Name: Across the Sea (Version 2.0!)

Rating: PG-13, possibly R in later chapters

Warning: Full series spoilers, OOCness, Rampant fancharacters, Shonen-ai and possible lemon in later chapters. Swearing, too! So much fun! Wait a sec… NO LEMON! HEAR ME JJ? NOOOOO LEEEMOOOON!

Review replies:

DayDreamer- Yes, Raishinshi will probably show up later, if only to be made fun of by Shiro. And Nataku…. Well, I don't know about Nataku. Maybe.

RyuNoTaiyou- I already said the lemon thing was a typo, JJ.

Percy-chan- It's weird, but I checked the original on my computer and the mistakes aren't there. ((Note: in the first chapter there was a space missing between we and shut near the beginning and Jahiro was mentioned twice.))

Talis

I can understand why you'd want to get the story from me. After all, I am the coolest, sexiest-

What do you MEAN you talked to Taikoubou already? How the hell does HE get priority? HEY! Get back here!

Well, I lived in China when I was really young, but eventually was sent over to Japan. I worked in a bathhouse in my early teens, but I was fired after nearly bashing in the skull of a customer who though bathhouse worker equals groping. But not before I met Sesshomaru-sama! Oh my kami, he was a babe. I remembered that I had really distant relations in a nearby palace. Some mother's friend's cousin's daughter named Aiko. I think. But when I got to the palace they told me they had sold her and her brother to Tori no Shiro, so with nothing else to do I made my way over there. Imagine my total surprise when they were working as servants. And this place was full of hotties! Although the owner, Futtota, was this fat, perverted bastard, his son Seiji was a hot perverted bastard! Plus Aiko's brother Reiki was pretty smexy, not to mention Jahiro-chan.

I remember the first night I got there. I stumbled into the gardens through the rain and literally ran into Aiko, even if I didn't know it was her at the time. She led me inside where I first met Futtota (gag) and Seiji (swoon).

It wasn't just hot guys either. The cutest thing I have ever met, Jiho, was a young rabbit youkai who worked in the gardens.

So I promised to help break them all out of there, but a few days after I showed up a Chinese girl called Maku appeared on the doorstep, and in her wake came the epitome of all stupidness, a doushi called Taikoubou. I knew the name because a few distant ancestors of mine had been youkai sennin, but from what I heard they were horrible people - er, youkai - so I didn't hold it against the poor boy. Come to think of it, who in China hadn't heard the name? But that had happened centuries ago!

"So wait a second, how old are you?"

"On my own I'm 83 but technically I'm two thousand, five hundred years three months two weeks-"

"I'm going to kill you."

But Futtota and Seiji were going away on business the next day, so we stayed the night in the hotel above the brothel. Well, brothel would be a nice word for it. It was really more like Seiji's whorehouse, and the admittance fees were pretty steep. I had to go down for a glass of water in the early morning and walked by quite a few of the rooms. This was how we met Jahiro. Did I mention that Seiji had no qualms whatsoever about renting his half-brother to the more raunchy homosexuals in the village, no matter what Jahiro-kun thought of the matter? That pretty much stopped after I walked in on what was happening and hurled the guy through the gardens and into the lake. After threatening to beat me within an inch of my life and then failing to do so, Seiji and his dad left. They left us alone in their extremely expensive palace. Most of us having grudges against them for some reason or another.

This should tell you exactly how intelligent the sexy Futtota is.

So after Seiji and the ever-so-sexy Futtota left, we raided the sake cellar. Well, emptied might be a better word in this situation. Did you know that Aiko gets really really drunk after about a cup and a half of sake? That was a fun evening.

Next day we looted everything of value. Vases, jewelery, kimonos, food. Aiko took care of most of the duck, meaning we didn't have any of it to take with us. Maku was off helping herself to all forms of noodles and Taikoubou was raiding the orchard. Reiki, meanwhile, was trying to tell them we'd need food for the road and for the love of Kami you can't use peanut sauce on duck you fool and hey get the hell away from those peaches or I'll use that ridiculous hat to suffocate you you bastard.

As for the looting, most of the servants had a grudge against the leaders too. One of the geisha, Kizuko, helped us out. I think both she and Aiko are kleptomaniacs.

"Oy! Servants!"

A few curious glances.

"Since Seiji is gone, his dear brother Jahiro here is in charge." Jahiro-chan held his head in his hands. "And Jahiro commands you do leave! Don't forget to ransack the place on your way out!"

Who says the mob has no mind?

So we skipped town like our asses were on fire. My only regret is that we didn't get to see Seiji's face when he got home. Along the way we met a spider demon named Ryugumo… What? You haven't heard about Ryu? Well, go ask Reiki. Tell me when you do, I want to see this.

Anyway, by the time we had hocked all the loot we had come to a little village with another hanyou named InuYasha. He looks a lot like Jahiro-chan. The next day, this super-smexy guy with long blue hair showed up in front of the hut we were all crammed into, yelling about abandoning Kulun and how sad Bukichi-kun was. Taikoubou chose that moment to go for a frolic in the woods and came back out an half an hour later with a face that clearly said 'Victory is mine!'. The village miko, Kagome, was kind of suspicious.

"Where's the other guy?"

"Pushed him into a well."

"WHAT?"

She told us the well was a portal to her time, five hundred years in our future. She was fairly calm until Taikoubou explained that the guy had been a high-ranking immortal.

"Well, did he come back out?"

"Um…"

That's when she really lost it.

So we all followed the smexy blue-haired guy, who I found out was called Youzen, into Kagome's time. Strangely enough, we happened to do so about half an hour after Seiji issued bounties for us. Eventually we found an abandoned building and got hired by Kuniko-sama. She opened it the next day and called it Koneko Kissaten. Kuri, who lives down the street, makes all of our decorations and uniforms. The uniforms aren't particularily revealing, but working in close proximity to a whorehouse where her best friend worked must have turned Aiko into a prude, because you should have seen the face she made when Kuri brought the uniforms down.

"You expect me to wear THAT ?"

"It's a modest tank top!"

"No way in the seven hells."

"Boatneck shirt?"

"Nope."

Eventually we dragged her into a closet and forced her into them, but she just wears t-shirts under them.

Then there's Megumi, the hired entertainment. I don't mean she's a stripper! She's a rising pop star. She kept lobbying for Kuniko to let her sing in the café in the winter and in the garden on the roof of our building in the summer. Luckily, there's already a stage set up in the main part of the restaurant, right next to the staircase to the upper levels and our room. Megumi-san is pretty fickle. She goes from boy to boy so quickly you'd think she was trying to set a record. Her reaction when she first met us as a group was really funny. I don't think she really believed us when we told her who we were. She went right up to Jahiro and went "So, you're a half-demon. How's that working out for you?"

And to add to our troubles there's actual customers, as well as Atsuko. But we'll go over that later, right now I want to see Reiki's face when we ask about Ryu!

)-(

Author's notes:

Tori no Shiro This literally translates as Castle of Birds.