Disclaimer: I don’t own anything from Rurouni Kenshin, or the original PPC series. I also don’t own the fic that this PPC is based on, which can be found here.

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Sarah walked as quickly as was humanly possible out of the response centre, just in case the Laws of Universal Comedy decided to kick in and cause the console to beep just as she was leaving. Fortunately, Sarah managed to avoid that happening, and closed the door softly behind her as she paused and took a look round. “Now how exactly did I get to the lab…?” she wondered out loud. “Oh, yeah… Distraction…”

Sarah began whistling under her breath, even though, two minutes ago, she had never been able to whistle to save her life. And it must have sounded weird, too, because she got all sorts of strange looks from the few people passing by. Oh, and a couple of people happened to let pencils go in her direction, but she was sure that those had just been accidents.

One went quite near to her eye, though…

When Sarah began paying attention again, she found herself standing outside the door that she had entered before to get the Distraction Ball. She entered without knocking.

There was a startled squeak, and something dived out of the way – or, rather, out of Sarah’s line of view.

Sarah thought for a moment, then walked over to the table, and leaned right across it to look over, even though it would have been easier to just crouch down – and Sarah didn’t know how she had managed to do that in the first place. “Hello!” she said brightly, beaming, deciding not to worry about it.

“Oh, it’s you,” Makes-Things said, ducking out from beneath the table, being careful not to bang into the assassin. “What do you want? The Distraction Ball not working out for you?”

“Oh, it’s working all right,” Sarah replied, smiling a little. Then, she frowned. “Actually, it’s working too well,” she continued. “It’s affected both me and my partner.”

“All right,” Makes-Things said slowly. “I did tell you that there were still glitches to be worked out – but I can have a look at it, I suppose. If it’ll get you out of here any quicker.”

Sarah ignored the obvious hint for her to leave as quickly as possible, and glanced around a bit. “Ehh… I think I forgot to bring it with me…” she mumbled, slapping her forehead.

Makes-Things stared at her. “You forgot it,” he repeated, obvious disbelief in his tone. The very tone of his voice seemed to suggest that Sarah was an idiot.

Sarah pouted. “Hey, I had a lot on my mind!” she protested. “We only just got back from a mission!” Of course, that was the whole problem. Sarah had just dumped her bag on the floor and apparently forgotten to take the Distraction Ball out. “Oh, well, no problem,” she continued without missing a beat. “I’ll just bring it with me next time. Bye!” With that, she turned and dashed out of the door.

Makes-Things shrugged, and returned to whatever it was he’d been doing before Sarah had barged in.

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When Sarah entered the response centre again, it was to an incredibly loud beeping sound and the sight of her partner trying desperately to work the console.

“Hey, having problems, Light?” Sarah asked, walking over to her. “What’s our latest mission?”

“Rurouni Kenshin,” Light answered, moving a little as she attempted to set the disguises, and also blocking the screen from Sarah’s view. The last thing she needed was for her partner to get really angry even before they entered the fic.

Sarah blinked. “Um, would you like me to do that?” she asked.

“No, it’s fine,” Light replied quickly. “After all, I have to learn sometime, right?” Finally, she pressed a few buttons, and the portal was opened. Luckily, she’d already grabbed her backpack, so there was no need for her to move out of the way of the screen.

“Ok…” Sarah said slowly, blinking a bit, and grabbed her own backpack. Is it just me, or is Light acting really strangely?

“Come on!” Light hardly waited for her partner to be ready before she grabbed Sarah’s arm and pulled her into the portal…

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… Where they landed right in the middle of what appeared to be a nondescript street.

“I’m not afraid of a woman!”

The three men towered over her, each smirking viciously. One wielded a curved axe on a long chain, one a katana, and the other quickly drew out a pistol from his shirt.

“This is a fighter! Ha!”

Sarah blinked, taking a look around as she slowly got to her feet. “All right… Who said that?” she asked, inquiring of the two disembodied voices that seemed to have nothing to do with the four figures they could see.

“I don’t know,” Light muttered, brushing herself off. “And I really don’t care.” She shot a vicious look at the area where the portal had been. “I swear that thing doesn’t like us…”

“Whatever…” Sarah frowned as she watched the ‘Sue, and then dug out her CAD, pointing it in the direction of the ‘Sue even as she asked, “Her eyes glinted spitefully? Is that even possible? And why?”

KUMIKO. MARY SUE. SUGGESTION: TERMINATE.

Light shrugged, and dug in Sarah’s backpack to find some paper and a pencil. “Did you notice that there’s no disclaimer? That’s definitely going on the charge list.” She started writing. Then, abruptly, she looked up in confusion. “Why is the ‘Sue wearing a dress?” Then, she squinted, and turned her head a little to the side. “Wait… Now it’s a gi and hakama?”

“Bad writing,” Sarah replied, pointing to the offending sentence in the words:

Her dress was a black gi with deep grey hakama pants.

“Incredibly bad writing,” Light muttered, adding that to the charge list. “And… Hakama and pants are the same thing, right?” Without waiting for a reply, she wrote that down as well.

“Yeah, I think so,” Sarah replied anyway. She narrowed her eyes as she returned her attention to the scene being played out in front of them. “Can someone’s eyes flash almost black…?” she wondered.

“I’ve never seen it happen,” Light replied, adding that to her charge list as well. Then, she glanced up in time to see her partner go completely white and clench her fists tightly.

“That’s the stance...” whispered the one “the stance of the... hitokiri... Kuroda..”

Sarah narrowed her eyes. “She must die,” she stated, her tone almost frighteningly even and calm. “That’s a classic sign of a Mary Sue! As far as I’m aware, there were no female hitokiri!”

“And, even if there were, she certainly wouldn’t be one,” Light noted, patting her partner reassuringly on the shoulder as she added that to the charge list with her other hand. “Well, at least that’s realistic,” she continued, observing the men’s reactions to the whole ‘women being weak’ thing – sexist it might be, but it was still true to the times. She half-considered giving the author a point for it.

But then, the author would probably lose the point quickly anyway.

Sarah was about to reply, but then, her eyes widened a little as the ‘Sue and the three men with her suddenly looked like corpses. “Ack…!” She automatically flinched back. “What just happened?!”

Light glanced up, and gave a heavy sigh. “The author just said that the ‘four bodies’ turned… Oh, and now we know where we are – on a small road.” Shaking her head slightly, Light turned her attention to the charge list, and noted down a couple. Then, she raised her head, and blinked. “Why is there a woman who looks like Kenshin walking towards them? Another ‘Sue?”

Before Sarah could respond, the approaching figure changed to that of a male – specifically, to Kenshin. Sarah squinted until she found the offending words, and muttered to Light, “Add the charge, ‘Making Kenshin have a sex change’.”

Light shook her head slightly, and did so. “How long is this fic again…?” she asked rhetorically.

“I have no idea,” Sarah muttered. “You didn’t let me have a look at it, remember?” Not that she could blame her partner – it would have made her feel even worse if she’d known just how bad the fic was beforehand.”

“Oh, yeah,” Light replied.

“Who’re you!” demanded the biggest, taking a step forward and aiming his pistol at the newcomer.

“Just a concerned citizen, that I am.”

“I was under the impression that, when demanding someone’s name, there’s usually a question mark,” Light muttered, even as her partner twitched. Shaking her head slightly, Light added the charge of ‘Improper use of grammar’ to the charge list.

The woman looked to him, still in her low stance, but a curious and puzzled look now showered over her face.

Even Sarah had to laugh at the way the look dripped over the ‘Sue’s face just like water. “That looks so cool…! Hey, maybe we could drown her!”

“Sure, we just need to find a body of water that’s big enough, and where no one’s going to try and heroically rescue her,” was Light’s surprising reply.

I’m sure that I never wrote Light as having homicidal tendencies… Sarah thought. Although, her character was probably being modified slightly due to the time they’d been spending as PPC agents. “Well, I’m sure that we can think of something,” she commented out loud.

“Concerned citizens?” the slightly shorter one to his left replied “We don’t have use for citizens here. This is official Hasegawa gang business, you little punk!”

Sarah blinked as one of the thugs was suddenly ‘magically’ transported to Kenshin’s side, and became even shorter than the ex-assassin. “Is that even biologically possible?” she wondered.

“Given the fact that Kenshin is extremely short, I think that it is, unless the character’s a dwarf,” Light replied, noting that charge down on the paper, as well as modifying the ‘bad writing’ charge to, ‘extremely bad writing’.

“Talk about the writer contradicting herself,” Sarah muttered, rolling her eyes a little, and then staring adoringly at Kenshin. Since the ‘Sue was also staring at Kenshin, there was little chance of her noticing the PPC agents unless they deliberately drew attention to themselves.

Light just stared as the ‘biggest’ one loaded his pistol. “So… It wasn’t loaded before?” she questioned. “Weren’t they going to kill her before Kenshin showed up?”

“Maybe they were just going to beat her up,” Sarah suggested.

“I do not mean to stir dissention, but I do not believe it is not right for you to harm a woman. If you so wish to fight—” his voice had become slightly deeper, but not much, and more serious. He drew his katana slowly, but something was wrong with it... the blade was on the wrong side “—I will give you a fight.”

The three men began laughing again

“You, fight?”

“Is that a Sakabato?”

Sarah shook her head slowly, giving a heavy sigh. “That’s really unlike Kenshin,” she commented. “He’d do his best to avoid getting into any kind of fight before he resorted to any kind of violence.”

Shaking her head slightly, Light added the charge to the list, and then looked up to watch the scene unfolding in front of them.

“We’ll take you both down!”

“Now who said that?!” Sarah demanded, looking between the three ‘gang members’.

Light shrugged, and modified the charge to say, ‘unbelievably bad writing’.

The three men began to close in and the red-haired fighter looked to the woman quickly “Please step back, ma’am.” He sank down a little into a fighting stance. She stood there beside him still in her stance. There was no way that she would let him do this. She moved to lunge forward, but before she could, the stranger had already sprung at the three men.

It happened in an instant. A chain clanked loudly, a sword was broken, and there was a loud gunfire. The womans eyes widened and she stood from her stance, lowering her blade. The dirt had been stirred, and when it died down, the three gang members lay on the ground, and the man with the red hair was crouching, holding his shoulder. He stood slowly and slid his blade back into its sheath and removed his hand from his shoulder. His reddish-purple gi was slowly darkening with crimson and he looked back to her with a wide grin

“Just one gunfire…?” Sarah wondered, then blinked, her eyes widening as there suddenly became multiple ‘Sues. “Gack!” she exclaimed, backing into her partner. “Please don’t tell me that we have to kill all of those ‘Sues!”

Light cast a glance at the Words, and sighed, shaking her head slightly. “It’s a missing apostrophe…” she commented. “And why has the writer turned Kenshin into a smiling idiot? Does she think he’s invincible? He definitely wouldn’t be smiling with a wound! And certainly not just after fighting someone!”

Sarah nodded vigorously. Then, her eyes widened. “Oh, damn it!” she exclaimed.

“What?” Light asked, looking at her partner.

“We’ll need to get him to medical,” Sarah explained, looking annoyed.

Light shrugged slightly. “There’s no problem,” she replied. “I can always heal him.”

Sarah frowned a little. “Is that even allowed…?” Then, she noticed the look on her partner’s face. “Never mind.” If the Sunflower got too annoyed about it, Sarah could always unleash Light on it.

Light blinked, staring as the ‘Sue’s ponytail began to move around like a whip in the wind. “She’s going to poke someone’s eye out with that,” the woman stated, adding yet another charge to the sheet.

“That’s good to hear then.” The strangers voice was back to that sweet and innocent tone and he smiled “You might want to get going, those men will wake up sometime soon.”

“You know, much as I love him, Kenshin really does look like an idiot smiling while he says all that,” Sarah commented.

“And was it really necessary to use ‘sometime’ and ‘soon’ in conjunction with each other?” Light wondered, adding ‘using redundancy’ to the charge list.

Sarah shifted from one foot to the other. “When can we kill her…?” she whined. The ‘Sue was really getting on her nerves, and the assassin couldn’t wait to kill her. Not to mention the fact that, since no mention had been made of Kenshin binding up his wound, he was currently bleeding everywhere.

“Soon,” Light murmured soothingly.

She didn’t move but stood there staring at him, her katana lowered. He blinked a few times at her awkwardly.

“Kenshin...?” she softly asked, her voice losing most of its malice that it possessed towards the three men before he showed up.

Almost as if a light went on in his head his eyes widened considerably. He spoke cautiously, almost afraid “Ku..mik...o?”

“So… When a light goes on in one’s head, one’s eyes widen, then?” Light commented, shaking her head slightly.

Sarah was too busy giggling helplessly at the way Kenshin spoke the ‘Sue’s name long and drawn out as stated in the Words. But the giggling quickly stopped when she noticed the faint look of confusion in the poor man’s eyes.

“He’s fighting it,” Light observed sadly. “Some of them do, you know… I don’t think any of us really know how much the canon characters suffer through these fics.”

He approached her further, his hand falling lightly on her shoulder “Kumiko-dono...”

She looked quickly back to him, her grey eyes almost a light blue and burning with tears.

“Was that really necessary?” Sarah wondered, shaking her head slightly, and then laughing softly at the flames in the ‘Sue’s eyes. “Ooh, I want those…”

Shaking her head slightly, Light added a new charge to her list, and thanked the gods that Sarah didn’t yet know the worst about the fic… But she was certain that that couldn’t last.

“I thought you died.” She whispered to him. Kenshin’s brow furrowed somewhat “Kumiko...” he paused and she looked down “...Miko...” her head was quickly drawn up again and he smiled faintly “Please do not cry.”

Both Sarah and Light blinked, wondering just why being called ‘Miko’ had caused the ‘Sue to look up. Sarah muttered a few choice words about the ‘Sue under her breath, causing Light to raise her eyebrows in slight surprise. She’d had no idea her creator knew those kind of words.

Her lips were pursed together tightly and Kenshins hands both fell onto her shoulders “I know we are both not the cold people that we were, Kumiko-dono...and I’m sorry...I’m sorry for hurting you—” he broke off suddenly, his hands dropping to his sides limply “I am paying for all my deeds, that I am.”

Sarah squealed happily at the sight of multiple Kenshins, and then her eyes widened as all of the hands fell onto the ‘Sue’s shoulders, and then dropped limply to his sides. “Ack…!”

“Stupid idiot writer…!” Light muttered. She then reached to gently pat her partner on the shoulder, noticing the abject look of misery there.

It wouldn’t be long before Sarah discovered the thing that Light had been attempting to hide…

Her eyes never left his as she sheathed her katana and her head lowered, only then did she break their gaze “My heart will never forgive you, Kenshin, nor will I forget...”

She began to walk away her head lowered somewhat still

“Miko...” he began but stopped, his hand clamping over his shoulder tightly, gazing off after her.

He had been waiting for that opportunity to tell her he was sorry, no, he was more than sorry... sorry for breaking her heart...

“WHAT?!” Sarah shrieked, almost deafening her partner, and immediately drawing the attention of the ‘Sue and, subsequently, Kenshin. Ignoring Light’s warnings, Sarah stormed right up to the ‘Sue, and slapped her as hard as she could across the face.

“Kumiko!” Kenshin exclaimed, starting to hurry towards Sarah and the ‘Sue. However, due to the writer’s inability to write him as having taken care of his wound at all, he’d lost quite a bit of blood, and simply stumbled. He would have fallen, had not Light quickly moved to his side and taken hold of his elbow to support him.

“Thank you,” Kenshin murmured, polite as always. “Could you please take care of Miss Kumiko?”

“Oh, we’ll take care of her all right,” Sarah muttered, grabbing the ‘Sue’s arms and quickly rendering her immobile. “Light, charge her.”

Light took a deep breath. “Kumiko, you are charged with: not making a disclaimer; unbelievably bad writing; using hakama and pants in conjunction with each other – they’re the same thing; having your eyes ‘flash black’; making yourself be a hitokiri; lack of proper description; turning your characters into corpses; giving Kenshin a sex change; improper use of grammar and punctuation; making one of your thugs shorter than Kenshin; contradicting yourself; messing with Kenshin’s character – he’s not violent; making multiple ‘Sues; turning Kenshin into a smiling idiot – twice; making him ignore a potentially fatal wound; giving your hair the ability to move around of its own accord; using redundancy; changing your eye colour; giving Kenshin detachable hands; making him fall in love with you and forget about Kaoru; and being a Mary Sue. How do you plead?”

“I will kill you both! I…” Whatever else the ‘Sue was going to say was cut off by Sarah’s fist punching her in the face and knocking her out.

Canon came into place with an audible snap, and Kenshin’s eyes widened in horror as he stared at the ‘Sue’s body.

Before Kenshin could react, Light quickly called on the powers she had been created with, and used them to speed up the natural healing process – but only with his shoulder. It would take a little while for him to recover, though, and the poor man swayed a little and collapsed, probably due to blood loss. He would have landed on the ground if Light hadn’t quickly caught him.

Meanwhile, Sarah had found a brick that was lying around on the ground nearby, for some reason, and tied it around the ‘Sue’s legs, whistling as she did so. Then, she looked up at her partner. “Open a portal to the ocean, please,” she requested.

“Um, you have the generator thingy,” Light pointed out.

“Oh, yeah.” Sarah activated it, and then shoved the ‘Sue through, listening to the resulting splash with a satisfied smile on her face. After closing the portal, she looked over at Kenshin with a worried look on her face. “Is he all right?”

“As long as he gets some rest, he’ll be fine,” Light reassured her. “Open a portal to his room in the dojo, please.”

Sarah pouted a little, but used the portal generator to open a portal. It wasn’t her fault that she accidentally keyed in the co-ordinates to their response centre, honest. After receiving a glare from her partner, though, Sarah quickly re-opened the portal to his room in the Kamiya dojo.

Light carefully moved Kenshin through and onto his sleeping mat, not trusting her partner with him. Once she came back out, Sarah opened a portal back to their response centre.

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As soon as they were through the portal, Sarah collapsed onto one of the chairs, rolling her shoulders a bit, feeling incredibly tense.

Light shot a glare at the area where the portal had been, and wondered who she could complain to about the hostility the portal obviously ‘felt’ towards the two agents.

Farmair curled up near Sarah’s chair, and Light tossed some bacon in his direction, which the mini ate after a suspicious glance at her.

Light curled up on the floor, happy to have her wings back, and, within moments, the two agents were asleep.

Neither of them were aware of the soft 'bip' from the computer to indicate the relaying of a message.

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*Winces*. This fic wasn’t as painful as most… But it made up for it in its complete disregard for canon and realism. This actually took me quite a long time to complete…