The Chapter That Shall Not Have A Title
"You know," said Kurama, "I think this would be a good time to inform our readers that the Counterproductive Squirrels do not, in fact, own Yu Yu Hakusho."
"What are you babbling about, kitsune?" asked Hiei.
"...I have no idea." There was a silence. "Let's get back to story telling, shall we?"
"Hmm," said Yusuke obligingly, "did you ever steal something from some crazy place, like at the bottom of an ocean or something?"
"Actually," said Kurama, "yes, we did, except it was a large lake, rather than an ocean."
"Woah, cool! Tell us about it!"
"Alright..."
---
Youko Kurama and Kuronue were traipsing through a forest that we really don't feel like describing, so we'll just say it's nondescript. Hey, a forest is a forest, right? Anyway, they were looking for a small collection of priceless jewels.
"Okay, that's it," said Kuronue. "Give me that map." He reached for the parchment Kurama held.
"Hell no. You can't tell north from south."
"At least I can tell north from down, idiot! Give it!"
"No," Kurama repeated.
"Fine then," said Kuronue. "But if you lead us into a tar pit or something, don't come crying to me."
"Number one, I think I'd notice walking into a tar pit. Number two, even if I didn't, we'd both be stuck."
"You know what? Shut up."
"Now, if my calculations are correct," said Kurama, choosing that moment to pointedly ignore his partner, "it should be right through here." They had arrived at a huge, out-of-place-looking clearing, but there was one minor detail that we're deliberately omitting.
"It's a lake," stated Kuronue blandly.
"No, really?" said Kurama sarcastically. "I would have never guessed. It's probably at the bottom."
"That's an odd place to hide an ancient treasure... and at the same time, horribly clichéd."
"Yes. And conspicuous, too. Come on, let's go." Kurama gestured to Kuronue as he walked toward the aforementioned body of water, a calculating look gracing his features. (...His positively gorgeous features... wipes away drool Um, yeah, moving on...)
"Uh... no."
Kurama noticed that his fellow thief was not following him and turned around, frowning slightly. (Still looking very nice, I might add... shutting up.) Kuronue failed to notice the slight wobble in the kitsune's step. "What? Why?"
"It may have slipped your mind, but it's kind of at the bottom of a lake. That complicates things a little," he replied.
Suddenly Youko's face split into a semi-goofy and rather out-of-character grin. "What, afraid of a little water?" His speech was only a little slurred. Really.
Kuronue sighed and put a hand to his forehead. "Kurama, while I was... ahem... negotiating with that demon for the map, were you, by any chance, consuming a large amount of alcohol?"
"Eh nyuh?" asked a drunk Youko Kurama.
"Kurama, have you been drinking again?"
"Just a little..." He flinched slightly at Kuronue's withering glare.
"You never drink just a little."
"What?" he whined. "It was a bar! What was I supposed to do? Ask for a cup of water? Besides, we both know alcohol doesn't effect me!"
"Allow me to rephrase that. Alcohol doesn't effect you right away."
Kurama pouted, then changed the subject, sobering for a full ten seconds. "Why don't you want to go get it?"
Kuronue blinked at the non sequitur, then rolled his eyes. "In case it somehow escaped your notice, I'm a bat. Not a fish."
"...So?"
"Bats don't swim."
The presently incapacitated kitsune pondered this, then came to a conclusion. "...Unless it was a fish-bat."
Kuronue groaned, massaging his temples and giving the sky the classic "Why me?" look.
But Kurama wasn't done. "Well... couldn't your wings, you know, double as-"
"No."
"But-"
"No."
"Aw." Youko pouted again for a moment (mmm...) before a look of enlightenment lit up his face. "I know! I'll teach you to swim!"
Kuronue looked at his friend incredulously. "Teach... me... to swim...?"
"Hey!" exclaimed the kitsune. "That's a great idea! Let's start now!"
Kuronue groaned, knowing he couldn't get out of this, and allowed himself to be dragged along to the shore of the lake.
"Okay. Okay. Okay," Kurama repeated, "what you need now... is water-wings!" And he pulled a pair out from who-knows-where. They were a light blue with little yellow duckies on them.
Kuronue's eyes widened. "Oh... my... No. No way. I am not going to wear-" But, alas, Kurama had already put them on his arms. Kuronue's eye twitched. "This is stupid. These are stupid. I look stupid."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed a drunk and overly-cheerful Youko Kurama. "They're cute!"
Kuronue's eye started twitching more violently.
"And now..." Kurama proceeded to push his friend into the water. Caught by surprise, the man that was not a fish-bat fell in the water. In a couple seconds, two water-wings floated up to the surface. It was then that he realized he had forgotten to fill them with air. Oh, well. If Kuronue had taken them off, that meant he was confident about swimming, right?
Youko hummed to himself and began to inspect his nails, only to frown in displeasure upon finding that one was broken. He sighed and shook his head before pulling a pair of fingernail clippers from the same place that he had gotten the water-wings and began to cut the others in order to even them out. How annoying. It would take at least a week to grow them out again. Wow, Kuronue sure could hold his breath for a long time.
Suddenly Kurama blinked, the alcohol wearing off. "Where's Kuronue? What are those- oh." He cursed as he remembered exactly what had happened in the last five minutes or so and dove into lake. A couple seconds later, he surfaced with a sputtering Kuronue that, even though his eyes were shut as he was trying to clear the water from his lungs, was somehow glaring.
Finally breathing normally again as Kurama dragged him up onto the shore, he yelled angrily, "What kind of a swimming instructor are you?!"
"I'm sorry! I was drunk!"
"I nearly drowned!" Kurama winced, shoulders sagging, his ears drooping back flatly on his head in shame, his tail falling almost literally between his legs in the universal canine body language. It was all Kuronue could do to keep from going, "Aww!" at this display of remorse. Instead, he looked away, crossing his arms and sighing. "Okay, okay, whatever. Just stop looking at me like that." (Here is revealed the secret of their everlasting friendship! Could YOU stay mad at him? Yeah, didn't think so.)
"Okay," said Kurama, dropping the stance he only ever used on Kuronue immediately.
"Oh, by the way," said the bat demon, suddenly remembering something, "I found this while I was down there." He fished conspicuously inconspicuous box about the size of dictionary (from his own who-knows-where storage of random stuff that might come in handy) and tossed it to his companion.
Kurama's eyes lit up as he caught it. He spent about a minute picking the lock, opened it, and after a quick glance over its contents, growled and threw it back to Kuronue.
"What?" Kuronue peered inside for a look to see... jewels. "What?" he repeated, confused.
Kurama glared at nothing in particular, then walked angrily without actually doing something as undignified as stomping (Oh, and that little show a minute ago wasn't?) over to Kuronue. "Look!" He picked up what Kuronue thought to be a diamond. "It's cubic zirconium!" he spat without actually spitting.
"...What?"
"It's fake," clarified a now calming down kitsune. "It's all glass and imitation diamonds and stuff. Someone got here before us, replaced the real stuff with this, and put the box back where they found it."
"How do you know?"
"The lock has been picked before," said Kurama dryly before sniffing the box. "That's odd."
"What's odd?" asked Kuronue, who was getting tired of feeling stupid.
"It has a human scent all over it."
"Human?"
"Yeah. Recent, too..." Youko Kurama, looked up and grinned semi-evilly. "Looks like it's time for the mandatory chase scene, my friend."
"...Kurama, have you been watching action flicks again?"
"....Maybe..."
Kuronue rolled his eyes. "You know, sometimes I worry about you. Come on, let's catch that human. He couldn't have gotten very far, right?"
"Right. That way." They started running (not at full speed, of course- it wasn't needed) in the direction Youko indicated and came across a man in no time at all. Well, technically, it did take some time, just not much. It's called artistic license, you literal-minded jerks.
Kuronue stopped just in front of the man, surprising him. "A little bird told me you got our treasure."
There was a sigh. The man whirled around, hand flying automatically to his whip, to see Youko Kurama, legendary thief. "We finally get a chase scene and it isn't even a good one. It figures."
The man, who looked remarkably like Harrison Ford, had read about these two in Japanese modern mythology books. (They've been around for so long, so they were probably still going strong even after their tales had made their way into the human world as legends.) "Youko Kurama and Kuronue?" The man with the fox ears and tail smirked and nodded. Eh, myths actually being real... nothing new there. It was a good thing he knew Japanese.
"Why is it always Youko Kurama and Kuronue?" whined the man with the wings. "Why not Kuronue and Youko Kurama, huh?"
Youko Kurama snickered and Indiana Jones thought for a moment before shrugging. "Has a better ring to it, I guess."
"Well, it's not fair."
Kurama put a hand to his forehead. "My friend, you are probably the only one that pays any attention to the order in which our names are spoken."
Indiana Jones thought some more. "You know, I've read a lot about you two. The books gave pretty accurate description, except I don't recall seeing anything about acting like fifteen-year-old boys on and off."
The kitsune bandit blinked, then nodded. "You've got a point. Kuronue, we have a reputation to live up to, you know."
"Right, right." Falling back into a character that was never really specified much to begin with, he smirked. "Right, so either you give us the jewels and we let you live, or you keep the jewels, we kill you, and take the them anyway."
"You would not believe how many times I have heard that before." And this is when Indiana Jones met his demise! ...Not really. Even he knows when to pick his battles. "However, I don't think I've ever heard it from two legendary demons before, so maybe I should just give them up."
"That would be a good idea, yes," agreed Kurama.
"Right, then. Here you are." He held out a sack, but before Kuronue could take it, Kurama held up a hand and looked inside. Seeing that they were all real, he nodded and took it himself, earning him a sour look from his partner.
"Okay, off you go," said Kuronue dismissively, waving him away. The famous Harrison Ford lookalike nodded and took off, because he still had the special magic jewel that had been with the others, and that was what he had been after, anyway.
A/N: Hey, look! We finally updated! Feel free to throw things at Aya, as it's all her fault. I got writer's block, okay? And then school started, which, incidentally, happened to be my first year in high school. Still is, in fact. And Robyn went off to college. And then it was November. Still is, actually. I hate November. ...I'm reeeeally sorry! sob
That was also a hard chapter to write.
Anyway. We'll welcome requests with open arms, because we love you all so very much! ...Actually, it's because we're starting to run out of ideas. We've got about four chapters worth of headwork, and then... yeah. One thing, though: PLEASE do not ask us to include your character, because we won't, and we'd just hate to break your little hearts... because then we'd have no readers. Feel free to propose a guest appearance of an actual YYH character, though.
We WILL eventually get around to writing The Random Adventures of Jin and Touya. We already have more than enough ideas. Here, we'll give you a little advertisement:
NEW!!! Action-Packed Adventures Featuring The Shinobi Jin & Touya!!! Coming Soon To A Browser Near You!!! Call Today At 1800-JIN-CHAN!!!
How's that? Except... don't call. I made that number up and it's probably actually the number to some organization against sporks or something. ("Just Say NO to Sporks")
Aya writes long author's notes. She also tends to refer to herself in third person...
