Warning: This Fic, unlike others, is just plain silly.

-The Akabeco Cooking Classes (or How to make Gatotsu-style Shinsengumi Barbecue Skewer)

The Akabeco had opened earlier this day , and it was already full. Sae and Tae
looked at each other, decided that no one else was going to come, and closed the door.

They turned to the people inside the restaurant. They had a really weird group. Some
people they knew, others not. Some were nice, some were scary-looking, some looked
innocent but were deadly, and the rest were just plain dumb. This was going to be an
interesting day.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen," Sae started, everyone's attention was turned to
her, "Today will be our first lesson of the Akabeco's cooking classes. We'll start with
basic Chinese food..." She trailed off and looked sharply at a lean, golden-eyed, neat
looking man. Well, not THAT neat. Though his hair was combed back, a few rebel locks of
hair fell over his face. "Saito-san!" She said to him, "Would you turn off that awful thing?
Not everyone here likes that smoke, you know!"

Saito grumbled something about not wanting to be there, but he had to be because
his wife made him go, and ground up his cigarrette on the floor. Sanosuke stiffled a
chuckle, and Saito glared at him.

"As I was saying," Sae continued, "We'll start with basic Chinese food. So this
morning we'll prepare Chow Mein," She walked to the table with all the ingredients and
read them all to her students, "Now, who would like to help me to cut the vegetables?"

"Me! Me!" Soujiro jumped up and down.

"I want you to cut me everything into long, thin stripes." Tae told him.

"Alright." Soujiro smiled and got to work.

"While Soujiro's with the vegetables, we'll boil the water for the noodles..."

"Finished!" Soujiro said, standing proudly next to a small mountain of long, thin
stripes of ingredients.

Sae and Tae teardropped.

"You were not supposed to cut the pork, the shrimp, the chicken OR the noodles
that way." Sae said.

"But you said everything..." Soujiro started.

"Just sit down and watch," Tae ordered him with a sigh, "We'll get new ingredients."

Soujiro obeyed, with a smile that was starting to border on the annoying.

Once the new chicken, pork, shrimp and noodles were on the table, Sae turned to
everyone in a more pleasant tone.

"Alright, while we boil the noodles, Kenshin, would you like to cut the chicken?"

"No problem." Kenshin took the knife, edge up, and tried to cut the chicken. Of
course, the knife was no Sakabatou, so nothing happened, "Hey! This isn't working!"

"You're holding the knife upside-down, you idiot!" Hiko Seijuro called him.

Kenshin glared at his teacher, then at the knife, and hit the chicken even harder.
After several frustrating minutes, Kenshin growled softly, his eyes became gold, and
threw the chicken in the air. He had turned Battousai.

"Hiten Mitsurugi!" He screamed, pulling out his sword, "AMAKAKERU RYU NO HIRAMEKI!"
He landed next to the table and gave his friends a stupid rurouni smile, before the neatly
cut chicken fell on the table. Everyone teardropped.

"I'm starting to beleive this is too advanced for them," Sae whispered to her
sister.

"Let's try something simpler." Tae whispered back. She pulled out a tray with new
vegetables. "Since we are getting nowhere," She told her students, "We'll do spaghetti
with tomato sauce."

"Tomato sauce?" Ayame asked, clearly repulsed by the idea, "But tomatos aren't
nice, they're nasty."

"They are?" Saito asked the little girl, his instinct awakened by the word 'nasty'.

"Yes," Susume agreed, "Nasty and horrible."

"Not nice," Saito repeated in a trance, "Nasty... horrible..." He got a vision of
giant grinding people into human sauce.

"Hey, Saito!" Sanosuke called, noticing the change in the policeman, "This isn't
that killer tomato movie we saw the other day!"

Of course, when Saito is in his Aku Soku Zan mode, he closes himself from the
rest of the world, and only hears what he wants. And he only heard 'killer tomatoes'. That
was enough for him to stand and pull out his sword.

"Tomatoes are evil and I'll destroy them!" He said sharply, "I'll show them the
true power of my Gatotsu!" He stabbed the tomatoes on the table. He looked around himself
and noticed the onions, "Onions make women cry!" And stabbed them, "Red meat is bad for
the health!" And stabbed the beef.

"Saito-san!" Tae started, "Stop it! We wont see barbecue skewers until next week!"
Her words fell on deaf ears. She sighed and decided to leave Saito with his skewer, as
long as he didn't stab anyone, and turned to the class, "Alright, something simpler..."

"Out of season shrimp are poisonous!" Stab.

"Smashed potatoes." She continued ignoring the crazed policeman, "Sanosuke, come
here."

"Chicken bones choke people!" Stab.

"What do you know about smashed potatoes." Sae asked, before something else
happened.

"They're smashed." Sanosuke answered proudly. He took a large potato and set it on
the table.

"Puffer fish poison people!" Stab.

Sano threw a glance at Saito, who kept running aroud the kitchen skewering food
with his sword. Then turned his attention back to the potato.

"What else?" Tae asked.

"You smash them like this... FUTAE NO KIWAMI!" The potato was smashed and ended
all over Sano, Tae and the people in the front row, "Then you cook it and you serve it."
He finished proudly, and looked at Tae. She was so furious that the potato was cooking
right on her face. "I think..." He added, scratching the back of his head, and wondering
if he had done it right."

"I didn't knew you could do that with the Futae No Kiwami." Anji said, thouthful.

"Pork isn't Kosher!" Stab.

"SIT DOWN!" Tae ordered Sano, then she turned to Saito, "AND YOU, STOP IT!"

Saito stopped short of screaming at and skewering an octopus, looked at all the
food stuck on the blade of his sword, then at the furious sisters. Without waiting for
them to say it, he sat back down.

"Sensei Tae," Shishio lifted his hand carefully (Sae and Tae must have been REALLY
angry) "Since Saito already has a skewer, why don't we cook it?"

"And Soujiro has already made a salad," Aoshi offered. "Jupon Katana salad."

"Shut up!" Tae screamed and Aoshi cringed.

"It's easy," Shishio continued, "Just let me warm up for fifteen minutes. We don't
even have to wait for the coal of the barbecue to burn..."

Tae glared at Shishio. When she looked that Saito was still staring dumbly at his
sword, she took a deep breath, counted to ten, then released it with a long sigh.

"Alright," Tae finally said, her anger gone completely "Gatotsu-style Shisengumi
barbecue skewer." She told everyone the ingredients on Saito's sword, but didn't allow
Shishio to self-ignite and burn down the place in the process. She did, however, allow him
to flash-start the barbecue.

Of course, she didn't allow anyone to taste the skewer with salad until they had
cleaned the mess that had once been the kitchen and paid up for all the wasted ingredients.

Later that day, they all had to be taken to Dr. Gensai's clinic for indigestion.
They had forgotten that the Jupon Katana salad had raw pork, shrimp, chicken and noodles.
And so ended a normal day in the lives of the Kenshingumi, their friends and enemies.

The End

8/MAY/1999
Blackthorn Hiei Hibiki Sagara
AXBB@Hotmail.com

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Don't ask. I just wrote this after one of my Chinese cooking classes. It all started as
I imagined Sanosuke making smashed potatoes. The rest came as I wrote. It has no specific
time or place so it might as well take place in the year 2000 when they're all dead and
making hell in Paradise.

All characters of their respective owners. I don't own any of them, not even the killer
tomatoes. So don't sue me.