Okay, I have been convinced to put this story up by some friends who read it, so I will at least attach a disclaimer to it. This story was written pretty much with NOTHING in mind except for making essentially random jokes, many of which have to do with Samurai X (who came up with THAT one?): Reflections. Essentially what this means is that I didn't really try to keep the characters in character… And by "the characters," I mean Tomoe, and also was referring to the fact that Kenshin repeatedly shatters the Fourth Wall.
So, basically, this fic is just sort of crazy… And uh…
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be persecuted; Persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
By order of the Author
-Mark Twa… Duo Himura
Oh, and if you're easily offended by making fun of the concept of Heaven, Hell, and basically joking around with Christian Mythology, you may want to sit this one out…
Afteranime
"Ughh…" sighed a red haired spirit as he floated from his body, the scar of his atonement fading from his face as he soared into the bright sky. His beloved wife of 16 or more years slumped against the tree they had been next to. He knew the disease would claim her soon, as it had him. Well, that's what you get when you insist on engaging in beyond R rated activity with someone who's dying from a cheesy Leprosy wannabe, he thought. Sharing his pain his incorporeal eye! "Well," his thoughts proceeded "I suppose that's not such a surprise considering I'd been gone for years. And now my son has a 50 higher chance of doing opium, according to those annoying mailings. Idiots can't appreciate my complete undermining of the entire concept of the series! Not killing people is being a wimp, huh? Humph."
"That last scene was waaay too intense, though," he thought. "And what was the deal with Karou going crazy throughout the whole freakin OVA? I can't remember crap, and she's having tortured nightmares of the past! And she remembers Jine as being a freakin' Englishman! God, could they at least try to make this disease consistent? Man, as finales go, this totally sucks. Bet it shut up all those people who wanted to see the Jinchu Arc animated, though. Hah! Now you gotta buy the manga too, suckers!"
Suddenly, the red-haired traveler reached a giant shining gate atop a huge cumulus cloud. "Oh, of course it would be like this," thought Kenshin. "Freakin Christian ideas of the afterlife are infecting everything. Sheesh." The pearly white gates swung inwards, and suddenly, a young woman of around 20 or so was standing in the middle of where the gates were, her face lighting with joy at seeing this man she had waited for for so long again. Kenshin's eyes went wide as he stammered "T… Tomoe?"
"Who were you expecting, Shishio?" cried a voice over to the side.
Kenshin swiveled his head to look at the speaker, his eyes going even wider with startlement and fright as he cried "Jine? No! I must be in the other place!"
"Oh calm down, Battousai," said Jine. "I'm just up here for punishment. Shishio's king of Hell now, and he finally figured out that the only way to punish people who enjoyed the concept of Hell was to send them to Heaven. I have to give him credit for the idea, not for nothing he overthrew the old dude, but did he have to take my horns too?" he cried, lifting his hat to reveal two large flowers growing out of his head where horns would have been placed.
"They're beautiful!" cried Kenshin, smirking slightly as he leaned closer to inspect the unwelcome protrusions. Jine just glared at him with an evil stare.
"Anyway," Jine continued "I'm supposed to check you in so-,"
"Jine?" cried another, deeper booming voice from the side of the gate. A huge man with white hair and a long beard clad in white robes strode into view, holding smoothie in one hand and a box of special, Heaven-brand Cheerios (now with double the taste! Scientifically proven to reduce sin!) in the other. Behind him he dragged an equally large shopping cart loaded to the top with groceries. "I go out to Pray-and-Save for five minutes and you're taking over my job?" the man cried in his booming voice.
"Uh… Saint Peter… you weren't supposed to be back for another… now…" stammered Jine, clearly unnerved.
Saint Peter sighed, saying "Jine, I'm afraid I'm going to have to sentence you to playing with the children for another week."
"No! Not that! That wasn't part of the deal!" cried Jine, the horror he felt at having to be nice to kids clearly expressed on his face.
"I have altered the deal. Pray that I do not alter it further," said a deep, distorted voice from the other side of the gate. Suddenly, a cough was audible, and a man wrapped from head to foot in bandages strode into view. "Sorry, had something in my throat," said Shishio. "Regardless, you are going to play with the children for another week before I restore your horn privileges." Jine walked off, murmuring something about what was society coming to when a self-respecting madman was reduced to playing tag with a bunch of pre-schoolers. "Oh, hello there, Battousai. Don't worry about killing me, it worked out for the best anyway. You should see what I've done with Hell, it's really quite an impressive feat in home redecorating. Maybe your evil side could stop in sometime and we could talk murder strategies," said Shishio, turning back to his fiery carriage, pulled by black horses, driven by riders dressed in black with a copyright Tolkien symbol engraved on their chests. "What? They're on loan, okay? I paid the man. A Hell of a lot more than those morons who made Lord of the Rings Racing did, I might add," he said as he drove off, shuddering at the mention of the ultimate disgrace to one of the greatest books of all time.
"So sorry about the interruptions," said Saint Peter, placing his groceries off to the side and going to the huge pedestal with the huge book on it that hadn't appeared until that very moment. "Let's see… what's your name?"
"Kenshin, Himura, or it might be listed under Shinta," replied Kenshin.
"Hm… Himura… Himura… ah… lets see… wait… you can't be Kenshin Himura! He has a scar on his left cheek!" cried Saint Peter.
"Oh… wait… I just lost my scar when I died," said Kenshin.
"You must think I'm really stupid," said Saint Peter. "That scar was never supposed to heal as a symbol of his eternal repentance for his sins, and it certainly wouldn't heal when he died! You're totally disregarding an ancient Japanese ideal that may never have actually existed and would no bearing whatsoever in a real Christian variation of Heaven!"
"Well, it was symbolism that I found redemption, I guess…" replied Kenshin, sounding a little unsure.
"That's really freakin screwed up," said Saint Peter.
"Well, don't blame me for the stupidity of the people who did Reflections! I totally would never have gone off for years at a time after marrying Karou and having a son born in a continued attempt to repent, what do you think the Jinchu Arc was for? But the anime's freakin screwed up! Have you seen Tales of the Meji?" bellowed Kenshin, the rage of thousands of fanboys coursing through his veins.
"Yes, yes," replied Saint Peter "I can see now that you're the real thing. No one else could wield the power of the fanboys of the series with such proficiency. We had to condemn one of the people who wrote the Tales of the Meji Arc to Hell, you know. That wasn't the reason why we condemned him to Hell, but we did. Anyway, Himura, you are free to enter Heaven, just take note that Tuesdays are ohagi and hamburger days, and Wednesdays there are free doughnuts for the animated characters division of Heaven. Technically, its separate from the anime one, since we had some, uh… issues between some of the more… easily aggravated characters and the little furry woodland creatures, but the people checking the identities are all from New Hampshire, so you should be able to slide through as one of them."
The next few weeks were some of the happiest of Kenshin's life... er… uh… death… uh… whatever. Is how the story would usually continue, except for the fact that that's not what really happened. The moment Kenshin left Saint Peter to make his way over to Tomoe she shouted by means of greeting "Oh, great, got rid of the scar did you? Guess that shows what you thought of our relationship."
"Oro?" the trademark phrase came, as Kenshin quickly tried to explain what the creators of that God-awful anti-tribute to Nobuhiro Watsuki's work and mockery of his intentions had clearly overlooked in their attempts to totally ruin the ending that Rurouni Kenshin deserved. Not to make you think I didn't like Reflections or anything…
"Oh, sure," she said, her tone indicating her skepticism. "And I'm totally sure that that you showed up 30 years later because it took that long for your senseless helping people to catch up with you."
The next days were not, as would usually be expected in such a scenario, filled with romantic walks in the ever-shifting-so-as-to-be-appropriate-for-the-moment atmosphere along the likewise shifting-for-maximum-effect-terrain, with at least 6 sunsets a day and the happy reunion of the long-separated lovers, but rather a serious of various attempts by Kenshin to placate Tomoe's obvious anger at the horrible inconsistencies that no one bothered to think about when they wrote Reflections.
At long last, he got through to her, and they picked up their relationship about where they had left off at "The Previous Night at the Mountain Home," a clearly suggestive title, yet appropriate for a 17+ rated anime. However, in respect to the fact that a 14 (okay fine, 2 weeks from now, sheesh) year old wrote this, regardless of his vast maturity and ability to handle and understand such adult concepts, as well as dashing good looks and brilliance, not to mention modesty, the details should be kept to a minimum. As a matter of fact, this very paragraph that you're reading is being used as little more than a convenient devise to allow readers to have a greater feel of the passage of time, rather than just a corny statement of time passing, such as "The next morning." You know, that paragraph that just said "as a matter of fact, this very paragraph that you're reading is being used as little more than a convenient devise to allow readers to have a greater feel of the passage of time, rather than just a corny statement of time passing, such as 'The next morning.'"
The next morning marked the major difference in their relationship, namely, Tomoe not going off in an attempt to stall the inevitable attempt by those weird ninja guys to claim Kenshin's life, all the while falling into their diabolical plan to use her to weaken his heart and lower his will to fight, ending in her rushing forwards to help him and, in the end, being killed by Kenshin's own sword stroke. They did, however, enjoy a very lovely breakfast at a nearby café.
They were enjoying the pleasant morning strolling though a conveniently (hey, its Heaven, after all) placed park, and sitting on a nice bench to admire the day, when suddenly, Kenshin felt a huge jerk on his ponytail, sending him hurtling over the back of the bench and straight into a tree some 7 feet behind where he had just been sitting. A girl bearing an incredibly strong resemblance to a raccoon, though not one to be mentioned in her presence, stood behind the bench, her face swollen with anger just as the giant bump on Kenshin's head was swelling from being hurled suddenly into a tree, a clear tip off for anyone totally ignorant that this was, in fact, an anime-based fanfic.
"Oh! So I'm gone a week and you've already replaced me, Kenshin?" cried Karou, her sharp voice cutting through the tranquility like a certain aforementioned graphic scene of a certain unnamed character killing his certain unnamed wife due to hallucinations from a severe blood-loss that was quite possibly, her fault to begin with, brining this whole metaphor full-circle and thusly making it a large waste of time for all involved when more easily accessible and relatable metaphors such as "like a warm knife through butter," are much more easily available, though also more cliché.
"What are you doing to my Kenshin?" cried the woman who, due to the serious nature of her role and, indeed, the entire portion of the story in which she is present, has never really been compared to a furry, woodland creature, thus putting the author of this fanfic rather at a loss to call her by descriptions other than her own name.
"Your Kenshin?" cried Karou, making reference to the quite obvious emphasis put on that particular part of the sentence by adding such an emphasis of her own. "I'm his wife!"
"What are you talking about?" bellowed Tomoe, a rather hard scene to picture, I must add, due to the fact that Tomoe talks in a very quiet, respectful manner throughout the portions of the story in which she is present. "He's my husband!" she continued, fueling what was likely to become a war of verbal emphasisi… emphasa… emphasise… more than one emphasis!
Groaning as he climbed to his feet, Kenshin noticed his wife glaring at him, something that most men dread, doubled by the fact that Kenshin was facing two of them, neither of which he had technically broken his relationship with. "Uh… well… you see…" he stammered, trying to form a coherent enough sentence to explain a story all too familiar to most members of the audience, and more importantly, far too time consuming to type, to write here.
And so it was that Kenshin explained to Tomoe the plotline of Rurouni Kenshin, and to Karou the plotline of Samurai X: Tsuiokuhen. When he finished he ran to the stream to get that glass of water one usually requires after reciting something for 50 hours without a break. A stunned silence permeated the air. Hehheh, permeated.
"So you see," said Kenshin, throat sufficiently revived by the water, "That's how this whole incident happened."
"And I never knew the story of this thanks to that Goddamn Tales of the Meji Arc!" bellowed Karou, with shouts of "Damn straight!" and "You tell those producers a thing or two!" and various other unprintable words that are often shouted in response to someone shouting loudly in a residential area.
"Well?" shouted both girls suddenly, their voices in that perfect unison that everyone knows happens maybe once a month in real life but no one seems to mind in such cases.
"Well what?" asked Kenshin, still very shocked to find both of the loves of his life in the same place at the same time.
"Which one of us do you want to be with in Heaven of course?" they both shouted, their raising voices startling Kenshin as he began to process what they had actually said. Suddenly, a classic, 6-inch-long anime-style sweatdrop appeared on his head, and he began stammering incoherently enough to the point where Porky Pig, a local resident of this sector of Heaven, slapped him with a huge lawsuit. Fortunately for our heroes, the law procedure in Heaven is arranged so that the matter is settled in whatever means is most appropriate for both sides, therefore ending with Kenshin no longer stammering and Porky feeling quite pleased about having protected his trademark less than a minute later. This probably has something to do with a lack of lawyers in Heaven… W… wait… it's just a joke… don't come any closer with that! Uh… Ahem… yes.
So there they were, Kenshin Himura, all-around good guy, responsible for saving Japan from certain doom several times, faced with his greatest challenge yet, how to deal with two women who were both married to him whom he both loved at the same time. And to think, he used to make fun of Inuyasha for this…
"Well…" they both said angrily, indicating the author's total disregard for the normal personas of the characters, i.e. Tomoe.
"Uh…" stammered Kenshin, still unable to reach any sort of conclusion "Well… eh… Oh my God, what is that thing?" he shouted suddenly.
"Huh," they said in unison as they turned to look behind them.
Karou said "Kenshin, this is a tree, exactly how hard did you hit your head?" before realizing that Kenshin was already a pink (snickering) streak far off into the distance.
"WILMA!" shouted an angry caveman, dressed in an orange shirt and blue tie, as he pounded on the door to a small house made of stacked stones.
"FRED!" an answering voice, feminine, replied from inside "The extra key is in the mailbox! That's where it was when you got locked out yesterday! That's where it was when you got locked out last week! That's where it was when you got locked out last
year! Besides, we got rid of that cat, not that we actually ever owned it in the first place!"
"Well, I don't like using that key. What if robbers saw where we hid it?" questioned Fred Flintstone, exactly ¼ of a modern Stone-Age family.
"Robbers?" cried Wilma, accounting for another ¼ of a modern Stone-Age family. "It's Heaven for crying out loud! Who'd want to steal from us!"
Just then, they noticed a person who was little more than a pink (magenta) streak with a sword at his waist fly into their garage.
"A car!" exclaimed Kenshin, looking at the odd, stone copy of a modern device that, by all rights, he should not have known existed. Jumping into the car, he stuck his feet through the bottom, and took off running again, completely oblivious to the irony he had left in his wake. After a short while of running, Kenshin looked down at his feet, then said aloud "You know… this seems sorta… redundant…" Leaping out of the car, he continued his mad dash to escape his wives.
Eventually, he came upon a forest that looked as if it had been imagined (and drawn) by someone who was in no condition to operate a pencil. "What was this guy smoking?" cried Kenshin, running past mushrooms with faces that towered over trees and neon mosses that grew from every inch of ground, reaching up to meet the trees, in their brilliant reds, blues, and mauves.
"I don't know, but I'd sure like to get my hands on some," replied a voice to Kenshin's right. He turned to look, and saw a strange, badly drawn little man with blue skin, a beard, and a huge, round nose.
"Papa Smurf?" cried Kenshin, shuddering at the mention of the name. "What are you doing in Heaven?" The smurf mumbled something about toilets, Shishio's bandages, and something having to do with Yumi that, out of respect for the fact that she died for her true love and, more importantly, that minors may read this story, I cannot repeat here.
Kenshin continued, noticing as he went that other smurfs were around, cleaning off bad puns on famous sayings that someone had spray painted onto the trees, such as "As you go, be sure to sniff the twenty foot mushrooms on the way. Then maybe you can see this stuff all the time!" and "All work and none of whatever this dude was taking makes Jack a reality-grounded boy."
As Kenshin exited the forest, a deep, booming voice coming from a huge, odd, metallic object to his left said "Heaven, the final frontier…"
Immediately following this statement, someone piped up "But Captain, that's what you said about space."
"Well…" stammered the first voice, only to be interrupted by another protest.
"And that shopping center in Little Tokyo." The captain began again to respond, but was again interrupted by several more outbursts.
"And that Mexican restaurant!"
"And that God-awful pizza with jelly on it!"
"And-,"
"Alright!" cried the Captain, his voice clearly betraying his agitation. "So I use that phrase a lot, sue me! It's Heaven for crying out loud! Unless any of you are planning on leaving sometime in the next eternity or so, I think its safe to say that this is the final frontier!"
"Uh… excuse me…" said Saint Peter, this time appearing in a jogging outfit with a stopwatch in one hand and an energy bar in the other. "I'm afraid I can't have you disturbing the others around here like that. You're going to have to wait in Purgatory for a little while." None of the crewmen made a reply, but amongst their snickerings, a low growl was audible.
Kenshin, once again unperturbed by the strong presence of the Irony in Heaven, proceeded. As Kenshin's stamina began to wane, he suddenly spied a pile of dirty laundry, left carelessly on the ground next to the washtub and cleaning materials, and forgotten. "Well, I need a break from running anyway…" thought Kenshin, making his way towards the pile of laundry, as if compelled by some outside force.
As he bent to grab the first piece of dirty laundry, a large cage fell from above his head, trapping him with its iron bars. Kenshin looked around with that look of surprise and fear one often has on one's face when a giant metal cage falls from the sky, trapping one with its iron bars when one is in the middle of washing random pieces of dirty laundry for no apparent reason other than being obsessive.
From the bushes surrounding the cage Karou and Tomoe stepped, approaching Kenshin from opposite sides, their faces gleeful at having caught their mutual husband. At that very moment, a group of three middle-aged men, two women, and three girls of varying ages came passing by singing "Everywhere you look, everywhere you look, there's a heart, a hand to hold on to…" and well, you know the rest, or you're more of a loser than the losers who actually watch that show. Not that I'd… uh… crap. This sucks.
Anyway, Kenshin thought to himself "Ironic, that's exactly the problem…" as he glanced from one wife to the other, stammering once more.
Suddenly, there was a flash of light and Saint Peter appeared again, this time dressed in only a towel, with a bar of soap and… ah, screw it. Does anyone actually care what the guy's holding when he shows up? Screaming at suddenly appearing in the middle of a forest with no clothes on, Saint Peter disappeared in another flash of light, reappearing again in his usual garments. "Alright, you guys have been disturbing the peace here in Heaven, including my own peace, so what seems to be the problem?"
As the situation was explained to him he nodded, taking in the circumstances. Or maybe it was with sleep deprivation. It's hard to tell after 50 hours of listening to someone talk. "Uh…" he began "You know, you really didn't have to recount the whole thing. A simple overview would have sufficed. As for your problem… uh… I have absolutely no clue. That means its time to call in the higher ups." Whipping out a glowing cell phone, Saint Peter pressed number 1 on the speed dial, and instantly everything was swathed in brilliant white light.
Out of the light stepped a middle-aged Japanese man wearing glasses and holding a pencil and a notepad, with scribbles of 'Busou Renkin' in various different styles covering it.
"Okay, that's where I draw the line!" bellowed Karou at the top of her quite ample lungs. "I don't care what kind of sorry excuse for a fanfic this is, Watsuki can not be God!"
"Uh… he isn't," replied Saint Peter "But, seeing as you're all figments of his imagination, he's close enough to settle this."
"Now let's see…" said Watsuki "You need something to solve the problem of who gets Kenshin, right? Hm…" he said, scribbling something on his notepad. "There. That's taken care of." And with that, he disappeared in a brilliant flash of light.
"You know, we need to fix that lighting problem…" began Saint Peter, before he was interrupted by Kenshin.
"Huh?" asked the red-haired former Rurouni. "Did he even do anything? Karou? Tomoe?" he asked, looking around for one or both of his two wives, finally spotting them off in the distance, chatting and talking happily.
"I made it so that they would get to know each other, that way they shouldn't mind sharing you. How's that sound?" Asked Watsuki, his voice booming from nowhere and everywhere at once, well, maybe not quite at once, there was about a one second difference between being everywhere and then nowhere, but it was close enough…
"Seems like that should fix things," said Saint Peter. "Now I've got a bath to get back to, excuse me."
"Uh… Saint Peter?" asked Kenshin, just as he disappeared, followed by a bright flash of light, only with a five second delay this time. "Karou?" he asked. "Tomoe? Someone? Let me out of this cage!" he cried in frustration.
"Shessa would be happy to help you out of this cage," said a longhaired man with a cross-shaped scar on his left cheek as he walked up. Suddenly, he starred at the man in the cage more closely, as Kenshin began to stare at him.
As the two gawked at each other, voices could be heard approaching from the foliage "Hurry up, Tomoe, I think I just heard him."
"Here," said anime-Kenshin, cutting a hole through several of the bars to make a person-sized opening. "Climb in, you'll save yourself a lot of time…"