I update! It's only been like a month and a half on this one.
C.C.C- No soon update, but update late. But update I did so proud you be! Yoda I talk like though own him I do not.
Okami Youkai- KILL YOURSELF YOU SHOULD NOT! Continue reading you should, but kill yourself you should not.
whowhenwhatever- You wait much then, that you do. But you wait no more, that you don't. Now I'm talking like Kenshin, not Yoda... ::bludgeons herself:: HOW ABOUT I TALK LIKE MYSELF! Heh heh heh. I can do that, too...
Cathair92- What the hell do you mean by hentai? Like perverted jokes and stuff? Cuz I do perverted, just not extreme stuff. Did you mean stuff like yaoi, or lemon, or PORN? Cuz I don't do that shit. If you wanted me to, go away. If you don't want me to, keep reading.
Yukaii the Ruthless- I think I've been there... I dunno.
Garent Gurl- There's something wrong with you... O.o No offense, cuz there's a lot wrong with me... Lots of somethings.
Bar-Ohki- This chapter IS insanity. I just wrote random things that came into my mind...
i forgot- You forgot your name? So did I. Anyway, I dunno how long this story will be... What did you mean by "go even further" or whatever you said?
Draikitha- Well I'm glad to hear about your... "patience."
Mari Youma- Yeah, well now that it's the end of July, I should hope everybody's out of school... Unless they have summer classes. That'd suck. I updated "sand, surf, or what ever" just a couple days or week or so ago... Didn't I?
SilentDark- Improvise... That's a big word. Im-pro-vize... That's three syllables. It is officially, by rule of Shadow, a big word (three syllables and up are big words).
Kai Indomisha- You can't wait? Well, pity, cuz you had to wait a bit, didn't you... ::bawls:: OH, WOE IS UPON US ALL!!! Sorry. I'm okay now.
nutari- The story is coming together?! Ha! This chapter is just full of randomness and adds nothing to the plot whatsoever...
kaida13- I have like, half a million muses, but that doesn't mean they're all used frequently... They live inside my head... And eat jelly beans... Often...
Dark Dragon34- I read some story once about Hiei having too much sugar and he thought he had an army of sporks... It was a weird story. I don't remember what it was called or who wrote it though.
WhiteFox88- Your "pathetic excuse for a brain," eh? At least you have somehting you can call a brain... I have nothing but little people and dust bunnies in my head. They ate my brain. And therefore I have no idea how they're gonna get Youko back in Shuichi's body...
Yumi- It may be fun, but it would be really bad for Shadow, Koenma, and the poor weak ningens... And anybody who happened to challenge him to a game of poker.
Shessha's Crazy- Random surfer dude was in the vacation story. Aren't we happy? Why would he appear in this story...? He's on the beach surfing with his random surfer dudette girlfriend... Unless they broke up without telling me.
KumiHatari- Rightio... -cough-nuts-coughcough- Eclipse told me I'm a coconut... She's mean. ::sob::
CHAPTER SEVEN
'Tis the Evil Aura of Doom
Shadow, Youko, Hiei, and Eclipse sat around a poker table, staring over each others' cards at the person on the opposite side of the table. Shadow had a toothpick hanging out of the corner of her mouth, Hiei's eyes were half-lidded with sleep, Eclipse was drooling as she daydreamed about the ice cream she'd seen in the freezer but had been forbidden from touching, and Youko was staring at Shadow and wondering if she the toothpick she was chewing on had some kind of appeal, and if he should try eating toothpicks. Kurama was sitting on the couch spinning a pencil between his fingers and thinking of how much school he was missing because of all this, as he had not been allowed to attend school by the rule of Koenma.
"Raise."
"Call."
"Fold."
"Ergle ergle ergle..."
"What?"
"She's drooling, ignore her."
"Ah."
"ECLIPSE, SNAP OUT OF IT!"
"Ergle?"
Thud.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"You're drooling all over my poker table, fool!"
"I'm hungry..."
"TOO BAD!"
"I want my mommy..."
"Then go home."
"What, at two in the morning?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Wah!"
"CALL, RAISE, OR FOLD?"
"F--- YOU!"
"DIE, FOOL!"
Shadow lunged at Eclipse, nearly knocking the table over in the process, and strangled her.
"ACK!"
"DIE! MUWAHAHAHA!"
"AAAACK!"
"Children, the game of poker should not involve violence," Youko said. Shadow looked up and screamed.
"BLAAAAAH! IT'S A TALKING FOX-MAN! CALL THE CIRCUS!"
"Shadow, shut up," Kurama said.
Shadow stared at him. "Shut up, you leprechaun!"
Kurama quirked an eyebrow. "May I ask why I'm a leprechaun?"
"You've got red hair, haven't you?"
"Yeeeah... But... What's that got to--"
"So you're Irish! And Irish people are leprechauns!"
"Odd reasoning you've got, Shadow," Hiei said.
"Reason? What's that?"
"... Had you noticed that you've still got your hands wrapped around Eclipse's throat?" Youko asked curiously.
"Nope. Hadn't noticed," Shadow said, looking at Eclipse with raised eyebrows.
"Are you gonna let go of her? I think she's stopped breathing," Hiei said.
Eclipse was lying there with swirly eyes, her tongue hanging out of her mouth, and a bluish tint to her skin.
"I think she stopped breathing a while ago..." Kurama said, poking her with the eraser end of a pencil. Her head flopped to one side lifelessly.
"I do believe I may have just killed Eclipse," Shadow said with a British accent.
"I'M NOT DEAD YOU WHORE!" Eclipse screamed suddenly, knocking Shadow to the floor and strangling her.
"Aaaaaaaaaack..."
Eclipse shook her back and forth by her neck.
"Agh, agh, agh!"
"What's with these girls? I thought it was supposed to be guys who were ignorant and showed friendliness through friendly violence...?" Hiei said.
"Yeah... But that's not very friendly..." Youko pointed out.
"How very true," Kurama agreed.
"I'M DEAD, I'M DEAD, LET GO!" Shadow hollered.
"DEAD PEOPLE CAN'T TALK!"
"WELL YOU WERE DEAD AND YOU TALKED! IN FACT, YOU'RE DEAD RIGHT NOW! DEAD PEOPLE CAN'T STRANGLED PEOPLE EITHER!"
"I am? They can't? Oh God!" Eclipse abruptly collapsed and lay there with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.
"Ergle ergle ergle..."
"Are you still alive?" Kurama asked Shadow. She looked up at him sharply.
"DO I LOOK ALIVE, LEPRECHAUN?!"
"Well you just talked so obviously you're not dead, and would you please stop calling me a leprechaun?"
"Well Eclipse strangled me when she was dead, so I can talk when I'm dead, and what else am I supposed to call you now that you're not a FOX anymore? Goldylocks?"
"I don't have gold hair, Shadow..."
"EXACTLY! So you're a damn leprechaun! Stop complaining!"
"Well if I'm a leprechaun and Youko's a fox, what's Hiei?"
"A psychotic pyromaniacal midget!"
"I'M NOT A MIDGET!"
"You're shorter than me, aren't you? Not including your stupid hair?"
"Like, by a couple inches! And Eclipse is even shorter than me, so what's that make her?"
"NON-EXISTENT!"
"What about you?!"
"I'm perfect."
All three boys exploded with laughter.
"IN. YOUR. DREAMS," Hiei managed. Shadow glared.
"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, MIDGET? THAT I'M NOT PERFECT? HUH? IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE SAYING? WELL LET ME TELL YOU... I THINK IT'S ABOUT TIME YOUR FACE MET MY STEEL-TOED BOOTS!"
And Hiei was sent spiraling across the room through the air until he finally slammed into a wall, face-first. He stuck out of it at a 90 degree angle for a second before dropping straight to the floor with a loud thud.
"Owww..."
"Shut up! You're dead!" Shadow snapped, pointing at him. Then she turned to the fox and his human ex-other-self. "You guys wanna meet my boots? HUH? HUH? DO YA?"
"No, ma'am," they both said.
"I'm glad," Shadow said, smiling. "You're both very smart children."
Kurama looked at Youko.
"Kind of tall for a child, isn't he?"
"Shut up, leprechaun! How many times do I have to tell you? You want me to bludgeon you? You wanna end up like Hiei?!" She pointed to the twitching black-clad lump on the floor.
"No ma'am!" Kurama said, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender, a little halo appearing over his head.
"Good boy," Shadow said, petting him on the head.
Well, a good half hour later, Shadow was sleeping on the couch, drooling, her tongue hanging out of her mouth as she mumbled incoherently about cheesecake, when Hiei and Eclipse finally recovered and got up. Both of them somehow became armed with baseball bats. They stalked towards Shadow's sleeping, drooling, muttering form.
"On three," Hiei said. "One..."
"Two..." Eclipse muttered, grinning evilly and bringing her bat up above her head.
"THREE!" Hiei shouted. They both pummeled Shadow.
"OH MY GOD! I'M BEING PAINFULLY ASSAULTED BY DEAD PEOPLE!" she managed between hits.
Kurama and Youko barely glanced up from their poker game.
"That's nice," Youko said absently, taking all of Kurama's poker chips. "You do know you owe me about $4,000 dollars right now, don't you, Mr. Minamino?"
"I'm aware of that," Kurama replied dryly.
"HELP ME, YOU SADISTIC BASTARDS! YOU STUPID LEPRECHAUNIC FOX PEOPLE! CURSE YOU! YOU'RE GONNA PAY FOR THIS!"
"Shut up!" Eclipse snapped, whacking Shadow across the face with her baseball bat.
"Owww..." Shadow said, falling of the couch, where Hiei and Eclipse proceeded to kick her back and forth.
"Such violence. You children should not be watching this," Youko said, pulling a fold-out fan out of his shirt and flipping it open to block the view of the horrible beating.
Now, because of Youko's concern for the 'children' of fanfiction-reading world, he only has one hand with which to play poker, and therefore can not cheat properly. Kurama promptly won back all the poker chips and they decided to call it even because "In the end, cheaters never win."
Then again, it's supposed that winners never lose, and losers never win, but how much sense does that make, really, if you think about it? (NOOO! Don't bother thinking about it, I don't want my precious readers to DIE! Then I might be considered a murderer, and I'd get locked away because of it and I wouldn't be able to complete my stories and my world domination would go unfinished! ALL BECAUSE YOU HAD TO GO AND THINK, DAMMIT!)
Now Shadow was the one lying in a bruised and battered and drooling heap on the floor. Pity.
The doorbell rang. Hiei went to answer it and found Koenma standing there.
"What do you want?"
"Well, I think I need to talk to Youko. It's been a day or so since he got separated and I haven't had a chance to talk to him."
"... What's so greatly important that you need to talk to him?"
"You see, I'm not really sure there will be a way to put him back in the human body he's been in for the past sixteen, nearly seventeen years, so--"
"WHAT?"
Shadow came flying over the back of the couch, past Hiei, and slammed into Koenma, knocking him to his back and causing him to slide backwards and roll down the stairs. They ended up in the yard, Shadow pinning Koenma and holding the front of his shirt.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN THERE'S NO WAY TO PUT HIM BACK? YOU'D BETTER THINK OF SOMETHING! I'LL KILL YOU AND HIM BOTH IF YOU DON'T! I WILL! YOU WATCH ME! I'LL PUT YOUR DEAD CORPSES IN THAT GRAVEYARD I MADE IN THE WOODS FOR ALL THE SKELETONS AND CORPSES I'VE FOUND IN MY HOUSE OR PUT THERE OR CAUSED TO BE THERE! YOU'LL BE DEAD AND I WON'T CARE IN THE FREAKING LEAST BECAUSE YOU'RE A SADISTIC BASTARD, YOU KNOW THAT, AND IF YOU DON'T FIND A WAY TO PUT THAT PERVERT BACK, AND I END UP BEARING SOME FREAKING FOX SPIRIT FIRE DEMON HUMAN HYBRID CHILD, YOU'LL BE THE ONE TO SUFFER, KOENMA, YOU KNOW THAT, YOU WILL PAY FOR IT WITH SOMETHING VERY DEAR TO YOUR PANSY LITTLE SELF! YOU HEAR ME?"
"... I heard you, Shadow, and I think they probably heard you all the way up in Reikai, too..." Koenma muttered, his voice seeming barely audible next to Shadow's explosion, although he was talking his normal volume.
"Good. I'm glad we understand each other," Shadow said cheerfully, standing up. Koenma caught her ankle.
"What did you mean by 'all the skeletons and corpses I've found in my house or put there or caused to be there?'" he asked, his eyes narrowed.
"I mean that I made a graveyard in the forest. When I clean out the weasels' room about one every two or three months, whatever's left in there, I put in the graveyard. Anybody I happen to find dead due to the pure horridness of my house, like burg-a-liz or thief-iz that got inside but got attacked by the evil aura of doom that lives in the closet, I drag them into the forest and put them in the graveyard. Anybody I should happen to brutally murder and slice up to put in the wall but decide not to at the last minute, they go in the graveyard. It's all part of the triangle of life. Everybody's life ends with Shadow sooner or later..." Shadow explained simply.
"You mean some day you're gonna kill me?" Hiei asked dryly, pointing to himself.
"I'd never kill you, Hiei, unless it was because of too much s--"
"OH GOD, OKAY SHADOW, don't finish that sentence!" Koenma yelped.
"I was just gonna say, uh... Because of too much, uh... sugar in his coffee, yeah, that's it," Shadow said, nodding vigorously, muttering "Yeah, uh-huh, yup, yes sir indeed!"
Koenma groaned. "I bet."
"Gambling is illegal, though!"
"Well then WHAT THE HELL DO YOU CALL POKER? THERE'S SOMEBODY PLAYING POKER IN YOUR HOUSE EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY! WHETHER IT'S YOU OR THE WEASELS OR THOSE DAMN SINGING BATHROOM SHOES OR THE EVIL AURA OF DOOM OR WHATEVER, SOMEBODY IN YOUR HOUSE IS PLAYING POKER!"
"Yes sir, so what?"
"SO YOU'RE CONSTANTLY BREAKING LAWS!"
"Well I am expected to break a law, because I am a mere mortal, right?"
"I thought you said you were perfect..." Hiei muttered. She ignored him and kept talking.
"But you, dear Koenma, are the child ruler of Reikai, are you not? You enforce laws, not break them."
Koenma got up. "Then I'm afraid, if I enforce laws and you break them, that you're under arrest, dear Shadow Jaganshi."
"Just me?"
"Yeah."
"HA HA HA HA HA! YOU WISH!" Shadow pulled a smoke bomb out of her pocket and exploded it in front of her. She then, quite obviously, darted out of the smoke cloud and jumped through a window, into her house. A moment later she was in the fourth floor window, pointing and laughing at the cloud of smoke.
"HA HA HA HA HA! YOU'RE STUPID, YOU STUPID STUPID-STUPID!"
"Am I really?"
Shadow spun around to see Koenma standing behind her.
"YES YOU ARE!" She jumped out the window and darted into the thinning smoke. "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO NOW? YOU CAN'T SEE ME!"
"She'd make a horrible criminal," Hiei muttered from beside Koenma.
"I wasn't really going to arrest her."
"I know that."
Shadow, meanwhile, was standing in the wide open front yard, laughing maniacally. "AH HA HA HA HA! MUWA AH HA! BLAH HA HA HA! WEE HE HOOO!"
"No, she'd make a good criminal, but she'd do really bad should she ever be spotted," Hiei decided.
"THEN I'LL JUST HAVE TO NEVER BE SPOTTED!" she shouted up at them. She then took great lunging steps (more like slow motion jumps with pauses between them) towards the forest.
"Where's she goin'?" Hiei asked nobody in particular, although he was standing right beside Koenma.
"I dunno, but if we're lucky, she'll never be back. Maybe those beavers will use her bones to build a damn..."
"I HEARD THAT!" Shadow hollered back, freezing in mid-step to glare (and promptly fall over because her sense of balance isn't all that dandy). "AND NEXT TIME, USE THE RIGHT DAM! HOW DO YOU BUILD A DAMN?"
"WITH SHOES!" Koenma hollered back. Shadow pulled off her shoe and hurled it at him. It stopped in mid-flight and fell straight down onto a curious Youko's head as he walked outside to see what was going on.
"Ow..." he said, falling down. "YOU WILL PAY, SHADOW!" He jumped up and ran after her.
"Eep! Gimme my shoe!"
Youko threw it. Shadow pulled it on as she ran into the forest, an angered fox right behind her.
"Well... I guess I won't get to talk to Youko for a while if he gets ahold of her in the secluded darkness of the forest..." Koenma muttered.
"Pervert," Hiei snapped, walking away.
....................................................
Hi everyone. I just made Eclipse sit still through my entire 'writing replies to reviews' thing which took quite a while so now I'm gonna stop writing, post this, and talk to her (all we've done the entire two hours she's been here has been something to do with either my story, or horribly abusing each other for no apparent reason or no reason at all, apparent or not...) SO! I think I shall drag her off to watch Cowboy Bebop! Mushroom Samba!