Narrator here. Now, before you kill me, I have good reason for not updating Intermezzo lately…
Kanashimi She procrastinated on two major school projects that she needs to complete in order to graduate. And she got writer's block.
Narrator: (glare) You forgot to mention that I worked two jobs in the meantime, one of which only ended because tax season's over!
Kanashimi … and you got writer's block.
Narrator: (--) Must you keep harping on that?
Disclaimer: Please apply the Supreme Court's "rational person" test to this fic: if Narrator writes fanfiction, would a rational person assume that she claims to own Samurai Deeper Kyo?
Kanashimi: But then, would a "rational person" read this and be amused by it?
Narrator: … shut up.
Chapter 3: Mean, Median... Madness
"Even if all these transformations wouldn't result in the universe falling apart," Sasuke noted somewhat philosophically, "We're all pretty much committed to stopping your sister."
"Hm? Why would that be?" Kanashimi asked, looking up from the now-tepid bowl of miso she had been stirring boredly with her chopsticks. She had been the one to insist that they all find an inn for the night, saying that it made no difference where they were. If Narrator was determined to find them, she would, and if it was all the same to them, she would rather have a nice clean futon to sleep on.
"Because I have to hear the Tokugawa idiot bark one more time, or chase after Hotaru because he wandered away again, or listen to another of Okuni's etiquette lectures, or get one more weird look because I'm carting around a friggin' fern," here Sasuke's left eye began twitching, "I'M GOING TO LOSE IT!" This declaration was punctuated by Sasuke slamming his fist down on the table, making the dishes jump. Hotaru spilled his tea on Okuni's lap out of surprise and the miko ran from the common room, shrieking that she had to "clean my kimono before the stain sets!"
"Hmph! You're getting plenty of weird looks now, thanks to your shouting," Yuya told him sternly, before turning back to Hotaru to calm him down and pour him some more tea, "And besides, poor Benitora has to spend the night outside as it is, since no inn would let in a dog, so just be glad you don't have to!"
Sasuke glared but otherwise did nothing more than resume his seat, grumbling darkly.
"It's unexpected, but it seems that Yuya-san has the makings of an exemplarily mother, ne Kyo-san?" Yukimura remarked conversationally, "She's doing an excellent job looking after Hotaru-san."
Other than nearly choking on the sake he had just downed, Kyo very purposefully did not react to Yukimura's "casual" observation.
"Why don't you know where she is!" Sasuke demanded, pointing at Kanashimi, "You're her sister, dammit! Why can't you keep track of her!"
"I'm not my onee-sama's keeper, that's why," Kanashimi retorted, throwing her chopsticks down and glaring at Sasuke, "I'm not about staple myself to her leg so I can keep her out of trouble – I have my own life to live, kiddo!"
"Maa, maa, we're not denying that," Yukimura interjected, once more leaping into the role of peacekeeper between his subordinate and their new "ally," "We're all simply stressed from dealing with this unusual situation."
"No, no, Hotaru-chan, don't eat that, it fell on the floor!" Yuya admonished, grabbing Hotaru's hand before he could snatch up a particularly plump umeboshi that had rolled off his tray.
"Awwwwww...!" Hotaru's face pinched, harbinger to an ear-splitting temper tantrum. Yuya headed him off by quickly transferring one of her own umeboshi onto his plate.
"Hm, quite," Kanashimi said, "Now, back to the matter at hand. I'll admit that I was caught by surprise today…" Kyo snorted and Kanashimi glared at him before continuing, "but now that we've gotten a moment to stop and think, we should be able to figure out a way to stop my onee-sama."
"Perhaps our best plan is to invite her to attack us," Yukimura spoke up.
"What the hell would we accomplish by doing that?" Kyo demanded while everyone else stared at Yukimura incredulously.
"I'd think we'd be better off trying to figure out how to keep her from finding us," Yuya added, "There's no telling who'll she'll go after next, and what they'll be turned into!"
"Since we're bound to be attacked by Kanashimi-san's onee-sama no matter what we do, and since it seems that Kanashimi-san is unable to predict the next attack any more accurately than the rest of us, it stands to reason that the only option left is to arrange an opportunity for an attack by which we will not be taken off guard," Yukimura demurred.
"Ya know, I keep forgetting how smart you can be," Kanashimi observed with wry grin, "It's like coming upon a frat boy who can discuss Jane Austen coherently."
"Er, yes, thank you for that assessment," Yukimura said with a touch of puzzlement.
"So the plan is to set up a trap for an insane, omnipotent, skillet-wielding psycho-girl," Sasuke summed up, "That's brilliant, only how the hell are we supposed to get her to fall for it?"
"I have no idea," was Yukimura's cheerful answer.
Only Kyo managed to keep his seat, but just barely.
"I was hoping Kanashimi-san would be so kind as to give us an idea of how to draw out her onee-sama," Yukimura clarified after a moment.
"You could have said that to begin with," Kanashimi said sourly, gingerly touching the tender bump on her forehead, "And since you're asking for my advice on bait… I'd say the best would have been either Akira or Benitora gift-wrapped and left in the middle of a road for her to find…"
"What?" Yuya interrupted, sounding slightly horrified. She belatedly covered the ears of the stuffed bunny rabbit currently residing in her lap.
"Those are the two bishies she favors," Kanashimi elaborated, "One of the best ways to distract a rampaging authoress is to throw her a bishy to glomp. My onee-sama is as much a screaming fangirl as the next otaku."
"Even if we were to be so pragmatic as to use our companions in such a manner," mused Yukimura, "that option is not available to us, given Akira-san and Tora-san's present states."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Kanashimi replied dolefully, "It's almost like she went after them from the get-go so that I couldn't stop her by the usual means."
"'Usual means'?" Sasuke echoed, "You mean, this has happened before?"
"Uh-huh." Kanashimi nodded and pursed her lips, frowning. "Only never anything on the scale of her trying to destabilize an alternate reality. Ya'll are just a lucky first."
"We're honored, I'm sure," Yukimura said somewhat sarcastically.
"So what bait were you planning on using?" demanded Kyo.
"Um..." Kanashimi thought hard. Suddenly, she banged on the table, a broad grin on her face. "I got it! Sugar!"
"...what?" was the general response.
"What I just said, sugar!" Kanashimi repeated in an exasperated voice, "If we can't bait her with bishies, we got to bait her with the next best thing: sugar! Preferably chocolate."
"Cho-ko-re-tto?" Sasuke echoed.
Kanashimi winced. "Oh yeah, forgot which timeline this is. Damnit! Onee-sama would have to be a fan of historic fiction - stupid anachronistic limitations!" She subsided into disgruntled, incoherent muttering.
"Well, if Kanashimi-san says sugar will do the trick, perhaps the best thing to do is to wait until morning when the candy vendors in the marketplace open and buy some then," suggested Yukimura.
"Well, don't look at me to foot that bill," said Yuya, "I'm already fronting Kyo's sake as it is." She looked sharply at the samurai, who chose to ignore her. Yuya huffed, but successfully resisted the urge to fling something at his head. Then something occurred to her. "Let's say we actually manage to catch her, what are we supposed to do next?"
"That's obvious," Kyo snorted.
"We kill her," Sasuke added, as though it was inherently evident.
"Uh, no, bad idea, hon," Kanashimi interjected, "For one, if you kill the authoress, the alternate reality she created will also be destroyed."
"... and that's bad how?" Kyo asked.
"Essentially, it would be the same thing as if we allow her to do what she's doing now – complete melt-down of the fabric of space-time. She's already made herself an integral part of this universe by altering it," Kanashimi explained, "Besides, she needs to be alive to reverse everyone's transformations and set the continuum of reality back on course, since she's the only one who can do it."
"I suppose that makes sense," Yukimura said with a sigh; secretly, he had been wondering if there really was a downside to offing an authoress run amok.
"And then there's the fact that she's my onee-sama, and I'd be really pissed at anyone who seriously tried to hurt her," Kanashimi added sweetly, baring her teeth at Sasuke in a parody of a smile.
"Whatever," Sasuke responded, rolling his eyes.
"So, if we can't kill her, what do we do?" Yuya insisted.
"Disarm her," Kanashimi said, "If you guys can help me distract and/or immobilize her long enough, Kyo or Yukimura could get the iron skillet from her."
"Skillet? Is that the source of her power?" Yukimura asked.
Kanashimi nodded. "Yeah, pretty much; she'd still have her authoress powers, but I think once we get the skillet from her, she'll go back to normal."
"Well, normal for her, at least," she added after a beat.
"Tch, and here I thought this was going to be difficult," Kyo drawled, "I'll disarm her, no problem."
"So long as you aren't being literal, do as you like, Kyo-honey," Kanashimi replied off-handedly, secretly wondering if the Law of Hubris and Famous Last Words was in effect. (It was.)
Yuya stood up from the table. "Since it seems we've figured out something resembling a plan for tomorrow," she said, picking up a bowl of fresh rice and cold chicken teriyaki that had somehow escaped everyone's notice, "I'm going outside to bring 'Tora his dinner."
"Excellent idea, Yuya-san," Yukimura chirped, "We wouldn't want Tora-san getting in trouble for trying to raid the kitchen on his own."
"Want to come with, Hotaru-chan?" Yuya offered.
"Yeah!" Hotaru cheered enthusiastically, abandoning the remnants of his dinner, "I want to play with the baka-inu-Tora-san!"
Noticing the strange looks she was getting, Yuya mouthed, 'He needs a bath,' as she made a slight gesture at Hotaru's dirt-and-food-smeared face (apparently, Hotaru's transformation had affected his motor-skills as much as his psychology). Out loud she said, "If anyone wants me, I'll be in my room later. Let's go, Hotaru-chan."
"Hai, Yuya-nee-san!"
"That was almost disgustingly cute," Kanashimi observed once Yuya and Hotaru were out of earshot, "You'd almost think they were really brother and sister."
"Kanashimi-san, please do not feel obligated to share observances like that in the future," Yukimura said with a purposefully neutral expression. Kyo and Sasuke were less successful in containing their abject revulsion.
"All right, all right, jeez!" Kanashimi complained, "Not like I said that they could be mother and son with the way Yuya's going so far as to give him a bath and..."
"What?" Kyo managed.
"You don't really expect a four-year-old who managed to face-plant himself in the only mud puddle between here and Kyoto to be able to deal with his own hygiene do you?" Kanashimi retorted sarcastically to Kyo's suddenly vacant chair. There were shouts of surprise from other patrons who were caught off-guard by a swiftly-moving black blur and the sound of something akin to a miniature sonic boom.
"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Yukimura noted dryly.
"Who, me?" was Kanashimi's "innocent" response.
----------------------
"This is stupid," Sasuke muttered, shifting slightly in the undergrowth.
"Well, if you have a better plan, kiddo, let's hear it!" Kanashimi snapped. It was harder for her, being taller than Sasuke, to remain crouched down and concealed by the brush that was their current observation point. It certainly did not help that everyone was sharing the same hiding place.
"Do you really expect your onee-sama to walk right into that?" Yuya asked anxiously for about the hundredth time in the last hour, "I mean, it's just a rope trap covered with leaves and some dango in the middle of it for bait. Even the stupidest of bounties I've hunted down would never fall for that one."
"Let's try to think positively, shall we?" Yukimura suggested, "If Kanashimi-san thinks this is the best way to trap her onee-sama, we should at least give it a try."
"In the meantime, we're squatting here in the dirt and the filth like savages!" Okuni complained mightily, "This is such inappropriate activity for a lady of breeding!"
"And what breeding would that be, fox-bitch?" Kyo asked sarcastically.
Okuni started crying.
"Kyo, stop doing that! That's the third time this morning!" Yuya scolded, while trying to comfort the sobbing miko.
Kyo sputtered incoherently for a bit before subsiding into morose silence. How the hell was he supposed to remember that Okuni's personality transplant was apparently extraordinarily sensitive to insults?
"Not to be a master of the obvious or anything, but I don't think anything's going to be walking into that trap with the noise you're making!" Benitora yipped grumpily. Having to sleep outside while everyone had enjoyed at night in a comfortable lodge house had wreaked havoc with his normally sunny disposition. Hotaru had not improved matters by making a game of pulling at his trailing ears at every opportunity.
Speaking of Hotaru...
Benitora groaned. "Oi, Kanashimi-han, Hotaru's wandered away again!"
"What? Oh, for the love of... Yuya, I thought you were keeping an eye on Hotaru-chan!"
"Huh?" Yuya worked her way free of Okuni in order to look around their cramped quarters. It did not take long to confirm that, yet again, the chibified fire-wielder had slipped away from their company unnoticed. "Kyo, why weren't you paying attention?"
"Me? You're the one whose acting like his adopted sister, you're the one who's supposed to take care of him!" Kyo shot back angrily.
"Oh, so you only take charge of him when it's convenient, do you!" Yuya demanded, "Then why in hell did you get so upset last night when...!"
"And there they go again," Sasuke groaned, holding his head in his hands as Kyo and Yuya began an all-out bickering match.
"You'd think one streaking incident on the part of Hotaru-san wouldn't be such a hot-button topic with those two," Yukimura remarked placidly, trying to imagine that he was in a better place, where people did not discuss the proper care of swordsmen-turned-pre-schoolers at the top of their lungs.
"Meh, you'd think Kyo would have at least known about Hotaru's exhibitionist tendencies," Kanashimi grumbled. Then again, it was not really anyone's fault that Hotaru had suddenly discovered the only part about the process of bathing that he liked was the part right before one actually entered the water or that he could be down-right greased lightening if he put his mind to it. "Of course, the whole reason Yuya's so upset was because Kyo took it upon himself to burst into the women's bath uninvited like a complete pervert."
"Ah, but he was only trying to prevent Hotaru-san's embarrassment," Yukimura countered in Kyo's defense. Kyo and Yuya's "discussion" had by this point degenerated into immature name-calling in which Okuni was (ineffectively) trying to intervene by pointing out to Yuya that "young ladies simply are not supposed to say things like that!"
Kanashimi rolled her eyes at Yukimura. "Yeah right; I'm betting he just didn't want anyone seeing anything good before he got the chance to," she said pointedly, "Not like Hotaru would get embarrassed about it, even when he was normal. Or at least, not chibified."
"Perhaps," Yukimura allowed, not seeing any point in pursuing the argument.
"Where are you going?" Kyo sneered as Yuya abruptly cut off mid-expletive and got to her feet (or hands and knees - the branches were really low).
"I'm being the responsible adult here and going out to look for Hotaru-chan!" Yuya snapped, "Benitora, come on, I'm going to need your help!"
"Hai, Yuya-han!" Benitora agreed happily, thrilled both for the opportunity to escape their hidey-hole and that Yuya had asked for his help in particular.
"Ano, what if Kanashimi-san's onee-sama attacks them while they are separated from us?" Okuni asked, a slight tone of concern in her voice. Kyo was too busy glaring after the young bounty huntress and Benitora to notice.
"I don't think that's going to happen, Okuni," Kanashimi answered.
Yukimura raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. "And how can you be so certain?"
"Because," she said, pointing toward the clearing where they had laid the trap, "my onee-sama just stepped into our little snare."
"That's your older sister?" Sasuke demanded, certain Kanashimi was playing a trick on them. How could it be possible that the little pink-pig-tailed girl, hanging upside down from the tree branch (courtesy of the loop of rope around her left ankle), gleefully devouring their offering of dango, be the cause of the nightmare of the last twenty-four hours?
"Appearances can be deceiving, Sasuke," Yukimura murmured in a low voice as he gauged their opponent with cold, narrowed eyes; it was as though he had read Sasuke's mind.
"All right, here's how it goes," Kanashimi said briskly, "I'll approach her first and see if I can't just get her to surrender."
They all stared at her incredulously.
Kanashimi shrugged. "It's worth a shot. At least I can distract her while the three of you try to flank her and..."
"Three?" Okuni interrupted, "But there are four of us!"
Kanashimi dead-panned. "So you're saying you're willing to risk a broken nail to fight with us?"
Okuni looked offended. "Certainly not! I was just saying that there were four of us besides you and that it is rude to discount a person who is sitting right in front of you!"
If strangling Okuni would not have resulted in noise, Kanashimi would have done it without second thought. As it was, she settled for glaring at the miko. "As I was saying, I'll distract onee-sama, the three of you try to gang up on her and take the skillet away."
"I don't see a skillet," Sasuke pointed out.
"It'll show up, trust me," Kanashimi said ominously, "So you guys got that? Yukimura?"
"Hai."
"Sasuke?"
"Whatever, let's just do this!"
"Kyo?"
"..."
"Kyo?"
"Where's Kyo-san?" Yukimura asked, looking over his shoulder in surprise.
"Over there. Guess he wasn't much for your plan, Kanashimi," Sasuke said with vicious smugness. He pointed at the demon-eyed samurai, who was currently standing in front their target, his unsheathed Tenro glittering dangerously in the sunlight.
"Oh, crap!" Kanashimi half-shrieked, shoving Sasuke's face into the dirt as she shot to her feet, "Forget the plan, we have to go rescue Kyo!" Her whip suddenly materialized in her hand and she was off like a shot.
"Should we follow her and back Kyo up?" Sasuke wanted to know as he picked his face up out of the dirt and slowly wiped it off. Despite his calm, even tone, he was now "severely pissed."
Yukimura shrugged and sighed. "Might as well," he said, crawling out of the bracken, "But I think Kanashimi-san had the right idea about the flank attack..."
Rewind, Two Minutes Ago...
"That's your older sister?" Kyo heard Sasuke demand in disbelief. He stopped glaring out the way Yuya and Benitora had gone after Hotaru long enough to register the sight of a chibi-authoress suspended in mid-air before making up his mind.
While Kanashimi babbled about some coordinated attack or other (as if – Onime no Kyo taking part in a team strategy?), he slipped out of their cover and began approaching his next victim.
'This ends now,' he thought. He had been sorely inconvenienced thanks to the transformation of one of his servants and his former comrade and the attention Yuya had lavished on both. If anyone was going to be the center of (Yuya's) attention, it would be him, dammit!
A vague impression that he ought to be worried about Kanashimi's reaction if he did actually kill Narrator like he planned tugged at his conscience but he ignored it easily. Stopping within the optimal maai of the source of his annoyance, he regarded her, trying to measure just how dangerous she was. She ignored him, obliviously chomping down on the sweets with table manners that rivaled chibi-Hotaru's for sheer inelegance.
And then her wide pink eyes fixated on him and Kyo began to appreciate the fact that Kanashimi just might have been telling the truth. The sheer manic depravity that shone in them unnerved him, as did the chill thrill of dark power indescribable in its breadth.
'I'm in trouble,' Kyo admitted privately to himself, but he quickly thrust that thought aside and raised Tenro.
"Type I error due to assumption of relationship where null hypothesis exists," she hissed through a fanged grin before vanishing.
"Kyo, behind you!" Kanashimi screamed.
Kyo slewed around and brought Tenro up in a high guard just in time to deflect a vicious blow from a massive black iron skillet. The katana shivered at the force of the strike and almost jerked out of his grasp, but Kyo held on grimly and pushed back against the skillet.
"P-value based on degrees of freedom!" Narrator howled as she vaulted away, narrowly avoiding Kyo's lightening-quick counter-attack.
"Eep!" Kanashimi squeaked, diving out of the way of her onee-sama's wild trajectory.
"MIZUCHI!"
"Ack!" Kanashimi had to leap into a near-by tree to keep from being hit by the lethal tachi-kaze attack that blasted through the clearing. "Bad Kyo!" she scolded, "Very bad! You're going to get a spanking for that!"
Kyo ignored her. His enemy had vanished again and he was too occupied trying to locate her to pay attention to threats from the irate young woman.
More's the pity, as Kanashimi always makes good on her threats.
Pure instinct made Kyo throw himself off to one side, swinging his katana up in a high arc as the next attack came. The tip of his blade nicked the outer edge of the down-swinging skillet, just enough to deflect it into the ground to the side of his head.
"Error of the difference is significant," Narrator told him, her pink eyes mere slits in her face.
"So was your mistake," Kyo retorted, grinning wickedly as he thrust Tenro right into her chest...
...only to have it impact the skillet's flat bottom, which Narrator had brought up with inhuman reflexes to shield herself. The chibi-authoress-run-amok was flung back a good ten meters, slamming full-on into the very solid trunk of a tree.
"Get her!" Kanashimi called desperately, launching from the tree branch and flinging her whip out before her, "Kanashimi no Bishonen Subjugation Ryu, Whip of Conquest!"
"Critical value of x-squared insignificant," Narrator yelled, spinning into the air, "alternative hypothesis rejected!" She used Kyo's head as a spring board to meet her sister's next attack.
"Hm, looks like I'll have to involve myself after all," Yukimura noted from his ring-side seat, "I do hope Sasuke's ready..."
'Dammit Yukimura, where the hell are you?' Sasuke wondered, impatient to contribute to the melee. Kanashimi was holding her own, but just barely, and Kyo was not doing much better from the look of things. But Yukimura had impressed upon him the utmost importance of the timing of their attack...
Meanwhile...
"Sheesh, for such a little guy with such short legs, Hotaru-chan got really far," Yuya said, "Are you sure you're following his scent right, 'Tora?" The pair had gone pretty far into the woods in pursuit of chibi-Hotaru, and Yuya was beginning to get a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"I'm positive, Yuya-han!" was Benitora's answer, though Yuya mainly guessed at the meaning behind the growls and low barks, "I might be new at this scent-tracking thing, but I do know the scent of the little twerp who gets his jollies from yanking on my ears!"
"What I'm really worried about is that Hotaru-chan might have dropped Akira-san somewhere," continued Yuya. She did not notice the way Benitora rolled his eyes or made a low growling noise in his throat. "I mean, he has rather a bit of a short attention span and doesn't always seem to be aware of his surroundings, and who knows what sort of messes he's wandered through..."
Babbling was one of Yuya's defense mechanisms. She had stomped off in a huff to prove a point to Kyo as well as to search for their missing charge. But anger at Kyo could only take her so far; even with Benitora at her side and Hotaru in need of finding, the fact that an omnipotent, cooking-ware-wielding, off-her-nut authoress was also somewhere out there made her down-right jumpy.
"Oi, Yuya-han, I think we're getting really close!" Benitora, on the other hand, had the ability to focus single-mindedly on the task at hand and thus was not bothered by the same doubts and worries as his companion. Add that to the fact he sincerely enjoyed an opportunity to have her to himself (never mind the fact that they were looking for Akira and Hotaru!), Benitora was having a pretty darned good time of it. "Matter of fact..."
Benitora jogged ahead, jumping over a decaying log and forcing his way through some thick bracken. He found himself on a broad, gravel-strewn river bank, the unfiltered sunlight blinding after the green twilight of the forest. Behind him, Yuya scrambled to keep up, scolding, "Benitora, stop running off like that, you don't know what...!"
Just then, the wind shifted and Benitora caught a new scent, one that caused his hackles to instinctively rise with a thrill of impending danger. "Yuya-han, don't come out here, it's...!"
But Yuya had just caught sight of something that deafened her to his warning, even if she could understand it. "Hotaru-chan!" she screamed in horror, catching sight of the blond child chasing after a butterfly, half-way across a very narrow log hanging over the fast-moving and possibly very deep river. Without a thought, she forged ahead, trying desperately to reach him before...
The butterfly danced nimbly, always just out of reach. Hotaru barely registered the sound of Yuya's agonized shriek, his world wholly consumed by delicate sun-yellow wings. The butterfly swerved suddenly, dipping to his right and Hotaru automatically checked his course to follow it, blithely forgetting the width of his precarious bridge...
"HOTARU-CHAAAAAAAN...!"
Yuya had not even made it to the foot of the log "bridge" when she saw Hotaru swing wildly and begin to fall...
Benitora had already plunged into the (very) cold water immediately downstream, anticipating the rescue...
From the opposite bank, a large dark blur raced across the log and swept up Hotaru even as he fell, hurling itself into a rolling dive for the near bank as the log cracked in two and collapsed into the rushing water.
Yuya, who had just been about to run across, leapt back with a gasp of surprise and shock as a flying figure shrouded in flowing brown cloth fell to the ground almost at her feet.
"Wha...?"
"I am supposing, Shiina Yuya-san, that this child is a member of your company?" the figure spoke, raising blue-and-gold eyes to her surprised face as Hotaru struggled to worm his way free of the tangled mantle.
"Migeira... san?"
Meanwhile...
'Here it goes.' Yukimura lifted his katana slightly, at just such an angle that the sunlight would glance over its length and be clearly seen by Sasuke, hiding in the shadows opposite him.
But more importantly...
"Ooooo, shiny!" Narrator chirped, her attention diverted by a glance of something bright and flashing out of the corner of her eye. Yukimura allowed himself a small grin of triumph - Kanashimi had alluded to what she called her onee-sama's "racoon instincts" and he had weighted his strategy on that one small, seemingly insignificant bit of information. The warm fluffy feeling Yukimura got from having his intelligence pay off was one of the tiny, secret pleasures in life.
Narrator's skillet wavered...
It was the opportunity Kanashimi had been waiting for. "BY THE POWER OF BISHONEN DOMINATION, KANASHIMI-CHIBI-TRANSFORM!"
Kyo narrowly avoided the ensuing wave of black smoke and ki as lightning crackled around Kanashimi, warping into a bright vortex of raw power. In seconds, Kanashimi was a mere fifth of her original size.
She need not really have bothered. Even as Narrator refocused her attention on her opponents, Yukimura and Sasuke launched themselves at her from opposite side of the clearing.
It was a brilliant attack, precisely coordinated and perfectly executed. The double lethality of the blades descending on Narrator should have ended the battle then and there...
Except for the fact that Narrator was an authoress on a power trip. And she had her skillet.
BOOM!
"Yukimura!" Sasuke howled, recovering instantly. The shock wave had thrown him like a rag-doll, but his reflexes had saved him from plowing headlong into a tree trunk. But, somehow, Yukimura had not been so lucky. He was one split-second slower in regaining his footing, and by that time, Narrator was already screaming toward him, her manic evil cackle of victory frightening enough to stop the heart. "YUKIMURAAAAAAAAAAAA...!"
'When I envisioned my death, it certainly wasn't this...' commented a vague particle of Yukimura's consciousness that was observing his impending doom from somewhere above the chaos of combat, 'Sanada Yukimura, the most feared enemy of shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, defeated by cookware. How embarrassing.' It also noted, a nanosecond later, that a small dark figure had placed itself between him and the descending instrument and that this was probably significant. 'Sasuke...?'
Sasuke... was between him and Narrator's skillet... Sasuke was going to be hit by the skillet... instead of him...
"Sasuke, no! SASUKE...!"
KER-wham!
------------------------
And that's where this chapter stops, because I'm evil and I have two term papers that need to be written in order for me to graduate.
To My Reviewers:
luna-magic-2005 Yay, I'm charming and hilarious!
Lady of Gensis: Oh, I have plans for Kyo, yesssss… (rubs hands and cackles like the madwoman she is)
Nekozuki 1776: (stands up and shouts) I PROUDLY SUPPORT AKIRA/YUYA! (runs away screaming from a very PO'd Onime no Kyo) And yes, Kanashimi is a great character. Now, if only she would use her powers for "justice" that involves only her own satisfaction…
(Kanashimi What would be the point of that?)
foxmagic… I do hope this chapter doesn't make you change your mind again.
LadyWater2010: Hurrah for the easily amused! As for the world of finals and mid-terms…TTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHBBBBBBPPPPPPTTTT!
starofhades I'm glad my insanity is of amusement for someone. And I won't leave Benitora a dog forever… just a very long time. As for your request… er, that pairing would be more of a gag Yukimura would pull to mess with 'Tora's head. I think Saizo/Yukimura's more likely…
Damien-chan: I don't know if I'm going to touch Sakuya… it would involve more plot acrobatics than I care to put everyone through. As for Migeira… well, he's obviously back in the plot, ne? But now that you mention Shinrei, I might have to do something with him! (grin)
Arin Ross/Arain: I even have a fanart of chibi-Hotaru (and chibi-Akira). Just follow the link on my author's page to Minitokyo and go into my gallery. It's under the categories of "Samurai Deeper Kyo" and "Doujinshi."
(Kanashimi … did that reviewer just threaten me with a sword?
Narrator: Um… I think so.
Kanashimi: Hm. (pulls out roll of duct tape) Threat this.
Narrator: Arain-san… run.)
Alyson Metallium: Argh, you mentioned papers! WHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! (sobs uncontrollably) But in any case, I hope this amused you! Hands off Akira-usagi: that boy is MINE! I do have an interesting plan for Yuya of course… (snickers) Muahahahaha… AHAHAHAHAHAHA…! (gets thwapped by Kanashimi). Itai. And yes, again: statistics evil.
animegrl1047: Are you saying I have too much time on my hands? Because I don't! I simply have too much creative energy and love for the wonderful story that is Samurai Deeper Kyo that I feel compelled to express due to the fact that I chronically suffer insomnia! (begins frothing at the mouth)
(Kanashimi: (shoots Narrator with her patented Strait-Jacket Gun) I believe you're forgetting insane and obsessed in your comments, animegrl1047-san. As for how I treat Pookie… (shrugs) He never says he doesn't like it.
Narrator: Kind of hard to say anything with a duct-tape gag over your mouth, isn't it!
Kanashimi: That reminds me… (slaps duct-tape over Narrator's mouth) Much better!
Narrator: (glare) Mmmpph grmph. (Translation: I hate you.)
Kanashimi (smiles and pats Narrator on the head))
Sparky: Mmmmgf huuuuerr gmpf ah iiiihhhhn um! (Translation: You're damn right it's not a bad thing; now help me get this damn duct-tape and strait-jacket off!)
Darkened Mirrors: Humphfl. (Translation: No kiddin'…)
Salute!