Attack of the Chibis!
Yusuke was grinning madly. "You sure are funny when you're drunk, Kurama!"
Kurama sighed. "I'm going to take that as a compliment."
"We'll have to get you drunk again sometime to see if you're still like that."
"No." Kurama glared. "I do not wish to impair my judgment."
"Fine then," Yusuke muttered. "I'll just have to spike your drink."
"Do so, and you will find yourself without any fingers," said Hiei suddenly.
"Gee, protective much?"
"Um, excuse me," interjected Kuwabara, "but can't we get back to the telling of exploits?"
"Of course," muttered Hiei, "because we have nothing else to do besides sit in Yusuke's room for hours on end listening to Kurama talk." Kurama glared at Hiei, who surprisingly shut up. Not that he talks much to begin with, but whatever.
"So anyway," Kuwabara continued, pretending the last few minutes hadn't occurred, "Yusuke kinda already asked the question, but did you guys do anything besides steal? Illegal stuff, I mean."
Yusuke snickered. "What, you mean like jaywalking?"
Kuwabara rolled his eyes. "No, Urameshi, like kidnapping, or assassination, or..." He struggled for a few moments to come up with another illegal activity, then finally added lamely, "...or drug running."
As Yusuke continued to snicker in the background, Kurama answered, "As for drug running, it's hard enough to keep demons from escaping into the human world, much less enforce drug laws, so that was not really an issue. We considered murder beneath us, as only an unskilled thief would have to kill whoever was guarding his target. We did not assassinate anyone because we didn't want to lower ourselves by being hired to kill someone - we did not work for anyone but ourselves. Kidnapping, though, was essentially stealing a person, so we did try that once."
"Just once?" said Yusuke, forgetting for a moment to laugh at Kuwabara.
"Yes, and if you hear the story, you'll know why..."
"...Wait, you met Indiana Jones?" exclaimed Kuwabara suddenly, in realization.
"Shush, I'm talking."
Youko Kurama and Kuronue waltzed along the forest path, although not really, because that would be very silly and conspicuous. However, Kurama and Kuronue could in fact be very silly at times, so instead it was more of a merry skip, which was probably a better description in the first place. Oh well.
Why were they so happy, you may ask? For one thing, Kurama was in his element, which is always a good thing. While Kuronue was not in his element, which would be, I don't know, a cave or something, he had a brand-spankin' new Plan. It was a good Plan, or so he thought.
"Hey, Kurama," he began.
Youko Kurama suddenly got shifty eyes. "If it's about your favorite cup, it was broken when I found it."
"What?" Seeing that Kurama was now trying to look far more innocent than any master thief can be, Kuronue sighed and rolled his eyes. "Never mind. Anyway, I had a thought. We're always going around stealing things, right?" Kurama glared at him as if he were stating the obvious, which he was. "Well, how about we try something different?"
Kurama stared at him as if he had just suggested they try falling up instead. "But we like stealing things. It's fun," he explained, as if to a four-year-old.
"I know, I know, just hear me out. Instead of a thing, we'll steal a person, right? Some rich guy's kid or something. Then we ransom off the kid for money."
Kurama was still staring incredulously at him. "Why don't we just steal the money in the first place?"
"It's more exciting this way."
Kurama shrugged. "Sure, whatever. I'm game."
And so they set off towards the nearest rich guy's house, unaware of what their next misadventure had in store for them.
Kuronue and Kurama were now in the castle of Lord Kinyoubi. How they got there is of little importance; they just used their m4d thief skillz. There was an incident that involved making a guard think the castle was haunted, but considering every castle the pair "visited" had such a guard afterwards, it was of little consequence.
Kuronue peered into a door, then waved Kurama over. "I think this is it."
Kurama looked into the indicated room to find a small child sleeping within. "Aww, she's so cute!" he cooed almost instantly. "Can we keep her?"
Kuronue rolled his eyes. "I think you misunderstand a crucial concept of kidnapping, Kurama. If we don't give the kid back eventually, they won't pay us the ransom."
"We could pretend to give her back, but once they hand over the money we run off."
"That's not how kidnapping works. It's not honorable."
Kurama pouted. "Stupid honor."
"Just shut up for a second, will you? We don't want to wake her up." With that, Kuronue snuck into the room and set about abducting the child. Kurama followed, muttering to himself.
Much to their surprise, the girl was in fact wide awake. Upon hearing them come in, she turned to them with a bright smile. "Hi! Whatcha doin?"
The two thieves blinked. "Uh, we're kidnapping you," answered Kurama eventually, only to receive an elbow-jab from his partner.
"Oh, okay." She held up a porcelain doll that looked like it had seen better days. Either that, or it was made by a very bad doll-maker. "Will you kidnap Pyon-Pyon too?"
"Uh, sure... Now if you'll excuse me and my associate for a moment..." Kuronue pulled Kurama aside and hissed, "This isn't how it's supposed to work!"
Kurama shrugged. "I dunno, looks easy enough to me."
"It's not supposed to be easy! It's supposed to be all with the fighting and kicking and screaming!"
Kurama gave his friend a long, slow stare. "And you're complaining why, exactly?"
There was a pause, and then, "...Right, okay, let's get on with it."
They turned back to the girl, who was busily brushing Pyon-Pyon's hair, and Kurama said, "Okay, little girl, it's time to be going now."
The girl nodded smartly and stood up. "I'm Hanako," she informed them as she followed them to the window. "I'm this many years old," she continued, holding up four fingers proudly.
"That's nice," said Kuronue absently, picking her up. "Now I'm gonna jump out of this window, so don't scream or go 'whee' or anything, all right?"
"'Kay." She obligingly placed one hand over her mouth.
With that, Kuronue leapt out the window, Kurama following close behind. He glided over to a gentle landing on the edge of the forest as Kurama hopped and slid down the castle walls. When they were all safely under the eaves of the forest, Hanako removed her hand from her mouth and promptly started chattering away. "That was fun! Can we do it again?"
"No," said Kuronue shortly, concentrating on darting through the forest without running into a tree, because honestly, that would be really embarrassing.
"Pleeease?"
"No means no, girl-child," interjected Kurama, doing his best to give her a stern look, but failing miserably when she gave him the dreaded puppy-dog eyes. He asked Kuronue, "Can I hold her?"
"Sure, whatever," answered Kuronue sharply, somewhat annoyed that Kurama didn't have to look out for trees they just graciously moved out of the way for him. He should really have gotten used to that by now.
Meanwhile, Hanako was talking merrily, seemingly ignorant of the conversation going on above her head. "so I gave Usagi-chan the pink ribbon, but Pyon-Pyon wanted it, so I took it back from her and said she could have the lacy one instead, but she got all mad and cried like a baby. But I'm not a baby, I'm this many years old " She held up five fingers this time, oblivious as she was handed over from one thief to the other. "And I can count to ten and write my name. Do you want to see me write my name?"
"Uh, no, we believe you," muttered Kurama, already regretting the switch somewhat.
There was a short silence. "Yellow is my favorite color," Hanako suddenly announced, having already forgotten the previous conversation. "I had some flowers in my room that were yellow, but they died. One time I caught a mouse, but it died too. I gave it lots of candy to eat, but Nanny says mice don't like sweets. I don't know why, I love sweets! Yesterday my daddy gave me this thing called chocolate..."
Kurama sighed, his motherly instincts having met their match, as the girl chattered on and Kuronue smirked.
Later that day, the thieves and their charge sat on a sunny hilltop, eating lunch. Or at least, the thieves did; Hanako had eaten approximately one bite before running off to pick flowers.
Kuronue pushed his plate away and groaned. "Why do they call it kidnapping, anyway? The kid never does!"
"Maybe we should have knocked her out first..." Kurama mused.
"No, no, that's damage to the hostage - worth less that way."
Kurama growled, staring at Hanako's nearly full plate. "We'd better get a lot of money for her. That curry stuff was expensive!"
"Kurama, you stole that curry."
"It's the principle of the thing."
Kuronue rolled his eyes and leaned back. "Why do you treat that girl so well, anyway? We should be tying her up and feeding her bread and water."
Kurama blinked. "But that's just mean."
Kuronue grinned slightly. "And here, ladies and gentlemen, is Youko Kurama, master thief and nanny to small children," he announced in a mocking tone.
Kurama grinned as well. "Shut up," he said, punching his friend in the shoulder, because that's a male-bonding type thing to do, and then, embarrassed at having participated in male bondage, swiftly changed the subject. "So how do we get the ransom money anyway?"
"We leave a ransom letter for the parents, tell them a location to drop off the money, and then let the kid go."
"Where did you leave the ransom note, then?"
Kuronue opened his mouth as if to say something, then suddenly snapped it shut. "..."
"...What's wrong?"
"Well, uh, there's a little problem with that..."
Kurama leveled a stare at his friend. "You forgot the ransom note," he accused.
"Well I was kind of busy, if you hadn't noticed!"
"Yeah, but you always seem to manage to draw something crude on the wall when you're similarly busy, and you never had any trouble with that!"
Kuronue held up his hands. "Now, now, placing blame isn't going to get us anywhere "
"But it is your fault."
"Shut up. We need to figure out a way to get them the ransom note without going all the way back there."
Kurama looked thoughtful. "You're a bat demon, right?"
Kuronue flicked his wings irritably. "That's been made pretty clear, yes."
"Then could you summon regular bats?" Kurama continued. "You know, the non-demonic kind? Could you get them to do your bidding?"
Kuronue blinked. "...You know, I don't think I've ever tried that before."
Kurama clapped his hands gleefully. "Ooh, do it now!"
"Right." Kuronue crossed his legs lotus-style and placed two fingers to his temples. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and remained absolutely still.
After a few minutes, Kurama started poking him in the side. "I don't think it's going to work, Kuronue."
Kuronue opened one eye. "Shush, will you? I'm trying to summon here!"
"Well, I'm a fox demon, and I can't summon foxes," Kurama huffed.
Kuronue sweatdropped. "You were the one who suggested it in the first place, remember?"
But now Kurama was pointing off into the distance. "Look, I think I see a bat!"
Kuronue rolled his eyes. "I'm sure," he muttered sarcastically.
"No, no, I'm serious! Take a look!"
Now Kuronue couldn't resist Kurama's fevered gesticulating and turned to look in the direction indicated. To his surprise, there was indeed a bat flapping its way towards him. "A bat!" he exclaimed stupidly.
"A bat!" repeated Kurama.
"A ba " Kuronue shook his head. They were starting to sound like they were worshipping some sort of god.
Then he blinked. The bat had landed on his nose. He wasn't even sure that was physically possible, but there it was.
Kurama stared at the bat reverentially. "Make it do something," he breathed.
"Um, okay." Kuronue focused on the bat. "Okay, bat, uh, go pick me a flower!"
Instead, the bat bit him on the nose and flew off. Kurama fell on his side, shaking with laughter, as Kuronue rubbed his nose irritably.
"It's not funny," he growled.
Kurama wiped tears from his eyes. "I think it was annoyed at being woken up in the middle of the day," he said, choking back laughter.
"I'm a bat, and I seem to manage," Kuronue muttered, checking for blood.
"Bat, bat, bat," said Kurama suddenly, staring off into the distance.
Kuronue gave his friend a weird look. "What's gotten into you, all of a sudden?"
"Bat," Kurama repeated, as if that explained everything. He elaborated, "It doesn't even sound like a word anymore, does it?"
"Bat," said Kuronue experimentally. His eyes widened. "You're right!"
The moment of revelation, such as it was, was interrupted when Kurama realized something. "Where's Hanako?"
Kuronue looked around. She was nowhere in sight. His eyes, already wide from the not-a-word phenomenon, widened further. "Oh, crap."
Kurama sniffed the air, and immediately sneezed. "Stupid curry, it's messing up my senses!"
Kuronue leapt up into the air, flapping his wings wildly to keep himself aloft. He squinted into the distance and pointed down the hill. "There's a small caravan on the road down that way," he said. "I think I see her there."
Kurama got up. "Let's go," he said, and the two dashed off. Well, Kuronue flew off, but in a dashing sort of way.
The pair arrived, panting, in a cloud of dust. The members of the caravan barely gave them a second look, as if dirty, out of breath demons appeared all the time. Maybe they did.
Kuronue accosted a random passerby and growled in his best threatening voice, "Have you seen an annoying little girl around here?"
The man was nonplussed. "You mean Hanako? Yeah, she latched onto Densuke over there a while ago." He pointed off to one side vaguely.
Somewhat deflated, Kuronue let go of the man and stalked off in the direction he had indicated.
"Your threatening voice sucks," Kurama informed him smugly.
"Well, it worked," Kuronue muttered, eyes darting about as he searched for the girl.
He found her sitting on the lap of a pug-faced demon who was driving one of the carts. As usual, she was running her mouth off. "So then we got tired of playing tea time, so we went and swum in the lake, and then Nanny came out and find us, and her face got all red and she started yelling, but I wasn't really listening so that showed her. But then I got out and my clothes were all wet so I ran around a bunch to dry them off, and that little vein in her forehead got all throbby, like yours is right now "
Densuke looked supremely bored. "Uh huh, whatever," he grumbled. "Look, if you don't shut up soon, I'm gonna cut your tongue out and eat it as a snack."
"One time my daddy cut off a robber's hands," she replied, completelly unconcerned. "He let me watch. It was really icky," she added cheerfully.
Kurama ran into Kuronue's back as he suddenly stopped. "I don't want my hands cut off," he whispered fearfully.
Kurama rolled his eyes. "They'd grow back eventually," he said, and over Kuronue's protests of "What? No they wouldn't!" he marched up to the demon. "That's our little girl," he told him firmly.
The demon sighed in relief. "You're welcome to her," he said, picking her up and tossing her over. "Thought for a while there my ears were gonna implode."
As Kuronue considered the mental image of imploding ears, Kurama held Hanako itghtly to him. "Oh thank Inari! Don't ever do that again!" he scolded.
"She won't have a chance if I cut off her legs," Kuronue muttered darkly as the caravan moved off.
Kurama shielded Hanako with one arm. "You can't do that to a poor, defenseless child like that! It's not sporting!"
Of course, Hanako chose thta moment to bite him on the arm.
"Ow! Son of a bitch!" he yelped, dropping the girl in his surprise.
"Daughter of a bitch," Kuronue offered helpfully as Kurama continued to swear and rub at his arm. It was then that he caught sight of a spot of blood. "It's bleeding," he said blankly.
"No kidding," Kurama growled, and started licking at his wound.
Kuronue looked at Hanako, who was now drawing pictures in the dust and no doubt dirtying her expensive-looking dress. "You've got sharp teeth, kid," he said, somewhat in awe. She grinned toothily. "What kind of demon are you, anyway?"
"I'm a me demon!" she replied happily.
"A mii demon?" Kuronue repeated, mystified. "I don't think I've ever heard of that..."
"I don't think she even knows," said Kurama, suddenly appearing beside him. "She can't seem to decide on her own age, after all."
"How's your arm?"
Kurama picked at the scab that was already forming due to his youkai healing. "It doesn't really hurt anymore, it's just...itchy."
"Itchy?"
"Yeah. I think I must be allergic to her."
"How can you be allergic to a person?"
"How can you be allergic to anything?"
Kuronue looked thoughtful, but whatever insight he was about to spout forth was cut short by Hanako abruptly crying at the top of her lungs. He sighed in annoyance. "What's wrong with you now?"
"I left Pyon-Pyon with the ugly man!" she wailed.
The pair looked at each other. "The ugly man?"
"Densuke."
"I've met a lot of Densukes, Kurama, and most of them were ugly."
"The one from the caravan, moron."
"Oh, right." He kneeled and looked Hanako in the eyes. "If we get you your dolly back, willy you promise not to pull something like this again?"
Hanako nodded solemnly, tears running down her face. Kurama, however, had a sneaking suspicion that it was merely an act, and so picked her up warily. "Right," he said, "I'll just keep my eye on you."
The two set off after the surprisingly fast-moving caravan, nevertheless catching up with it in no time. They soon found Densuke again and Kuronue ordered him imperiously, "Hand over the doll."
The demon looked at them blankly. "I what the what now?"
Kurama sighed. "The girl says she left her doll with you."
"The ugly man," Hanako supplied helpfully, between sniffles.
Densuke gave them all dirty looks. "Just for that, you're not getting it back," he spat.
"But she'll bug us forever if you don't!" Kuronue protested.
"Your problem, not mine."
"Please?" persisted Kuronue in what sounded suspiciously like a whine.
"Kuronue," interjected Kurama in an undertone, "We're thieves."
"Yeah, and?" After being subjected to one of Kurama's Looks, he suddenly had a "Duh!" moment. "Oh, right. Riiiiight. Uh, you're completely right, Ugly Man. Uh, I mean Densuke. We'll just be going now..."
Densuke watched in stupification as the demon thieves, small girl in tow, disappeared behind his cart in somewhat of a hurry.
A few minutes later, the trio sat on the side of the road, Kuronue and Kurama cackling madly and Hanako hugging "Pyon-Pyon."
"Whoever knew our thieving skills would come in so handy?" laughed Kuronue.
Kurama paused. "Well, there was that one time fifty years ago when you accidently sold your necklace and the guy wouldn't give it back..."
"Uh, that doesn't count."
"And that time you got so drunk you couldn't even lie down without falling over and that huge Bakatal demon decided to steal all your clothes..."
"Look, just...never mind. We need to figure out how to get a ransom note to Hanako's parents."
Kurama shrugged. "We'll just go back to the castle and I'll just manipulate my plants to drop it somewhere easily found."
Kuronue blinked. "...That's it?"
"What's wrong with that idea?"
"It's boring. Couldn't we do something more exciting, with like...sleeping potions and complicated pully systems and, uh, sharks?"
"We could, but then we'd have to take Hanako along."
They both looked at their charge, who was currently screeching, at the top of her lungs, what was apparently supposed to be a song of some sort. "Point taken." He dug a worn piece of paper out of who-knows-where. "Here's the ransom note I wrote. Take a look at it."
"What for?"
"To edit it. You know, for spelling mistakes or something."
Kurama sighed, "You can't make spelling mistakes with this alphabet. It's phonetic."
"Just read the damn thing, will you?"
"Fine." He snatched it out of Kuronue's hand and began reading out loud. "'Dear Sir or Madam..." Here he paused. "That's awfully formal, isn't it?"
"Don't want to make a bad first impression."
"Right, right... 'We have in our possession your child. If you wish to ever see him/her again,'" he paused again. "Him slash her?"
"I didn't know which it was yet when I was writing it."
"Fair enough." He scratched out the word "him" with one claw and continued, "...then please leave a bag of one thousand (1000) gold pieces in the copse by the stables at sundown tonight. Sincerely, The Kidnappers.'" He paused for the third time. "Wait, sundown? There is no sun in the Makai."
"When day turns to night, they'll know what I'm talking about."
"Oh." Kurama then, guess what? paused. "But wait. Night starts at six thirty this time of year, right?"
"Yeah."
"That's in like half an hour."
"Oh. Crap."
They looked at each other briefly, then simultaneously grabbed Hanako by the back of her dress (resulting in an unsightly rip) and ran off as fast as their little legs could carry them. Uh, their long sexy legs. You know what I mean.
Lord Kinyoubi stared intently at some graffiti on the wall next to him. The anatomy was surprisingly accurate. He'd have to find whoever did this, perhaps get some advice, and then have him killed.
A servant of some sort tapped him on the shoulder. "Sir, the ransom note has just arrived."
"Ah. Took long enough." He briefly scanned it, and nodded. "Right then. I'll be in the copse by the stables if any important news arrives. Oh, and keep my dinner warm."
"Yes, sir."
Our two favorite thieves stood on one side of the copse, Kuronue holding Hanako, who was in turn braiding his hair. The light of dusk glinted of their skin, making them seem like golden beings descended from heaven. Their hair and clothes blew in the wind delicately.
It would have been poetic, if they had not looked quite so annoyed.
"How come I have to hold her?" muttered Kuronue irritably.
"Because last time I held her, I got bitten. It's only fair if you got one to match."
"I swear, if I get an split ends because of this..."
At that moment an imposing-looking demon in regal clothes strolled into the copse. He wasn't carrying anything, except for perhaps a grudge. However, he didn't seem to be very concerned.
"All right, Kinyoubi!" shouted Kurama, having designated himself the negotiator. "Put the money by that big tree over there and back away. If we find the payment acceptable, we shall give your daughter back."
Lord Kinyoubi took a puff of a pipe he for some reason he had with him. "No," he said mildly.
"Preferrably in large denominations wait, 'no'?"
"You heard what I said." Kinyoubi lifted his head to gaze at the sky.
"Um, then we'll kill her!"
A disturbing grin spread across the demon lord's face. "Ah, but you see, then I shall have to send my guards after you."
Kuronue snorted. "We can evade your pathetic guards," he said indignantly.
"Can you while you sleep? While you eat?" The grin grew wider. "My guards will never stop looking for you. Can you handle centuries on the run?"
The two looked at each other. While amusing for a while, after a year or two it would certainly get old. They came to a silent agreement. "Look, fine," said Kurama. "Just take her back, all right? Free of charge."
"No."
"What!"
Kinyoubi blew a smoke ring. "I don't want her back."
"What? But " Kuronue sputtered. "We don't want her either!"
Kinyoubi sighed in the manner of the much put-upon. "Well, I suppose I could take her off your hands "
"All right!"
"for a fee."
"What!" This is getting repetitive, thought Kuronue, in the small corner of his mind that was still sane.
Hanako tugged on his hair. "You've got pretty hair, mister bat man!" she cried happily.
Kuronue looked at the several ebony strands clutched in her tiny fist. He twitched. "How much?"
"1000 gold."
"That's extortion, you bastard!" Kurama protested, as if he weren't the kidnapper in the first place.
"Take it or leave it," said Kinyoubi, turning as if to walk away.
"No, wait!" Kuronue pulled out a bag from one of his many mysterious pockets. "Look, there's a bunch of jewels in here. That's all we've got with us." He tossed it over.
Lord Kinyoubi inspected one of the rubies inside with a magnifying glass he had, for some reason, brought with him. "Yes," he said finally, "I think this will do."
"Finally!" Kuronue pried Hanako off of his torso and practically shoved her in Kinyoubi's face. "Here, take her!"
Kinyoubi nodded calmly. "Nice doing business with you," he said, and walked back to his castle with a spastically waving Hanako in his arms. They disappeared into the shadows.
The two thieves collapsed underneath a tree, leaning on each other. They stared at the sky for a while, then turned to each other and said in unison, "This never happened."
Then they went to get drunk.
"Sooo...what happened while you were drunk?"
"Just drop it already, Yusuke."
How did he steal fully-cooked curry without letting it get cold? The world may never know. He is a master thief, after all.
Also, in case you were wondering, Usagi-chan is Hanako's purple bunny invisible friend.
Next chapter: Another exploit! But you probably figured that already.
A/N: Sorry about the wait, guys. For a while I had writer's block and then I got a new muse ("Hey ladies!" says Zelos), and he's still getting used to his new position, so also sorry that the chapter's not that good. ("Hey...")
