The X Tea Party

(Also Featuring Tokyo Babylon's Hokuto. Why? Because I can. pleasant smile)

Author's Note: Ah, X. Everyone's favorite angsty manga, right? Of course! However, I just couldn't leave well enough alone. Warnings of insane OOC, random raising of the dead, and general irreverence. Don't hate me for de-sanctifying your CLAMP or whatever. It's my mission in life, you see.

By the way, my writing style is weird. I talk to the characters and they talk to me; thus the narrator becomes a character. Deal. And spellings are mostly off of the Viz translation of X. Yay, English! can't read Japanese! Also includes a couple FF7 in-jokes which you don't have to get. Yay.

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PART 1

The Suggestion Of A Tea Party Sounds Nifty

'Twas a lovely day in Tokyo, as it so often is when stories start. You know, blooming cherry blossoms (rife with symbolism!), Tokyo Tower in the distance (more symbolism rife-ness!), looming apocalypse... quite lovely. Well, lovely, that is, except for the whole dead-folks'-picnic.

"Wow, you look like Kamui meets Card Captor Sakura," Kotori commented, glancing at Hokuto. Hokuto blinked.

"Gee, thanks, I think," Hokuto replied, reaching for a rice ball from the picnic basket. "Personally, I look at you and I think Aeris Gainsborough. Oh well." She shrugged and bit her rice ball.

"Mayhaps it's that whole helpless-wimpy-girl-getting-impaled-with-sword deal. I do that very well, you know!"

"Hey, at least you got killed by your brother! I got killed by my brother's boyfriend! How lame is that?" Hokuto pouted, and Kotori nodded sympathetically. "I mean, after I hooked them up and everything! Jeez!"

"Well, if you go with the whole 'Kamui Loves Fuma' theory, and Fuma is Kamui, then technically speaking, my brother is my brother's boyfriend," Kotori reasoned.

Hokuto raised an eyebrow. "That's creepy!" she squealed.

"Hey, blame CLAMP!"

But meanwhile, a certain someone was less than pleased with the presence of two dead people picnicking in the park...

"Hello, offices of Subaru Sumeragi, Onmyoji Extra-Ordinaire, how can I help you?" Subaru drawled tonelessly into the phone. Though he considered himself too angsty for the cutesy position of onmyoji-for-hire, he did need to earn money somehow.

"Oh. Hi. You're like, an exorcist, right?" stammered the caller. "Like, you know, with the dead people and stuff?"

"...I guess you could call it that..." Subaru replied warily. "Listen, I–" He was cut off by the caller's next train of idiocy.

" 'Cause, like, I see dead people. They're everywhere. They don't know they're–"

"Oh, please. Do you have any idea how many prank calls I get quoting that movie? Now hang up or I'll call Seishiro and he'll make you melt and go crazy. In that order."

"No, seriously, dude! There are these two dead chicks just sitting there, having a picnic in the park! They're creepin' me out!"

Subaru sighed again and pulled out a notebook. "What kind of dead chicks? I need details."

"Ummm... Unrealistically pretty dead chicks?"

Subaru rolled his eyes. "Well, duh. This is CLAMP. Even the guys are unrealistically pretty. Now give me some REAL details."

"Well. . ." the caller paused for a minute, as if deep in thought. "One of them's blonde, and kind of frail looking. Have you ever played Final Fantasy VII?"

". . .yes. . ." Subaru replied, unsure what this had to do with anything.

"Well, she sort of reminds me of Aeris Gainsborough. And the other one. . . she looks like Kamui Shirou cosplaying as Card Captor Sakura."

As he scribbled this vital information in his notebook, Subaru tried to picture the two said spirits. The first one didn't sound too hard, but he had a lot of trouble picturing Kamui in a puffy pink dress. He was pretty sure Fuma wouldn't, but that was probably because Fuma spent his off-time in very strange ways. . .

"All righties. . . ."

Thus, Subaru set off to find the spirits to send them off to a happy place or some such fluffy nonsense. Oh goodie and joy! How we do love the fluffy nonsense!

Subaru entered the park, scanning the area for anything suspicious. Of course, because it was X and Subaru was involved, there were cherry blossoms everywhere. In fact, Subaru had to stop several times to dislodge pastel pink petals from his throat. But that was all right; he was on a mission. And if he got paid enough, he might just be able to afford a proper funeral for his rubber ducky. Thinking of poor, drowned Mr. Squeaky-kins, Subaru was forced once more to reflect on how horrible his life was, how everyone he loved died, and how damn expensive rubber duckies were in Tokyo.

It wasn't long before Subaru heard voices that sounded like they were being issued from undead lips. Wow, that sounded kinda poetic! Cool!

"Hey, Miss Author Lady? Could you get on with it?"

Shut up, Subaru. No one asked you.

"But– but–"

Yes, all the fangirls know that Seishiro likes your butt, Subaru. Now GET ON WITH IT.

"...You just love those fangirl knocks, don't you?"

Yes, they're quite fun. Now GO, or ELSE.

"Or else what?"

I'll dress you up as Kamui and feed you to the Fuma. Then I'll throw you and Kamui in a room together and let the fangirls do nasty things with you. And then I'll throw Seishiro in. . . .

"EEEP! Okay then! Jeez!"

I knew you'd see it my way. Anyway, Subaru heard those obviously ghostly voices coming from, where else, under the biggest cherry tree in the park. The giggles were clear to Subaru's trained ear, but soon he heard, even more clearly, the most nefarious plot he'd ever heard in all his days as a Dragon of Heaven and a Dragon of Earth and an onmoyoji and all those other zillions of things that Subaru is.

"Let's have a tea party!"

"GASP!" Subaru cried. "I must stop them before they upend the balance of all that is good and decent! I don't give a damn what sick, therapy-worthy woes drove those spirits to this! They must not have that tea party!"

He ran as fast as he could to the table at the base of the tree, making pretty stars with his fingers because he felt that it would be pretty or something.

"They're spells, damn it! Spells!"

Yeah, right. So anyway. Subaru reached the table and saw, as promised, a girl who, despite her long blonde hair and CLAMP-ish nature, still reeked of Gainsborough-osity and a girl who did, now that he thought of it, look rather like Kamui cosplaying as Card Captor Sakura.

Of course, that wasn't the first thing he thought of when he saw the second girl. After all, it was Hokuto.

"Hi, Subaru!" Hokuto greeted him, grinning widely and waving as if it were a totally normal thing for a dead Sumeragi to be sitting under a sakura tree chatting with some random Aeris lookalike. "This is my new friend Kotori. Say hi to Kotori!"

"...Okay, ummm..." Subaru pondered his situation and realized that trying to comfort the dead spirits wouldn't help, especially if this Kotori was the same Kotori Kamui always ranted about. It was hard to comfort someone who had been impaled on her brother's sword and then dismembered. "I'm gonna say this once. Please take your dead selves and go back to your nice happy dead place so I can collect my paycheck, okies?"

"No way!" Kotori cried. "We're going to have a tea party!" Subaru shuddered at the mere thought. "And everyone's gonna be invited! I'm gonna invite Kamui and all his friends and Fuma and all his friends. . . it'll be so much fun!"

"And I'm cooking!" Hokuto chimed in merrily.

"But. . . half the cast of this bloody thing is either dead or too disturbed to properly function! Including you!" Subaru protested.

"Ah, but that is where you are wrong," intoned a rather creepy voice. Subaru froze; Kotori blinked; Hokuto squealed in delight.

"I'm so glad you could make it, Sei-chan!"

Subaru raised a confused eyebrow. "But... but..."

"The author brought back aaaaaaall the dead characters!" Kotori proclaimed gleefully. "That way, we can all have a tea party TOGETHER! It'll be fun!"

"And besides," Seishiro put in, "if I weren't in this story to torment you, it would disappoint the legions of screaming fangirls!"

"You're in on this too?" Subaru cried.

"Of course! The author enjoys tormenting you!"

"That's right!" Hokuto exclaimed. "Now, ON TO THE TEA PARTY!"

Seishiro leaned over Subaru with one of those eeeeevil Sakurazukamori smiles. "And if you don't come willingly, I'll carry you," he said. "Which will activate the legions of screaming fangirls. Oh..." He poked Subaru's eye and glared. "Do keep in mind that that eye is a rental!"

Subaru sighed. "It would appear I have no choice in the matter."

No, Subaru, you don't. And thus the madness of the X tea party began...