Disclaimer: Neither of the authors own or make any claim whatsoever upon Yu Yu Hakusho and the events and characters of the aforementioned series. This is a non-profit endeavor and is in no way, shape, or form associated with or endorsed by the copyright holders.

The Hypocrite Hunter

Chapter Seven

Co-written by Rose Thorne and Yamino Tora

The war on the pop-up ads had just ended, and in Kurama's humble opinion, it was about damn time. "That's the last time I'm going to click on a link that Yuusuke sends me," he muttered.

He wouldn't have minded the entire incident so much if it hadn't been for the slightly minor fact that every time he tried to close one of those pop-up windows, ten more had opened in its place. It had taken nearly fifteen minutes for him to get rid of the last one, and he was in no mood to deal with anything even remotely similar at that point.

"Might as well see who's online right now," he said, opening the program. Both Yuusuke and Kuwabara were on, he noted, smirking as a thought crossed his mind. He clicked on Yuusuke's screen name and typed a few words, linked a couple of them to the site that the human had sent him to, and sent it off, blocking Yuusuke immediately afterwards. Let him deal with those for a while!

A few minutes later Kuwabara had the misfortune of instant messaging him. 'What'd you do that made Yuusuke so mad?'

'I don't know. I just linked him to a site he sent to me at some point.' Kurama grinned and added a bit more to that. 'He's probably just learned why most people don't antagonize kitsune.'

Kuwabara didn't press the issue, and Kurama was preparing to log off when another window popped onto his screen. He almost thought that it was Yuusuke, using a different screen name to get revenge on him, but he recognized this one. And I have been looking for a chance to practice my English on someone . . .

'LafUniDyke says: Hi, Kurama. How have you and your boyfriend been?'

'Not too bad, Jo,' he wrote. 'Well, there was that one little incident with Hiei and the dryer beast from hell on Monday . . .

'Dryer beast from hell? Lol! What happened?'

He pondered telling her the truth, decided that she wouldn't believe it if he told her that Hiei had thought the dryer was challenging him when it had buzzed, and settled for an extremely abbreviated version of the story. 'Nothing much. It buzzed, he took it personally, and my poor sheets got the short end of the stick.'

'Poor sheets. They certainly didn't deserve such a cruel fate.' While Kurama agreed with that, it was still better that Hiei had gotten his vengeance on the sheets and not the dryer itself . . .

'Better than the dryer. They're a lot cheaper, after all.'

'True, unless they were satin. Those cost an arm and a leg. But you wouldn't be putting those through the dryer, so . . .'

'No worries about that.' Not that he hadn't tried--he had no complaints against satin sheets, but Hiei hadn't liked the way they felt and had told him in no uncertain terms that he wasn't going to tolerate them. Of course, there was always the possibility of blackmailing Hiei into accepting things, but he was saving that option for a last resort . . .

'Definitely,' Jo wrote.

'So how's your summer been going so far? Any new homophobes popping out of the woodwork lately?' He still hadn't gotten over just how intolerant some of the people she dealt with on a regular basis were. Some of the horror stories she had told him had been enough to convince him that he didn't really want to go study in the States for a semester.

'Only the entire country.' Kurama's eyes widened. 'Have you heard about the new Constitutional amendment they're trying to pass in the United States to ban gay marriage?'

His jaw dropped. 'You've got to be kidding! That's awful!'

'I wish. Some "pro-family" group proposed it. It might even pass. Good thing, though, is that Cheney is against it. Shock of shockers, eh?'

Kurama nodded even though he knew Jo couldn't see the action. 'Yeah. I can't believe they're doing that, though! People keep complaining about how there's too much hate in the world, and then they have 'brilliant brainstorms' like that and wind up doing exactly what they were so against in the first place, but it's okay because families can only consist of a breeding pair and their offspring in their minds…'

"I can't believe they'd go that far, even if they are only human," he muttered.

"Who'd go how far?" Kurama jumped, having been so absorbed with the chat that he didn't notice Hiei enter the room.

"A pro-family group in the States is trying to get add an amendment to the country's Constitution banning gay marriage." Hiei snorted.

"How . . . ningen of them," he said disgustedly. "Don't they have better things to do than pry into others' personal business?"

"Apparently not," Kurama said, reading Jo's response. 'I know. It's pure ignorance at work. And I can't even keep up with all the news about it since I'm so busy working and doing homework for this stupid summer class!'

'Yikes. That must be frustrating, then.'

'Very. I'm so stressed out, it's not even funny. I thought Liberal Arts was supposed to be easy . . .' Kurama nodded sympathetically. 'In any case, Bush is still screwing up, and the U.S. continues to let him.'

"Well?" Hiei demanded impatiently.

"Well what?" Kurama asked, giving his lover a confused look.

"Am I going to have to learn English if I want to know what you two are saying?" Hiei stared pointedly at the monitor, and Kurama grinned sheepishly before relaying the gist of the conversation. "Oh. That idiot again."

Kurama barely concealed a grin as he typed in his response. 'So I've noticed. It's sad how so many people can just follow the crowd even when the pack leader is so obviously incompetent.'

'Definitely. Even wolves will kill a stupid pack leader.'

"That's because wolves aren't nearly as stupid as humans are," Hiei muttered caustically.

"It's because wolves aren't concerned with politics like humans are, Hiei."

"Hn. I still say they're all idiots."

"What about Yuusuke?"

"He stole my chocolate mousse Pocky last week."

Kurama snickered--Hiei was almost as addicted to Pocky as he was to ice cream. And nobody with an ounce of common sense to spare touched Hiei's Pocky.

Especially when it was chocolate mousse Pocky. "What about Botan, then?"

"She's dead," Hiei said, completely deadpan. "Not human, but certainly an idiot."

"Remind me to never get into arguments about the technicalities of being dead versus being human," Kurama said, turning his attention back to the latest message Jo had sent him.

'Mind if I start a chat with a friend of mine?'

'Not at all,' he wrote.

'Shibby. Hang on a sec.'

'No problem.' The accept chat invitation dialogue box popped up, and he clicked 'OK.'

"What're you doing now?" Hiei asked, draping an arm over Kurama's shoulders.

"Joining a chat Jo invited me into with a friend of hers."

"Ah."

'Oh, good. We're all here now,' Jo wrote.

'Great. I still don't get why you drag me into these things, though . . .' Kurama grinned at EnigmaNoKoi's message.

'Because your sarcasm is handy,' Jo replied.

'Oh. Hey, who's FoxFireBoi?'

'A friend of mine from Japan. His name's Kurama.'

'Ah. Um . . . nice to meet you, Kurama. I'm Robyn.'

'The same Robyn who happens to be Jo's partner in crime?'

'Yeah. She's the Runner of the Plot Bunnies.'

'Marathon Runner of the Plot Bunnies, you mean. After that incident last week and all.'

'I'm not sure I want to ask,' Kurama typed.

'You probably don't. Suffice to say that Robyn proved her insanity to everyone in the vicinity.'

'Vicinity' covering an area of approximately two square miles, if I recall correctly. It's not my fault I'm insane--it's the critics' fault!'

'You frighten me sometimes.' Kurama laughed at Jo's statement, amused by the chemistry between the friends.

'Yeah, well, you would frighten people too if someone told you to live with the fact that the world's not fair just because most people already do!'

'Yikes. Lazy morons like that would be the reason that the world never changes for the better.'

'Who said that? If I might ask, that is?' Kurama asked.

'No idea. Some random person who was too cowardly to sign their name to their own words,' Robyn replied.

"Obviously they don't have a high opinion of their own statements if that's the case," Hiei said when Kurama read it to him. "Even the Oaf has the guts to at least admit that he was the one who said something."

"I'm going to use that," Kurama said, although he didn't bring Hiei's comment about Kuwabara into the conversation.

Jo quickly responded to that. 'That's because it's not worth much. It was basically them saying "I'm a lazy fuck unless it affects me, and even then I just let it happen."'

"True, but it still pisses me off,' Robyn wrote. 'Especially because said person also thinks that people who are 'so against America' should move to another country--never mind the fact that technically being against America means being against every country in both North and South America and not just the United States--and that people who 'are already living in a different one have no right to say those things.' The thing that gets to me is that speaking my own mind is suddenly a crime, and disagreeing with certain aspects of life here makes me anti-American . . .'

'Isn't that anti-American in and of itself? I mean . . . the First Amendment, anyone?'

Kurama quickly deleted the small line of text he'd been typing and re-started. 'That's just what I was going to say, Jo. Wouldn't it be more anti-American to not speak your mind? After all, governments are supposedly 'created by the people, for the people.''

'You know, every time I go home, I hear that. "If you don't like it, move to France." Hell, I'd love to move to France! At least they're less hypocritical than the U.S.'

'Tell that to the people who decided that meddling in other countries' affairs was for the good of the world. Oh, wait, if the multiple translations of that statement are correct, and Bush was quoted correctly, then God Himself decided that playing dominoes with the governments of other countries was what we need to be concerning ourselves with!'

'Did you hear he wants to go after another country now?' Jo wrote in response to Robyn's comment.

Kurama's jaw dropped. 'Who now?!'

'Liberia.'

'You know, he shows a few of the signs of being a religious fanatic . . . like those people who murder their families because 'God told them to' . . . wasn't that the case with the guy that kidnapped Elizabeth Smart?' Robyn asked.

'Yup,' Jo replied.

'Sheesh. Isn't there supposed to be a separation of church and state there? And for the President to have supposedly said something like that to another dignitary! Even if it's misquoted, it's still a horrifying thought!'

"No kidding," Hiei said. "You know what Farfarello would say in response to that?"

"Farfarello? From Weiss Kreuz?" Hiei nodded. "Not offhand, I don't."

"Insulting the President of the United States hurts God." Kurama stifled a laugh. Hiei smirked. "I'm going to go kick the Oaf's ass in Melee. George said that the Brat and the Ditz are making bets on whether or not he can beat me at the stupid game with Yuusuke."

Kurama did laugh at that. "All right. Just remember, we've got plans for tonight."

"Like I could forget," Hiei muttered as he disappeared, leaving his lover to chat with Jo and Robyn. Kurama grinned and turned his attention back to the monitor.

'There was one release, I don't remember what, but it said that Bush stated that God had told him to bring peace to Israel, and that he had to do it before campaign time. It was in a bunch of newspapers in the Middle East or something.'

'I don't see how he can manage to do that. People have to be ready for the change, and bring it about themselves. I can't see how an outside force is going to give them something like peace. If they really wanted it, they would have it.' Kurama wrote.


Robyn's response was almost immediate. 'Not to mention that historically, the redrawing of all those borders by European countries after WWI hasn't helped tension any. External parties arbitrarily deciding where countries are going to be based on their whims isn't a way to earn favor.'


'It may be a bit extreme, but I think the only way any peace will be achieved is to move them all out, bomb the place to the ground and burn the remains, and shove them back there to rebuild.' Jo wrote.


'You're probably right, except then they'd decide to make life difficult for whoever did that.'


'Yeah, and no one's willing to, either. That's the problem with religion. The wars.'

'And the fanatics . . .' Robyn contributed. 'Can't forget the fanatics, can we?'


'Speaking of fanatics, did you hear about Michael Savage?' Jo asked.

'No . . .' Kurama replied.


'Oh, those homophobic comments he was making? I think you were telling me about those.' Robyn said.


'Well, Kurama, he had his own live talk show on TV, which the gay and lesbian community warned against. He was taking calls about some stupid thing, and he ended up calling one of the callers a sodomite and telling him he deserved to get AIDS and die.' Jo explained. 'He was fired, but he still has a radio program. He was apparently taken off some stations after that, though.'

'You're right, that is fanatical. Everyone's worrying about homosexuals being destructive to the morals of their society, but intolerance is a lot more dangerous, if you ask me.'


'Agreed. Funny thing is, homosexuals take all this stuff with a grain of salt. They do the "kill 'em with kindness" thing.'


'It's better than spewing hatred, at least.' Robyn put in.


'Definitely.'


' Yeah, but it'll take persistence and dedication to the cause to get anything done. It's certainly not going to be an easy fight.' Kurama wrote, frowning slightly.

'Not with the Christian Coalition running the country.' Had Jo's words been spoken, they would have been dripping with disgust, Kurama thought.

'No kidding. You know, I hate to admit this, but that one person I was telling you guys about earlier was right. The world isn't fair at all. That's why we have to work so hard to change the way things are.'

'Half right. We shouldn't just "live with it".' Jo corrected.


'Er... two-fifths right. Considering that most people already do live with the way things are.' Robyn pointed out.


' Funny thing is, if everyone just "lived with it", we'd still have slavery, and segregation, and no women voters... People who refused to "live with it" have done a lot of good.'
'Definitely. Just because one person lacks the gumption to get off his or her lazy ass and do something to change the way things are doesn't mean that everyone has to do the same.' Kurama wrote.


'True. I'm not going to sit on my ass and watch the world go to hell around me just because someone else thinks that I have no right to say what I believe.'

'Exactly, Robyn. It's important for people to care. So much of the population is already apathetic to the plights of others... If you're poor, you're just lazy. If you're gay, you chose to be "that way". If you're overweight, you're an over-eating pig. They justify their discrimination when there IS NO JUSTIFICATION!"


Kurama nodded, thinking that Jo's use of the Caps Lock button was more than suitable to convey the emphasis on the last three words, and typed his response. 'Very true. Often times, the poor stay that way because there is no other choice. The rich keep them down. And does it honestly matter if being gay is a choice? Does that truly justify killing someone or denying them the right to live as a human being? And a lot of people are overweight due to psychological disorders or genetic disorders.'


' Yeah, but people don't care about those things. All they see is the fact that a person is different than them, not that whoever they're mistreating has feelings and rights just like they do. They're blinded by their hatred, their passions are misdirected by the flow of mainstream society, and the end result is a bunch of dysfunctional zealots who think that above all they are RIGHT because only people like them are really people.'

'You know, I learned about that in Psychology. It's a lazy thing to do. You stereotype because you're too lazy to get to know the person behind the label. So you just assume they're a certain way because society says they are, and then if they ever act that way at all, it outshines anything else they do.'


Kurama nodded again. 'Yeah. Everything's so shallow, like nothing except the surface matters anymore... it's sad that people actually think like that. We're so advanced now, you'd think that more people would have learned to value others for who they really are, not what they think they really are.'


'You know, that even shows in other ways. Not to be childish or anything, but have you seen American cartoons lately?' Jo asked. 'They used to be so layered, but now they're so flat and lifeless . . . It mirrors society.'


'And teaches kids to be flat and lifeless and conforming, as well.' Kurama wrote back.
'Nobody thinks for themselves anymore. They've got all of their digital stuff to do it for them... what's the point in even existing if everything you do can be delegated to a machine?' Robyn asked.


'Back when I was a kid, everyone used to feel, "conform and be dull". I lived through the 80's, when everyone was trying to be original and different. I miss that. Every day you'd see something new . . .' Kurama could almost feel the nostalgia in Jo's statement.


'Couldn't tell you about that. I only caught the tail end of it.' Robyn said.

'It's a shame things have changed since then.'


'Yeah. Now all the girls dress like whores. Nothing original about that... Oh, you missed some good times! And good TV. Revolutionary and all that, and very political, even in kid's shows. Now they're afraid.'


'Something needs to shake up the routine soon.' Robyn commented.

'You know what song this brings to mind? "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone". No one is taking risks or willing to be revolutionary. I want some cowboys or -girls, damnit.' Jo said.


'Being revolutionary means being different, and separating from the crowd in an extremely visible manner. Most people are afraid to do that anymore.' Kurama pointed out.


'Only because of the persecution. Hell, now you can be called un-American and be labelled a traitor. It's the Red Scare all over again.'


'I'd rather be a traitor than a sheep, though. Traitors get the good media slots, after all . . . sheep just get slaughtered.' Robyn wrote.


'Yay, Letterman and his Bushisms of the day (even if he doesn't call them that).' Kurama snickered, remembering the time he had convinced Jo to record a few shows that aired in the United States and send them to him in exchange for anime episodes. He had thought that it would improve his English skills, but he hadn't realized the insight they could give him on the culture as well. 'Ever notice that if a celebrity says it, it's entertainment, but if anyone else does, it's un-American?'


Kurama frowned. 'Wasn't there that thing about the Dixie Chicks and a comment they made about being ashamed that the President was Texan, though?'


'Yeah, but they're mainly played on country stations, so that doesn't count.' Jo replied.


'It doesn't really matter where they're played,' he retorted. 'The fact that they're taken off of the air because of the sheep protesting their opinions . . . it's sad.'


'Also typical, sadly. I don't even remember what they said, but isn't it essentially what was found to be true later on?'

There was a short pause before Robyn responded. 'I don't remember either... it's been a while since it was making headlines, though.'


' Yeah. Of course, now they found that much of the data that led to the invasion of Iraq was fabricated. Weren't we saying that from the beginning?'


' I'm pretty sure of that.'


' You'd think they'd be a bit more careful when innocent lives are at stake, and take the time to verify their information before rushing headlong into something.' Kurama shook his head. "Not that any of Makai's citizens actually bothered with any of that," he said to himself. Of course, most of Makai's citizens were anything but innocent . . .


'And I still refuse to call it a war. We haven't actually had a war since WWII. That's why it's called the Vietnam Conflict by the government.' Jo wrote. 'Fat chance of them doing that, Kurama. Shrub just wanted to avenge the assassination attempt against his father . . .'


Hiei chose that moment to reappear through the open window, wearing a rather pleased expression. "Are you still wasting your time with that thing?"

"Don't tell me you're jealous of my computer," Kurama teased, grinning as Hiei rolled his eyes. "Just let me finish this, and we'll get going.'

'In any case,' he wrote, 'it's been nice talking to you two, but I have plans for dinner with Hiei tonight. We'll chat again sometime?'
'Of course.'

'I've got no complaints with that.'

'It was nice meeting you, Robyn,' he typed.

'Same. Enjoy yourselves!'


Kurama grinned, doubting that they could do anything but enjoy themselves. 'Definitely. Konbanwa.'

'Konbanwa, Kurama!' Jo said, seconds before he disconnected.

He turned to Hiei. "Shall we make this a night to remember, koi?"

"I think it'll make itself one to remember," Hiei said, smiling slightly. "Evenings out with you have a tendency of doing that."

Kurama laughed. "That they do."

*****

Authors' notes: The views and opinions expressed within this story are a reflection of the authors'. We are in no way saying that our personal opinions are right, but we are saying that everyone has a right to express their own opinions without fear of being censored. Also, we would like to thank anyone who has taken the time to read this story and listen to our opinions, even if you haven't taken the time to review this story yet.

Rose was wondering if the individual who contacted her over AIM to ask if we could do a chapter on transgender could please contact her again because she brain-farted your screen name. Anyone else who has suggestions for future chapters, please feel free to mention them to us.

Tora would like to express gratitude for the anonymous reviewer who inspired this chapter. Most people might live with the unfairness of the world, but we prefer trying to change things by making people more aware of them. It beats sitting back and being a sheep.