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Kazuma and Shizuru

Once upon a time, there lived a poor family, trying to make ends meet but with little success. The father often thought things would be much easier if only they could get rid of their adopted children, and though it broke her soft heart, Mrs Minamino had to agree.

For Kuwabara Kazuma and his sister Shizuru were not your typical sweet little children, all hardworking and innocent. They were, for one thing, much taller than their adoptive parents. But that was only the smallest problem. Kazuma had the sort of face which most would say only a mother could love, he was a delinquent who mixed with disreputable company and was always picking a fight, and as for his academic performance... the less said of it the better. Shizuru looked somewhat better, but she smoked and drank, and generally was in no way "sugar and spice", much less "all things nice"...

So it was decided that the two should be abandoned to fend for themselves, especially since they were pretty much grown up anyway and really should not have been relying on their adoptive parents for support in the first place. Unfortunately for the Minaminos, Kazuma and Shizuru were slightly psychic, and soon sensed what they were up to.

"Never fear," declared Kuwabara Kazuma bravely to his unconcerned sister, who was busy reading a magazine of some sort. "I shall find some way to thwart their inhuman scheme!" "All right, all right," murmured Shizuru absently, accustomed to tuning out his rants. So the Minaminos schemed, Kazuma plotted, Shizuru read her magazine, and none of them got any sleep that night.

The next morning found the Minaminos trying to abandon the two siblings in the deep, dark woods of the demon world. Forewarned, Kazuma secretly created a thin spirit-thread, too fine for their parents to detect, and tied it to the doorknob as they left. They meandered about the woods aimlessly for a while, then the Minaminos made some feeble excuse and fled. The Kuwabara siblings enjoyed a nice picnic in the woods, with no chores to do, before following the thread home for dinner, much to the distress of their hapless parents.

Unfortunately, as we already know, the family had not gotten any sleep the previous night, and since the children had successfully foiled the attempt at abandonment, they went to bed, confident that their parents would not try again so soon. Worried people like the Minaminos, however, find it difficult to sleep, so when Mrs Minamino went to tuck in her children and found them sound asleep, it was decided this was not an opportunity to be missed.

Kuwabara Kazuma and Shizuru awakened to the warmth of sunbeams slanting through the leafy canopy of the demon world forest. "Oh dear," remarked Shizuru calmly, looking about her. Her sharp eyes fell on a shabby little basket beside them. "At least they left us breakfast," she observed, rummaging through it for something good to eat. "What do we do now?"

Kazuma felt a twinge of unease, but he did not want to worry his sister, so he stood up bravely and declared, "Never fear! I shall use my empathic talents to sense Mother's sorrow at abandoning us, and find our way home yet again!" So he closed his eyes, and concentrated.

Did I mention that the Minaminos had already missed two nights of sleep? As soon as they got home, shortly before daybreak, weary and relieved at finally being rid of the children, they had fallen into a deep, peaceful slumber. "Uh..." said Kazuma after several minutes. "Um..." Several more minutes passed. The twinge of unease revealed itself to be a twinge of hunger.

"Too late," said Shizuru, inverting the emptied basket before her brother's horrified eyes. "Let's go look for landmarks."

The Minaminos had outdone themselves this time. The more the poor siblings searched, the more lost they became; as the day passed on, they grew increasingly hungry. Thus they did not stop to question their luck when they came upon a ramen stall in the middle of the demon world woods. They did, however, question the quality of the noodles.

"Hey, a deserted stall like this can't be any good," protested Kazuma as Shizuru sat down and peered at the grimy menu doubtfully. "What kind of ramen stall would have no customers at dinnertime..." He dutifully shut up when he heard his stomach register its protest at the delay.

A gaunt man with long, white hair and a strange tattoo on one side of his face came out to take their orders and regarded them appraisingly. Then he slammed down two bowls of extremely greasy noodles, muttering, "Too thin..." to himself as he did. Shizuru studied him suspiciously as her brother, too hungry to care, began to wolf down his ramen. But her stomach grimly reminded her that she had missed lunch and would need to keep up her strength in order to continue their search the next day. She ate too.

Morning found them prisoners to the man-eating demon, Raizen. The good news was that Raizen had no plans for cooking them in the near future, since they were "too thin", and as you may have gathered, he wasn't much of a cook. Lean meat usually turned out dry and near inedible in his pot. The even better news was that he intended to provide food and board free of charge until he had fattened them up, which, considering as they were still growing teenagers despite their adult looks, would take a very long time. So that was a problem solved for the time being.

But as time passed and his freeloaders showed no signs of gaining in weight despite the high-fat diet he fed them, Raizen grew increasingly impatient, and began hunting down recipes which might produce more palatable lean dishes. Since his problem was his lack of aptitude and not knowledge, he was never successful. He grew thinner and thinner, determined to eat those two whom he had already invested so much effort and resources in fattening. By the time his son came to challenge him, impatient to inherit his ramen stall, he was too weak to put up an effective resistance, and was easily defeated.

Yuusuke and his new bride, Keiko, were much better cooks than the late Raizen, and already had a ramen stand and a ramen restaurant in the human world respectively. They were looking to expand their franchise to the demon world, and it was much easier to launch a hostile takeover of an existing stall than to apply for a license to set a new one, at least in the demon world, since the primary rulers, Yomi and Mukuro respected power more than they did laws. When they looked over their new assets in some disgust, realizing how much work they had ahead of them to make this stall look respectable, they discovered the Kuwabaras in the house. Kazuma looked up from his university textbooks (he had taken up a correspondence course on Raizen's account, having nothing else to do), and was surprised and delighted to find his old friends here.

"Urameshi! What are you doing here? You're not Raizen's prisoners too, are you?"

"What nonsense! I kicked his @$$ and now I'm the new boss! Is this where you've been all these years?!" The long-lost friends exchanged news and it was decided that the Kuwabaras should also have a stake in the new franchise, which flourished under Kazuma's competent management and Yuusuke and Keiko's culinary skills, while Shizuru set up a pub with their support and they all lived happily after.

Whatever happened to Mr and Mrs Minamino in the meantime? They eventually got a sweet, clever little boy of their own, with pretty red hair and bright green eyes, but that, dear reader, is a story for another time.

The End