Warning: Contains OOC-ness, no-longer-implied shounen-ai, rampant continuity errors, a haphazard storyline, ridiculous situations and nonsense that tries to pass itself off as humor. You have been warned, so don't blame us for mental and emotional trauma.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Yaone sighed and shifted in her seat. She had done precisely nothing but wait for Kougaiji to show up for the past two hours, and really, it was getting kind of repetitive. She had much better things to do than wait for the demon prince to show up, but she needed his help. And so, she waited yet again.
Opposite her, Dokugaiji fidgeted in his chair. He was still not quite over her consuming of all of Kou's Love Cookies- no, their Love Cookies - so much so that having her in his room was utter torment. He had no choice in the matter, however, since Yaone was looking for Kougaiji on 'urgent business', she had said - he heartily concurred after hearing her story - and he hadn't the faintest idea where his loverboy had vanished to. Yaone seemed to have decided that his room was as good as any to wait for the demon prince in, and Doku simply didn't have the heart to throw her out.
"I thought you said Kougaiji-sama will be back soon," grumbled Yaone.
"No, I said I thought he'd be back soon," responded Dokugaiji. "That's an entirely different thing. If I said, 'He'll be back soon,' I'd mean that he either really will be back soon, or has told me that he will be back soon, but I said, 'I think he'll be back soon,' which means-"
"All right, all right," sighed Yaone, sliding off Doku's sofa. "Never mind, Doku-san. I think I'll have to do it on my own."
Dokugaiji's eyes went wide. "You can't be serious."
"I am. I'm afraid I've wasted enough time already, Doku-san. Thanks for waiting with me," Yaone said with a little bow.
"But..." Dokugaiji protested at Yaone's retreating back. "Then at least be careful!" he shouted at her before the door closed. Dokugaiji dropped his head into his hands. He was still mad at her for devouring the cookies, but still... no one, no one, deserved to be on the receiving end of the devilish punishment the two mad scientists had for anyone who dared violate the sanctum of their laboratory. Or did they? After all, a person who would dare rob a demon of his Love Cookies should be punished... but Yaone was his friend... still, the creaminess of the chocolate... the crispness of the biscuit... the love that infused every bite...
Kougaiji walked in barely half a minute later.
"Kou!" wailed Doku, throwing himself into the demon prince's arms. Since he was considerably larger, this resulted in the both of them crashing to the floor. "I... I'm sorry, my beloved! I... I let someone else eat your Love Cookies!" he sobbed, clinging to the lapels of Kougaiji's jacket.
"It's okay, it's okay," soothed Kougaiji, patting the other demon on the back. "Don't worry. I'll bake you some more. There's still flour and chocolate chips in the kitchens-"
"Thank you, Kou," sniffed Doku, wiping away his tears. "But I'm afraid that's going to have to wait..."
***
Elsewhere, a pair of slightly crazed ...lovers... were oblivious to their audience, wrapped up in each other as they were.
"I am not seeing this," moaned Zenon, holding his head in his hands. "I am not seeing this. I am not hearing this either."
"My eternal sunshine, let us retire to the bower of passion..."
"Pseudo-Shakespeare is disturbing, isn't it?" commented Shien.
"With haste, my raven, lest my heart overflow with longing like a clogged sink..."
Two demons, two gods and a half-kappa shuddered as one. Gojyo looked mildly nauseated. "Disturbing, nothing. If you hear creaks, those are the dead poets of the world rolling over in their graves. I mean, even Goku knows this is bad. "
"Thy tender words touch my heart, my sunflower in a patch of weeds. I shall not prove unworthy of thy..."
"I don't know who looks more ridiculous, those two or those two," remarked Shien, staring at Hakkai and Goku. In an attempt to distract either or both the drugged monk or the crazed god, so that they could be safely separated and restrained, they resorted to the kind of attention-seeking tactics that Zenon had used during the truth-or-dare session that ended in disaster. They yelled, jumped, waved their arms, made complete fools of themselves, and were roundly ignored by the manacled pair.
As a side note, Hakkai looked scary in Rinrei's clothes. By general consent, this was not mentioned to him.
"Sanzo... please look at me..." pleaded Goku, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. Drops turned into a steady stream, and then a flowing river, when Sanzo, oblivious to the outside world, placed a caressing hand on Homura's cheek and kissed him passionately.
***
Yaone cautiously peered around the door of the laboratory. Satisfied that the room was devoid of occupants - besides Kougaiji's mom, who floated in a tubular tank - Yaone took a cautious step in and then looked suspiciously at the stacks of research papers, floor-to-ceiling electronic devices with no clear purpose, and tangles of wire and tubing that strung around the room like a mad scientist's idea of party streamers. Nothing seemed to have changed. Yaone heaved a sigh of relief - it always paid to be careful if you didn't want to be the next research specimen - and then took another step.
BEEP.
A light on a huge, computer-like device switched from blue to orange. Yaone froze.
The front of the device fell to the floor with a slam, revealing a cage full of red-eyed, razor-toothed, snarling creatures. The cage door slid open with a hiss.
Yaone leapt onto a desk as a mass of ferocious rabid bunnies surged towards her.
What kind of sick, perverse person, wondered Yaone, would twist rabbits into killing machines?
She took a flying leap onto the nearest stack of papers, and then hopped lightly to the next pile as it began to slide, then jumped to the next, as it, too, began to shift under her feet. She leapt from one stack of papers to the next easily, like a cat, gaining momentum easily, so that her feet left each stack even before it started slipping under her feet. Unfortunately, she was in mid-air by the time she realized that there were no more stacks left.
***
Kougaiji found Dr. Nii opening the door of his lab.
"Ah, Kougaiji-sama!" greeted Dr. Nii nervously, spinning around to look at Kougaiji, hand still on doorknob. Kougaiji was immediately on alert. Something was definitely up if Nii looked flustered. He hoped it wasn't Yaone.
"What's going on, Dr. Nii?" asked Kougaiji, trying to keep his tone conversational.
"I... well... that is..." stammered Dr. Nii, then pulled himself together with visible effort. "This is not the best time, Kougaiji-sama," stated Nii. "We seem to have an intruder." His voice was calm, but Kougaiji noted his white-knuckled grip on his little stuffed rabbit.
"An intruder?" Kougaiji asked flatly. There was no point pretending to be shocked, since the lab's oversensitive alarms went off at least once a week. "What is it this time? A rat like last time? Or the time before that? Or the time before that? Or the time you nearly burnt down your laboratory and my mother's body with it?"
"We didn't know they'd trigger a short-circuit and set our papers alight!" protested Nii. "Besides, it was a gecko that set them off, not a rat!" Nii realized that that was the wrong thing to say when Kougaiji gave him a less-than-impressed look.
Fortunately for him, Dokugaiji wandered up at that point. "What's happening, Kou?" he asked with forced nonchalance. Dr. Nii eyed him suspiciously, and then turned his gaze on Kougaiji, who was starting to look strained.
"Dr. Nii says that the intruder detection system went off. Again," added the demon prince, to ward off any thoughts of overacted surprise from his companion.
"Ah. So let me take a look then," said Doku with unnatural cheerfulness. Dr. Nii was starting to wonder whether any of that drug had gotten into the water supply again. He pushed past Nii and opened the door, standing in the doorway to block the scientist's view.
Dokugaiji's eyes bugged out. First, he saw papers knee-deep on the floor. Then, he saw Yaone take a flying leap off the only remaining stack of paper. Then, he witnessed her brief moment of panic, then watched as she grabbed onto a hanging mass of wires, and sighed with relief when the wires proved to hold her weight. Then he noticed the snarling, snapping mob leaping for her legs. They looked like - ...no, they couldn't be... thought Doku as he leaned in and squinted slightly - cute, cuddly widdle bunnies.
They aren't, realized Dokugaiji. These had eyes that glowed like hot coals, and razor-sharp incisors. They frothed at the mouth. They had claws longer than Kougaiji's nails. They looked, if you'll excuse the usage of the term, demonic. One turned to look at the demon filling the doorway. Doku shuddered when he looked at its demented, beady eyes. Luckily, it decided that Yaone's heels, which were now stepping lightly along the network of wires, would make a tastier meal. These weren't cute, and certainly not cuddly. These were evil rabbits, not innocent, fluffy bunny rabbits.
Doku watched Yaone's progress, mouth agape, ignoring Dr. Nii's protests and attempts to look around his wide shoulders, and Kougaiji's attempts to look over aforementioned shoulders. He finally turned around and attempted to breathe normally when Yaone escaped into a storeroom, slamming the door against the onslaught of fuzzy death.
"What was that sound?" demanded Dr. Nii. Dokugaiji turned around.
"I think you'd better contain your pets, doctor," said Doku, pointing at the mass of rabbits that had proceeded to chew through years' worth of reports for fun once their prey had escaped.
"My reports!" wailed Dr. Nii. "Please, Kougaiji-sama, help me catch these little monsters!" pleaded Nii, rushing to wrest a piece of paper from the mouth of a rabbit. It glared balefully at him, then leapt for his jugular. "Aiiieeeee!"
Kou and Doku sighed and waded into the fray. "Here, rabbit... nice rabbit... nice rabbit... nice -yeow! - rabbit... "
***
Yaone leaned against the door, gasping for breath. She nearly sagged to the floor of the storeroom with relief when she heard Dr. Nii's wail, since it meant that the bunnies of doom would be busy with something else for a while. She should be sympathetic to anyone stuck in a room with those little monstrosities... but this was Dr. Nii, who had undoubtedly created those things in the first place.
She looked around. She was in one of the storerooms, boxes and crates covering the tiled floor where sagging shelves had left space, leaving only a tiny walkway. Innocent looking enough, Yaone thought, but she wasn't going to trust appearances here. Her eyes scanned the room. No obvious traps. Ah, wait - there was a fine tripwire strung between two shelves. She stepped smugly over it - and was rewarded with a sinking feeling when the tile beneath her foot depressed slightly. She threw herself to the floor a little too late. A nasty-looking bolt grazed her upper arm, leaving a painful cut. Its six or seven companions thudded into the far wall. To add insult to injury, her foot caught on the tripwire.
"Oh, gods," groaned Yaone as a crate fell open to reveal a spider the size of a small dog. She was on her feet instantly, her staff clicking together in her hands. The arachnid advanced on her, its mouthparts clicking together menacingly. It was, undoubtedly, poisonous, knowing Nii and Huang. Yaone clinically observed its movements, then, as it leapt, batted it to the floor and smashed her staff into its body, then whacked it a few more times for good measure. If it wasn't dead yet, then the plus-sized spider wisely pretended to be.
Yaone gripped her staff tensely for a few minutes. When no more giant arachnids attacked, she turned her attention to the boxes and shelves around her, then frowned. The labels seemed to be in some sort of foreign language - what in the world could 'sebut tset' or 'sksalf reyemnelrE' be - or not, realized Yaone with sudden clarity. She rolled her eyes at the juvenility of it all. Making absolutely sure there were no more traps, she carefully pried open the box labled 'setoditna' with the tip of her staff and rummaged through the contents.
***
Kougaiji and Dokugaiji sank to the floor, leaning against each other and breathing hard. "I... never want... to do that... again," panted Dokugaiji, bleeding from fifty places.
"Agreed," gasped Kougaiji, trying to hold the remains of his jacket together. His hair, just so carefully styled, was in complete disarray. His long, red locks had actually worked themselves free of the triple tails they were usually slicked into.
"Damn you little fiends," muttered Nii, slamming the last Evil Rabbit into its cage. It looked rather disappointed.
"Nii..." sighed Kougaiji, pinching a particularly deep and nasty gash closed.
"Yes?" asked Nii, sounding rather preoccupied. He was playing tug-of-war with a caged Evil Rabbit for his tie.
"Why rabbits?"
"...I like rabbits," said Nii, as if that answered everything. He gave his blue necktie a firm tug. It ripped in half. The rabbit hanging on to the other half with its obscenely sharp teeth gave him a smug look.
"I should've known," grumbled Kougaiji to himself, staring at the white stuffed rabbit held loosely in Nii's hand.
"Hey, Kou," mumbled Doku, picking bits of torn paper out of his hair. Paper covered all surfaces possible like confetti after a wedding.
"Hmm?" murmured Kougaiji.
"Instead of chocolate chip cookies... how about rabbit pie?"
Their eyes met.
"Very good idea," said Kougaiji darkly.
***
Yaone pressed her ear to the door. "You fighter boys," she heard Dr. Nii sigh. "You'll take a beating without making a sound, but the moment someone applies antiseptic to your wounds, you scream like babies." Yaone heard a sound somewhere between a squeak and a whimper. "Stay still!" Nii barked. There was something that sounded like a sniffled 'yessir'. It sounded suspiciously like Kou-sama's voice, Yaone noted with wide eyes.
"At least the papers for my little secret are still all there," she heard Nii mutter.
There was a pause. Yaone could almost hear the crickets.
"What?" asked Kougaiji.
"Nothing," said Dr. Nii quickly - too quickly, thought Yaone.
"What secret, Nii?" asked Kougaiji. There was just a hint of danger in his voice.
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret, would it?" There was just a note of fear in the scientist's voice.
"You will tell me about this secret project, Nii, or I will personally hang you from the nearest tree with your own guts."
"Are you threatening me?"
"No. Threats are merely meant for intimidation. I mean to do it."
"Hey, Kou," she heard Doku's voice call. "Look at this door."
"Top secret, do not enter?"
"No! There's nothing in there!" yelled Nii desperately.
"Really?" Kougaiji sounded amused.
"Really! It's totally empty! You don't want to open that door!"
"Open it, Doku." Footsteps came Yaone's way, then passed by her hiding place. There was the rattle of a hand on a doorknob.
"Don't, Dokugaiji!"
There was the creak of a slowly opening door. Then, there was the sound of a door being slammed open. There was a rushing, rumbling, crashing. Then all was still. Almost.
Plik. Plik. Plik.
"What the hell?"
***
"Coffee?" asked Kougaiji incredulously.
"Coffee," confirmed Dokugaiji, sitting half buried in a mound of roasted coffee beans. He examined one critically. "You really shouldn't leave roasted coffee beans like this, Nii," said Doku. "They'll lose their aroma."
Dr. Nii looked utterly miserable.
"What is this for?" asked Kougaiji. "Don't tell me that you're in charge of the refreshments for the Annual Mad Scientists' Convention, Nii. I know that you've got almost all of Togenkyou's coffee in here somewhere." To prove his point, he dug his hand into the mound and retrieved a can of Boost Espresso Latte (The Only Canned Coffee With Extra Caffeine For That Extra Kick In The Morning).
"Not all," disagreed Nii sullenly, hugging his rabbit closer. "We don't have decaf. How would you know anyway?"
"A little kappa told me," said Kougaiji curtly. "What is the coffee for, Nii?"
"Well..." Nii hesitated. Then he looked at the expression on Kougaiji's face. Disembowelment was not the way he wanted to go, he decided very quickly. "...watch this." He poured a mug of three-day-old coffee from the industrial-sized coffee machine in the corner and sniffed it. "Vile stuff," he murmured. He walked over to the tank containing Kougaiji's mother and set it down on the console.
Kougaiji's eyebrow twitched. "Is this a joke?" he demanded.
"No. Watch," said Nii.
They did. Then, it happened. Kou could have missed it if he blinked. He thought he might have been dreaming, but then he saw it again.
"Did your mother's body..." pointed Doku, slack-jawed.
"...just twitch?" finished Kougaiji. His eyes were as wide as saucers and nearly as round.
"See?" said Dr. Nii excitedly. "We thought we were seeing things at first, but it kept happening. Every time we leave coffee near your parents' bodies, they start twitching. I think we might be able to revive them this way."
"Coffee?" asked Kougaiji. "Coffee?"
"Well, it is the fuel of life-"
***
"We can use coffee to revive Lord Gyuumaou, and they made us..." seethed Yaone.
***
"...chase around the world after sutras to get our asses handed to us by corrupted monks, their demon retinue and mad, discontented gods?" Kougaiji almost screamed.
"Well, this is merely inferential," stammered Dr. Nii, shrinking away from Kougaiji's wrath. "We know we can revive them with our patented Science-and-Sutra (TM) method. We just think we might be able to revive them with coffee."
"Really," said Kougaiji.
"We do have to figure out how to brew coffee strong enough to wake the dead first, you know."
***
Yaone listened as Kougaiji vented several months' worth of pent-up frustration on the hapless scientist. "Easy, Kou, easy," she heard Dokugaiji's voice faintly over Kougaiji's outburst. "You don't have to disembowel him, Kou, you shouldn't disembowel him, Kou, you need him to bring your parents back, remember? Come on, Kou, cool it, you're going to have an aneurysm, he's not worth major brain surgery..."
The noise died down as the Voice of Reason got through to Kougaiji, or perhaps it was because Dr. Nii had wisely chosen to make himself scarce, and was not around to be raged at. There was silence for a few minutes.
"You can come out now, Yaone," called Dokugaiji. "He's gone."
Yaone opened the door a crack and peered out to make sure the scientist was not still lurking around before coming out of the storeroom.
"Finally," she sighed. Then she saw Dokugaiji, heavily bandaged and standing over a similarly bandaged Kougaiji, who was sitting on the floor and taking deep, calming breaths. "What happened?" she asked, wide-eyed.
"Carnivorous bunnies," answered Kougaiji from the floor. "You don't look so hot yourself." Yaone was rather disheveled, what with acrobatic feats and arachnid extermination. She straightened her clothes uncomfortably.
"I'm sorry, Kougaiji-sama," apologized Yaone meekly. "I'm afraid I triggered their release."
"It's okay," mumbled Kougaiji, waving away her apology.
"Yaone, did you get what you came for?" asked Dokugaiji.
"Yes," answered Yaone, displaying a small vial smugly.
"Shall we go?" asked Kougaiji.
"I beg your pardon?" asked Yaone.
"I'm coming with you," said Kougaiji. He staggered to his feet and reached for the can of Boost Espresso Latte.
"But, Kougaiji-sama, you're injured," "Kou, you're hurt," protested Yaone and Dokugaiji at once.
The demon prince chose to ignore them. He opened the can of coffee and almost literally poured it down his throat, then jerked slightly as the caffeine rush hit him. "I'm going to get the Hiryuus," he said.
"Kou-"
"I'm worried about my sister," said Kougaiji. "She doesn't need to look for trouble. Trouble looks for her."
"Kougaiji-sama..."
"Don't bother arguing with him when he's like this, Yaone," sighed Doku. "Besides... you know, he's right."
Yaone gave Dokugaiji a helpless look. "But... Sanzo's party... and the gods... you know what Kougaiji-sama's like... if there's a fight today..." she stumbled over her words in her worry.
"Yaone?" said Kougaiji pointedly. "Today alone, Lirin goes missing; Sanzo and Homura go bonkers... for each other; you, of all people, promise to help their flunkies; we get attacked by vicious mutant rabbits... how much worse can today get?"
"We could all get killed?"
"..."
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