. And so, in death- they'd lost to the rules at last.
…or had they?
It had taken ten years after the time of their deaths, but they'd finally beaten it. The Shichinin-tai, once dead- were now alive again.
They'd broken all the rules and it made them feel delightfully…cool.
For who wouldn't be having a good day if they'd found themselves alive ten years after their death?
There was one man who fit that bill.
Everything's Coming Up Zombies
Renkotsu was having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. It was the worst day he'd ever had in his life….errr lives.
He'd been asleep…no, dead for ten years. That much he could recall, but it didn't make him feel any better on waking up. His back was sore (those unruly daimyou had so carelessly thrown their bodies into the grave) and he had a pounding headache. Had he been tucked away under a blanket on a comfortable futon, those few conscious acknowledgements would have been enough for him to stay in bed.
But no…there was too much noise to stay asleep. Particularly, two voices loudly conversing. Renkotsu furrowed his eyebrows, his eyes still not open yet. For now he would just lay there and hope for silence.
"Bankotsu no-Aniki? That you?"
Jakotsu's voice was the first he distinguished, a mixture of excitement and confusion in his tone.
"Jakotsu! We're…we're…aliv..."
The young leader, Bankotsu, spoke next. His childish enthusiasm about the situation getting cut off by his friend.
"Wow, even after all the people I murdered. I still made it to heaven. This is great!"
"Huh? Ack! Jakotsu- what are you doing! Get off me! This isn't heaven!"
"Ohhh? But it must be. Where else would I get the great pleasure of waking up next to a very young, attractive, naked man like yourself then?"
Apparently the lack of clothing had not fully dawned on Bankotsu until that moment, the whole situation seeming too surreal for it to seem important.
"Oh no…Jakotsu…Jakotsu don't…."
His objections were cut short, and turned into nothing more than a few muffled protests silenced by a kiss.
Renkotsu weighed his options. One, let them know he was awake then and hope that Jakotsu would stop molesting their leader, or two, pretend to be asleep and pray to any god he could that Jakotsu wouldn't get too carried away.
"You know," Jakotsu's seductive intonation wasn't a good sign, "The one thing I regretted in life was that I had to die a virgin…"
Option one, definitely, Renkotsu decided hastily, and before Jakotsu could resolve his dilemma, he shielded his eyes and sat up.
"Oi, if you two are going to act like horny teenagers, then go somewhere else…"
"Ren…Renkotsu?" Bankotsu questioned.
"Yes, there are others in here that would rather not listen in to your …" He cleared his throat, "ritual of…friendship."
"Mou…where are our clothes anyway?" Jakotsu questioned, not fazed in the least by Renkotsu's statement.
"It's been ten years, they probably rotted," Renkotsu explained, having already surmised that they'd somehow been brought back to life. The surge of power in his throat was too much to be a case of late heartburn.
"My armor's still here…" Another voice cut in.
Renkotsu finally moved his hand from over his eyes and was just about to reply back when he got a glimpse of something he'd rather not have.
"Aaagh, Kyoukotsu can you at least put your armor on?"
"Uh…okay," The gigantic figure replied, pulling the lower half of his armor over his bare-assets.
"At least he has armor?" Mukotsu added, hiding himself behind his case of poisons.
"Gesh, I have everything but my pants…" The distinct metallic voice spoke up.
"That's because your entire outfit is metal," Jakotsu sighed, "I still don't see how you can wear that all without it chaffing."
Renkotsu continued to keep his eyes closed and rubbed at his temples, "We're going to have to send someone to get new clothes."
"They need to look like our old ones," Bankotsu clarified, sitting with his armor covering his lap.
"Why do they have to look the same?" Jakotsu asked, sitting down beside him with a strategically held Jakotsutou.
"Because we have an image to uphold," The young leader reasoned, "So- we need to decide who's going out to get our clothing."
"Hey…where's Suikotsu?"
Everyone looked about at Jakotsu's comment and saw that their seventh member was nowhere to be found.
Kagura rubbed at her eyes, having halted her feather mid-air, and stared down at the man below.
"Is that…Musou?" She squinted, "No wait…Musou's ass was flabby. That must be one of the Shichinin-tai Naraku spoke of then."
Catching a gust of air, she flew down and landed in front of the man.
"Yo!"
He looked panicked, and backed up.
"Okay, I won't harass you. Here, Kohaku said you guys might need some clothes."
She tossed a blue bundle of fabric to him, yanked the feather from her hair and took flight.
"Sheesh, figures Naraku wouldn't think about something like clothes when it comes to resurrecting killers."
There was a female in their midst. Now normally, they would just shrug it off and go about their day with mild mutterings of dislike from Jakotsu. But, the whole reaction was glaringly different since the six were currently without clothes.
Jakotsu was just about to send out Jakotsutou when he realized that in doing so, he'd forfeit his only covering at the moment. Seeing as he couldn't remove the female from their presence, the black-haired man decided to fulfill his other objective - making sure she wasn't moving in on his territory.
"If you lay one hand on him, I'll…"
"Calm down," Kagura muttered, wondering what it is was about seeing one naked man hugging another naked man was so…attractive, "I'm just here to deliver your clothes."
Renkotsu was about remark that the group was more competent than they looked at the moment, but as he moved to speak, the single strap holding up his armor slid off his shoulder.
Great. Just…great.
Kagura quickly diverted her eyes and coughed.
"Well since bare…I mean, there should be a few more days before the InuYasha-tachi arrives, use that time to get prepared. That's what Naraku said."
Dropping the pile of clothing onto the floor of the grave, and having delivered the orders, she headed out.
Figures Naraku would hire a bunch of weirdoes…
Clothing matter dealt with, things seemed to be looking slightly up for Renkotsu. That is, before a whole other slew of problems arose.
First of course, was tracking down their missing member.
Bankotsu had propositioned a flyer of sorts, handed out around the area. Of course, since the young leader's writing skills weren't all that great, the task of writing up the message fell to Renkotsu.
"What do you want it to say again?" He snapped, having already written out over a hundred different vetoed variations of the message.
"It should read, 'Has anyone seen this killer? If found, please return to the Shichinin-tai.'"
"That sounds like we're looking for a lost pet," Jakotsu remarked.
Renkotsu glared. If he had to write one more flyer up with a new message…
"Well…if he's back in his other personality, he's not going to find his way back to us. I guess he is sorta like a lost puppy," Bankotsu reasoned, "You think it works, Renkotsu?"
"It's better than the Wanted-poster concept…"
"Okay, then that's the one! We'll need…" He counted roughly on his fingers, "Probably about fifty copies of that flyer then."
The paintbrush Renkotsu held snapped under his firm grip.
"Oh, the brush broke. That's all right- we should have some others around here."
Rummaging around the building they'd taken over, he unearthed a whole basket full. Renkotsu realized that breaking them all could seem suspicious, and he began in on writing out all the messages.
His arm ached and his hand looked to be permanently gripping an invisible brush. Why did their leader have to be so…so…
"So Renkotsu, you'll take the area around this temple. You think you can infiltrate the monks there?"
"Yah, sure," He wasn't even certain what it was he'd just agreed to. He just wanted to go to sleep, but at the moment- eating dinner was a bigger priority. One didn't know the pangs of hungry until they'd gone ten years dead without eating.
"Would you like some more sake?" The serving woman asked, smiling down at him.
Mukotsu had managed to drag two girls from the local village out to where they were. He'd told them that they were being hired out by a secret army and that they'd be paid well for their time. Lucky for them, the two girls weren't exactly that bright or overly suspicious about the zombie rumors that had started up.
"Yah," Renkotsu said with a nod, knowing that at that moment only the strength of alcohol would keep him from snapping at the rest of the men. Drinking down another glass, he looked over at the six others.
Kyoukotsu looked to be chewing on a leg of…something. Renkotsu decided it was probably best not to ask. Ginkotsu's metal jaw had gotten dislodged when he'd tried to eat. Probably rusted a bit from the years in the grave, yet it would still need to be fixed- and that task fell to Renkotsu. Mukotsu was shamelessly flirting with the other serving girl, and much to his chagrin, Jakotsu was doing some shameless flirting of his own.
"So…what rank are you?" The girl asked, not noticing the snap of the chopsticks Renkotsu held.
"I'm…"
"Here, drink more Bankotsu no-aniki."
"Jakotsu, are you trying to get me drunk again?"
"I'm the sane one," Renkotsu finished, standing to retrieve another set of chopsticks for himself.
Night finally fell, and Renkotsu couldn't be more relieved. After dealing with more of the men's antics during dinner, accidentally eating some spoiled unagi and having to spend a good two hours walking around the area trying to find descent supplies (it just figured that the only daimyou in the area that had gunpowder and cannons was the one all the way across the ravine) he was more than ready for a good night's rest. At last, he'd have some peace and quiet.
Or so he thought…
"Mou, Bankotsu no-aniki?"
"What?"
"I was serious about earlier…"
"Jakotsu what are you…hey! Stop that! Jako- mmmph…"
The second in command glared at the screen between the rooms and pulled the pillow over his head.
Why me?