This is a dumb little story I thought up when I was high offa "Andes Mint Ice Cream." Good stuff - you should try it. Anyway, I was watching "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" on Cartoon Network, and it was the episode where Billy possesses Mandy and makes her do all that stupid stuff and I thought, "Hey, it would be so fun if I possessed somebody." ...And it went downhill from there. I'd suggest you don't read it because it sucks, but since you've come this far you might as well...
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Jinx
In the Kamiya Dojo, on the outskirts of Tokyo, Kenshin and his friends were partying like there was no tomorrow. Again. Then again, there isn't a whole lot else you can do in nineteenth-century Japan. Who cares if there's nothing to celebrate about? It's the principle! So, like seagulls flocking to a dumpster outside McDonald's, the Kenshin-gumi gathered at the dojo and whooped it up until the sake flowed through the story more freely than bad figures of speech (of which there will be a lot, I can assure you).
Kenshin sat between Kaoru and Sanosuke, resembling an extremely anorexic bull seal with his harem (Ouch, too much Discovery Channel), a near-constant stream of delighted and embarrassed "oro's" leaving his mouth whenever there wasn't rice beer entering it - and sometimes when there was, causing Kenshin to cough and splutter a bit before regaining his composure.
It was several hours into this veritable orgy of mild booze and heartwarming camaraderie when something very peculiar indeed happened to Kenshin. He was laughing at some antic or another of Yahiko's when suddenly he froze, his plum-colored eyes wide in shock, fear, or both and staring into blank space. His whole body began to tremble like an addict who's going into withdrawal, his lips were pulled back a bit in a tense grimace, and he started to froth a bit at the mouth like teenage girls waiting to get Orlando Bloom's autograph.
"Kenshin? Kenshin!" Kaoru cried, immediately noticing this not-very-subtle change in the object of her slavish adoration.
"Kenshin, snap out of it!" Sano ordered - as if it would help at all - and slapped the swordsman across the face.
Naturally, this didn't have any effect whatsoever. Instead, the tremors increased in strength until, just as suddenly as it started, the spasm stopped. Kenshin sat up, blinked, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he inexplicably began to start in awe at his hands, turning them over and flexing them experimentally. Finally, he said in a strange, almost effeminate voice, "Aw snaps, no way! I did it!" A very wide, very disturbing grin spread across his face. "Oh man, this is gonna be more fun than a pair of pants full of geckos! With dynamite!"
The whole room was silent, as no one was sure what exactly to say in response to Kenshin's apparent sudden loss of sanity. Finally, Yahiko cleared his throat and said, "Uh, Kenshin, are..."
"Hey! Sushi!" Kenshin interrupted delightedly and lunged for the rice-covered delicacies, stuffing a few into his mouth.
Kaoru took up the slack. "Are you okay, Kenshin?" she asked timidly, still not sure how to act. "You looked like... like..."
Kenshin held up a hand for her silence and mumbled something around the sushi that was probably meant to be "Hold on a sec" but came out as, "Morr momma shek." He swallowed the raw fish, looked at Kaoru, and said, "You know what I think?"
This wasn't what Kaoru was expecting. "...What?"
"I think that you need to get a life. Seriously. Whenever Kenshin goes somewhere or whatever, you're all like, 'Oh dearie me,'" his voice rose to a mocking falsetto, "'Boohoo, Kenshin's not here. I'm gonna mope around and faint every five minutes and act like an utter git.' Christ, woman! Could you get any more pathetic?!"
Tears welled up in Kaoru's eyes as every word opened a new wound in her heart. Her throat tight, she tried to say something in protest but nothing came out, and the end result was her mouth opening and closing like a fish's. Kenshin would have probably ignored her anyway.
"I mean, seriously," he continued, "there's more to life than guys - though they are pretty important - and there's other guys than Kenshin - though he is undeniably the sexiest. There's bigger fish in the sea, if you know what I mean. Oh, and your son's a punk."
"Kaoru doesn't have a son!" Yahiko protested, rather stupidly.
"Not yet, she doesn't," corrected Kenshin. "Unfortunately, eventually Kenji's gonna come along. And he's a punk. Fortunately, you show him a thing or two. Way to go Yahiko; you rock!" He flashed the boy a double thumbs-up. "Oh, and your adult voice is extremely sexy. Who woulda thunk it?"
Sano finally decided to cut in and put an end to this cruel yet sadistically satisfying emotional abuse of Kaoru. "What's wrong with you, Kenshin?" he demanded. "What the hell has gotten into you?"
For some reason this seemed incredibly funny to Kenshin, who burst into a fit of hysterical laughter that lasted for several minutes. As he clutched his sides, tears of hilarity streaming down his face, the others looked at each other with confusion. "Oh, forget it," Kenshin said finally, wiping his face and suppressing the remaining giggles, "You'll get it later. Anyway," he continued, crawling on his hands and knees over to Sano, "as for you..." He was too close for comfort now, making Sanosuke recoil protectively. "I think you should fuck Kenshin right now. I know you wanna - it's so obvious that you two have the hots for each other. Besides, you guys make a perfect couple."
Their faces were now inches apart, despite Sano's desperate maneuvering. He looked into Kenshin's half-closed lavender eyes, which stared back unblinkingly like a lemur on morphine. There was something... not right about that gaze. "You're not Kenshin," he said with unwavering conviction.
"Fucking-A, Sherlock. How long did it take you to figure that out?" Kenshin-who-was-not-Kenshin teased lightly. Sano had never been this close to him before, and he could smell his breath; it smelled like seafood. The possessed ex-assassin finally backed off, though by now Sano's face was the color of a freshly cooked lobster and he was praying that nobody was looking at his general groin area.
"Not Kenshin... you mean he was... what, possessed?" Megumi asked Sanosuke, though she was staring intently at the lean red-haired figure as he/she proceeded to perform perfect pirouettes around the room.
"Ding-ding-ding-ding!! Another correct answer!" Kenshin-and-yet-not burst into a fresh bout of giggles. There was something decidedly feminine about the voice. "It's easy! All you do is jump into somebody's head!" He/she squatted in front of Suzume and Ayame, who were cowering in the corner of the room. "Hi. Am I scaring you?"
Terrified as two rodents staring at a decidedly insane feline, the girls could do nothing more than nod there heads ever so slightly.
"Yeah, I tend to do that. And how old are you two anyway? Seriously, I have never been able to figure that out. You're... what? Seven and four?"
Ayame opened her mouth and was about to answer this profound and oft-debated mystery when Kaoru interrupted, "Wait a minute... why would a spirit want to..." she found the word hard to say for some reason, "possess Kenshin?"
The question wasn't directed at him/her, but Kenshin/Not-Kenshin answered anyway. "Because, my eternally sobbing love interest, Kenshin is by far the sexiest of you guys. Plus, since you're hopelessly and pathetically infatuated with him and Sano's positively smitten with Kenshin too - and I don't know what the hell your deal is - " he/she gestured dismissively at Megumi, "Anyway, I figure I'd have the most fun with him. Plus, he's the fucking Battousai, for Christ's sake! I mean, can you get any cooler than that?"
Now that Sano had gotten his wits - and other things of his - under control once more, he began to remember something he'd heard somewhere once about spirits and possession. "Hey - spirit or... whatever..."
"'Almighty Divine Goddess' will suffice, thank you."
"Whatever. What's - Hey, where do you think you're going?"
Kenshin-plus-one-other had begun sidling towards the door. "Eh-heh..." He/she tried to smile as innocently as possible, but finally gave up. "Aw, come on," he/she whined, "I'm young, I'm doped up on candy and raw fish, I'm currently residing in a very sexy and very dangerous body; can you imagine all the fun I could - EEEEEK!!!!" Not-Kenshin screeched like a ten-year-old girl and bolted for the door as everyone in the room promptly lunged for him/her. He/she would have escaped, but at the last moment Sanosuke hit him/her with a flying tackle that would bring a tear to the eye of any defensive lineman.
As the two began to tussle on the floor, somehow Kenshin-and-his-unwanted-guest wound up with his/her arms and legs wrapped tightly around Sano like that weird little creature from the movie Alien that grabbed onto that dude's face, only less slimy. "I knew you'd see things my way," he/she tittered and promptly planted a big wet kiss on Sano's lips.
Finally, the others decided to intervene. When it was all over, The-one-formerly-known-as-Kenshin had his/her arms tied behind his/her back with Kaoru's hair ribbon. They hauled him/her into the corner furthest away from the exit and plopped him/her down, on the alert for any sudden movements that might initiate another escape attempt.
"Okay," Sano said once the blood level in his face had finally returned to normal, and he squatted in front of Kenshin-that-was-not. "Let's start again. What's your name?"
The redhead shook his/her head defiantly, saying, "Nope, nope, nope. Not gonna tell."
"Why not?" Kaoru asked, looking very odd without her hair pulled back.
"'Cause I know your little tricks. I got this book on demons and stuff that told me all about it. If I tell you my name, then you'll all be like, 'So-and-So, I order you to leave,' and then I'd have to 'cause you commanded me by name. Plus, if I do tell then anybody who reads this psychotic little story will know who I am, and for all I know they're psychopathic serial killers who'll hunt me down and corner me in a convenient dark alley and beat me to death with a rubber chicken. I dunno about you, but I do not want to die from a rubber chicken."
The non-jinxed people in the room gave each other bemused looks. "All right," Megumi consented. "Could you at least tell us where you came from and why you decided to possess Kenshin?"
Half-Kenshin looked thoughtful. "Let's see, how can I put this in terms you'd understand...? Okay, you know how likely it is for Aoshi to crack a smile? Well, in terms of reality, I live about a million Aoshi-smiles away. Hell, I'm not even animated. And as to why, I have a question for you: Why would you drive your Dad's Corvette without permission? Hello?! Joy ride!!"
Sanosuke made a sound of annoyance in his throat and ran his hands through his chickenlike hair. They were going nowhere, fast. "Guys, let's regroup." The four friends gathered together in the far corner in a group huddle reminiscent of a loosing football team. "Okay... does anybody have any suggestions?"
Yahiko raised his hand a little bit as though he was in class. "I heard that when someone's possessed with a kitsune-spirit you gotta negotiate an offering of food and stuff for it in order to get the spirit to leave. We could try that."
"I caaaannn heeeeaaar yoouuuuu..." The possessed swordsman sang from the other side of the room. They shot dark glances in his/her but otherwise ignored him/her. After a bit, he/she started rocking from side to side, chanting in a loud monotone, "Trog Dor was a man! Then he was... a dragon-man! Then he was... just a dragon... but he was still TROG DOOOR!!!" With this last expostulation, Kenshin-but-not tilted too far to one side and fell over like an egg placed on its end, causing a fresh eruption of hysterical giggling.
Sano and the others still ignored him/her, but it was getting harder not to rip him/her a new asshole. The only thing that held them back was the fact that if they tried to do anything to this deranged spirit they'd only hurt Kenshin. "Right," Sanosuke said with clenched teeth, "Do we know an... exorcist or something that can get rid of this thing?" The resulting chorus of shaking heads elicited a stream of profanities from Sanosuke.
Yahiko looked over at where Kenshin-and-also-a-dribbling-lunatic was sitting. "Hey," he called out suddenly, "What do you think your doing?"
The jinxed sword-master was rolling across the floor as a pencil rolls across a desk. As his/her captors moved to stop him/her, he/she sat up with a bit of difficulty (seeing as he/she had no use of his/her hands) and looked at the clock that hung from the wall. "Oh snaps!!" he/she cried in horror. "I'm gonna miss Robot Wars!! And it's the episode with Razor!" He/she looked over at Sano, Megumi, and company. "Screw you guys; I'm so outta here." Kenshin-who-wasn't twitched, jerked, and suddenly fell over as if a string holding him/her up had been cut.
The four rushed over to the redhead's prone form. After a few moments he stirred and opened his amethyst eyes, staring up bewilderedly at his friends. "Please tell me she's gone," he said.
Yahiko was still suspicious. "That's really you, Kenshin, isn't it?"
Kenshin nodded. "Yes, that it is." He tried to sit up, but the silk manacles binding his wrists prevented any such attempts.
Helping his friend up, Sano grinned and said, "Thank god that's over. Do you have any idea what she - it was a she, right? - made you say?"
Bushing a shade of crimson normally reserved for tropical parrots, Kenshin nodded and looked away.
"Don't worry about it, Kenshin," Kaoru reassured him. "We know you didn't really think what you... she... said."
It seemed that all the blood Kenshin had was now circulating through his face. "Uh... yes... I mean - no - uh, of course I didn't... that I did not." No one seemed to notice that he was stammering more than George Bush during a press conference, for which he was eternally grateful. With a deftness that would have put any politician to shame, Kenshin fielded any other questions pertaining to the temporary jinx and returned everyone's attention to the alcohol that until now had been left unattended. In a matter of minutes the merrymaking resumed, albeit with several wary looks in Kenshin's direction. Things had returned to normal at the Kamiya Dojo.
For now.
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Yup. Stupid, pointless, and utterly psychotic. Just like me. ^_^ If you do find it in your heart to review this, please don't tell me that the story is any of the aforementioned adjectives because I already know - I wrote the damn thing, for Christ's sake. Sooo... go... do your thing... or... whatever.
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Jinx
In the Kamiya Dojo, on the outskirts of Tokyo, Kenshin and his friends were partying like there was no tomorrow. Again. Then again, there isn't a whole lot else you can do in nineteenth-century Japan. Who cares if there's nothing to celebrate about? It's the principle! So, like seagulls flocking to a dumpster outside McDonald's, the Kenshin-gumi gathered at the dojo and whooped it up until the sake flowed through the story more freely than bad figures of speech (of which there will be a lot, I can assure you).
Kenshin sat between Kaoru and Sanosuke, resembling an extremely anorexic bull seal with his harem (Ouch, too much Discovery Channel), a near-constant stream of delighted and embarrassed "oro's" leaving his mouth whenever there wasn't rice beer entering it - and sometimes when there was, causing Kenshin to cough and splutter a bit before regaining his composure.
It was several hours into this veritable orgy of mild booze and heartwarming camaraderie when something very peculiar indeed happened to Kenshin. He was laughing at some antic or another of Yahiko's when suddenly he froze, his plum-colored eyes wide in shock, fear, or both and staring into blank space. His whole body began to tremble like an addict who's going into withdrawal, his lips were pulled back a bit in a tense grimace, and he started to froth a bit at the mouth like teenage girls waiting to get Orlando Bloom's autograph.
"Kenshin? Kenshin!" Kaoru cried, immediately noticing this not-very-subtle change in the object of her slavish adoration.
"Kenshin, snap out of it!" Sano ordered - as if it would help at all - and slapped the swordsman across the face.
Naturally, this didn't have any effect whatsoever. Instead, the tremors increased in strength until, just as suddenly as it started, the spasm stopped. Kenshin sat up, blinked, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he inexplicably began to start in awe at his hands, turning them over and flexing them experimentally. Finally, he said in a strange, almost effeminate voice, "Aw snaps, no way! I did it!" A very wide, very disturbing grin spread across his face. "Oh man, this is gonna be more fun than a pair of pants full of geckos! With dynamite!"
The whole room was silent, as no one was sure what exactly to say in response to Kenshin's apparent sudden loss of sanity. Finally, Yahiko cleared his throat and said, "Uh, Kenshin, are..."
"Hey! Sushi!" Kenshin interrupted delightedly and lunged for the rice-covered delicacies, stuffing a few into his mouth.
Kaoru took up the slack. "Are you okay, Kenshin?" she asked timidly, still not sure how to act. "You looked like... like..."
Kenshin held up a hand for her silence and mumbled something around the sushi that was probably meant to be "Hold on a sec" but came out as, "Morr momma shek." He swallowed the raw fish, looked at Kaoru, and said, "You know what I think?"
This wasn't what Kaoru was expecting. "...What?"
"I think that you need to get a life. Seriously. Whenever Kenshin goes somewhere or whatever, you're all like, 'Oh dearie me,'" his voice rose to a mocking falsetto, "'Boohoo, Kenshin's not here. I'm gonna mope around and faint every five minutes and act like an utter git.' Christ, woman! Could you get any more pathetic?!"
Tears welled up in Kaoru's eyes as every word opened a new wound in her heart. Her throat tight, she tried to say something in protest but nothing came out, and the end result was her mouth opening and closing like a fish's. Kenshin would have probably ignored her anyway.
"I mean, seriously," he continued, "there's more to life than guys - though they are pretty important - and there's other guys than Kenshin - though he is undeniably the sexiest. There's bigger fish in the sea, if you know what I mean. Oh, and your son's a punk."
"Kaoru doesn't have a son!" Yahiko protested, rather stupidly.
"Not yet, she doesn't," corrected Kenshin. "Unfortunately, eventually Kenji's gonna come along. And he's a punk. Fortunately, you show him a thing or two. Way to go Yahiko; you rock!" He flashed the boy a double thumbs-up. "Oh, and your adult voice is extremely sexy. Who woulda thunk it?"
Sano finally decided to cut in and put an end to this cruel yet sadistically satisfying emotional abuse of Kaoru. "What's wrong with you, Kenshin?" he demanded. "What the hell has gotten into you?"
For some reason this seemed incredibly funny to Kenshin, who burst into a fit of hysterical laughter that lasted for several minutes. As he clutched his sides, tears of hilarity streaming down his face, the others looked at each other with confusion. "Oh, forget it," Kenshin said finally, wiping his face and suppressing the remaining giggles, "You'll get it later. Anyway," he continued, crawling on his hands and knees over to Sano, "as for you..." He was too close for comfort now, making Sanosuke recoil protectively. "I think you should fuck Kenshin right now. I know you wanna - it's so obvious that you two have the hots for each other. Besides, you guys make a perfect couple."
Their faces were now inches apart, despite Sano's desperate maneuvering. He looked into Kenshin's half-closed lavender eyes, which stared back unblinkingly like a lemur on morphine. There was something... not right about that gaze. "You're not Kenshin," he said with unwavering conviction.
"Fucking-A, Sherlock. How long did it take you to figure that out?" Kenshin-who-was-not-Kenshin teased lightly. Sano had never been this close to him before, and he could smell his breath; it smelled like seafood. The possessed ex-assassin finally backed off, though by now Sano's face was the color of a freshly cooked lobster and he was praying that nobody was looking at his general groin area.
"Not Kenshin... you mean he was... what, possessed?" Megumi asked Sanosuke, though she was staring intently at the lean red-haired figure as he/she proceeded to perform perfect pirouettes around the room.
"Ding-ding-ding-ding!! Another correct answer!" Kenshin-and-yet-not burst into a fresh bout of giggles. There was something decidedly feminine about the voice. "It's easy! All you do is jump into somebody's head!" He/she squatted in front of Suzume and Ayame, who were cowering in the corner of the room. "Hi. Am I scaring you?"
Terrified as two rodents staring at a decidedly insane feline, the girls could do nothing more than nod there heads ever so slightly.
"Yeah, I tend to do that. And how old are you two anyway? Seriously, I have never been able to figure that out. You're... what? Seven and four?"
Ayame opened her mouth and was about to answer this profound and oft-debated mystery when Kaoru interrupted, "Wait a minute... why would a spirit want to..." she found the word hard to say for some reason, "possess Kenshin?"
The question wasn't directed at him/her, but Kenshin/Not-Kenshin answered anyway. "Because, my eternally sobbing love interest, Kenshin is by far the sexiest of you guys. Plus, since you're hopelessly and pathetically infatuated with him and Sano's positively smitten with Kenshin too - and I don't know what the hell your deal is - " he/she gestured dismissively at Megumi, "Anyway, I figure I'd have the most fun with him. Plus, he's the fucking Battousai, for Christ's sake! I mean, can you get any cooler than that?"
Now that Sano had gotten his wits - and other things of his - under control once more, he began to remember something he'd heard somewhere once about spirits and possession. "Hey - spirit or... whatever..."
"'Almighty Divine Goddess' will suffice, thank you."
"Whatever. What's - Hey, where do you think you're going?"
Kenshin-plus-one-other had begun sidling towards the door. "Eh-heh..." He/she tried to smile as innocently as possible, but finally gave up. "Aw, come on," he/she whined, "I'm young, I'm doped up on candy and raw fish, I'm currently residing in a very sexy and very dangerous body; can you imagine all the fun I could - EEEEEK!!!!" Not-Kenshin screeched like a ten-year-old girl and bolted for the door as everyone in the room promptly lunged for him/her. He/she would have escaped, but at the last moment Sanosuke hit him/her with a flying tackle that would bring a tear to the eye of any defensive lineman.
As the two began to tussle on the floor, somehow Kenshin-and-his-unwanted-guest wound up with his/her arms and legs wrapped tightly around Sano like that weird little creature from the movie Alien that grabbed onto that dude's face, only less slimy. "I knew you'd see things my way," he/she tittered and promptly planted a big wet kiss on Sano's lips.
Finally, the others decided to intervene. When it was all over, The-one-formerly-known-as-Kenshin had his/her arms tied behind his/her back with Kaoru's hair ribbon. They hauled him/her into the corner furthest away from the exit and plopped him/her down, on the alert for any sudden movements that might initiate another escape attempt.
"Okay," Sano said once the blood level in his face had finally returned to normal, and he squatted in front of Kenshin-that-was-not. "Let's start again. What's your name?"
The redhead shook his/her head defiantly, saying, "Nope, nope, nope. Not gonna tell."
"Why not?" Kaoru asked, looking very odd without her hair pulled back.
"'Cause I know your little tricks. I got this book on demons and stuff that told me all about it. If I tell you my name, then you'll all be like, 'So-and-So, I order you to leave,' and then I'd have to 'cause you commanded me by name. Plus, if I do tell then anybody who reads this psychotic little story will know who I am, and for all I know they're psychopathic serial killers who'll hunt me down and corner me in a convenient dark alley and beat me to death with a rubber chicken. I dunno about you, but I do not want to die from a rubber chicken."
The non-jinxed people in the room gave each other bemused looks. "All right," Megumi consented. "Could you at least tell us where you came from and why you decided to possess Kenshin?"
Half-Kenshin looked thoughtful. "Let's see, how can I put this in terms you'd understand...? Okay, you know how likely it is for Aoshi to crack a smile? Well, in terms of reality, I live about a million Aoshi-smiles away. Hell, I'm not even animated. And as to why, I have a question for you: Why would you drive your Dad's Corvette without permission? Hello?! Joy ride!!"
Sanosuke made a sound of annoyance in his throat and ran his hands through his chickenlike hair. They were going nowhere, fast. "Guys, let's regroup." The four friends gathered together in the far corner in a group huddle reminiscent of a loosing football team. "Okay... does anybody have any suggestions?"
Yahiko raised his hand a little bit as though he was in class. "I heard that when someone's possessed with a kitsune-spirit you gotta negotiate an offering of food and stuff for it in order to get the spirit to leave. We could try that."
"I caaaannn heeeeaaar yoouuuuu..." The possessed swordsman sang from the other side of the room. They shot dark glances in his/her but otherwise ignored him/her. After a bit, he/she started rocking from side to side, chanting in a loud monotone, "Trog Dor was a man! Then he was... a dragon-man! Then he was... just a dragon... but he was still TROG DOOOR!!!" With this last expostulation, Kenshin-but-not tilted too far to one side and fell over like an egg placed on its end, causing a fresh eruption of hysterical giggling.
Sano and the others still ignored him/her, but it was getting harder not to rip him/her a new asshole. The only thing that held them back was the fact that if they tried to do anything to this deranged spirit they'd only hurt Kenshin. "Right," Sanosuke said with clenched teeth, "Do we know an... exorcist or something that can get rid of this thing?" The resulting chorus of shaking heads elicited a stream of profanities from Sanosuke.
Yahiko looked over at where Kenshin-and-also-a-dribbling-lunatic was sitting. "Hey," he called out suddenly, "What do you think your doing?"
The jinxed sword-master was rolling across the floor as a pencil rolls across a desk. As his/her captors moved to stop him/her, he/she sat up with a bit of difficulty (seeing as he/she had no use of his/her hands) and looked at the clock that hung from the wall. "Oh snaps!!" he/she cried in horror. "I'm gonna miss Robot Wars!! And it's the episode with Razor!" He/she looked over at Sano, Megumi, and company. "Screw you guys; I'm so outta here." Kenshin-who-wasn't twitched, jerked, and suddenly fell over as if a string holding him/her up had been cut.
The four rushed over to the redhead's prone form. After a few moments he stirred and opened his amethyst eyes, staring up bewilderedly at his friends. "Please tell me she's gone," he said.
Yahiko was still suspicious. "That's really you, Kenshin, isn't it?"
Kenshin nodded. "Yes, that it is." He tried to sit up, but the silk manacles binding his wrists prevented any such attempts.
Helping his friend up, Sano grinned and said, "Thank god that's over. Do you have any idea what she - it was a she, right? - made you say?"
Bushing a shade of crimson normally reserved for tropical parrots, Kenshin nodded and looked away.
"Don't worry about it, Kenshin," Kaoru reassured him. "We know you didn't really think what you... she... said."
It seemed that all the blood Kenshin had was now circulating through his face. "Uh... yes... I mean - no - uh, of course I didn't... that I did not." No one seemed to notice that he was stammering more than George Bush during a press conference, for which he was eternally grateful. With a deftness that would have put any politician to shame, Kenshin fielded any other questions pertaining to the temporary jinx and returned everyone's attention to the alcohol that until now had been left unattended. In a matter of minutes the merrymaking resumed, albeit with several wary looks in Kenshin's direction. Things had returned to normal at the Kamiya Dojo.
For now.
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Yup. Stupid, pointless, and utterly psychotic. Just like me. ^_^ If you do find it in your heart to review this, please don't tell me that the story is any of the aforementioned adjectives because I already know - I wrote the damn thing, for Christ's sake. Sooo... go... do your thing... or... whatever.