D A M N A T I O N ?
A Hunter x Hunter fanfic co-authored with fellow forum member and special title holder: Azile
Disclaimer: Hunter x Hunter and Yu Yu Hakusho are copyrighted by Yoshihiro Togashi, Shounen Jump Weekly, Shueisha and Nippon Animation
Author's Note: Azile came up with the idea for this fanfic. Even though I was the one who penned the words, Azile's contribution, in terms of ideas, phrases and scenes, was substantial. Her inspirations and ideas came to her after reading "Salvation". If anyone wishes to dispute the content of the fic, please do so at my forum: and start a thread under "Fanfic Discussion". I do not particularly care for your opinions about our ideas on religion but feel that even though we have put this disclaimer, discussion about our lack of faith is inevitable, hence if you do want to rant, please do so at the forum instead. However, the review board is open to comments on whether you believe that our portrayal of the Hunter characters is accurate or not.
Author's Notes 2: This chapter contains more action than the previous, but unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that it will be more humourous than the previous chapter.
Summary: Yomi is pestered by his personal secretary, Azile, to masquerade as Geezus Krist and go to Ningenkai to gauge the reactions of the Hunter characters to his preachings.
Chapter: Interlude
It was in the process of washing his hands, to rid it of the sweat that had dried there shortly after the showdown with Kurapika, that his cellular phone rang again. Yomi ripped one of the paper towels from the dispenser and hastily dried his hands, flinging the last persistent drops of water onto the ground then answered the call.
"So," came Azile's enthusiastic voice, followed by a series of crunches, "how did it go?"
He let his defeat translate into a moan. "I was almost attacked again and was thoroughly humiliated. Your tactics just aren't working."
"Bullshit. This is the way to do it. You have to break your targets and make them beg for your pity."
"Well," Yomi countered hotly, infuriated by the way Azile ordered him around so casually and making it sound like he had stuffed up big time. The fact was, he had followed her instructions down to the last apostrophe, and he was rebuked, with violence and with outrage. "The problem with your plan is that you anticipate that my targets would beg for pity and love if I crush them with enough guilt. But the two I've evangelized to are those 'I-rely-on-myself-even-if-I'm-knee-deep-in-shit' type! They don't need pity! I need pity!"
"Then you obviously aren't doing a good enough job of pounding the enormity of their sins into their head," Azile concluded. The way each word managed to ooze some derogatory innuendo was her one prized skill.
"I'm constantly repeating that they're sinners!" Yomi cried, then abruptly clenched his mouth shut and forced calm and only spoke when he trusted his voice not to reach the upper echelons of the soprano again. "I'm appealing to their hurts and cutting open their scars and stamping on their damaged conscience. They only seem to get more and more offended. Angry people spit your words back into your face like mouthfuls of rotten apple! Angry people aren't looking for pity! They're looking for ways to break my teeth and rupture my liver!"
"Then you haven't truly impressed upon them the terror of hell if they don't believe us."
"Azile, you could be drunk and unconscious and still laugh at that threat. And that's the other problem! You're trying to coerce….let me see here….a top ranking underworld bodyguard into accepting the Grand-bastard of Gawd's salvation from eternal damnation when the kid is already living in hell and dealing with criminals Loosifer would wet his pants at the sight of."
There was a stunned silence on the other end. "You're kidding me."
"Azile," Yomi complained, his voice already two octaves above his comfortable range, "it says right here in your damn databanks, which I see you haven't taken the time to read. Kurapika killed a man called Ubogin. Ubo was a Genei Ryodan member who could stop a bazooka with his bare hands and kill three Injus when he was paralyzed from the neck down. That is frightening. Stories about Loosifer, his rabbit teeth and his mohawk aren't going to rub off on someone like Kurapika, let alone frighten him into submission.
"Who is Loosifer anyway? Little Batboy who shat his pants to get attention coz Daddy didn't love him enough? My gawd! Why did I not realize that your plan was bound to failure from the start?!"
"YOMI! YOMI! YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN!" Azile shouted. "CALM DOWN!"
"The stupid rubber mask is going to permanently meld with my skin soon if I don't take it off. I'm being treated like some grand-bastard – "
"– you are," Azile corrected.
"– and I'm condemning them for doing half the shit I myself would have done!"
"Well, hypocrisy is also at the core of the Cult of Kristianity," Azile said in a philosophical and bookish tone. "They claim to respect and co-exist with other beliefs, yet bring out this whole YOUTM business: YOU are wrong for not believing, YOU are immoral for having your own set of morals, YOU were saved by Geezus, Gawd will judge YOU – which is really a dog turd of a definition for 'respect'.
"But have hope! All this YOUTM business is strictly euphemized as sharing, ok? It's not 'imposing' or 'forcing.' In fact, the Cult of Kristianity does such a brilliant job convincing the poor, mindless sods that the euphemism is the reality those Cultists could swear they were 'sharing' and pass a polygraph test!"
Yomi made a face of disgust of such severe degree that it had only ever occurred one other time in his life. It was during his scandalous youth, where the floors of Makai was his bed and the sky his blanket – or less romantically – he was a homeless bum. There were some barely civilized towns, which he happened to perimeter one day, with open plumbing that exuded a stench which could knock a strong, healthy youkai into a coma from twenty miles out.
"Who do those Cultists think they're kidding? 'There is only my one true god to the exclusion of all other gods and one day you will be judged by the one true god!' Yeah, that's really sharing, and I live off the waste of bacteria."
Azile let out a bull-like humph that Yomi could imagine being accompanied by the rolling of the eyes. "The whole Kult of Christianity is founded on lies anyway, so don't act so surprised when liars are as plentiful as maggots in a rotting carcass and dishonesty is their first nature.
"Even though you yourself may be hypocritical, the idea is to present yourself as more-perfect-than-thou and do-no-wrong when you stick wave so then you can look down on the flawed people. That way, you will have cloaked yourself in enough authority you wouldn't otherwise have, and you can tell the targets how they have behaved immorally and should fear the judgement of your grandfather the lawd and the punishment of Loosifer. Humanity's views and morals may change over time, but fear is what always works."
"Joy," Yomi spat, his thoughts now confirmed on how Azile's diabolically dictatorial personality would have put Hitler and Stalin combined to shame. "You already knew the results for your experiment. I'm coming back now."
"You can't do that! The results are inconclusive!"
Yomi lost it, the mad dog slipped the leash, the lunatic in him broke out of Arkham. "Inconclusive! Do you want them to snap my horns off and pierce all six of my ears to prove that it is conclusive?"
"You don't have a crystal ball," Azile chided, "and if Killua and Gon buy your claptrap, then it's a fifty-fifty possibility that a person preached to will convert. Be a good boy. Finish your task."
"Why did I ever make you my secretary?"
Azile released a laughter so malignant and evil Yomi shivered and had to mentally cling onto images of candy canes and fluffy white bunnies to remind him that there was a speck of good and innocence in the world.
"You must get a kick out of being reminded that I hold, in my sordid possession, compromising photos of you, naked, at one of your General's bachelor parties, and have no qualms whatsoever forwarding it on to 'Gundara Times'. Blackmail gets you places. Look at me for example! I'm your personal secretary with access to all your credit cards! Now, all you need to do is emotionally blackmail the targets, and likewise, you'll succeed in your endeavour.
"You really are too nice sometimes. Like with Kurama? Way too nice. If I were you, I'd have had a collar around him and shocked him every hour to remind him who's in charge. But what do you do? Pamper him, praise him, elevate him, give him power to raise a coup. I'm helping you here, Yomi, training you to become a tougher Overlord. Trust me, if you can so much as scare one hunter character into the Cult of Kristianity, I might even consider returning the negatives to you."
Small, dark clouds of thunder gathered around Yomi. "You bitch!"
"That's what my race is, thank you for stating the obvious. Ok, I'll cut you a better deal. Evangelize to the next two strangers you come across. If my script works, then I'll accept that Gon and Killua won't be liable to conversion because they're abnormally tough like their friends and you can come back ASAP."
Yomi's left hand reached to stroke the fake beard once more and was brutally willed to stop in mid air before it reached destination.
"That sounds good. At least normal humans can't attack me with nen-reinforced fists or weapons. I like that idea. I'll do it."
Azile gave a loud whoop on the other side of the line and Yomi was positive that a few party poopers went off as well. He shook his head and hung up, resigning himself to the unfortunate fate. As soon as he found two meek and gullible humans to terrorize into the Cult and its beliefs, he could curl up in bed and sleep away the horrible events of the day and banish from his memories that he ever tried to emotionally manipulate someone like that.
So Yomi, with a bowed head and a deflated mood, left the men's toilets and begged Fortune to endow him with the results he wanted.
In his preoccupied state, he didn't pay attention to where he was walking and collided with his first non-selected target.
"I like your costume," he heard his target drawl in an appreciative tone that was distinctly devoid of sarcasm. Was this guy serious? "On your way to a party? Mind if I tag along?"
Yomi drew himself up to his full height and bore down on the human male, Azile's last advice repeating in his mind. "I am so much better than you! I am perfect! I have never sinned! You are therefore filth, like chewing gum is to the soles of shoes, and you need to seek the forgiveness of Gawd my grandfather, so that he will not pass judgement on you!"
He heard an amused giggle.
Giggle.
From a grown man.
Oh dear.
He was dealing with another looney.
"You've really got into your role for the cosplay! I'm Hisoka, the World's Greatest Magician, and I am dressed to go to your party! Dyed the hair lime only yesterday! Matches the pink top, no?"
"Hisoka!" Yomi's voice became sonorous and acquired throbbing, passionate qualities, "you have sinned! Pray with me, confess to me your sins and find closure within my loving arms and I will hereafter satisfy all your needs of longing and be your companion through your dark days of sin on earth."
The amused giggle became an outright laugh, a laugh that lasted two full minutes, as in one hundred and twenty marching seconds, and zero signs of ending.
Yomi was not amused. Huffing and puffing, all he could do was suffer the bullets and shrapnel of humiliation and wait for an opening to speak again.
Hisoka blew his nose and wiped away some tears after another forty five seconds of full blown laughter. "In your loving arms? You're definitely not my type. I have a set of loving arms whose owner satisfies all my needs on a six hourly basis already."
Beneath the mask, Yomi's face flushed, past pink, red and bordered onto purple, and he had to cough away the embarrassed waver in his voice. "I don't mean that kind of satisfaction."
"That's all the satisfaction I crave," purred Hisoka, preening himself.
Crap. Don't tell me I've hit the dead end already, Yomi sniffed piteously.
"Then your life is empty and unfulfilled without wholesome, spiritual love! Sex is not love! I bear infinite and unconditional love for every creature on this earth. So great is my love for humanity that I, Geezus Krist, allowed myself to be stapled to the T for all your sins so that you would be sinless and join my Grandfather in the realm of bliss and – would you be serious and stop laughing!" Yomi cried, quite close to tears, and stamped his foot on the ground. "I volunteered to be stapled for your sins, damnit! Show some gratitude and stop laughing!"
"Hisoka, what's so funny?" a smooth and gentle voice slipped into Yomi's hearing. It contained an incredible calm and listlessness that abated the frustrations and eased the knots of irritation. How Yomi would have loved to hear that voice sing.
"Ah, Illu, Krist here was saying that he loved me and will be stapled to the T for my sins."
Illumi snorted and turned to Yomi with narrowed eyes of concern. "Krist, I advise that you rethink your offer. You'd have to be stapled to the T at least two dozen times to cover for Hisoka's sins."
"I would?"
"Well, Hisoka lives in his own world and almost everything that he does would be interpreted by you as a sin. Trust me. Hisoka does a lot of things you wouldn't want to know about."
"Krist," Hisoka butted in, "you know the loving set of arms I was telling you about? Here he is, my widdle lovely, adorable, hugable Illu."
Illumi punched Hisoka on the shoulder to prevent the man from pouncing on him. "Not in public!" he snapped.
Yomi blinked. "He?"
Oh. Crap.
According to the dreaded script, that meant he had to go to dreaded Dialogue D. Cold perspiration slithered down his back and the wetness in his mouth instantly dried up.
Do I forsake all my dignity and honour for the next five minutes, or do I suffer the scournful rumours from my fellow youkai for the next three hundred years after "Gundara Times" publishes Azile's photos of me?
His heart consumed by anguish and haplessness, Yomi opted for the shorter pain.
"Sin! Sinners! Abominations!" he cried aloud, borrowing on his inner frustrations to transform his voice into a tremendous roar that attracted the attention of other shoppers. The sounds of their footsteps crashed to a standstill as they stood around to witness what was possibly the darkest stain in Yomi's existence.
Hisoka and Illumi, puzzled and mildly stunned by Krist's unexpected change of temper that could rival a group of sixty PMSing women, found a tiny curiosity that wanted to hear what he had to say.
"You two immoral sinners! Desist in your unnatural, wrongful, sinful acts or face the wrath of my grandfather the Punisher! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves! Your kind will not be tolerated! Gawd did not intend for his creations to be distorted thus!"
Illumi scratched his head and deliberately blinked. "What wrongful acts are you talking about? My assassinations? I'm like Hisoka. We come from different worlds and in our world, killing and assassination are required daily rituals – "
"It's Adonis and Eave, not Adonis and Steve!" Yomi bellowed into their incredulous faces, and inside him, his conscience kicked and writhed in pain.
Hisoka jaw dropped and Illumi frowned as Geezus' denunciation finally began to sink into his brain. The crowd that had gathered in a rough circle around them dramatically gasped and their eyes boggled.
"Sexual intercourse is the union between a man and woman in marriage! Your lawd gawd the saviour will never consummate the unnatural and unforgivable union between two men. You flout the fundamental biological equation of procreation and your wanton disregard for morality and decency disgusts me like the stench of compost disgusts me!"
Illumi tensed as he felt the inquisitive stares of easily a hundred people on his face, and those stares were intense with passion, but he was unable to ascertain what they were passionate about. Hisoka head was tilted at a slight angle, apparently mesmerized by the zealot's ravings and Geezus would burst some veins soon if he didn't relent on the vitriol that appeared to be taking a toll on his health.
"If you don't shed remorse for your sins, you will never be granted communion!" he declared and brandished his Finger of AccusationTM on them.
"What happened to you being stapled for my sins and your unconditional love for me that led to your self-sacrifice?" Hisoka asked, his confusion genuine. Could Geezus Krist perform more back flips in his promises than he, the henka magician?! That was simply unacceptable.
"The Kingdom of Gawd does not welcome sodomizers and boy loving ganymedes! The Gates will be shut to you until you return to the paths of true masculinity and normality! Come, pray with me for Gawd's forgiveness, pray with me for Gawd to save you from the eternal fires of damnation and hell and the terrible face of Loosifer."
Illumi put a finger to his chin, to resemble the action of thought, and his eyes never left Geezus' disturbingly fascinating and profusely frothing mouth. "How tough is Loosifer? For the right price, I might be able to eliminate him so that none of us have to be afraid of his face again."
"Or, we could save the trouble and recommend that he get some plastic surgery," Hisoka murmured.
Yomi ignored their side comments and forced his voice to the limits and heard it break into a croak at the upper registers, not unlike his dignity. "Come, my sons, ye poor lambs who have strayed from the paths – "
Hisoka's cocked eyebrow rose another two centimetres. "Lambs?" he echoed, skeptical about the idea of magicians being imitated to sheep for sheep were mindless creatures who did as they were told and never had an individual or intelligent thought in their life. Personally, he preferred magicians being likened to hamsters.
"– repent with your heart and soul and I will carry the heavy burden of your sins. Ask Gawd to forgive you for your heinous and disgusting acts of sodom – aaauuuugh"
The poker-faced assassin was staring innocently at his fist, protruding with veins and all, that had whipped out on its own initiative like a baseball thrown by a professional pitcher and planted itself straight into Geezus' abdomen, prematurely squeezing all the oxygen out of the Grand-bastard of Gawd's lungs.
Yomi cringed into a ball on the ground, fetal position, wheezing and mewing, trying to coax his organs to start functioning again after such a devastating shock. The extremity of the pain caused him to violently tremble – there had to be 100 offensive kou behind that punch.
Rapturous applause thundered around Illumi and Hisoka along with jubilant hoots of cheering. Suddenly, one clear voice rose above the din with splendid clarity, and Hisoka took the opportunity to jerk Illumi to the outside edge of the crowd as the people's attention were tuned to the voice that cried out indignantly:
"Everyone! This Krist is a fraud and an imposter – he can offer us nothing of forgiveness for he himself is dirtier than the pus that leaks out of infected wounds! He represents and incites nothing but bigotry, discrimination and human prejudice. This filthy lying rodent thinks he can win our hearts by demonizing minority groups! Who does he take us for? Shallow, brainless people without an ounce of tolerance who like to make ourselves feel better by oppressing defenseless people? I spit in the face of a Cult that does not have the breadth to embrace all walks of life! Say NO to the Cult of Kristianity!"
Illumi's eyes widened whilst Hisoka dragged him farther away from an increasingly agitated crowd that was swayed both mentally and emotionally by the speaker's compelling tone. He caught the wink the speaker threw at him and whispered her name.
"Kayle?"
Suddenly, the crowd lurched forward and they fell onto Yomi like a savage pack of hyenas fighting for the last scraps of meat. Kayle daintily stepped, dodged and ducked and disentangled herself from the press of bodies. For the people who couldn't get to Krist to give him a piece of their mind in the form of truly punishing bruises, they brandished their own Fingers of AccusationTM and started to chant "Shame, Geezus, Shame!" over and over again. There was such massive hysteria, compulsive syncopation and fabulous rhythm in the chant that even Hisoka had to give Kayle credit for blowing mild irritation and annoyance in the people who had stopped to listen, aghast, at Krist's homophobic stance out of worldly proportions.
As an agitator, Kayle was in her element, and she acquired a length of rope and kicked it into the crowd, then shouted "Hang him!", which was then immediately picked up on by the hundred, enraged beyond reason, people again.
Kayle eventually fell back and joined the calm and disaffected couple, who indifferently watched the lynching of Geezus Krist. But Hisoka sniffed when Kayle beamed at them both.
"I hope you haven't taken to stalking us."
She vigorously denied it and threw her head back to a small group of people some stores down, trying to make Bashou embarrassed by getting him to carry the lacy underwear to the change rooms. "My lady Takara Takahashi is shopping for lingerie with Miss Neon Nostrad this afternoon. I never knew that being a bodyguard meant that you got dragged along to shopping sprees. Still, if it wasn't for this little bit of drama, I would have been bored out of my mind." She shook her head. "Mob mentality. You just need to give them suggestions and they take off like a summer thunderstorm. Brilliant stuff, no? Anyway, glad to have dealt some true justice today. I've got to get running. See you around."
They didn't see Kayle leave as the drama unfolding before them had reached its climax and arrested their full attention.
Before Geezus was hanged, he had his living daylights thoroughly beaten out of him:
He was spat on;
He received a lot of swift, sharp kicks to his nuts;
A toddler scribbled 'you suck' onto Yomi's once pristine white robes with permanent red marker;
And an Arcadian lady dropped a spiky durian on his head.
Then the Mall Security came in, with full riot gear and armed with tear gas grenades to disperse the crowd. After they left, only Hisoka and Illumi remained beside, or were looking down on, Yomi's crumpled form. When the security guards were well out of sight, Hisoka daintily stepped forward and prodded the prone body of Krist with the toe of his shoe.
"Hey, are you still alive?"
"I….I need medical attention!"
"But you who have offered me your unconditional love have to be stapled to the T to absolve my sins, remember?" A nasty and altogether abhorrent smile lit up on Hisoka's powdered face and he helped himself to a fistful of Yomi's white robes. "You see, Geezus, Illumi and I need you to suffer our crimes for us because we are going to engage in an incredibly intense and amazing bout of immoral sexual intercourse as soon as I'm done with you."
Yomi struggled, whimpering with fear as Hisoka tried to drag him onto his feet. Sensing that the situation had gone completely out of hand, Yomi released a fraction of his legendary s class youki and repelled his assailants. In the second given to him, he made a hundred meter sprint for the exit, the fastest he had run since his youthful days of thieving with youko Kurama over a millenium ago.
Illumi dispassionately observed the fleeing figure without too much sympathy. To Hisoka, he blandly remarked, "You know, you'd think the Grand-bastard of Gawd would be more accepting and won't judge people through coloured lens."
Hisoka settled his arm across Illumi's shoulder in a companionable fashion and nodded. "Maybe he's just another petty, narrow-minded, prejudiced man like the rest of miserable and hypocritical humanity after all."
Outside may be humid and hot and panting for air was no different to choking on noxious fumes that killed his lungs than helped, but that was infinitely more pleasant than being affixed to a T by a psychopath nen user or pummeled to death by his soft spoken partner.
Author's Notes 3: We want to state for the record that the person who oh-so righteously heckled us about respect and co-existence should first examine her own atrociously intolerant, hypocritical behaviour and numerous instances of blatant lying and note that she has absolutely no qualifications whatsoever to be talking to us about respect and co-existence as she obviously has no clue what those words mean.
We submit that the reasons some people have found this fanfic disrespectful and offensive are because we have captured those sorts of people's type of loathsome behaviour in text to show the world just who the real offensive and bigoted ones are around here. We would hereby like to thank these certain few people for confirming and enacting the tactics of intimidation and intolerance that Yomi is forced by Azile to apply in the fanfic. You've been exposed as emotional manipulators and bullies, and because the truth is more than ugly, you've all, predictably and typically, resorted to tactics of condemnation that I'm sure you are all so familiar and good at.
As for the lying, gutless reviewer thinking that masquerading behind Buddhism would make their comments more impartial and persuasive, Yomi would personally like to say that 'fucktard' was a hilarious term. Furthermore, we are truly sad that you have to actually expressly state you were being offensive as your first attempt miserably failed to convey your intent. As for your third review, Yomi wonders whether you can actually rub two braincells together and come up with some disgusting imagery that is original, and not cliché, mundane and overdone. Lastly, "going down" where? What the heck are you talking about, sweetie?
We believe that our message is important too, and though some of you have sought to threaten us with the judgement of your one true god, who we believe to be ridiculously fictitious, and throw words such as 'immoral' and 'immature' in our faces without a persuasive and substantial argument, we believe that we have done no wrong. And now we must finish the fanfic and contemplate a sequel such that we can teach others to defend themselves against bullies like you, reject the illusory promises of love and comfort and strive towards more realistic and tangible resolutions to their everyday problems. At least save them from becoming lying ratbags who don't have the courage to confess to their own religious denomination when demonstrating just how desperately they need a brain for all the internet to see.
We find your treatment of religion as some sort of commercial commodity to shop around for in order to extract some personal gain to be frankly disgusting, as we believe religion is something to be worshipped and revered simply on its merits and without promises of extravagant dividends. Again, your appeal to human selfishness and greed has been duly noted and you will see your repugnant actions replayed in this fanfic.
At the end of the day, we are glad this fanfic has been offensive for some, as it confronts the euphemisms of so-called 'sharing' that these people have used to mask what is in fact aggressive denunciation and disrespect of other faiths and beliefs. If you were offended by this fanfic, then don't do unto others what you wouldn't like done to yourself. We are glad we have been able to use this fanfic to get that message across.