THE AUTHORESS SPEAKS.
WELL ACTUALLY, SHE TYPES.
YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, DAMMIT.
Reviews for Chapter Six, "Bonding Time"
Okami Youkai- Heh heh. Your review made me laugh. I thought people'd think me psycho for having Shadow kiss Tsume...
Name1- Yes, I'm dead, but I can still type! That's all that matters, right?
Draikitha- Blues Clues is scary. It frightened me... the one time I watched it... when I was really little... Didn't know the guy killed himself though... Knew about the Dell dude... But not the other guy...
C.C.C.- GOOD IDEA!!! ::hugs:: After I finish this story... and my other ones... But probably not... I'll probably start it tomorrow... I'll write that! I already have a million possibilities opening up in the empty space in my skull!
Kaoru-the-kitsune- Yes, satellite is a good thing to have. I wanna get Wolf's Rain on DVD as soon as I can find any...
kiinu- FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING GOOD IN THIS WORLD, DO NOT OPEN YOUR FRIDGE! A friend of a friend of a cousin of an aunt of a parent of a child whose sister works in McDonald's in a state where there's a dog belonging to a smart person with a nephew who can't read but knows why his father's friend's business associate who lives far, far away from me put something in there that has turned into a green rice cake with eyes and fangs seeping poisonous vemon... (That made no sense.)
chocogurl- HI. I started watching Wolf's Rain at episode eight and boy do I regret that... I wish I'd started at episode one... I started watching it first week of summer vacation... Yes, I suppose I could be called a Tsume fanatic... :) I like Kiba, too, of course... The other two are annoying in their own special ways... My influence, eh? Yes... That's what it is... Influence... Don't believe any of that stuff they tell you about subliminal messages... ::shifty eyes::
Arrow-Tipped Kestrel- Yes, it is fun to torture anime characters. That's why Shadow exists... Sort of. But she's very useful when it comes to such things.
Black Cat- Have you ever considered that maybe you are the ruler of Hell? Cuz I don't think that even my sister made torture plans when she was six... O.o ::cough-cough-psycho-cough::
Mika Saito- I would've had a B in math had my teacher not decided to be nice and not count the final (which I got a C on... Lovely, Geometry...) Next year I go into Advanced Algebra... I was in Algebra 1 in 7th grade... Hated it. It was probably the teacher, though... But I always had one point above a B. Heh heh.
Bar-Ohki- The relationship between Hiei and Shadow is whatever you want to think of it as. I'm not confirming anything. But you will never see a romance story on my page. Nope. Humor is all I write... At least, that's all I write for the public to read.
xkuroxshinobix- Ah... You read them, but did you review them all...? In other words... YOU READ ALL MY STORIES, I LOVE YOU! In that friend sorta way... O.o
Get on with it...
Okee dokee!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Criminals Roasting Marshmallows
It was long after midnight when Shadow's stupidity caught up with her. She never locks the door at night, you see, because most people know the rumors of her house being full of psychos and murderers and whatnot else that's in there... Well, it's not full of them, it's just one person, but still, the rumors fly.
Some rather daring and stupid teenagers, new to Tokyo, had heard the rumors and decided to see whether or not they were true. Wearing dark clothes, three kids snuck up onto the front porch, whispering and whatnot, and checked the door. Being as it was open, they all looked at each other and one reached out and opened it. Simple as that.
"Well that was easy," he whispered.
"Shhh! Go in!"
The kid stepped into the dark house, followed by his two partners. They snooped around a bit before heading farther into the house.
They knew they'd made a mistake the second they walked into the living room.
Two snarling wolves stood side-by-side in the middle of the room.
"Oh shit," one kid said. "Run!"
They tore back towards the door. Kiba and Tsume easily jumped the couch and went after them.
Shadow, up in her room playing video games, heard the door slam. Hiei woke up and both of them ran out of the room (why Hiei slept in Shadow's room is beyond me...), and down the stairs, being joined by Eclipse, Kurama, and the other two wolves on the way.
They found three black-clad teens standing in the yard, terrified beyond anything they'd ever felt before by the two wolves, who were simply sitting in front of them, eyes glowing.
"You two stay on the porch. I wanna handle this," Shadow said to her friends. Toboe and Hige at her sides, she walked up behind the three boys and tapped one on the shoulder.
"AH!" He spun around.
"What were you doing in my house?" she asked. Her nearly-cheerful calmness was scarier than explosions of fury would have been.
"Don't kill me! Don't kill me!" the kid begged.
"TELL ME WHAT THE HELL YOU WERE DOING IN MY HOUSE AND I MIGHT NOT!"
"We heard rumors! That a witch or a devil or a vampire or some kind of sex goddess or sacrificial voodoo rapist or something lived here, and we heard that there's all kinds of money and jewels and stuff in there!"
"Really?" Shadow said cluelessly. "So did you break into my house for the jewels or to be raped and sacrificed?"
The kids stared. "Are you really...?"
"So let me get this straight. You think I'm some kind of vampiric devil-witch who kidnaps people to make them my sex slaves then I sacrifice them to some kind of gothic God of the Underworld and somehow that gets me a lot of riches?"
Up on the porch, the others couldn't help but laugh at the thought of Shadow being like that.
"Well... That's... what the rumors..." one kid muttered. Shadow chuckled.
"Who tells you these rumors?"
"Everybody at school talks..."
"And how many of them have actually been here?"
"Nobody ever gets farther than the sidewalk unless it's daylight. They're too scared," one kid said.
"We didn't think it could be that bad, so we got dared..."
"Dared?! You broke into my house because of a dare?"
"Well, it wasn't really breaking in..."
"Why not?"
"The door was unlocked."
"TRESPASSING, STUPID!" Shadow screamed.
"Are you going to kill us?" the first kid asked. "You really don't seem that bad... And you look like you're about fourteen..."
"I'm nearly one hundred, for your information, and YES I'M THAT BAD! I just don't kill," Shadow said.
"You don't?"
"No." After a carefully timed pause, she said maniacally, "I SACRIFICE! NOW GET THE HELL OUTTA MY YARD BEFORE I SACRIFICE YOU! AND THERE'LL BE NO SEX ABOUT IT!" Her eyes glowed and she created fireballs in her hands, laughing maniacally. The kids got up and ran screaming from the yard. The second their screams faded, Shadow collapsed onto the ground, laughing so hard she couldn't breath.
Kiba stood above her. "'Vampiric devil-witch'? What the heck would you do to make people think that?!"
Shadow caught her breath, lying on the ground with a big smile on her face. "Damn, I should have fed them to the weasels..."
Kiba's eyes widened.
"Nah... Cuz then they wouldn't be able to go tell stories and make my legend greater..."
"Shadow, having people think of you as a vampiric devil-witch who sacrifices her sex slaves to the God of the Underworld isn't all that great to start with..." Tsume informed her.
"Are you kidding? That's awesome!" Shadow said, laughing again. Tsume sighed and headed back to the house.
"... Is she okay?" Toboe asked him a short distance away.
"She's fine," Tsume said. "She's beyond fine, in fact, she's really happy."
Toboe cast a glance at her before hurrying after Tsume.
The next morning, at some disgustingly early hour, Shadow's doorbell rang. Yes, the annoying doorbell that swears at you if you don't get to the door fast enough.
Well, Shadow had been playing video games all night, hadn't slept a second, which isn't unusual and may be part of the reason she's so psycho all the time. So, of course, she was the one to come bouncing down the stairs, skip into the kitchen and grab a bottle of Mello Yello before answering the door, which had started to get mad and say things like, "Answer the door. Now. Before something falls off the ceiling and impales itself through your skull."
"Hellooo-- Oh! Hello, Mister Cop!"
Yup. There were two police officers standing outside her door.
"Hello... There was a report early this morning made by some kids... They said they saw the escaped wolves here, and that you tried to kill them. The kids, not the wolves."
"There's no wolves here," Shadow said. "And I'm a scrawny fifteen-year-old girl who owns no gun. Do you really think I could kill somebody?"
"Do you mind if we take a look around your house?"
"Do you honestly think I'd be stupid enough to keep wolves in my house?" Shadow asked.
"The kids said they saw the wolves come out of your house, so yes, I think you may have them in your house."
"Whatever," Shadow said. "But it'll take your quite a while to search every room in my house... Four floors... Five or eight or more rooms on each floor..."
"Just move aside and let us in," the cop said. Shadow sighed and stepped out of the way. Tsume and Kiba were obviously awake and had heard the conversation, as Tsume was lying on the couch watching TV, and Kiba was headed up the stairs, probably to warn Toboe and Hige.
"Records show there are two people living in this house," the cop was saying. "Where's your father?"
"My father?!" Shadow said, choking. "He's not my father."
"Who is he, then?"
"He's my... uh... Guardian. Yeah. That's it."
"Who's this?" the cop asking, pointing at Tsume.
"Boyfriend. You know, this is a little early, so if you open a door and see people sleeping, don't go in..."
"Who else is here?!"
"About..." Shadow paused to count on her fingers. "Six other people."
"Six?! Why?"
"Friends visiting from... er..." She pulled out a map of Japan from... somewhere... "From Osaka! Yeah. That's it."
Tsume looked at her sideways but didn't say anything.
"And a couple of them are visiting from Tokyo..." she said, thinking.
"We're in Tokyo," the cop said.
"We are? Crab apples..."
The man quirked an eyebrow. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"She's fine," Tsume said before she could answer.
The second cop walked in. "It's all clear down he-- Where the hell do you get off wearing clothes like that?" He was staring at Tsume. "Clothes that sexy should be illegal!"
Shadow gagged, spinning and hiding her face against Tsume's chest. "Oh my God, Tsume, he's gay," she squeaked. "Gay cops... Now I'm scared..."
Tsume, meanwhile, was rather shocked and suddenly wanted to go hide somewhere where nobody would ever find him again.
"Let's continue, shall we..." the first cop said, pushing his partner towards the stairs. Tsume followed them around as Shadow led them, but he stayed a safe distance from the cops.
Shadow made it a kind of tour. "This is my room... That's Hiei in the bed..."
"Why's he in your bed if that's your boyfriend?" the first cop asked, pointing at Tsume. The second cop used this as an excuse to look at Tsume again.
"Because I don't sleep. He just kinda sleeps wherever he is when he feels tired," Shadow said, shrugging. "It's not like I sleep with my guardian or anything..."
"That's your guardian?" the cop asked.
"Shadow," Tsume muttered. Shadow glanced at him and noticed the cop. She not-very-subtly placed herself between the cop and Tsume again.
"Yes, he's my guardian. Normally he'd wake up if the doorbell rang, but I kept him awake most of the night," Shadow said. Then she blinked, realizing that the way she said it had possibilities to be taken the wrong way. "I was playing video games."
"Ah."
They continued the search/tour, and eventually Shadow decided she'd just permanently place herself between the cop and Tsume, because he was making Tsume really uncomfortable.
When they came to Eclipse's room and opened the door, she screamed bloody murder and slammed it back in their faces.
"Erm... We'll get her room last... Dunno why she'd flip out like that... Tsume, go talk to her," Shadow said, opening the door and pushing Tsume in before Eclipse could shut it in their faces and before Tsume could complain.
Well obviously, the cops found no wolves, but as they were walking back down the second floor hallway, they noticed a door with a "High Voltage, Do Not Enter" sign on it.
"What's in there?" the cop asked, stopping.
"... High voltage. I dunno. I've never opened it since we moved in cuz of that sign," Shadow lied, shrugging. "It's probably full of dead bodies."
The cops both pulled out their guns.
"Stand back."
You know what happened next? Course ya don't, fool! I haven't written it yet!
The cops opened the door and screamed bloody murder as a herd of hungry weasels came flying out at them. Shadow stood there.
"Oh shit," she said plainly. "This isn't good."
The cops ran screaming down the stairs, abandoning use of their guns as the weasels were too fast to shoot, and ran screaming out the door and back into their car and down the street. Shadow ran onto the porch and whistled really loud and high-pitched, making the wolves in her house flinch. The weasels all stopped. Shadow walked past them, down the street, down the street some more, until she found a door-to-door salesman at work. She grabbed him and dragged him back to her house.
Of course, she couldn't let the weasels eat him in plain sight, so she dragged him into her house, up to the weasels's room, and threw him in. And the weasels all pounced on him. And Shadow shut the door, so who knows what happened next.
Of course, Eclipse and Tsume had just come out of her room as Shadow threw the poor struggling guy into the room among the bones and the herd of weasels flooded into the room. Tsume stared, slack-jawed.
"That's just psycho," he said as Shadow shut the door.
"What do you think I am?!" Shadow asked. "Not psycho? No, I'm a psycho, and psychos to psycho things, y'know?!"
"Get used to it, Tsume. Your girlfriend is a psycho," Eclipse said, shrugging. "Well, I'm going to go play video games."
"Not in my room you're not!" Shadow warned over the screams of the quickly-dying salesman.
"Why not?"
"Hiei's in there sleeping. I already had him up most of the night."
"You did?! What were you doing? You had Hiei up most of the night in your room? You pervert!" Eclipse said.
"I'm the pervert? Why am I the pervert?!"
"Because you were..." She whispered the rest of the sentence in Shadow's ear, and Shadow hit her in the head.
"YOU PERVERT! I was doing no such thing! I was playing video games! God... You're sick. Well what were you and Tsume doing while the cops were searching the house? Hmm? You could have done anything in there and I wouldn't have known!" she snapped. "And why did you scream when they opened the door? Maybe you were already doing naughty things! With KURAMA!"
Eclipse gagged. "Yeah right!"
"Sure, sure, whatever... You know, I didn't see him in his room..."
"Prolly cuz he was in your room."
"My room? Why would he be in my room?" Shadow asked suspiciously.
"You have to ask? You're the one who was &()$#!&(%)-&$%--$#."
"YOU PSYCHO! If me and Hiei did $%&-, it would be ALONE."
"How can you $%&- when you're alone? That takes two people!"
"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, YOU $%&-ER!"
"OH, SO I'M A $%&-ER? AT LEAST I DON'T MAKE OUT WITH EVERY GUY I SEE!"
"OH YEAH? NEITHER DO I! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ME MAKING OUT WITH KUWABARA?"
"Just cuz I haven't seen you do it doesn't mean you haven't. I never saw you making out with Tsume, but obviously you did."
"Yeah, well I haven't seen you making out with anybody, pansy!"
"Pansy? What, cuz I don't make out with people?"
"Yeah!"
They seemed on the verge of physical violence when Tsume intervened.
"Okay, kids," he said, stepping between them. "Go about your separate business... Stop killing each other."
"We weren't killing each other," Shadow said innocently.
"Yeah. We were just joking," Eclipse added. "We do this all the time."
Tsume stared. Then he groaned and leaned against the wall, putting his hand on his forehead.
"Why me...?"
Shadow and Eclipse went off to see what other creative friendly argument they could get into.
Later that day, Yusuke and Kuwabara came back, no big surprise... They might as well live there too...
Kuwabara kept giving Shadow funny looks. Eventually, Shadow got kinda sick of it and decided to chase him off. Tsume was sitting on the couch, looking kind of bored, so Shadow went and sat down beside him, resting her head against his chest, pulling his arm from where it rested on the back of the couch to wrap it around herself. Tsume stared at her.
"Freaking out Kuwabara again," she said, smirking. Tsume sighed.
And, of course, when Kuwabara wandered in, he stared for a second at the two--Shadow apparently asleep against Tsume, Tsume looking up at him with an innocent look--and went stumbling out of the room to complain and babble to Hiei about it. He'd barely got out of the room however, when he screamed and ran. Shadow burst out laughing.
"Idiot," she said, getting up. "Now, I'm going to go talk to Kurama."
And she went skipping away. Literally. Tsume went back to... whatever he'd been doing previous to her little 'freak out Kuwabara' thing...
A minute later, her and Eclipse went skipping out the door.
"I thought she was gonna talk to Kurama..." Tsume muttered.
Hiei came down the stairs with Kurama behind him.
"Did Shadow and Eclipse just come through here?" Hiei asked. Tsume nodded.
"Looking for you," he added.
"Where'd they go?"
"Outside."
The two went outside after them.
"Oi, Shadow!" Hiei called. Shadow was doing somersaults in the yard, and handstands, and cartwheels, and pretty much just looking very.... Whatcha callit... Aerobic? Oo
"What?" Shadow chimed, walking along on her hands.
"Tsume said you were looking for us," Hiei said.
"That I was," she said, doing a one-handed cartwheel. Hiei waited for her to continue, but when she went into repeated somersaults, he spoke up.
"Well... Care to tell me why?"
"I just wanted to know."
Meanwhile, Eclipse came crawling slowly out of the forest on her hands and knees, her face practically on the ground for no obvious reason, muttering quietly to herself. Kurama and Hiei stared at her for a minute before turning back to Shadow.
"What did you want to know?" Kurama asked.
"What you brilliant idea was yesterday."
"Oh. Well, I might as well explain it to everyone at once so as to avoid repeated asking of the same question..."
Shadow did a forward flip and landed right in front of Kurama, her face up in his, a big smile on her face.
"You want me to call a family meeting?!" She took a deep breath without waiting for an answer, getting ready to yell. Kurama clamped his hand over her mouth.
"That's quite alright, Shadow. I'm sure there's a way we can call a meeting without announcing it to all of Tokyo."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" came Eclipse's screamed. She was on her feet, chasing after a bee. "MY BABY BUMBLEBEE!!! NOW MY MOMMY CAN'T BE PROUD OF ME!!!"
And she promptly ran out into the road and got hit by a semi.
Just kidding, I wouldn't do that to her... Kurama would kill me...
"What?!"
Forget it. She ran out into the road and was nearly hit by a truck, but it slammed on its brakes and stopped barely an inch from Eclipse without her flinching. She'd stopped, of course, when she heard the brakes, and stood staring at the driver with a look of clueless innocence on her face. The driver had a majorly freaked-out look on his face and jumped out of the truck, as did the passenger.
"Hey, aren't you one of the kids who broke into my house last night?" Shadow asked, suddenly on the roof of the truck. The kid jumped five feet in the air. Then he stared at her, perched on the truck as she was, as if it were nothing strange to sit on the roof of a truck that nearly splattered her best friend all over the pavement and accuse a total stranger of breaking into her house.
Of course, the driver of the truck was too busy screaming at Eclipse (who stood there, clueless innocence written all over her face, giving him a look like she didn't understand a word he was saying but was just standing there to be polite) to notice that his son was being accused of breaking into a house by a girl sitting on the top of his truck.
Shadow did a flip off the truck and got up in his face. "Yes indeed, I think you are. You know, the cops came by this morning. Yup yup, they sure did. They didn't find any wolves, either. You must be insane. I didn't see any wolves last night. Nope. I didn't rape them either, and I didn't sacrifice them, and one of them was gay, but my minions scared them off. After they thoroughly searched the house. Yeah. That's why my minions had to scare them off. Cuz they found their secret hideout. Yup yup. The Weasel Minions of Doom, with their Rabies and Fangs and Lust for Human Blood. Scared them cops off real good. Yup. Yes sir."
"AND I COULD HAVE KILLED YOU! YOU KIDS ARE JUST SOOOOO DARING NOWADAYS! WHY, BACK WHEN I WAS A KID, WE DIDN'T RUN OUT IN FRONT OF CARS! NO! WE WERE RESPECTFUL! WE ALWAYS FINISHED OUR VEGETABLES! WE ALWAYS DID WHAT OUR PARENTS TOLD US! BUT YOU KIDS THESE DAYS!"
Eclipse was still staring innocently. She hadn't moved more than to blink through the entire lecture.
"I bet I don't seem as scary during the day, right? Well what if I started drooling and looking all psychotic, what with the deranged wide-eyed stare and the stringy drool and the jumping around and making noises like an ape?!" Shadow did an exact imitation of this, jumping around like and ape and making the noises to go with it, drooling and giving him wide-eyed-psycho looks. Then she pinned him down on his back on the ground.
"WHERE'S MY BANANA, BITCH?"
And the kid's father still lectured Eclipse. Hiei and Kurama were watched in an amused sort of way from the yard.
Shadow jumped back up onto the truck, standing up. "What if a cloud suddenly covered the sun and everything got dark?" She made a motion like she was sweeping a cloud over the sun, then she dropped to her hands and knees to get in the kids face. "Would you be scared then?!" Then she jumped back up. "Or what if a herd of geese covered the sky and it got dark for three days, but was light during the night? Would you be scared then?! Or what if LOCUSTS swarmed out your EARS AND NOSE AND MOUTH? WOULD YOU BE SCARED THEN? HUH?!"
Eclipse and the boy's father were now watching her, and she was clueless.
"AND GOD'S WRATH IS UPON YOU, SHE SAID, AND LIGHTNING SHOT THROUGH THE SKY! BY THE NEXT FULL MOON, YOU SHALL BE SMOTED! AND GOD LAUGHED AND SAID, 'I must be getting old. I don't remember creating that Shadow Jaganshi girl...' AND THEN IT DAWNED ON HIM. SHADOW JAGANSHI IS A CHILD OF SATAN! MUWAHAHAHAHA! AAAHHHHHHAHAHAHA!!! MUWAHAHAHAHA!!! KWEHEHEHEHEH!!! KEKEKEKE!!! Chirrrrrp chiiiirrrrrrrrrp!" She jumped around on the roof of the truck like a monkey, imitating various animal sounds and doing a very good job of it. It sounded like the zoo had just rolled in.
Finally, after at least ten minutes of this, Shadow collapsed and rolled into the back of the truck, landing among many, many suitcases, completely out of breath. He lay there like a wounded animal, her tongue hanging out of her mouth, panting and laughing like a hyena, slightly cross-eyed.
"I don't know what she's talking about," the driver said to the guys who'd gathered in Shadow's yard. "We've never been in Tokyo before."
Shadow blinked. "You haven't?" She jumped out of the truck and landed in front of the boy. "I'm terribly sorry. My mistake." Then she walked casually back towards her house, oblivious that she'd just been filmed by two different film crews.
"We're really sorry about all this," Kurama said. Then he went to the TV vans. "Really, we'd rather you didn't show that on TV."
"Are you nuts? This is a big story!"
"What, some lunatic girl jumping around like a monkey on the roof of a truck? Do you know how many people in this world actually care about that kind of stuff?" Hiei asked. "All they care about on the news is the weather."
"Some people like watching the news to find out about murders, kidnappings, and rapes, too," Shadow said cheerfully, suddenly behind Hiei. The people stared at her. Tsume and Kiba walked up and grabbed her by the arms, dragging her back to the house. She let them, smiling cheerfully all the way, oblivious to the fact that just about every woman in the crowd was staring at Tsume and planning how exactly to kidnap him.
"Hiei, I think you should just fiddle with their minds," Yusuke said. "It'd be simpler."
"True."
So, shortly, the father and son new to Tokyo were on their way down the road, oblivious to what had happened, and all the news vans and curious spectators thought they'd pulled over on the side of the road to watch two escaped criminals roast marshmallows.
.......................................
I'm aware I said I'd tell you what Kurama's plan was... Well it didn't fit into this chapter... Next chapter, then.
This chapter had nothing to do with criminals roasting marshmallows 'cept for the thing at the end... Can you tell I just title the chapter whatever I think of first? Heh heh heh.
This chapter was seven pages and some six or so lines on page eight... Heh heh heh. Long, pointless chapter.
And the reason I didn't get this up yesterday is cuz it's so long and because of my sister and the cruel cruel world and the library and a whole crapload of other things I could blame it on but won't cuz that'll require too much typing and I'm too damn tired at 2:00 in the morning to do that...
I just glanced in at the TV, which I left on the weather channel of all channels after Cowboy Bebop... And it scared the shit out of me to see a guy standing in front of the US. Dunno if it was the guy himself that scared me or the fact that he's the size of the US, but I jumped. Now is that not a sign that I should be ASLEEP instead of being a nice person and typing all this shit you don't care about so I can post this chapter? God, I'm a potty mouth at 2 in the morning! Jeez.
One more thing: Two anime characters who I kinda base Shadow after (of course, being the creator and the biggest influence on her character, I am the biggest influence on her character...), if I had to pick two, would be Edward (Cowboy Bebop, yes Edward's a girl) and Haruko (Fooly Cooly. Psycho alien "vespa woman" whatever they call her...). Yup. Couple o' Psychos.