Author's Notes: Parody fic. Some minor language. If you recognize your story in this, no real offense is intended.
This is what happens when I stay up too late. Also why Sonnet and I should never be allowed to discuss fanfic at length. Things like this happen.
Inspired by the overwhelming lack of good YYH fic in the world. And the overwhelming prevalence of Kuwabara-bashing.
Plot Holes
The Fanfic Writer bounced into existence in a shower of sparkles and glitter. "Guess what?" she exclaimed to her somewhat laconic audience of three not-entirely human but entirely bored teenagers. "I'm writing a fic about you guys!"
"Woot." Yuusuke spun a finger around in a lazy circle for a moment before giving up all pretext of enthusiasm.
"But I don't like Kuwabara. He's a dork. So we're going to pretend for the sake of the story that he never existed in the show!" She clapped her hands and beamed, looking terribly pleased with herself.
There was a brief pause. Kurama and Yuusuke exchanged a skeptical glance. Hiei looked intrigued.
"Out of curiosity," Yuusuke ventured. "If there's no Kuwabara, who did I possess in order to deliver my message to Keiko? I mean, the whole point is that there was no one else I could use. Did she not get my message? Am I dead?" A pained expression crossed his face. "Cause that's getting old, even in this fandom."
"And who revived Yuusuke after his battle with Suzaku?" Kurama inquired, green eyes pinning the Fanfic Writer with a sharp gaze. "He almost died in the Makai, and the only person with sufficient spiritual energy in a hundred thousand miles was me. And, no offense, Yuusuke, but we didn't know each other very well at the time."
"And who did Toguro target during the Dark Tournament in order to push me over the edge?" Yuusuke challenged. "Hiei? Come on. Koenma? Don't make me laugh."
"Who deflected Yakumo's attack, possibly saving Yuusuke's life when Hiei and I were both on the sidelines?" Kurama demanded.
Yuusuke crossed his arms. "And how about pretty much the entire Sensui Arc – minus the stuff about me, of course. What do you think, that Sensui was gonna use my reigun to open the barrier? The rose whip? The Black Dragon?"
"Nice try," Kurama smirked. "But that's sloppy. You'll have to rewrite the series from the very beginning just to explain those loopholes – not to mention a half dozen others."
The Fanfic Writer looked overwhelmed. "But-but- it's just a short fic!"
"Not anymore," Yuusuke said unsympathetically. "Better get cracking."
The Fanfic Writer paused. "Okay, how about this, instead? Kuwabara exists, but he's just not there."
"What do you mean, 'not there'?" Yuusuke quizzed.
"Dead?" Hiei asked hopefully. Kurama gave him an exasperated look. Yuusuke snickered.
"He's just not there," the Fanfic Writer said irritably. "It's not important why not. It starts with Koenma calling you three in for a mission-"
"Wait a minute," Yuusuke interrupted. "Why wouldn't Koenma include Kuwabara in the mission?"
"He doesn't always," Fanfic Writer defended herself.
"Yes he does," Yuusuke said indignantly. "Never minding for a moment that Koenma's only actually sent us on, like, two or three missions, Kuwabara's been included in all of them." He started counting off on his fingers. "There was the whole rescuing Yukina thing. The Sensui thing."
"Suzaku's bugs," Kurama added, to be helpful.
"Koenma didn't send him on that one!" Fanfic Writer declared triumphantly.
"No," Koenma agreed, appearing out of thin air, his toddler form floating at about eye-level. "But he wasn't a Reikai Tantei yet, either. And he went anyway, so I'm not sure that really supports your argument." He blinked and looked around. "Where am I and what are we talking about?"
"Fanfic Writer there is trying to explain to us why you didn't send Kuwabara on a mission with the rest of us," Kurama explained. "Her premise is a little shaky."
Koenma looked annoyed. "Why wouldn't I send him on a mission? He's a tantei, isn't he? He'll damn well go on any mission I decide and like it."
"See?" Yuusuke taunted.
"You're going to have to explain his absence," Kurama said patiently.
"All right," Fanfic Writer said irritably. "He was killed by a hit and run driver in a moment of shocking irony."
A long pause.
"This is the same guy who had a demon shove a hand through his chest and lived to talk about it, right?" Yuusuke said finally.
"At this point in our training, we're rather difficult to kill," Kurama pointed out. "I don't think a regular car would be enough."
"Maybe it exploded?" Yuusuke offered.
"If a netherworld energy blast didn't kill him an exploding gas tank won't," Hiei interjected irritably. "This is all ridiculous."
"Hiei got tired of him fawning over Yukina and killed him!" Fanfic Writer announced in a fit of melodrama. "There!" She wilted noticeably as she found herself on the receiving end of several dark looks.
"I'm pretty sure I would have to consider that a violation of your parole, Hiei," Koenma said thoughtfully. "You'd be in hell, so you couldn't be in the fanfic."
Yuusuke was giving Hiei a warning glare, looking just a little bit like he believed the fire demon would do it.
Hiei glared back. "If I was going to kill the idiot for that I'd have done it a long time ago,"he snapped.
"He wouldn't do it anyway," Kurama said with supreme confidence. "Hiei knows the benefits of loyalty. Besides, Yukina would never forgive him."
"Oh, for-" Fanfic Writer stomped her foot. "He was killed by demons the day before the fic started!"
Yuusuke bared his teeth in a lazy, violent smile.
"I don't think Yuusuke would be going on missions, in that case," Kurama said dryly. "None of us would. Unless the mission was to find the aforementioned demons and-"
"Tear their still-beating hearts out and feed them to Hiei?" Yuusuke suggested silkily.
"Along those lines, yes."
"He disappeared," Fanfic Writer said desperately. "And no one's noticed yet."
"Was it a demonic or spiritual disappearance?" Kurama quizzed. "Were otherworldly powers involved? Is it tied in to the plot?"
"No?" Fanfic Writer said weakly.
"Then I think we'd notice."
"All right!" Fanfic Writer threw her arms up in a fit of surrender. "I give up! He's in the fic!" There was a POOF! of smoke and a flash of lightning and when it faded, Kuwabara stood before them.
Well, it looked a little like Kuwabara anyway. Yuusuke laughed behind his hand. Kurama raised an eyebrow. Hiei drew his katana with a flick of his wrist.
"I AM THE MIGHTY KUWABARA KAZUMA!" The almost-Kuwabara thundered in a whiny, nasal voice. "I AM A MAN! I SHALL KILL HIEI TO SHOW MY LOVE FOR MY WONDERFUL YUKI-CHAN!"
"Please," Hiei sniffed.
"Yuki-chan?" Yuusuke mimicked.
The almost-Kuwabara bellowed, a sound that would have put a charging rhino to shame, and charged Hiei. "REI KEN!" A flash of spiritual energy formed in his hand and solidified into a vaguely sword-like shape, about as bright and intimidating as a glow-stick, as he swung mightily at Hiei.
The fire demon took one step to the left, effectively dodging the clumsy attack. Kuwabara tripped over his own two feet and landed flat on his face, knocking himself unconscious.
"Okay, seriously?" Kurama said. "This isn't going to fool anyone."
"What?" Fanfic Writer looked confused. "That's him!"
"Right." Yuusuke prodded the unmoving figure with the toe of his sneaker. "Lady, not even Kuwabara's that ugly. Rear end of a horse? Maybe. But this? Come on. Have you ever actually looked at him?"
"His reiki is stronger than that," Hiei added grudgingly.
"For a human, he's very powerful," Kurama agreed. "Genkai herself said so. That pseudo-rei ken wasn't strong enough to hurt a D-class demon. And contrary to popular belief, he doesn't often trip over his own two feet.He is a trained martial artist, don't forget. One who has been successfully fighting demons for several years at this point. I believe that would indicate some ability on his part. Besides which," he added, "Hiei spent a month teaching Kuwabara to fight before the Dark Tournament, as you may recall. Which, aside from casting further light on the depth of Kuwabara's fighting skill, also means that Hiei would probably have to do more than simply step to the side if he wanted to avoid a full out attack."
"Yeah, and the 'I AM A MAN!' thing? He really only does that once or twice – when he's still in junior high." Yuusuke shrugged. "And it was actually a pretty good speech when he said it during the Toguro fight."
"A mulberry's a tree and Kuwabara's a man?" Kurama said skeptically.
"That was the dub," Koenma disagreed, "It was more along the lines of 'Just as the cherry blossom is a flower amongst flowers, Kuwabara is a man amongst men.' Or words to that effect."
"And you memorized this?"
"It was a dramatic moment, all right?"
"All right, so let's narrow this down." Yuusuke began counting off on his fingers. "You can't pretend he never existed, because he's, you know, a main character and semi-vital to the plot. You can't just ignore him because there's no compelling reason why all three of us would suddenly forget he existed – much as Hiei might like to try-"
The fire demon grunted in the affirmative.
"-and you're not willing to make his disappearance part of the plot, because, you know, then you'd be writing a fic about Kuwabara and we can't have that. You can't kill him off without making it a plot point – and frankly, I'd like to see you try. You can't write him into the fic because you apparently have not seen the show and only draw your impressions of him from other, badly written, fics." He paused. "Am I missing anything?"
"That pretty much sums it up," Kurama agreed.
"All right then." Yuusuke crossed his arms over his chest. "You are officially not allowed to write our fanfic."
"WHAT!" Fanfic Writer sputtered incoherently and stared at him.
"You heard me. Come back when you've actually seen the show."
"But! But!"
"Or when you've at least put a little thought into things," Kurama said gently. "It's no sin not to write a character well, or to dislike a character. But if you're going to write fanfic, you need to be able to justify and support your portrayal of the characters. And there's no possible way to support us just randomly forgetting about-"
"Or killing," Yuusuke interjected coldly.
"-or killing one of our own," Kurama finished. "Just because you don't like him doesn't mean we don't. He is Yuusuke's best friend, after all. I myself consider him to be a very dear friend. Even Hiei, I believe, has grown somewhat…" he paused. "Used to him."
"I wouldn't go that far," Hiei muttered.
"Have you ever considered another fandom?" Kurama suggested. "Fushigi Yugi, perhaps? Or Fruits Basket? Something heavy on the bishonen?"
"You're bishonen," Fanfic Writer sulked.
Yuusuke sputtered. "You take that back!"
Kurama and Koenma each latched onto one of Yuusuke's arms before he could form the rei gun.
"I have to admit that 'pretty boy' isn't what first comes to mind when I think of Yuusuke." Kurama sounded like he was having a very hard time not laughing. "It's not really a term that most, ah… delinquents would find complementary. Implied attractiveness aside."
"I'm outta here," Yuusuke growled. "I'm supposed to meet Keiko and Kuwabara after school anyway. You guys can deal with her." He snapped his fingers and disappeared.
Koenma cast one last glance at the almost-Kuwabara. "As fascinating as this has been, I need to go back and prepare for next week's suici- I mean, mission." He touched a two-fingered salute to the side of his hat and disappeared before anyone could object.
Kurama and Hiei exchanged a glance and shrugged before they too disappeared.
Fanfic Writer stomped her foot and stared down at almost-Kuwabara. "How am I supposed to write a fic with just you?" she wailed.
Koenma's voice drifted through the pocket dimension. "I'd seriously rethink writing any fic in our fandom for a while," he warned in a dark tone. "They've all got internet access and they know your URL." His voice faded away into silence.
Fanfic Writer forced a cheery smile. "Maybe they had something, about the Fruits Basket idea."
A dimension away, Kyo and Yuki exchanged a horrified look.
End