CHAPTER FOUR
In which people are injured and tortured and punished
The day after Bishounen Challenge #1.
The order of the caged guys was now this: Inuyasha, Sano, Hiei, Saitou, Aoshi, Sesshoumaru. That everybody...? Okay, we're good.
The author is still recovering from Intermission. Give her a break.
The fanatics didn't realize they hadn't really improved the situation much, because Sanosuke was now beside Hiei and Hiei was beside Saitou, and those two seemed to be what you might almost be able to call friends. Sooo... Yeah.
It seemed to be sometime around noon, judging from the fact that the guys had been sitting around doing nothing for hours since they'd been given breakfast. Really, they were getting rather angry. It'd been... two days... since they were put here? Only one day for Vash, Wolfwood, Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru, and Miroku. Hiei had taken to doing push-ups for hours and hours. Saitou and Wolfwood sat there massaging their temples because they had really horrible withdrawal headaches. None of them talked much because all they felt like doing was murdering something (Except Kenshin and Vash... Softies.).
"This sucks!" Yusuke whined. "What the heck are we supposed to do? I wonder if anybody has even noticed we're gone."
"Yusuke, use your brain..." Kurama started.
"If you have one," Hiei added. Then he continued counting his push-ups.
"You, Hiei, and I were all at Shadow's house before we ended up here. I think Shadow would realize we were gone."
"Oh, geez. Shadow. Like Shadow's gonna be a big help," Yusuke said. "We're doomed. Keiko's gonna think I died again."
"Yusuke, Shadow isn't just some lunatic. She might seem like she is, but I'm sure she has enough brains to go to Koenma or something," Kurama said. "And if she doesn't, maybe Kuwabara or Eclipse will."
"Eclipse wasn't even there!"
"Oh yeah."
"And we can't count on Kuwabara to remember his own name," Hiei said.
"Like I said. We're doomed," Yusuke said. He turned so he was facing mainly everybody else in the room. "Any of you got girlfriends or wives or sisters or mothers who would worry about you?"
"Hai," Kenshin answered. "Sanosuke and I... And Saitou... And Aoshi... But shishou doesn't..."
Kenshin received a blow to the head for that.
"Ow..."
"Okay, anybody else?" Yusuke asked.
"Inuyasha and I," Miroku answered.
"I wouldn't say Millie and Meryl would worry about us," Wolfwood said under his breath to Vash.
"No. They'll just be really pissed that I'm gone and I didn't say anything to them," Vash answered.
"Okay, so almost all of us have people at home or where ever the hell we came from, who will worry about us," Yusuke said. "Too bad they can't all gang up and find us."
"Time travel isn't entirely impossible, obviously," Kurama reasoned. "Maybe they could."
"I really doubt that they know we're howevermany years in the future. And even if they did, how would they manage to come up with a time machine? We're talking about Shadow and Kuwabara here. And unless Shadow has a time machine hidden somewhere in her house-" Yusuke glanced at Hiei, who shook his head. "-then they'll have to MAKE ONE or something, and I DON'T THINK THEY CAN MAKE A FLIPPIN' TIME MACHINE! THEY'RE IDIOTS!"
"Yusuke-san... losing your temper won't help," Kenshin said cautiously.
"Yeah, Yusuke. Maybe you should be in one of these cages too!" Hiei said. "Now just shut up about Shadow's intelligence."
"Ooooh, a bit touchy on that subject, huh?" Sano taunted. "She's the one you live with, isn't she?"
"Yes."
"Ooooh, well maybe you're doing more than just living with her," he continued. Hiei looked at Saitou.
"Can I hit him?" he pleaded.
"Feel free," the officer answered. Hiei instantly spun around and punched Sano straight in the face (through the bars, of course. I'm not forgetting they were there). Sano stumbled backwards holding his bleeding nose.
"Nice one, Hiei," Yusuke said sarcastically.
"Hiei, let's not do that anymore," Kurama said. "You know reacting with such fury only makes him more suspicious, anyway."
Only Kenshin thought to ask Sano if he was okay.
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine," he answered sarcastically. "About as fine as I'd be if I'd had a house dropped on my face!"
"... I think you're a little better than that, de gozaru," Kenshin said.
"I don't feel like it! God, Hiei, do you wear metal knuckles or something?"
"Does it look like I do?" Hiei asked, holding up his hand.
Sano grumbled some more, but he was more focused on stopping the blood flow from his nose. Eventually it stopped, but by that point both his hands were rather bloody, and he had nothing to do with the blood except wipe it on his shirt. And that's exactly what he did.
A little while later, the guys were all 'tended to' or whatever the girls liked to call it. Sano's little caretaker noticed the blood, flipped out, had a heart attack or three, and maybe a seizure, died, came back to life, blacked out, then ran to go get their leader (Kurama's fangirl) to tell her what had happened (somewhere in there between her spotting it and dying, Sano had explained).
"What is it?" Kurama's fanatic asked when Sano's fanatic came flying through the door.
"That little twit Hiei hurt my Sanosuke-sama!!!" the girl screamed before totally breaking down into tears. Kurama flinched.
"I knew nothing good could come from that..." he muttered.
"Hurt? How bad?"
"Oceans and oceans of blood! Rivers and lakes and oceans!"
"What? It wasn't that bad!" Kurama protested. "He gave Sano a bloody nose."
"AND LAKES AND OCEANS AND OCEANS AND LAKES!!!"
"It really isn't that bad."
"QUIET!" Kurama's fanatic finally screamed. Instantly, the other girl stopped crying. Kurama looked worried.
"What're we gonna do to him?" the other girl asked eagerly.
"Do?" Kurama said, startled. "You mean like... punishment?"
"Kurama, dear, it's really nothing to worry your little head about," his fanatic comforted.
"Yes it is! If you're going to punish him, I'd like to know. He is my best friend, after all."
"Oh. Yes, well I suppose so. Well, we have to decide on a punishment. The victim has some say. Bring him here," the leader girl said. Sano's fanatic was back moments later with Sanosuke.
"What's going on?"
"We have to decide on a punishment for your assailant," Kurama's fanatic said matter-of-factly.
"My what?"
"Hiei," Kurama simplified. "They want to punish Hiei for hitting you."
"Why don't they want to punish Saitou? He hit me too."
"What? When?!" the girls asked.
"During that thing with the golden tree or whatever... What kind of punishment did you have in mind, exactly?"
"... Well, either you can return the pain to them, or we can lock them in a room with their particular captor and give the girls complete freedom."
"Whoa. I think I know what that might mean, and... I can't imagine that'd be good for the girls. What exactly did you mean I can return the pain to them?"
"You get to hit them as hard as they hit you," Kurama simplified.
"I'm not sure I'm really comfortable with that..."
"Well then how should we punish them?"
"Hm..."
Meanwhile... in the present...
"OH give me a hooooooooooooome where the buffalo roooooooooooooam, and the deeeeeeeer and the antelope plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"
"Shadow, would you stop it with that incessant racket!" teen Koenma whined, covering his ears.
"Not until you try to find Hiei." She burst into song again. "The hiiiiiiiiiiills are alive, with the sound of MUUUSSSSSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIC!!!"
Koenma groaned and held a folder over his head as if he could protect himself from the singing that way.
"Something-or-other and whiskers on kittens-- Oh! Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, something-or-other-and-some-junk-fits-in-here, these are a few of my favorite things and-I-don't-knowwwwwwwwwww-the-words!"
"Shut up!!"
"You gonna help yet?"
"NO!"
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKLAHOMA, WHERE THE WINDS COME SWEEPING DOWN THE PLAINS, AND SOMETHING ABOUT PRAIRIE GOATS OR SOMETHING, AND I DON'T KNOW THE WORDS TO THIS ONE EITHER!!!!!!!!!!"
"Since you don't know the words, you can shut up now."
"Doe, a deer, a female deer. Ray, a drop of golden sun. Me, a name, I call myself. Fa, some letters that make a sound. So, with needle and some thread. La, something that comes after so. Ti, a drink with jam and bread. Then we go back to doe, a deer, a female deer--"
"Shadow! Please!"
"Or I could do this!" Shadow started doing one of those freaky Russian dances with the arms crossed and the kicking the legs and whatnot, singing some notes along with it and shouting "HEY" every time she kicked out her leg. Koenma groaned.
Eclipse had gone nearly completely unnoticed in the corner. She'd come in with Shadow, stood there, then, when Shadow started singing, had whipped out a pair of trusty earmuffs and a book, and hadn't moved since.
"Ummmm..." Shadow muttered, staring at the ceiling, finally done with her Russian dance.
"Are you done yet?"
"Nope!" Shadow said cheerfully, then she burst into an opera. In French. Where she learned French... The world will never know.
"Shadowwww!!!"
Giving up on opera, since it had started to annoy her, Shadow started yodeling. She started singing 'The Lonely Goatherd' from The Sound of Music, which involved a good bit of yodeling. She stopped, thinking of another song.
"The sun will come up, TOMORROW--"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
"It won't?"
"SHUT UP!"
"IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL. IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL. IT'S A SMALL WORLD, A SMALL, SMALL, SMALL, SMALL, SMALL, SMALL, PEA-SIZED WORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLD!!!"
"Shut up!!!! PLEASE?"
"Oh, once upon a yodelin', yooooooooodelin', yodellayhehooooooo, yodel yodellay, yodel yodellay, hehooooooooooooo!" Shadow stopped and looked really excited. "Oh, have you ever heard that song about the nut?! I forget how it goes... Something like this: Cuz I'm a nut. I'm a nut... Then there was this other one... Like... Oh! I'm bringin' home a baby bumblebee, won't my mommy be so proud of me. I'm bringin' home a baby bumblebee. Ow! It stung me! IIIIIIIIIIIIIII'M squishin' up a baby bumblebee, won't my mommy be so proud of me, I'm squishing up a baby bumblebee-- Then there's this other one, like... Ten little monkeys jumpin' on the bed, one fell down and bumped his head. Took him to the doctor and what'd he say? This lil' monkey's gonna die today. Nine lil' monkeys jumpin' on the bed. One fell down and bumped his head. Took him to the doctor and what'd he say? This lil' monkey's gonna die today. EIGHT lil' monkeys-- Did you ever hear about the Indian and the white man? They were sitting there, drinking tea and talking, drinking tea and talking, and that night, the Indian went home and drowned in his own teapee. Hmmmmmmmm... Ever heard of Rammstein? It's a German band. There's this one song... and... I don't know the words, but it's really cool. It's in German. I got the translations, and they sing about strange things. Like one song was something about not having a mother, then wanting to kill the mother you never had or something. It's pretty messed up. You know what? One time I was like... fishing... and I caught a boot..." She burst into song again. "Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I have a beautiful feeling... OH MY GOD! I just thought of the longest, most annoyingest song in all of the known world. Wanna hear it? It goes like this: 99 bottles of sake on the wall, 99 bottles of sake. Take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of sake on the wall!"
All the talking between songs, Shadow had said very very fast, almost incoherent she said it so fast. That had driven Koenma nuts. Now this song was getting on his last nerves. Especially since Shadow was nearly screaming it.
"97 BOTTLES OF SAKE ON THE WALL, 97 BOTTLES OF SAKEEEEEEEEEEE, YOU TAKE ONE DOWN, PASS IT AROUND, 96 BOTTLES OF SAKE ON THE WALL! 96 BOTTLES OF SAKE ON THE WALL, 96 BOTTLES OF SAKE, YOU TAKE ONE DOWN, PASS IT AROUND, 95 BOTTLES OF SAKE ON THE WALLL!!"
Koenma was yanking at his hair and hitting himself with folders.
"SHUT UP RIGHT NOW BEFORE I HAVE YOU BEHEADED!"
Shadow shut up really fast, but she wasn't scared or intimidated. She leaned really close to him and said quietly, "I don't see why you can't just go look for them. They're your little spirit workers, after all. You should be worried about them. Can't you just search for their energies or something? I mean, don't you have like... world cam? You're almost God. Can't you do something like that?"
"Yes. I can. But I don't see why I should."
"Please? I'll kiss your shoes. Want me to kiss your shoes?"
"No."
"... I'll kiss you. You want a kiss?"
"..."
"Ha! Can't deny that so fast, can you?!"
"No, I don't want a kiss. You aren't going to change my mi--"
Shadow leaned forward a few more inches, grabbed Koenma's pacifier out of his mouth, and kissed him right on the lips to stop him from finishing his sentence. (Well she's become a bit more... hm... flirty? Maybe Youko'd have more luck with her now? Lol. I doubt it.)
At that particular moment, Eclipse just happened to look up from her book. Her jaw dropped. Of course, she had on her earmuffs, so she hadn't heard anything that had been going on.
Shadow pulled back. "Gonna do it now?"
"...What?"
"FIND HIEI AND KURAMA AND YUSUKE!"
"Oh. Oh yeah. I'll do that."
Koenma, seeming a bit dazed at first, flipped a switch and the screen in his office started displaying various pictures very, very fast. After a minute of watching a blur of images, Koenma made a dissatisfied noise.
"What is it?" Shadow asked.
"They aren't... located. Anywhere. On Earth. Or in Makai. They must be hiding their energies, or somebody else is."
"WELL WHAT GOOD IS THAT DOING ME?!" Shadow yelled.
"Not a whole lot."
"FIND THEM NOW OR I'LL KICK YOU SIX WAYS INTO NEXT TUESDAY!"
"Look here little girl, I really don't see where you get off telling me, the almighty Koenma, what to do." Well, he forgot about that kiss pretty quick, ne?
"Look here, binkie sucker! I think you should care at least a little bit about where those guys are because if you need your spirit detectives, the only one you've got left is KUWABARA! And do you know how helpful KUWABARA would be!?" She forgot about that kiss pretty fast too, it seems.
"Not very. Look, it'll take a while to find them. I'll search, but in the meantime, LEAVE ME ALONE!"
And with that, Shadow and Eclipse vanished from Koenma's office without any warning, and ended up on Shadow's porch. She started cussing and screaming and kicking things and eventually only stopped when Eclipse whapped her in the head with a hardback book.
"Well what're we supposed to do now?" Shadow asked, rubbing her head. "Just sit around until he contacts us?"
"That is exactly what we're going to do. But WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING KISSING KOENMA?!"
"What? Oh yeah."
"OH YEAH? HOW CAN YOU BE SO CASUAL? I was reading my book, so who knows how long you two had been sitting there makin' out on his desk!"
"First, we were not making out, and second, we were not on his desk."
"Bull shit. You were on his desk, Shadow, and you know it."
"Was not."
"Yeah. You were."
"Was not."
"YES YOU WERE."
"No I wasn't."
"SHUT UP. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT."
"I think I know perfectly well. I'm the one who was on the desk, I think I should know if I wasn't or not."
".................O_o....... Wait! You just said you were the one on the desk."
"Damn."
"You WERE on his desk! You slut!"
"SLUT?"
"You heard me!"
"WELL I THINK YOU SHOULD BE SHOT!"
"I'm not the one who was smooching with the prince of Reikai."
"It's not my fault I know how to kiss guys without their protest."
"Oh yeah? Then why haven't you ever kissed Hiei?"
"..."
"Ha! You love him and you know it. I mean, if you can kiss Koenma, surely you could kiss Hiei without him minding."
"..."
"Or... maybe you already have and just don't want to tell me?"
"Shut up, Eclipse Shinomori, before I knock some part of your body off."
"Boohoo, am I pissing off the royal highness? OW! Dammit, girl, that hurt!"
"It was supposed to, you ahou!"
"Owwwwwwwwww."
(If you're wondering, Shadow kicked Eclipse in the shin. Really hard. With her combat boots. Not the steel-toed ones, lucky for Eclipse)
"You know what? I think you're jealous."
"Jealous? Of you?! Ha! You know, you should be treating me a bit better. You're lucky I'm nice enough to hang around you all this time while you're going through this moment of loopy insane loneliness," Eclipse answered tartly.
"Moment of loopy insane loneliness? First, I have been loopy and insane for many, many, many moments that you weren't around, and second, I'm not lonely, I'm angry. Grrr. Ya know?"
"Yeah, whatever. You kiss Koenma cuz you're angry. You pace around Koenma's office singing and dancing cuz you're angry. I think you need a tranquilizer."
"NO! No tranq. No tranqs for me for if you come near me with any of that crap, I shall shoot thee. With a gun that go BANG." Shadow paused. "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH give me a HOME where the BUFFALO ROAM and the DEER and the ANTELOPES PLAY. Where SELDOM is heard a DISCOURAGING WORD and the SKIES are not CLOUDY OR GRAY! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME, HOME ON THE RANGE..."
Hiei and Saitou were now standing in an empty room. The walls were white. It reminded Hiei of a loony bin. He was slightly nervous. Very slightly. He was mostly just MAD. Very mad.
Saitou was not only mad, he was currently plotting his revenge on the ahou who landed him here. Sanosuke Sagara.
"So..." Hiei said. Saitou looked down at him. "How exactly is this punishment?"
Before Saitou could say anything (if he had been planning on saying anything), the room vanished around them, just like it had with Bishounen Challenge #1. Only this time, instead of a field, what with the flowers and trees and birds and whatnot (though that would have been sufficient punishment), they ended up on a teeny tiny little island, slightly bigger than one of their cells back in the evil circular prison of doom in Tokyo 2010. Who knows where or when they were now. The only thing on the island other than themselves was about twenty green penguins and a palm tree.
"... What are penguins doing on a tropical island?" Hiei asked. "And why are they green?!"
"The water is pink," Saitou said dryly. Hiei looked at it with mild surprise.
"Okay, I'm still wondering how this is punishment. Really... Being trapped on a tiny tropical island surrounded by pink water with only you and a bunch of green penguins for company really doesn't irk me," he said, starting to lose the initial anger he'd felt at being 'punished.' Suddenly, the voice of one of the fangirls came from seemingly nowhere.
"It's punishment because, first, those penguins are tropical penguins, and second, you're staying on that little island until you retrieve the silver medallion engraved with a ten point star and sporting a ruby embedded in the center."
"A treasure hunt?" Saitou said, disgusted.
"What's so bad about tropical penguins? Why are they different from arctic penguins? Other than the fact that they're green, of course," Hiei asked.
"Well, they aren't the greatest swimmers in the world, they're quite stupid, but they're very territorial, prone to violent outbreaks, and they have very sharp teeth," the girl answered.
Hiei inspected the penguins and noticed that it seemed they were territorial, and they did have teeth, because at the moment, he and Saitou were surrounded by green penguins baring their fangs at them.
"And WHY IS THE WATER PINK?!"
"Because that's how the Caribbean is in 2015!"
"You're kidding?! We're in 2015 now?!"
"Hai. And I suggest you get away from those penguins... They've killed people before."
"What?!"
"Don't panic, they can tell."
Hiei let out a snarl, then backed away from the impending doom that the penguins signified. Really, green penguins with fangs are rather intimidating, especially when they're moving closer and growling. Hiei realized he'd backed into the water, ankle-deep. Saitou was beside him.
"This is embarrassing," Hiei managed to say before all twenty penguins lunged at them. The two turned and dove into the water.
There was some truth to what the girl had said about the birds being idiots. Actually there was a lot of truth. Three of them sank as soon as they hit the water. The others managed to figure out that they'd only landed in 6-inch deep water and they walked back to their island while Hiei and Saitou floated a few feet away watching, confused. They exchanged confused glances. They floated underwater for a while until Hiei realized his lungs were aching from holding his breath so long, and his eyes widened. He shot up to the surface and gasped for breath. A second later, Saitou surfaced.
"This *gasp* is really *gasp* stupid," Hiei said. He calmed his breathing before continuing. "Besides... It's not going to do any good."
Saitou didn't reply. Hiei thought nothing of it.
"So... What are we gonna do? We can't just float here forever. In pink water."
"I suppose... All we really can do is search for their stupid medallion."
"Great. Well. Good luck," Hiei said. "And don't drown or anything, because I am NOT performing CPR." With that, Hiei took a deep breath and vanished underwater. Saitou looked slightly confused, but he vanished too.
Meanwhile, the penguins, as stupid as they are, were gathered around two out of the remaining seventeen, watching them duke it out--Penguin style. (Primitive form of entertainment. Penguin boxing.)
______________________________________________________________________________________
Do you really need the dictionary? I think all words were defined in previous chapters. Oh. Somebody at one point in a review asked what –dono means. It's a very, very respectful suffix. Well… one place I read said it was just below God, and another person said it was above God. God is Kami-sama. –sama is the suffix you use when speaking about/to God. So in this chapter I think one of the fanatics said something about Sanosuke-sama. She thinks of him as a God. ^_~ So anyway, -dono is really, really respectful. Let's just leave it at that. ^_^
