Disclaimer: I do not own anyone in these accounts, nor does Luna, but if Yoshihiro Togashi is willing to give up Hiei, you'd better believe I'd be the three-eyed demon's new owner...
The Second Incident
Vacation's A Doozy...
by Ari Sky
"Yes! Summ'r at las'!" Tasuki yelled, mock-stretching with a yawn.
"Tasuki, quit slacking and grab some suitcases. They aren't going to pack themselves and this is your fault, getting us signed up--"
"-you mean forc'd?"
"-yes, forced into doing all the hauling for this dumb cruise." Tamahome finished, a muscle spasm involuntarily twitching his eye.
Tasuki merely grumbled, took ahold of two more stuffed cases, and chucked them into the compartment of the group's charter bus. Tamahome missed whacking the bandit in the head by centimeters as he brought a few more bags. They death glared each other and continued in awkward silence.
"How is it going out here?" Kenshin asked, dragging out around ten more cases. "Here are some more. I think that is almost all, that I do."
"How can there be so many when we only have..... umm..... twelve girls?!" Tamahome asked.
"Only?! You're sayin' twelve ain't a lot?!" Tasuki yelled, eyes bulging.
"Well... true. Twelve females and 21 males will tend to create much baggage, especially when one of the guys crossdresses..." Tamahome trailed off as Nuriko came out with his hands on his hips.
"Were you saying something, Tamahome?" he asked as a vein popped out.
"Well, it's true!" Tamahome tried to defend himself.
"No it's not! Ranma crossdresses and so does..... umm..... umm..... darn. Fine! You win that round, Tamahome." Nuriko faltered.
"Hey! I don't crossdress! I wear clothes to suit my gender!" Ranma yelled, coming out of the house. He was followed by just about everyone else.
"Yeah, yeah. Just get on before you kill each other so we won't be late." Sesshó-Maru drawled, waiting in the drivers' seat.
"Umm... hey Sesshó, driving a bus is different than a car or motorcycle. Are you sure you should drive?" Kouga asked, climbing on.
"Are you suggesting something, kilt-boy?" Sesshó asked with a dangerous glare.
"Not at all..." Kouga answered, jumping back a bit.
"Oh, by the way," Yusuke yelled as he got on the bus. "we have five minutes to get to the dock!"
"WHAT!!?" they all yelled.
It took them about two seconds to all get on and be seated, right as Sesshó stomped on the gas.
"Uhh... Sesshó-Maru...?" Shizuru asked timidly, coming up to him.
"Sit back down, human, unless you want to die on a bus." Sesshó warned.
"I just wanted to say that THE LIGHT'S RED!! STOP!" she screamed, falling into a seat.
"We're in a hurry, for one," Inu-Yasha began. "And since when do lights apply to demons?!"
"Since it's my bus!" Sano yelled. "I'll get the ticket!"
The group fell silent except for the revving of the engine. Everyone's mouths were hanging open in stunned surprise. Suddenly, Sesshó-Maru yelled, for his tail had flown in front of him, blocking his vision.
Blink-blink
They looked at each other and slowly started laughing. This situation couldn't get any patheticer than it already had. Then, of course, it did.
"Oh my god, Sesshó, turn right, right now! We're going to go off the cliff!!" Kagome screamed.
The bus veered sharply to the right and Sesshó received several honks. He managed to get his tail out of the way, finally.
"I told you to watch your back, Fluffy, and if I'm not mistaken, your tail is attached to your backside." Hiei stated calmly with a sense of 'I told you so' as Sesshó growled.
They arrived at the dock about a minute later with about five cop cars following them. Everyone got out and grabbed as much as they could carry and ran to the ship, cops in close pursuit.
"Just leave the ticket under the wiper!" Sano yelled back, stunning the cops. He was the last one to board, quickly flashing his ticket. Sano plowed into the rest of the group, and they all fell down the stairwell, landing on top of one another.
"Ah... my head..." Kaiba moaned, holding his head.
"Can't we all just walk civilly to our rooms and NOT murder each other?!" Botan yelled, twitching with anger.
They all untangled themselves and sorted out whose luggage was whose. After explaining Sesshó and Kouga's tails and Inu's ears many times, everyone made it to their rooms. However...
"Why the hell am I sharing a room with this dufus?!" Yusuke yelled to no one in particular, pointing at Kuwabara.
"I dunno... but that's exactly what I'd like to know..." Ryoga sighed as he walked by.
"Have you even been to your room yet?" Kuwabara asked.
"Well... err... no. I couldn't find it." Ryoga answered sheepishly.
"You idiot. We'll take you. It's right next to ours," Tristan sighed as he and Joey sandwiched Ryoga and drug him off.
"Oh come on! Don't tell me I have to share a room with the pig!" Ranma yelled.
"I AM NOT SLEEPING IN THE SAME ROOM AS HIM!!" Inu practically screamed, storming out of his cabin.
"LIKE I WANT TO!" Sesshó yelled out the door after him.
"Who arranged these ship mates?" Tamahome asked. "Because I'm gonna kill 'em!"
"Got put with Tasuki?" Miaka asked, standing just inside her room with Mai.
"At least you all got put with the same gender! I feel so violated!" Nuriko declared in a dramatic tone.
"Nuriko, have you checked below lately? You're a guy, no da!" Chichiri sweatdropped.
"I wish I were with another gender..." Miroku trailed.
"What? Do you have problems with my kilt?" Kouga asked, fangs glistening. Suddenly a door burst open and Sano and Yahiko flew out, choking each other.
"I-AM-NOT-ROOMING-WITH-YOU-!" Yahiko wheezed.
"Right back at you, squirt!" Sano yelled.
"Did I not ask for civilization?!" Botan yelled, coming down the hall with Yukina. Keiko and Shizuru followed, as did Kagome and Sango.
"...a virtual wall if I have to!" Kaiba ended, leaving Yugi alone in their room. He turned around. "What?"
Everyone merely blinked.
"I AM NOT ROOMING WITH THIS PEACE-TALKING, THAT HE IS, COWARD!!" an explosion came from further down the hall.
"Hiei must be roomed with Kenshin." Yusuke said boredly.
"Now really, it won't be that bad, that it won't..." Kenshin tried to calm Hiei down. Hiei death glared the swordsman with all three eyes. Kenshin fell silent.
"Hey, where's Kurama?" Botan asked, looking about.
"I'm here." the fox-demon answered, mysteriously appearing as he often did. "I cannot believe it, there are T.V.s in our rooms, did anyone notice?" No one answered him, just stared with silent rage in their eyes. He took a small step back and looked at them all with a hint of defiance.
"Who are you paired with, Kurama, old buddy-old pal...?" Inu-Yasha asked, in a calm-before-the-storm kind of voice.
"Yeah... who are you paired with?" the rest of them asked.
"Well... I-I've got a cabin to myself..." he barely whispered. That statement was the final nail in his coffin. The rest of the group simultaneously blinked-twice-refocused on the red-haired, green-eyed, old-souled fox demon-thief and twitched. If anyone had happened to see this, they might have thought it was the Night (okay, Day) of the Living Dead. "I believe it would be best if I left now, and avoided any trouble..." Kurama quickly about-faced and strode away.
As what he had just said and done sunk in, a roar began to grow, coming from behind the demon. "Oh crap." he flat-out flew back into his room.
LF/N: Run, Kurama!!!
"Yeah, you'd better run, traitor. You can't hide forever. We'll get you." Kaiba called after him.
"Hey, Chichiri! You could ge' us in there!" Tasuki exclaimed, remembering Chichiri's powers.
"Yeah, and what's in it for me, no da?"
"What's the problem with someone having their own room?" Botan asked. "Besides, there's an odd number of us."
"BECAUSE I WANNA ROOM WITH HIM." almost everyone in the hall answered together.
"Are the pairs that bad? I thought I put everyone with someone they enjoyed spending time with..." Botan stopped short. "I'm betting I shouldn't have said that right then... uh-oh..."
The entire cast paired with someone they loathed began twitching horribly.
"Ohmigod, get away! Leave me alone! Excuse us! Coming through! Move it!" Botan yelled, flying through the halls on her oar. This was about the tenth ring around the ship they had made. "You'll never get me now!" she yelled, turning sharply to reveal a dead end. The people in front tried to stop, got run over by those behind, and everyone did a faceplant on various places while Botan escaped above deck. "Nyah!" Botan stuck out her tongue, believing the danger was past.
"You there!" Botan turned to find two crew-people rushing towards her. "How and where did you get that?"
"Oh, hello. Hmm? Wha-oh! You mean my oar? It's mine!" she smiled.
"That's very funny, miss, but if there were to be an emergency, whichever lifeboat you took that from would be in great distress."
"No, really! It's mine, see?" Botan let her oar disappear. The crew was speechless.
"There she is! Get Botan!" the group had managed to untangle and unfaceplant themselves in the time the crew had questioned Botan. Her oar reappeared and the Spirit Messenger took off. The chase resumed.
"Iron-reverse, soul stealer!" Inu-Yasha yelled, sending an attack towards Botan. She swerved and it missed by inches, tearing through a handrail and wall.
"Venom whip." Sesshó-Maru said, and his whip shot forward, wrapping around the oar. Inu-Yasha growled under his breath.
"Oh no you don't!" Botan called, her oar disappearing. Sesshó's whip fell to the ground. "You can't trap my oar. Think!"
The chase went around the deck several more times without anyone trying to stop Botan with attacks. Then...
"Dragon... of... the Darkness Flame!"
"That's definitely not good..." Botan heard the roar of the Dragon behind her and waited until she could bear its heat no longer. Then she dodged as fast as she could. The Darkness Flame crashed through the building in front of them and went below decks, taking out anything it came across.
"Hiei, you idiot! Call it back! This whole ship's gonna sink if it goes through the right place!" Sano yelled.
"I can't swim, I can't swim! I'm gonna die!" Tasuki wailed, clinging to Tamahome, who began twitching.
"Tasuki... you're not going to die... SO GET OFF!!" he yelled, still twitching.
Suddenly, a voice blared over the PA system. All hands, ready the lifeboats! I repeat, all hands, ready the lifeboats! Women and children are asked to come calmly to the nearest lifeboat with their life vest securely fastened. This is not a drill. I repeat...
"Oh that's just perfect. Now look what you fools have done! All I wanted was a relaxing vacation for a mere eleven days and what do I get on the first day? Mayhem. It's not fair!" Botan sank to her knees and started bawling.
"Come on, Botan... we'll get you another vacation... just stop crying..." Inu-Yasha, weak as always when a girl cried, tried to comfort her.
"But I wanted THIS one!!" she suddenly stopped crying, whipped out her oar, and began whacking the stunned demon.
"And he called me the embarrassment to nature..." Sesshó said, watching boredly.
"All of you, always trying to kill each other, always ruining my planning... I WANT US ALL IN ONE LIFEBOAT, NOW!! We're going to have a vacation-one way or another..." Botan said suddenly, dead calm and serious. The group looked at each other nervously. "NOW!"
The group managed to get into one lifeboat without any questions from the crew, who weren't really paying attention, just trying to get everyone onto a boat. Once they were all on and more or less settled, Botan took control of the motor. They were off before the crew had a chance to shout 'stop!'
"Okay, so tell me again why we're hijacking a life boat to go... who knows where and do who knows what?" Kaiba asked, still confused about the roommate problem from earlier.
"We're going to have a vacation without mayhem or disaster," Botan explained curtly, keeping her eyes on the water ahead. "and if it's on a deserted island, so be it. I'm sick of everyone trying to bite each other's heads off. So, deal with it."
"What?! You can't do this, Botan! There is absolutely no way you can keep us on an island isolated from the world, where there's possibly no contact with anyone for months! It's inhumane!" they all yelled.
"I'm not human, remember? I'm death."
Everyone on board the little vessel stared wide-eyed at the person, who was indeed death. They had obviously forgotten that tiny fact about the cheerful person they had trusted many things to recently. The only noise came from the crashing of the waves against the hull and the hum of the engine.
"I can't swim... I can't swim... I can't swim... I can't swi--OWW!! What was tha' for?!" Tasuki yelled as Nuriko whacked him.
"You were disturbing the peace of the death-bringing life boat. Who cares if you can't swim? We're in a boat, you nut job." he stated. They all took a quick glance at Botan and immediately shut up. She had a very nasty expression on her face and her hands were clenched.
"Hey! I think I see land!" Yugi suddenly cried.
"Really, do you mean it?" Keiko asked, peering in the direction the tenth grader was facing. "Hey! I see it too!"
"Then say your welcomes to it," Botan said in a chipper voice, vivacious once again. "because it will be your new home for as long as I see fit."
"Yeargggg!! I can't stand it anymore!! Let me go home already!! I wanna go home!" Yahiko yelled, after almost a week on the island Yugi had spotted.
"Shut up! Botan might hear you! She'll make us stay another week!" Kaoru shushed, bearly able to sustain her own frustration.
The island was a tropical paradise (sorry, Luna, had to say it...). There were trees laden with fruit, many fresh water streams, and the fishing was great. When people got sick of fish, Inu-Yasha or Kouga or Sesshó-Maru would go out and find some random mammal. They had managed to build a structure of palm fronds and bamboo thanks mainly to Kurama, because he remembered watching every episode of every season of 'Survivor...'
There was a tropical storm every day, and they collected much of their water from these short but heavy downpours. Ryoga and Shampoo remained in the shelter almost 24/7 for fright of being caught in one of the sudden bursts. However, Ranma, Ryoga, Kuwabara, and Tasuki had been secretly building another life raft, or so they thought. The raft was in Botan's schedule of happenings but she said nothing.
"Okay, guys. Today's the day we set out to get off this hunk of nothing. We're going to rejoin the real world!" Ranma whispered, even though they were all the way across the island,
they figured they couldn't take any chances.
"Who's gonna tes' it?" Tasuki asked.
"We'll ro-sham-bo for it. Unless someone wants to volunteer?"
"Nope, let's go." Ryoga answered.
They ended up forcing Ranma and Ryoga onto the craft for the test run. When Ryoga began walking the wrong way, they didn't know if it was his bad sense of direction or his want to get away. Once the raft was in the water and the subjects were boarded, Kuwabara and Tasuki pushed them off. They got out to around 100 yards off shore when Botan flew over the tree-top canopy towards them.
"Botan!" they all yelped.
"Hi, boys! What are you all doing over here? We've all been looking for you for a while now." she said with a hint of annoyance. They all looked at each other, fearing the worst and trying to decide which one of them gave them away.
"Well, lunch is waiting if you decide that trying to escape will only end in failure!" she smiled, got back on her oar and left the boys in shock.
"That was really random..." Kuwabara stated.
Out on the water, Ranma and Ryoga had began twitching. What they didn't notice was that they were going in opposite directions. They bashed into each other and knocked themselves out, which resulted in them falling off the raft.
"Hey, they could drown out there!" Kuwabara pointed out rather uselessly. Tasuki made no move to help. "Hey, come on, we gotta save them!"
"You'd only end up savin' me, too." Tasuki sulked. "Can't swim, remember?"
"Oh yeah. Anyway, I'll be back..." he said, running down the beach and into the crashing waves.
After they managed to make it back to shore, the group of four waited to recover some energy to hike back to the camp on the other side of the small island. They got back to the camp to find a letter in the sand.
Escapees:
Since you did not come, we figured you didn't want a ride back to the mainland. We left and will be back to check on you next month.
-Botan and the others
"What?!! They left without us?!! They couldn't of!" Kuwabara yelled, looking about the camp. It was deserted. Even the ship's life boat was gone.
"They lef' us to die! I'm too young to die!! I bet the tide's gonna come in an' swamp the islan'!!" Tasuki cried in distress.
"Tasuki, shut it. For one, if the tide was going to do that, it would have already done so. Second, you are not going to die. Third, they didn't leave, they're just playing a joke on us." Ranma stopped and seemed to be waiting for something. "I said, they're just playing a joke on us?"
There was no answer.
"They did leave!! Back to the raft, men! We're going seabound! We're going to get home even if it kills us! Then we can haunt those who left us for dead!" he announced.
"Hey! Tha' was my line! I'm the bandit!" Tasuki pouted.
It started to rain.
"I have to tell you... right on time." Ranma said through clenched teeth.
The next day, they awoke to the shining sun and the faces of the people who 'deserted' them.
"You really thought we'd left? Oh, no no no! We had just seen a ship go by and ferried out to ask for a ride to land. They said they'd come back by in two days and we could hitch a ride then." Botan laughed.
The escapees just grumbled and sat around sulking.
Just as they had said, the people returned in two days and the hodgepodge of maniacs climbed gratefully aboard. Within a day, they were back at dock and on their bus home. Sesshó wasn't allowed to drive for everyone's fear that he would send them over a cliff. Sano drove instead, ticket clenched in his fist the whole way back.
"Now that wasn't so bad, was it? I told you all that all we needed was a vacation where we didn't have the annual gore-fest. Maybe you'll listen to me next time." she said with a trademark smile. Then she turned around. "Are any of you listening to me?"
Tamahome looked up from strangling Tasuki, Yusuke held Kuwabara with a fist raise to knock the living crap out of him, Sesshó-Maru had his claws at Inu-Yasha's neck, Ranma was threatening Ryoga with a pail of cold water, Kaoru and Megumi were death glaring each other, Sano and Yahiko were inches from jumping on each other, and Sango and Kagome were about to slap Miroku. This freeze frame lasted about two seconds.
"I THINK WE ALL NEED ANOTHER VACATION!!!" Botan yelled with more than a tinge of anger.