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Say Cheese!
THERE WAS HELL…
AND IT WAS HOT…
AND THERE WAS KENSHIN…
AND HE WAS HOTTTT!
AND KENSHIN WAS IN HELL…
AND SO IT WAS ALL THE MUCH HOTTER THERE…
BUT SAITOU WAS ICE…
AND AOSHI WASN’T PRESENT (OR MAYBE HE WAS… WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS?), BUT WAS ALSO ICE…
AND SO HELL WAS RENDERED NEUTRAL…
AND KAMI WAS GLAD HE WAS IN HEAVEN…
AND HE SMILED…
AND KENSHIN GRIMACED…
AND SAITOU FROWNED…
:) ~ :) ~ :)
Chapter 6: On Heaven and Hell and Night and Day.
Saitou frowned.
Kenshin frowned.
Saitou and Kenshin invented synchronized frowning. And it was good.
And that was pointless.
And Saitou frowned.
And frowned again.
And frowned again.
And—ehh… stood there.
He was mad.
Again.
He didn’t much like the idea of going to Hell. It was hot there. It was scary there. It was dark there. It was… hell there.
Kenshin, on the other hand—… Oh, wait… He didn’t want to go there, either. It was fire-y, which reminded him of red, which reminded him of blood, which reminded him of his past, which reminded him of Tomoe, which reminded him of his vow, which reminded him of Shishio…
So, neither of them was too keen on going to Hell, but of course, both were obligated to go there.
And so they were unhappy.
And so Saitou frowned some more.
And somewhere, sometime, Shishio shouted out, “Beam me up, Scotty!”, which was responded to by a few exasperated sweatdrops from his fellow henchmen.
But Shishio is seemingly unimportant at the moment, and so we are inclined to focus back on our two heroes, who are deeply intent on doing nothing.
And Saitou pulled out a cigarette and smoked pensively.
And Kenshin… stood there doing absolutely nothing.
But *suddenly*, as if on cue, they took off towards Hell.
“Anou… Saitou-sama?” Kenshin asked. “How far down is Hell anyway?”
Saitou gave a sigh and shrugged. “Just keep digging. We’ll get there someday…”
After many, many days of digging and many, many cigarettes, they reached Hell…
And Hell was HOT…
And they stood amidst the flames and fanned themselves with any available object.
Near a nearby rock, Shishio espied them and laughed loudly, much to his misfortune. “MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAA-HAAA HAAAAA!!!”
And Saitou and Kenshin were suddenly in his face. Shishio stared at them blankly and exploded into song. “Food glorious, food glorious, FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODD!!!” Soujiro appeared behind him and provided him a script. “Ahhh… The strong live, the weak die… That is the way—Hey, why do I always have to say that?! Hmph. From now on, I get to say *his* lines!” He pointed at Kenshin angrily.
“Anou… Oro?”
“*My* line!”
“Oro?”
“*My* word!”
“Saa—”
“Urusei!”
“…”
And Shishio proceeded to read from the script. “Shishio, you have tormented Japan long enough! The time has come for you to die!”
And Kenshin grimaced at the lame line, suddenly pleased he hadn’t been forced to say it. (And also suddenly realizing why the author doesn’t write serious stories…)
And Saitou glanced at them both confusedly and then simply did what he did best. ATTTTTTTACK!!!!
And Kenshin stood in the background, not knowing what to do or say. As if on impulse, he snatched a script from one of the props people and began reading off Shishio’s part. “The strong live… The weak die… That is the way it—Wait a second… We’re *all* strong, so why are we so bent on killing each other?”
And Saitou stood back, and Shishio stopped oiling his sword.
And they both thought about how that was incredibly, stupidly, dumbly, horribly, insanely, bizarrely, terribly… accurate.
~ And Saitou and Shishio suddenly hugged and made amends… ~
~ And they both vowed to never kill again! ~
~ And they both smiled! Genuinely smiled! ~
~ And they walked off into the sunset, never to be seen again… ~
Uh… Actually, no…
Saitou and Shishio stared at each other and made sounds something like, “Feh…” They then proceeded to attack each other again, with Kenshin standing around in boredom.
After a long, long, long time…
Saitou was hot.
Shishio was thoroughly Gatotsu-ed.
Kenshin was still bored. And so he wandered over to the nearest wall and slumped against it in boredom.
And then he stood up. It was not much more exciting near the wall, after all…
But *suddenly*… *again*…
An indescribably indescribable force entered Hell in a manner unknown to all. (i.e. Through the hole Kenshin and Saitou had already dug…)
And they all shivered.
…
Ironically…
And they shivered and shivered and shivered some more, and shivered and shivered and shivered until the author had decided they had had enough…
And then they all collapsed in an exhausted heap from shivering so much.
And Aoshi stood and stared at them icily and asked with his icy ice tone, “What?”
But they were all too busy shivering to bother to answer, and so Aoshi left the room without another word to Heaven—er… Hell knows where.
And so it was suddenly swelteringly, overbearingly, horribly hot again.
But, needless to say, Saitou and Shishio resumed their fight without further ado, and Kenshin resumed being bored… ^^*
And… is this chapter somewhat lacking in plot, here? Hmm… Let’s all be dears and make one!
*Suddenly*…
A slug crossed their path.
A very burned slug…
A very scalded slug…
A very torched slug…
And…
They all gasped. *GASP!*
Shishio cried out in agony, “The… The Black Slug! AAGH! It’s… Itsitsits… It crossed our path! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! The Black Slug! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! We’re all DOOMED!”
And the slug turned towards him and made a sound something like, “*Squish*?” Yes, it even did sound inquisitive… As bizarre as that seems.
And Shishio screamed and hollered and ran away into the dank, dark, deep recesses of Hell.
And Saitou and Kenshin stared at each other a moment, realizing they were suddenly alone…
And Saitou stared at the slug.
And frowned at the slug.
But then he decided he really had no reason to frown at the slug, and he gave it a cigarette as a gratuity for saving his life – sorta.
And the slug *squished* at the cigarette confusedly.
And Saitou lit the floored ciggie.
And Kenshin looked on in complete and utter befuddlement.
But then they left.
‘Cause they really had nothing better to do, right?
Or maybe they did.
Yeah, that works…
And the slug looked on after them, and once they were out of eyesight, *squished* away up the wall, leaving the cig firmly planted on the ground.
And they ran off in incredible haste to do whatever it was they were about to—
*BAM!*
And, dang, but they didn’t even let me finish that sent—
*BAM!*
AAA—
*BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!* *BAM!*
O.o—
*boii-iiiiiiiiiiiiiii-iii-ii-iiiiiing…*
“Oro?”
And Saitou was about to make a similar comment, but decided to scratch the thought, being as it *was* a low-rated fic…
Such was the degree of shock when experiencing the above that Saitou and Kenshin spent a moment in silence simply pondering it.
.
..
…
..
.
For, it *was* in fact, quite a shock to run into nearly all of your mortal enemies at once, that is, Soujiro, Yumi and the entire Juppongatana… (Can you guess which one went *boing*?)
And so they all spent a long time simply standing there and staring at each other…
And then they all walked away.
And the author has decided to spare you more annoying fillers, so Saitou and Kenshin ran off ag—
*BAM!*
“Oro!” Kenshin cried as he ran into Aoshi. (Yup, he’s made yet another surprise appearance…)
Aoshi said nothing, and Saitou and Kenshin shivered away in front of him.
And Saitou pulled out a cigarette in a meager attempt to regain some of the lost heat. He inhaled and exhaled deeply, savoring every last taste of the seemingly refreshing – if not just to him – smoky, bacony, firewood flavor.
Aoshi stood and did nothing, saying nothing and hardly even moving, to the point where they wondered if he was even still breathing.
And after a long, long while, they realized he wasn’t going to be doing anything, as so they wandered off again…
Okay, I’m sorry… I lied… That was another useless filler… Gomen, gomen, minna-sama!
And so they took off again, and were shocked by the fact that they had managed to escape without more surprise appearances.
And they stood by their hole in the ground and pondered.
“Anou… Saitou-san?” the one who wasn’t Saitou asked. “What now?”
And Saitou shrugged.
He really didn’t know. In fact, he was simply elated to be out of there… And so he walked off with an ethereal sort of air, feeling altogether like he could… smile.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he frowned.
And frowned again.
Nope, no smiling for Saitou…
And Kenshin, who had been looking at him with intense anticipation, frowned at the prospect of not seeing Saitou smile…
Which meant, of course, that the fic wasn’t over yet…
And Kenshin cursed his luck and dragged himself along after Saitou, with only a single thought running through his mind.
*Will it never end?!*
~ Owari, Chapter 6
Chapter Five ::: Chapter Seven