Kuri: And so, we've reached the final chapter. We had a nice run. I want to sincerely thank all of my loyal reviewers, who kept reading even though I put them through unreasonable waits between chapters and posted way too many author's notes instead of chapters. Also, the quality of the writing could be better, and I really neglected the central plot, now that I think about it...
Julia: What? No way! It can't be the end!
Jade: You're kidding!
Kuri: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...
Jade/Julia: O_o WHAT'S WITH THE FUNERAL LINES?
I'd right a disclaimer, but it's pretty obvious that I don't own the majority of the characters in this fanfic. If you sue me, you have too much time on your hands.
"We're done. I don't want to do any more spinning."
The characters in the room stared at Kuri in surprise.
Kuri looked back at them calmly. "I wanna do somethin' with…with uh… what's his face, Aoyama. You see, I've had this thing I've been wantin' t'test, and I…"
She trailed off, staring at her hands.
"…you guys ever notice that our hands… like, our hands, with the fingers… aren't too different from monkey hands? I mean, sometimes, they don't even look like human hands! But then, then… uh, then they do. Does that make sense?"
Julia shook her head, walking up behind Kuri. She waved at the audience.
"Yeah, sorry guys. Kuri's a little… broken today." she said. "She's been thinking about nothing but the Legend of Zelda for the past couple of months, so when she tried to remember where she left off on this story… her brain kind of broke. So, we'll be having a little spoof as the ending, doing some last minute pairings, and then you guys can go. All right?"
The audience nodded hesitantly.
Kuri whipped out her note/sketchpad. "Bring out the tree-hugger!" she shouted.
A large crate fell out of a hole in the ceiling, smashing into pieces on the ground. Inside, there was a body—Aoyama's body, which was almost as smashed up as the crate.
"Aoyama! Aoyama!" blubbered Ichigo, sobbing over the body.
Kuri blinked. "Ooh, did I do that? Sorry, I meant to have the crate float down on wings… or a parachute. Hmm, must have forgotten something."
"The parachute, maybe?" suggested Ikuto, rolling his eyes.
"Yeah, that's it." Kuri said, smiling.
"He's dead! He dead and you killed him!" Ichigo screamed. "You killed him, and now he's dead! WHY?"
Kuri shrugged. "Oh well! Let's try this!"
And with that, the extremely dangerous and untested Chemical XYZ was poured on Aoyama's head.
"Ugh…" muttered Aoyama.
"HE LIVES! YAY!" Ichigo cheered.
"Is this chapter going anywhere?" asked Utau.
Allen nodded. "I think it might be, but wherever that is, I'm not sure if I want to go with it."
Aoyama stood up. He looked around for a moment, taking in his surroundings. He looked at Ichigo.
Ichigo's eyes were sparkling with happiness. "Oh, Aoyama, I'm so glad that you're okay!" She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. Aoyama returned the hug…
…and then promptly bit off a chunk of her shoulder.
After having all of their eardrums blown out by Ichigo's piercing scream, the aliens moved to lob the tan boy's head off.
"Aoyama, wh-why… what's wrong…?" Ichigo sputtered, eyeing the gaping hole where the flesh of her shoulder and a piece of her clavicle had been. She fainted.
"Hmm, it seems that Chemical XYZ has a reanimating effect," said Kuri, "but it only reanimates the body. The body is decaying, so it is trying to nourish itself with living sustenance."
"In other words…" said Julia,
"…we've created a zombie?" asked Jade.
Ichigo suddenly woke up. "Oh, Gods, the PAIN!" she cried.
Jade giggled. "Someone get her a band-aid!"
"I think we're gonna need more than a band-aid for this, Jade."
"Two band-aids, then?"
Kish sniffed. "Oh, the injustice! Now I have to kill my little kitten, too, since she's been bitten—"
"THAT," interrupted Kuri, as she dragged Ichigo's limp body away from the decapitated Aoyama and the dagger-wielding Kish, "will not be necessary. I don't think the virus will travel from one person to another like in the movies."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because this is my story, and I'll make what I want to happen, happen, and what I don't want to happen, not. Now, can somebody please dispose of Aoyama's body? I hate the smell of decaying flesh."
"Uh, hello? Bleeding to death, over here!" Ichigo wailed.
"That's what I said, but you were more interested in tending to your precious boyfriend!" muttered Kish, who was still a little bitter over the last episode of Tokyo Mew Mew.
"That was different. You were pretty much dead."
"Not entirely! And, you could've at least stayed with me for a little longer, after I saved your life!"
"Aoyama was back to being himself—how could I just ignore him?"
"Easy! Kiss me to take your mind off of it!"
"Kiss your dead body? Just how sick are you?"
"Not as sick as your sadistic, fluffy-haired boss, thank you very much!"
"Although that may be true, and Ryou is a jerk, I still take offense to that!"
Kuri sighed. "Ah, lovers' quarrels."
"I told you, we're not lovers!"
"Aw, do you hate me that much, kitten?"
"YES!"
Julia tapped Kuri on the arm. "Hey, are you back to normal now?"
Kuri thought for a moment. "Hmm, define normal?"
"Your regular, twisted little brain is back in proper function?"
Kuri nodded. "Yeah, you could say that." she said with a smirk.
Before the conversation could turn to bloodshed, Kuri changed the setting to a courtroom scene.
"All rise for the honorable judge Jade!"
The anime and cartoon characters, now lined up on the benches, stood as Jade walked to her place in front of the courtroom. She looked to Kuri.
"Why am I the judge?" she asked. "Isn't that your role?"
Kuri, who had made clones of herself to fill the jury seats, smiled. "Everyone knows the jury has most of the power here. Normally I'd be the executioner, too, but it seems that lobbing people's heads off and other graphic content such as that is not allowed on this website."
"But, what about earlier, with Aoyama…?"
"Shush, shush, the trial is about to begin."
Everyone sat down. Jade looked around. "Is the prosecution present?"
"Yes, your honor." said Julia, holding up her briefcase of all-knowledgeable-lawyer-POWAH.
"Don't you mean power?" murmured Aang, blinking.
"POWAH!" Julia corrected.
Jade cleared her throat, throwing a Look at the two. If Looks could burn through steel… Jade would have a very hard time breaking into a safe. Oh well, the message was more or less conveyed.
"Is the defense present?"
Cricket noises, courtesy of Kukai, were heard. Utau told him to shut up, and he reluctantly obliged.
"Did I forget to pick a defendant?" asked Kuri. "Oops. In that case, I think I'll choose… Amu."
With an obvious lack of enthusiasm, Amu approached her own podium. She looked to her friends for support, but all they could do was give her looks of sympathy.
"What did I do? Don't I get a lawyer?" she asked.
"M'kay. Ikuto, you can be her lawyer." said Kuri. Ikuto stood next to Amu. She turned red, though not for any reason in particular.
Jade held up a paper. She read off from it, "We are here to hear the case of Hinamori Amu, who is charged with… um… Kuri, what does this say…?"
"Can't you read?"
"Of course, but your handwriting is terrible."
"I didn't write that. Sokka did."
Sokka called from his seat, "Don't go pinning your cruddy penmanship on ME!"
Jade studied the words a little closer. "Oh, right. I see now. She is charged with neglecting to provide adequate fanservice for Amuto fans."
Amu blushed. "Wh-What? How is that a crime?"
Ikuto shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I can't blame them, though… I've kind of been doing all of the work up to this point. You haven't even attempted to flirt with me."
"Flirt? Is this a job or something?"
"It's in your contract to maintain a suitable romantic interest in me. Flirting isn't really part of your character, but you could at least try something for the good of the fans."
"No way! D-Don't be ridiculous!"
Tadase was grinding his teeth in the back row of the room. He wrung his hands.
"We the jury find Ms. Hinamori Amu to be guilty." said Kuri and her clones simultaneously.
"What happened to the trial?"
"Verdict first, then trial!" Kuri answered.
Lavi rolled his eyes. "Who are you, the Queen of Hearts?"
"Keep talking, rabbit." the blonde girl replied, glaring at him. "I'll write you into the White Rabbit if you don't shut your mouth."
Amu was sobbing. "Doesn't my lawyer get to at least try to defend me?"
Jade shrugged. "Okay. Ikuto, how does your client plead?"
"Guilty." said Ikuto. "Guiltier than a two year old standing next to a broken cookie jar with a cookie in his hand and chocolate smeared all over his face."
"Ikuto, I thought you were supposed to say I was innocent!" cried Amu.
"As a faithful student of the law, I am required to tell nothing but the truth when approached with this question."
"You never went to law school! You're a musician!"
Jade pounded her gavel on the stand. "By the power vested in me, I pronounce you guilty. I sentence you to three hours of continuous fanservice!"
"And that would entail…?"
"Get into a separate room and start doing whatever!"
Tadase wept into his hands as Amu was dragged with a (smirking?) Ikuto into the next room over. The scenery changed again, turning back into the game room, with the rest of the anime and cartoon characters sitting in the auditorium.
"Now, time to spin… the wheel… of… pairings!"
Curiously, the spinner on the wheel had changed into a giant bottle, because Kuri just remembered what the game was supposed to be in the first place. It was Rima's turn to spin.
"Weird, I could've sworn I'd already let her spin…" Kuri muttered.
Julia patted her on the head. "Careful now—if you try too hard to remember things like that, you'll break your brain again."
Obviously, and just as Rima had expected, the spinner landed on Nagihiko's name. Both guardians flushed. Rima curled into a ball and rolled behind the wheel while Nagihiko clung frantically to his chair.
"Now, now, don't be shy!" coaxed Jade, "helping" Nagihiko stand up. She led him onto the stage and rolled Rima in front of him. Kuri wrote in her notepad, forcing Rima to stand up and stay rigid so she couldn't turn into a human sphere again.
Rima was glaring daggers at Nagihiko. "Try to imagine what I will do to you if you so much as attempt to kiss me." she said, though she wouldn't really be able to do anything about it with her arms and legs temporarily immobile.
Nagihiko's face was beet red. "I-I wouldn't even try! I'm not that kind of person… I-I mean, it's not that I wouldn't want to kiss you, it's j-j-just that I wouldn't want to kiss you! Err, wait, that came out wrong… I meant—!"
Rhythm appeared on his shoulder. "Yo! From a guy who can't kiss the girl of his dreams, to a guy who can hike up his skirt and do it already, CHARA CHANGE!"
When the headphones appeared on his shoulders, Nagihiko's color went back to normal and a large grin grew on his face. He leaned in closer.
"Don't you dare!" Rima shouted. "I mean it, you j—!"
He kissed her, long and good. Admittedly, Rima didn't try to get away from it very much, and she even closed her eyes after a few seconds, though no one but the two of them would know if she had kissed back.
Kuri grinned. "All right, time's up. Back in your seats."
The headphones disappeared and Nagihiko backed up, his face now in competition with Amu's tomato-face. He looked to the other guardians in the audience. "D-Did I just…?"
Kukai nodded with a grin. "Indeed you did, new-Jack. Indeed you did."
Nagihiko's expression went dark. "Rhythm, when I get my hands on you…"
Kuri, Jade, and Julia were huddled in the corner. Kuri had a serious expression on her face, as did Julia, though Jade was smiling. She knew the seriousness of the situation, but she had a tendency to always be happy. It was probably a genetic thing. Maybe.
"Okay, how do you think I should end this story? Explosions?" asked Kuri.
Julia stroked the imaginary whiskers on her chin. "I don't know. You need to update more often."
"That's off-topic. You didn't answer my question."
"Can we pair up Amu and Tadase again?"
"I'll say it once more—you're not answering my question."
Jade smiled. "Let's all try to get along, okay?"
Kuri sighed. "Look, guys, I'm trying to figure out how to end this, and you never answer when I ask that. So, what should I do? Should I just send them all home now? We're done with the pairings, after all."
Julia's grin grew wider. "Not just yet, I think."
"Hmm?"
The brunette went to the nearest closet. She took out a bow and a quiver full of arrows.
"WHOA, whoa, I am NOT killing anyone!" Kuri said, backing up.
Jade took out one of the arrows, revealing the tip to be a heart rather than a poison-tipped arrowhead. Kuri didn't need any further explanation. She chuckled grimly.
"Oh, this will be fun."
A few minutes later, Jade and Julia found themselves pulling on a rope, which was connected to a pulley, which was helping to lift Kuri into the air as she readied the bow and arrows.
"Why do we have to haul you into the air?" complained Jade with a grunt. "You are heavy!"
"If you are implying that I am an ounce heavier than I should be," said Kuri, "I will sic the plot bunnies on you. As for the lifting, it's for authenticity."
She aimed for Ichigo. Kish was floating near the redhead, watching as she mourned the headless body of her boyfriend.
"Almost there… steady, now…" Kuri drew back the bowstring.
"Kish, have you seen my fan…?"
Fwoosh!
Kuri cursed. The arrow had missed, hitting Kish instead. A pink powder exploded from the arrow, affecting anyone within Kish's immediate vicinity, which just-so-happened to be Pai.
"Your aim is worse than your penmanship!" screeched Julia, watching in terror as Kish and Pai gazed at each other with googly eyes.
"Well, since we've already started, let's just conjure up some more crack pairings." said Kuri, fully acknowledging that her aim would not improve no matter how much practice she put in.
In the next hour, you couldn't go three paces without bumping into two people making out, when they really should not have been making out.
The pairing of Sokka and Zuko was especially intriguing. Kuri wasn't quite sure how it happened, but she suspected that it was another case of the yaoi fangirls pairing up their two favorite male characters on a show. She shook her head, knowing too well that it happened in too many fanbases.
Kish and Ichigo were finally going at it, though, so there was an upside. If Ichigo had been in her right mind, she would have throttled herself along with Kish.
"Yeah, but she's not in her right mind. So we're good." said Julia to the narrator.
"How do we stop them?" asked Jade, turning to Kuri. "I don't think your older sister will appreciate you returning the missing characters to her, fawning all over the wrong people like they are."
Kuri clenched her pencil so hard it broke in half with a satisfying crunch. "We will not mention that woman in this household-I-mean-auditorium, all right?"
She snapped her fingers, and suddenly the pink mist that had taken over the room disbursed. Anime and cartoon characters stared at each other in confusion.
"Hey, everyone! Time to go!" said Jade.
A large door with an exit sign above it appeared in the middle of the stage. When Taruto walked around the door, he noticed that there was just empty air on the other side.
The door flung open. Peering in through the doorway, the pool room was visible and just a step away.
"The exit! We can really go now!" they cried.
It took only a few seconds for them all to clear out. Kuri watched them go with a little bit of sadness glinting in her eyes.
Jade and Julia handed her some handkerchiefs, which she waved away. "I'm over it. Let's go follow them." She went through the door.
Julia shrugged. "I've wanted to jump in the pool at the WAC hotel for some time now, anyway. Maybe Allen will have a better opinion of me if I'm not holding him here against his will again." She went in after Kuri.
Jade picked up her collection of books and shoved them messily into her satchel. She ran through the doorway to catch up with the other two.
"Wait for me, guys! I don't wanna be alone heeeeere!"
The End
(But because I'm going to get yelled at for ending it so abruptly, here's an epilogue)
When all three of the girls were gone, the doors closed and thus the auditorium was once again sealed off from the outside world. Kuri, Jade, and Julia spent the weekend at the WAC hotel, where the anime and cartoon characters—being by nature unable to hold a grudge for too long—forgave them and let them play there.
Nagihiko was sitting by the pool in a dress. (Temari had been feeling neglected and forced him to chara change with her as much as possible) So, really it was Nadeshiko who was sitting by the pool. "She" turned to Tadase.
"You know, I can't help but feel like we forgot something… or someone. A couple of someones, actually."
Meanwhile, Amu was banging on the door of the room she had been locked in.
"HELLO? IS ANYONE THERE?"
After a few days of living on watercress sandwiches and soda pop that had been provided on day one, Amu gave up hope that anyone would come for them.
Ikuto cleared his throat. "Well, I guess it's just the two of us." He edged closer to her. "Alone. In a locked room." He leaned in to her ear, and breathed, "All by ourselves…"
Amu turned a deeper shade of red than she ever had. With her heart going a million miles a second, she backed away from Ikuto.
"No. I don't care if we're going to die here."
"But, Amu, the contract…!"
They stayed there, until Kuri finally remembered about their sentence and opened a portal to connect their room to the hotel. They emerged into the pool room, each trying their hardest to avoid making eye contact with each other.
Kuri laughed sheepishly. "Yeah, sorry about that."
Amu and Ikuto said nothing, though their glaring said enough.
Jade tapped the blonde girl on the arm. "Did you get the tapes?"
Kuri grinned. "Oh, I got them. It's not anything steamy, but those two had plenty of cute little moments to be considered fanservice. Don't you just love hidden cameras?" She blinked. "Wait, do you even support Amuto?"
The heterochromatic girl shrugged. "Whether I do or do not support it does not matter; I'm just glad we're doing a favor for the rest of the fangirls of the world."
"You're a saint."
"I know."
If the story was a movie, the screen would then fade to black. Julia popped up in front of the black, however.
"I was promised to have to last word." she said. "So, thanks for reading, and have a good night!"
Kuri and Jade popped up beside her, and they all took a bow.
The (real) End
:3
