The Sequel: Chapter XXIX (Current Mood: Havarti)


(Author's Note)

Yes, I'm still alive and kicking—like a cockroach you can't seem to destroy. Some people wanted to know what Kon did to Artemis, as mentioned by Ares awhile back, so I thought about it and came up with the perfect thing. Hope you enjoy it. In addition, I themed this chapter using a children's nursery rhyme. Guess which one.

By the way, I finally made good on a promise to myself—at the end of this chapter, I'll introduce you all to my beloved Gintama.

Reviews feed the Scribble Gland! Yoroshiku!

Quote(s) of the Day: "He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead."—Voltaire

"I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live."—Socrates (he was later executed for heresy)

"Words are all we have."—Samuel Beckett

"Two plus two is CHICKEN!"—comedian Brian Regan, "The Epitome of Hyperbole" (He pronounced it "The epi-TOHM of hyper-BOWL")

"Virgos with beards who are brushing their teeth...will die today."—Horoscope in Gintama, pertaining specifically to Kondo-san

"I've got an organ that's more important to me than my heart. You can't see it, but it's in me. And it's all that holds me up. It's why I can stand up straight, and walk straight, even when I'm bleeding and dizzy. If I run now...it'll tear in half. My soul...will tear in half."—Sakata Gintoki, Gintama, "Lesson 43: All Men Are Romantics"


Iamb: Trickster Treatise Gaming God

(Houtou Castle—The Petite Arthropod)

Lady Koushu, for once, had no high-ranking lackeys smart enough to obey her commands to find Kougaiji and detain him. Yes, Lirin had come back unharmed—how that had happened even now eluded her meticulous information network—but she was still angry that the girl had run off in the first place. Someone needed to take the fall, or the underlings would start to think she had gone soft.

Naturally, the fall guy she had in mind was Kougaiji, the son of that wall-wench. She had all kinds of ingenious torments in store for the boy. However, even his two subordinates had no idea where he was.

All that torture and not a shred of information. After the first few days, she had gotten bored and sent them to be treated in the infirmary. Even Lirin couldn't fight her mood swings.

So there she sat pondering, on the catwalk suspended in front of her beloved, and waiting for someone useful to show up. Ni Jianyi was out gathering information on that Hazel character, Hwan was out chasing geese (apparently), and Wang was too bizarre to be of any use to the self-proclaimed queen of the castle. Lady Koushu was getting sick of her people. She needed some fresh blood or nothing would ever go right.

"Ah, you must be the one turning this realm into a pretzel!" a voice suddenly exclaimed from the shadows at one end of the catwalk.

Koushu almost gave a start, but years of pretending to be badass stopped her from damaging her immense pride.

"Who goes there?!" she demanded instead, letting loose her poorly-disguised rage-against-all-living-things.

As she glared wrathfully into the shadows, a figure moved just beyond the floodlights, taking its sweet time stepping into the open.

"Hey, there. You're Gyokumen Koushu, right?" Loki inquired with a quirky grin. "I was just taking a tour, and wow. You've really got it going on, don't you? All those machines...I don't even know what they're for, but they look pretty interesting."

She frowned, recognizing the strange air he gave off, and said slowly, "Is that you, Yumoa?"

He grinned. "Nah, but I am his dad. Pleased to meet you. I'm Loki, the Trickster."

Lady Koushu just stared. For once, the weirdness had gotten the best of her.

Loki continued as though she weren't too baffled to speak, "I'm the one making all the awesome things happen around this dimension, apart from that minus wave thingamajig you're sending out. I have my sprites working their magic all over the place, actually. Their specialty is in visual illusions, but they can do some dimensional warping, too, if I ask nicely." He grinned craftily and held out a hand, and in it appeared a small, gremlin-esque creature with huge, glowing blue eyes and so much soft black fur that the eyes were the only discernible body parts. It was like a dust bunny with peepers. "I call this one Pooky," chuckled the troublemaking semi-god.

Slowly, Gyokumen Koushu shifted her gaze from the painfully cute fuzzball to its master. "What business could you possibly have here?" she asked warily, trying to figure out if he was serious or just stupid.

"I heard you made a copy of my boy, and was wondering if I could meet him. Sure, some other bastard god's got his DNA mixed in, but he's still got my traits, right?" He seemed hopeful.

"All of the clones have either escaped or gone on missions," she replied. "Even their creator is missing."

Loki frowned, deflated, then closed his fist around Pooky and made the little creature vanish with a squeak. "Huh. Damn, and I was all excited, too. Well, sorry to bother you. I'll just be on my way, then."

"Wait, is that really all you came to do?" the crafty youkai pseudo-queen asked quickly.

"Well, if the other one's not here, then yeah. I can see you're busy thinking or something. I won't be a bother."

"Why not assist me with a little errand, then? In return, I shall allow you the use of my observation and tracking equipment to help you find what you seek." She had an idea to get things moving again. If this stranger really was Yumoa's father, then he was also a god. If she had a god to assist her, she could easily speed up the revival, and hunt down Kougaiji for some much-needed stress relief.

Her offer visibly piqued the Trickster's interest, and he blinked. "Really? You'll do that for me? I don't know what I might be able to help you with, but if you'll be kind enough to lend me your equipment, then I'll do whatever I can."

Gyokumen Koushu smiled, a curling, almost evil smile to convey her satisfaction with his response. "It would be much appreciated. As a god, you should easily be able to quickly fetch Kougaiji...and revive my precious Gyumaoh."


(The Campsite—4AM—A Vertical Climb)

For a long time, I listened to Kon's recount of what had been going on wherever he was. His smooth tenor made even the voices shut up and listen avidly. Little by little, my tensed muscles began to relax, soothed by his story. He'd had a hard time, and so had Sanzo, what with the crazy Japanese/Chinese chef and the kid with the bread that killed people and sent him to come otherworldly cabaret.

I couldn't help smiling. Everything about our lives was simply ridiculous, and the absurdity was so extreme that laughter was the only way for any of us to properly cope. After all, I was in love with a Greek god, who was at that moment trapped in some anime dimension where people became paranoid schizophrenics when one little girl died, while I was trapped in some manga-ka's spruced-up version of The Journey to the West.

"Hey, Chaos," I murmured softly, staring at the fire while Gojyo poked at the embers and pretended that he wasn't eavesdropping on everything I said.

Yes?

"Thank you for all the things you've done for me up to this point." I huddled closer to my pillow, wishing it were him. I was in desperate need of a hug, but at the moment, my pillow would have to suffice.

Konran sighed a little, then gave an ironic laugh. It makes me happy that you can appreciate my existence at all, despite the hell you're going through right now. I assume Comedy has gone to refill your scripts?

I nodded, though I knew he couldn't see. "Yeah. I hope he comes back soon. I need something warm to hang onto right now. He's not you, but he's been a good friend for a long time, and I trust him."

He's worth your trust. Hell, even I don't mind, and I can be one seriously jealous bastard when the time is right.

"You're cute like that."

I could almost feel him smirk at my comment. The connection was getting a little bit clearer than it had been in the beginning. I prefer the term funny over cute, he chuckled.

I sighed, feeling so much more refreshed now that I knew he was okay. Thoughts of peanut butter and Bumbles were a million miles away. It was almost as if he contributed directly to the amount of sanity I was capable of retaining. "Kon, promise me you'll come back as soon as possible," I murmured softly. "And don't you dare ditch Sanzo. He can be a jerk, but he's one of us, and Goku's just as depressed as I am—though his way of expressing it is a little more conventional than a psychotic breakdown."

You have my solemn word. We'll be back the moment the opportunity presents itself, he promised soberly.

"That's my Chaos." I was so relaxed that my body was beginning to realize how exhausted it really was, but I didn't want to sleep yet. As much as I trusted him, I was all too aware of how easily the things I loved could be taken from me. Rafe had taught me that, and although Kon was healing that wound every minute I spent with him, it still ached whenever something poked at it, like a silent reminder that I should be careful. I had to keep a firm grip on the things that were precious to me, or they could easily be taken away.

Kon heard the drowsiness in my tone easily. You sound tired, Princess. You should really sleep. It will help the time pass more quickly, and you'll feel better in the long run.

"Not until my body forces me asleep," I replied stubbornly. "I miss you, and everyone else is asleep but Gojyo, and Yumoa's not here 'cause he's rustling up my meds." I glanced at Gojyo, who was still feigning deafness and poking at the fire.

Oh, well. I didn't care who heard anymore.

Why is Gojyo still up?

"Well, that whole incident earlier when I mistook Yumoa for the Abominable Snowman and tried to harvest his pelt to appease King George kind of freaked everyone out, so I'm being guarded...or maybe everyone else is being guarded from me...or whatever. Anyway, I'm being watched like a hawk."

He was quiet for a moment, then said slowly, Did Yumoa use my katana to fend you off? Because it was missing for a while, then it came back.

"I don't remember. I just know I fought until I went into a diabetic coma, then woke up here in my sleeping bag with my pillow. I think they're hiding Ryushi from me until they're sure I'm stable again."

I see...Lydia, you never cease to bore me. Honestly, if you were any more insane, you'd be in prison right now.

"Are you complimenting me or insulting me?" I demanded. "I didn't have my meds, stupid. You know better than anyone how volatile I can be without them."

I love you when you're off your meds. It's exciting. For most of my life, I've always gotten whatever women I wanted—except for that whole fiasco with Artemis...anyway, I love the challenge you present to me.

A flare of suspicion raised its ugly head. "Eh? What happened with Artemis, anyway? Big Daddy Aries mentioned you pissed her off somehow, but you never explained yourself."

Are you listening to me or are you going to keep finding tangents to follow?

I frowned, then grudgingly dropped it. His past didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that he belonged to me now. Once we got home, I was going to tattoo my name, address, and phone number on his neck, just in case he got lost. Or maybe I would get one of those PetFinder chips...or something.

I loved him, but he was also my property now. No one else was allowed to claim him.

Are you concocting some kind of bizarre plot against me again? I know that creepy silence. Whatever you're thinking, I refuse to allow it, Lydia.

I smirked. "We'll see, Chaos." I thought a bit more, then realized that I really did want to know, even though I forgave him in advance. "Okay, that's it. CURIOSITY is being a pest. What happened with Artemis?"

He was silent for longer than made me comfortable.

"Kon? Kon! Don't scare me, jackass—answer!"

I'm still here, but...I really don't want to answer your question. You're either going to laugh at me or go on another rampage.

"Fear not. I need a laugh desperately enough to put your pride at risk, and even if I do berserk, Goyjo is a big boy—he can handle it." I smirked evilly at the water sprite, who sweatdropped and went utterly still, preparing to restrain me at a moment's notice. He was still trying to pretend that he wasn't listening in, but the terror on his face was unmistakable.

I could kind of feel Chaos' thoughts moving around, debating the topic. In the end, though, he sighed heavily and muttered reluctantly, Fine, if it might make you happy, then I'll tell you.

I grinned in expectation.

Back when I was still fairly young for a god, and still obeying Aphrodite's orders like a servant, I was given an order to seduce Artemis and bring her to Love's side in a massive plot against Hera. They were all warring constantly for one reason or another, and Artemis was always backing the Queen, which pissed Aphrodite off. So, as a result, when the opportunity arose, I was sent to "recruit" the Goddess of the Hunt.

Well, Artemis is the definition of frigid, so I knew it would be tough, but I had figured that some crazy stunt might work, so... He fell silent again, clearly ashamed of himself, but after some insistent prodding, he caved.

I, uh...I hid into her room and tried cornering her...naked. It's easy to sneak around when you can turn into dust, you see...so, er...well, to put it simply, she threw a fit, shot me all to hell with her bow and arrows, and put a bounty on my head. Zeus was not happy, to say the least. He banned me from all social gatherings and branded me as a degenerate. Hera, however, dealt the finishing blow and banished me from Olympus.

Naturally, I started cackling like a loon, amused to no end that he had done something so outrageous to that pure goddess. After a while, though, it became apparent that his pride was significantly damaged, and the laughter slowly died.

"Hey, really, is it something to get all worked up over after this long?" I asked, drying my eyes and trying not to let the stray chuckle past my guard.

If it hadn't been for my Aunt's ego, I would still be allowed on Olympus with the other gods, he murmured quietly. If it hadn't been for her, I would have been able to live normally and be happy. Instead, I was exiled and abused for millennia. Instead, I became a complete bastard who sacrificed his own earthly equivalents like they were bulls on an altar. Granted, I can't stand the way the Olympian gods live their immortal lives, but a Greek god who isn't allowed to be on Olympus is pathetic. It's like I'm infected with some incurable, virulent disease, and no one wants to come near me.

Had it really bothered him that much? He sounded genuinely upset, and I frowned a little, suddenly ashamed that I had forced him to recall something so painful. "If it's any consolation, you're welcome to stay with me forever," I said without thinking. Then I realized that he was immortal, and I wasn't, and suddenly felt even more guilty. "Ah...I have to die someday, don't I?" I tried to sound nonchalant, but came off a little desperate.

Eventually, I suppose. Disheartening thought, isn't it? He gave an ironic laugh. I suppose we'll have to enjoy ourselves enough for a hundred lifetimes, then, huh?

"Beginning when you escape Hinamizawa," I replied, smiling sadly. To be perfectly honest, the thought of having to die and leave him alone again made me depressed.

Ah, Sanzo is back. I'll speak with him, then come back and tell you what the plan is, okay? Sleep if you can in the meantime—you won't be getting much after I come back. His voice was light, joking. I couldn't tell which of us he was trying to cheer up. Maybe both.

"Okay, then. I'll try." I forced myself to sound tired. "Good night, Chaos."

Pleasant dreams, my Princess.

I felt him slip away, and frowned into the struggling flames. I was mortal. I hadn't even thought about it until that moment. Someday, I would die, and Chaos would be alone.

I would do to him what Rafe had done to me, and that, more than anything, was killing me inside.


(Hinamizawa—Precipitation)

Konran closed the link he had made through the mirror and let out a long, heavy sigh. There were just too many things going on all at once for him to be able to properly mull over Lydia's tone at the end. Superficially, he figured that she had just been upset over cutting their conversation short, but there had been a heavier note mixed in. He would have to ask her when the chance presented itself again.

Instead, at that moment, little Rika entered the room, followed closely by Sanzo. The former was frowning in deep thought—the latter was just smoldering, as usual.

"Anything useful?" the god asked.

Sanzo's glower said more than words ever could. It was so expressive that Chaos could determine what had happened, where they had gone, how many people had annoyed him—everything.

It actually kind of creeped him out.

Rika sighed a little in the grownup version of her voice, "If it were this simple, then I would have tried bringing all of my friends to safety long ago. However, I am tied to this land because of my human body. The most we could manage was finding something safe to eat. How about you? Is the distortion clearing at all?"

Chaos nodded, relieved that there was at least one good thing happening. "I was talking to my equivalent, Lydia, and the longer we talked, the easier it became to hear her voice. I think if we stay within the vicinity of a mirror like this until the moment the cycle repeats, then the distortion will be cleared enough to get through."

Sanzo pulled a chair from the dressing table and sat down, giving the little girl an inscrutable frown. "If that's the case, then you'll have to die in order for us to escape," he muttered. It was impossible to tell whether this fact bothered him or not, but by mentioning it at all, the god had to wonder.

Sanzo wasn't a bad person, but finding that shred of good deep required digging through a skeleton closet packed so tightly with corpses that a HazMat suit would have been necessary attire to even think about it.

Konran opted out. He'd leave it to the other three—it was their story, anyway.

Hearing the monk's reiteration of how the escape plan would work, however, brought yet another little girl into the room. Difference was, this little girl wasn't even really there. Only Kon and Rika could see her, actually—though they could also see through her.

"We have no choice," mused Hanyuu, appearing seated on the floor beside Rika and staring off into space.

"So you say, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with it," argued Chaos. "Whatever is going on here, it's too cruel to just allow to happen over and over again."

The monk leered at the only two people he could see in the room, and growled in irritation, "You're talking to someone who isn't there again, aren't you? Cut that shit out, already."

"The cycle repeats because we wish to change our fate," Rika explained shortly, ignoring Sanzo. "It is our burden to bear, because we choose not to let it end this way. You have nothing to fear—we will find our own way out of this wheel."

Sanzo's eye twitched, gleaming amethyst in the light. "Don't ignore me."

"Honestly, Sanzo, this is a discussion amongst fellow gods, so it's okay if you don't understand what's going on." Kon gave him a look, and in less time than it took for lightning to strike the earth, the cold business end of the monk's gun was pressed under the god's chin.

"God or not, I'm betting that shooting you in the head will still hurt like a bitch," he snarled. "Now quit screwing with me and explain yourself."

Chaos winced, raising his hands in surrender. "Okay! Just put the gun away, all right? There's a little girl right there. What kind of impression are you trying to make on her?"

He looked to Rika for some kind of agreement, but her expression was unfazed. "I have died hundreds of times already, by having my organs cut out of me while I was still conscious enough to feel it," she murmured in a voice filled with the weariness of age. "My friends have bludgeoned each other to death with a baseball bat, have tortured each other and maimed each other in unspeakable ways. My elders have ripped their own throats out in fits of madness. A little gun is nothing, really."

It seemed as though a frigid wind blew through the room, and Sanzo then decided that maybe adding another death to this child's memory might not be the best course of action—especially if it meant killing the asshole who could get them out of this mess. "Tch. Do what you want," he growled, stashing his piece back into the robe and sitting back in irritation.

Kon felt that perhaps a subject change was in order. "So, is there a place with a mirror like this around here where we can stay until the distortion lightens up enough for interdimensional travel?"

Rika suddenly reverted to her cutsey self, and smiled sweetly. "I already discussed things with Mii-chan, and she says you can stay at the Sonozaki manor until you leave! Her grandma is kind of scary sometimes, and I'm not sure how everyone is supposed to die in this version of the cycle, but you should be safe there...unless this is the version where Shion goes insane, of course..."

"Eh?!" demanded Chaos.

"Don't worry!" she insisted, putting on her "ni-paah!" face.

Sanzo gave her the hairy eyeball, but reserved comment. If nothing involved him directly, then he didn't care—couldn't care, actually. He had far more important things to ponder, like the variety of methods by which he might torture and murder Loki for making his life a living hell.

Kon saw this, and sighed heavily. "All right. Let's go before Sanzo becomes a part of your tragic little town."


(The Campsite—Flash Flood)

It was impossible to fall into a deep sleep with so much stress on my shoulders. Kon never reopened the connection, so I could only assume the worst.

He'd probably been kidnapped by alien goat-beasts from Uranus...

Ridiculous explanations plagued me all through the night, and I knew that it wasn't entirely because of Chaos' absence. Most of it was the fault of my undermedicated brain. Without the pills, I quickly degenerated into a strange kind of feral animal whose only functioning sentient thought processes were devoted entirely to paranoid conspiracy theories.

At sunrise, however, I was suddenly and violently roused from my fitful slumber by someone's frantic screams.

Startled, I reached for my sword, but when I found none, I paused momentarily to see what was going on first. I had forgotten, naturally, that Hakkai was keeping Ryushi until I had plenty of anti-psychotics floating in my blood stream.

What I did realize then, however, was that I had tossed and turned myself to within inches of the fire's remaining embers, and the edge of my sleeping bag was being nibbled away by little tongues of flame—polyester did that.

"Augh! My sleeping bags on—BLARG!" I shouted, coughing when someone suddenly threw a bucket of water in my general direction. On the upside, the fire was now out. On the downside, IT WAS WINTER! I could already feel the ice forming in my hair.

"Lydia, are you okay?!" Gojyo demanded. I looked up to follow his voice and found him standing a few feet away with a pail in hand, obviously having just emptied its contents onto me, my clothes, and my only sleeping implements in this gods-forsaken hellhole.

Really, it didn't take much to make me snap, but one must recall that this was now compounded by the fact that I was off my meds and torn away from the one who kept me sane. Therefore, only one response on my part was appropriate in a situation such as the one to which I had awoken:

Destroy the bastard.

"May the flames of hell feast upon your pitiful soul!" I cried, leaping forward instinctively and throttling the kappa like a rag doll towards which I had peculiar misgivings.

"Wagh!"

SWISH—KLUNK!

...And darkness embraced me once more.


(Yumoa's Return—Enter Helios)

Being the God of Comedy, it was ridiculously easy for Yumoa to see the brighter side of things. No matter the odds, he was hardwired to believe that life would always turn out well in the end. It was a part of his essence. His positive beliefs and values were intrinsically wrought into the very fabric of his being.

Granted, he was startled when he reentered Togenkyo only to find Lydia strangling Gojyo to death as her sopping clothes began to shed sheets of ice and drive her core temperature down to dangerously hypothermic levels. However, because of what he was, he saw nothing truly desperate about the situation. In fact, he felt heartened that the girl was so lively, despite her lack of medication and Chaos. He spent so long feeling heartened, actually, that he didn't realize that he should step in until the kappa's face started turning disconcerting hues. Only then did he feel it necessary to announce his entrance and offer Lydia the reprieve she so sought.

Unfortunately, in his running haste to intervene, he misstepped on a patch of invisible ice, tripped on a jutting stone, and accidentally knocked the girl over the head with a sack filled with pills, water bottles, and soda.

Lydia yelped in pain, releasing the water sprite to tend to her cranial injury, then abruptly blacked out.

Yumoa righted himself in time to catch her, and watch Gojyo fall back over a log and into a snowbank.

The entire ordeal lasted less than three seconds.

Knowing that the kappa would survive a little fall, Comedy focused his attention on the unconscious girl, noting her frozen state and sighing a little. "Lyds, how many times do I have to tell you to drink something sugary before anything else as soon as you wake up? It's stressful on your body if you keep lettin' your blood glucose drop."

Naturally, she didn't respond. Gojyo, however, did. He clawed his way back over the tree trunk, gasping for air and clutching at his throat with a pained look on his face. "Dammit. If you would'a come a second later, I'd be a goner," he coughed.

"Naw. You'd pass out, she'd get bored all of a sudden, and you'd wake up a few hours later with little more than a headache. Where are Hakkai and the others?"

The water sprite gave him a baleful leer, but nodded towards the woods anyway. "The monkey found a stream, so now he's got everyone fishing for breakfast. I stayed back, since Hakkai doesn't want Lydia here alone."

"Oh, okay." Satisfied with the response, he immediately stopped caring about his soldiers' whereabouts and switched into doctor mode.

While Gojyo looked on in morbid fascination, Yumoa sat on the other log they'd dragged next to the fire and propped Lydia up against his shoulder. The god then pulled a vial of clear liquid from his snow coat pocket, popped the cork out, and passed the opening under the girl's nose a few times.

The effect was surprising to the kappa, but Comedy knew what to expect.

Before Lydia could snap into kill-everything-in-sight-because-the-pills-are-gone mode, Yumoa restrained her wrists in one hand, flicked open one of the pill boxes, and emptied the contents into her shouting mouth. He then smothered her with his free hand and blew on her nose, and like a stubborn Jack Russel, she choked down her meds like a good feral animal.

"I'm not even sure what I'm seeing here," Gojyo stated evenly. Some part of him wanted to feel sympathetic towards the girl, but then again, she had tried to strangle him to death. Besides, for some bizarre, inexplicable reason, Yumoa's actions seemed entirely appropriate and sensible.

"She's not really very cooperative when she's standing on the precipice of insanity," explained the god, to which the water sprite merely grunted in bemused response. "Could you get some juice or soda or something for her? She'll behave better if there's sugar in her system."

After some rustling through a plastic bag tucked under a chunk of hardened snow which kept the drinks cold, Gojyo took out a Pepsi and some hard liquor. He handed the soda to Comedy, then resumed his seat and pured himself a fifth. "If things keep going this way, I'm gonna end up like the monk, and that's the scariest thing in the world."

"Bees are scary." Yumoa's look was earnest.

Gojyo frowned, then poured another fifth, with an 80-proof chaser. "Right. Bees. Fucking terrifying, those bees. They've got stingers and shit...I'm gonna go fishing now, if it's all the same to you."

Comedy waved. "Have fun!"

The kappa waved his anachronistic Jack Daniels as he purposely sauntered as far as he could possibly get from the god.


(Sanity's Comeback—Evaporation)

There are a lot of things in the world that people shouldn't have to experience as soon as they wake up: alarm clocks, banging pots and pans, screaming, ice water, ammonia salts, wildebeest stampedes, et cetera...

However, to be awakened twice within fifteen minutes by ice water and screaming, and then ammonia salts, was probably in the top five. Hell, top three. Combo attacks were a real bitch. Even worse, as soon as I was rudely awakened the second time, someone forced a handful of pills down my throat, as though I were a fussy chihuahua or something equally impotent!

I adored Yumoa like a strange little brother who would never mature, but there had to be a line somewhere.

Once he let my face go, I shot him a searing glare. "Where's Ryushi? I have to stab you now."

"Mull it over while you drink some Pepsi, and then decide whether that's the course of action you really want to take," he responded easily with a smile as he placed the cold can in my already frigid hands.

I gave him a look to convey how insane I thought he was, giving me cold drinks when I was already near-hypothermic. However, instead of abasing himself at my feet and repenting with twenty lashes, as I thought he should, he got up, removed his coat and set it beside me, and went over to fiddle with the stack of firewood.

"I'll get this going again so you can warm up and dry off. For now, though, wear my jacket. I've got the same temperature as Kon, so it should help you warm up and calm down a bit," he explained. "Is there anything you want to eat once I have the fire going?"

I frowned, pondered seriously for a bit as I removed the wet wool sweater and put on his warm coat, then responded in dead-seriousness, "I'm thinkin' Arby's." Oh, how I desired pulverized bovine molded into a meaty cookie of juicy burger-ness.

He laughed, "I'm thinkin' Arby's isn't a common fixture in Ancient China. Anything more feasible?"

"Meat of any kind. Cow, chicken, pig, snake, squirrel, human—you name it, I'll eat it without hesitation. If I'm forced to have one more bowl of cabbage broth and tofu, I'll cut off my own leg and roast it on a spit!"

He chuckled at my desperation. "PETA would throw a fit if they ever heard you discuss food. I'll see what I can do about meat. I don't think anyone would mind the protein."

"Can we eat the clone? Murder-suicide and cannibalism...does killing her count as suicide? Think I'll need an ethics committee to help me decide on the answer?"

Comedy shrugged and filled a pot with some clean snow which had fallen during the night. "Ask Kon when he comes back. He'll talk you away from the edge more efficiently than I can."

There was crunching and rustling headed our way, and Hakkai stepped into the clearing carrying a basket of enormous salmon. "Oh, you're back? How is everything?"

"It took some lock picking and an old permission letter I had Lydia sign in the event that she couldn't pick her meds up personally, but I found them all and she's already taken them. I just need to make something with milk and meat so that the medicine doesn't upset her stomach." Diligently, he rebuilt the fire and set the snow-filled pot on the grill rack above it. "Any ideas?"

Monocle pondered his internal archive of recipes, appeared to select a book, and smiled. "Well, we have the salmon, so why not make chowder? I think there's a little milk left."

Yumoa found this to be a brilliant idea, and I watched in freezing silence as they cleaned the fish and prepared the potatoes, onions, and milk broth. It smelled better than Arby's—Hakkai was a culinary genius. Actually, my only qualm was the itchy, nagging feeling that there should be a boxcar somewhere nearby for shelter. There would also be a mystery to solve, involving the chupacabra and the yeti.

I would probably have to sit quietly for another hour before the meds kicked in and reestablished my psychological equilibrium.


(Houtou castle—Dogged Determination)

"So this is the place, eh? Anyone ever hear of the human touch?"

Loki propped his hands on his hips and frowned in concern at the laboratory where Ni Jianyi and Hwan did their sciencey stuff, and Lady Koushu rolled her eyes. She had to remind herself that getting the obvious idiot to do her bidding was worth the hassle.

"There is not much room in a place such as this for personal things," she replied frankly. "The doctor and the professor are basically my employees. They do as they are ordered—I have no need for silly sentimental paraphernalia in here. It interferes with productivity."

"Sure, but seriously, all the machines are giving me a headache." He gave her The Puppy Eyes. "This minus wave whatchamacalit is pretty intense. I can see why all the youkai are losing it all over the place."

"Every act of greatness produces some kind of collateral. It cannot be helped." Eager to distract him from anything else which might waste her precious time, she motioned for the Trickster to follow her into Ni Jianyi's corner of the lab, next to which Wang was hooked up to his goggles, typing away in seeming oblivion to their presence. "This machine is what the doctor uses to track the Sanzo party and their...affiliates. You may use it as you wish to find whomever. In return, I only request that you later assist me in converting the power of that scroll over there into something easier to manipulate." She indicated the one sutra which the professor had left behind, sitting on a bookshelf as though it were nothing more than a grocery list.

"We have spent so long trying to make the revival work that I am at my wits' end." She feigned frustration, and was pleased to see that Loki was indeed showing sympathy towards her plight.

"Don't lose hope," he said with conviction. "I know what it's like to be apart from your loved ones. It seems like an eternity since the last time I had a chance to be with my own family. And with such a special day coming up, I've been trying my best to make it memorable, but nothing seems to be working properly."

Curiosity got the best of the usurper queen then, and before she could stop herself, she asked the one thing which had been nagging at her thoughts ever since this god had appeared and began reshuffling all the pieces which made up her world:

"Loki, what exactly are you trying to do here?"

He blinked. "Here? Helping you."

"No. What are you doing here, in Togenkyo? Why did you come to this world to begin with?"

He frowned in thought, then shrugged. "Well, at first it was just to figure out why I could sense my son in two different places at once—that clone is surprisingly accurate. After that, though, I decided that since my boy likes it so much here, I might try to arrange a little game. He likes games, you see. I hope he's happy with what I have in store."

Lady Koushu merely stared at him. "Ah." She then turned around and began heading back to her chamber. "As soon as you are finished your search, please get to work on that scroll. I expect good things from a god, you see."

"Okie dokie," Loki responded with a grin.

As she walked, Gyokumen Koushu couldn't help but think that there was something terribly sinister about how this one was going about things. Certainly, she wasn't one to talk—pot to kettle and all that—but she was one youkai queen. Nothing more and nothing less, and no matter how many soldiers she had, this fact would not change.

A god, however...

If her intuition were at all correct, then what she imagined to be a game for gods might very well render her entire revival plan moot.


(Hinamizawa—Repetitive Stupidity)

For the first time since being trapped in this obviously screwed-up dimension, Chaos felt at peace. It didn't matter that He was being led around by a little girl who kept dying because destiny was out of sync. It didn't even matter that there was an angry Buddhist monk cursing his very existence every fifteen seconds. All that mattered was that Lydia was still there, waiting for him. It seemed that as long as he knew she was out there, eager for his return, no amount of abuse could kill his peaceful mood.

That is to say, he thought this was the case.

This particular god had a bad habit of forgetting what exactly his designation implied:

A God of Chaos was the very definition of "Harbinger of Doom" no matter where he was.

Naturally, Konran remembered this the very moment Sanzo was run over. He was disappointed with his lax attitude towards this whole ordeal, to say the least. Actually, he was even a little annoyed with the monk. First, he's killed by a chunk of bread, then he's brought back by some sort of super-soup, and now this? Honestly!

"Are you all right?!" cried Mion, Shion, and Rika simultaneously. They rushed over to assess the damage, but Kon was actually more concerned with the driver and passenger of the aforementioned vehicle.

Well, it wasn't really even a vehicle...it was a Vespa—no, it was a common, everyday, run-of-the-mill scooter.

It was a mere scooter, and the occupants of said scooter were insane.

"Ohmygodwekilledhim!" panicked the oddly-dressed driver with the wooden sword and the helmet marked "Gin" (1) on the front. "A time machine! We just have to find a time machine, and everything will be fine!"

"That's not a time machine, you freak! That's a vending machine!" shouted the young man who had been riding along. This one had glasses and the unmistakable demeanor of a "straight man" from some manzai comedy.

Chaos was...well, he was too confused to even care that Sanzo was bleeding from his ears. Where had he seen these two before? It was another of Lydia's obsessions, but which one?

"Gin-chan, you did it again, didn't you?!" a third voice—female this time—screamed suddenly from behind. "How many times do I hafta tell you not to run people over on your scooter, uh-huh?! Is that the only way you know how to make new friends?!"

"'Uh...huh'?" the god repeated. Slowly, he turned around to see the owner of that voice, and before him appeared an enormous white dog, upon which sat a pale redheaded girl in a china dress holding an umbrella like a weapon.

Click.

"GINTAMAAAAA?!?!" he spazzed immediately.

The girl on the dog trotted to a stop a few feet away, giving him a quizzical leer. "Hey, Gin-chan, this one's still breathing. Should I get rid of the witnesses?"

A muffled voice sounded from behind, and Kon glanced back in uncertainty to see that Sanzo was coming to under the girls' coaxing, and that the scooter's driver really had shoved his head into the bottom flap of a vending machine.

He was stuck now, actually.

The passenger stared blankly at the trapped individual for a good while, then suddenly turned around and went to help the girls make sure that the monk wasn't brain dead or paralyzed. "I'm so sorry. See, he's an idiot. I told him not to wear the shaded goggles at night, but he never listens to anybody."

"HEY! CAN I KILL THIS ONE OR NOT?! HE'S A WITNESS, TOO, UH-HUH!!?!?!?"

Kon flinched and jerked around only to be sharply reminded that the umbrella also functioned as a gun, as it was pointed directly at his face. "NO, YOU CAN'T!" he automatically retorted.

At last, the driver figured out that removing the helmet first would free his head from the machine, and tumbled back from the excess effort. "Owww! Ah, that's the last time I use the hands-free option."

"That's for cellphones, not scooters, you imbecile!" snapped the level-headed young man. "Now stop Kagura before she kills again!"

"Hey, don't start talkin' like I've killed before!" argued the girl. "This one's gonna be my first time, uh-huh!" She then looked Kon in the eye, and smiled sweetly. "I'm inexperienced, so be gentle."

"Sadaharu, SIT!"

Instantly, the massive dog-monster plopped down on its haunches and yipped playfully as the girl lost her footing and fell out of sight.

"Sorry about her. She's not normal, you see. Not enough sunlight." The driver at last sat up and brushed the dirt and dust from his curly silver hair, then used the wooden sword to help himself to his feet. "Oy, Shinpachi. Is that guy okay? I don't wanna pay anyone's hospital bills. We never get enough clients as it is..."

Everything began moving quickly, then, because time had come to a halt in Konran's mind. It was obvious what was going on here: more and more dimensions were getting trapped in Loki's insane scheme—whatever that was. The bread boy, the Chinese chef, the town itself, and now this trio—each one represented a separate world, and somehow, through some miraculously stable shift in the dimensional planes, all those worlds were slowly becoming one...

...including Hinamizawa, a dimension where existence itself resided on the shoulders of one little girl.


(Author's Note)

(1) "Silver"—The first character in Gintoki's name. Gintama literally translates to English as "Silver Soul."

I DID IT!!!! WAHOOOOOO!

Er...so...ohisashiburi desu ne? How has everyone been this past year? I'm so sorry. I promised over and over again that this chapter was "coming out soon" but those were all lies. School has been insane, and I've been so obsessed with my original stories that The Sequel just stopped talking to me for a while there. On the bright side, Summer Vacation—natsu yasumi—begins in two weeks. I should have a chance to pander to your wishes then.

By the way, if you haven't read/watched it yet, be sure to expose yourself to Gintama. Crunchyroll has subbed episodes—though I love Rumbel more. Shonen Jump publishes the manga—eleven volumes are currently available, and number 12 comes out in May! (Excited) Sorry...it's just that Gintama is the one thing in my world which I will love forever, no matter how long it goes on. All others can lose their shine, but this one has a Silver Soul which will never tarnish.

Wow. I'm nerding out like whoa. If you gotta blame someone, blame the Yorozuya. Ye gods, ep 111 almost made me cry!

Oh, and WELCOME BACK!!!! Tell me if you liked it! Or hated it! Or even if you just wanna say hello! I'm down with all that mess, 'cause the Left-Handed Cyh-chologist is BACK!

The Ever Erratic, Unscrupulous, Ubiquitous, Nihilistic, Neoclassical, Deranged, and Raconteur Cyh Scævola