Once upon a time,in a faraway exotic land, lived a very pretty young man, with skin as white as snow, hair as black as night, and eyes as green as jade (the good stuff, not some cheap knockoff). His name was Shinomori Aoshi (which, in the faraway, exotic language meant "unlucky goth boy"). Aoshi's very favorite pastime was staring in a mirror at himself and being moody about the whole thing.

He was also the okashira of a group of people called the "oniwabanshuu" - who liked to run around in black clothing, and sneak up on other people and occasionally kill them. When they weren't doing any of those things, though, they all lived in a happy little restaurant called the Aoi-ya, where they cooked and waited tables. Business wasn't very good, though, because the food was awful. Especially the natto. ESPECIALLY the natto. After all, they were ninja, not French chefs.

Aoshi didn't care much for that whole end of the stick. He rather enjoyed the sneaking around in black part of it, mainly because he thought he looked very good in black and liked sneaking up on people and occasionally killing them. But waiting tables and making natto significantly cut into his mirror-gazing quality time.

Aoshi and all the other oniwabanshuu looked up to the oldest member of their group, the man they called Wise Old Jiya (whose name meant "dirty karaoke-singing old man"). Wise Old Jiya dispensed advice to all the oniwabanshuu, and especially Aoshi, since being okashira was a tough job.

One day, when the birds were singing and the cherry blossoms were blooming, a new restaurant opened next door to the Aoi-ya, called "Captain Shishio's Fried Chicken". This was not good news to the oniwabanshuu, because business wasn't all that great to start with.

Wise Old Jiya suggested that they try to make an alliance with Captain Shishio's Fried Chicken, and even though all the other oniwabanshuu thought that this was pretty silly, they sent Aoshi over to check them out.

The new restaurant was a sort of creepy place, and the people behind the counter weren't particularly nice, but they took Aoshi back to meet Captain Shishio, where he lived with his wife and his son. At first Aoshi was excited by this prospect. He didn't have anyone his own age to sit around and be moody with, and it was way more fun to be moody with other people.

But Captain Shishio and his family weren't quite what he expected. Captain Shishio was a big, creepy freak all wrapped in bandages, and his wife Yumi (whose name meant "Hooker") seemed to not fit in her kimono very well. Worst of all, their son smiled too much. Not a good candidate for being moody.

Disheartened, Aoshi read the speech that Wise Old Jiya had written for him (mainly because Aoshi wasn't a very good conversationalist, being better suited to sneaking around and sighing) and offered Captain Shishio a "Samurai X" bento box from the Aoi-ya as a token of friendship.

Shishio picked around the food politely until he got to the natto, then proclaimed "these are the worst fermented soybeans I've ever had. They're perfect! WITH THESE I CAN RULE THE WORLD!" He then proceeded to laugh like a total maniac. This confused Aoshi, as he had made the natto himself, and didn't think it was THAT bad.

Captain Shishio insisted Aoshi give him the recipe for the natto, and for that he would be more than happy to have an alliance with the Aoi-ya. This confused Aoshi even more, but he gave Shishio the recipe and went home.

Shishio immediately put his staff to work trying to make the natto, cackling all the while. He wasn't a very nice man, you see, and had a plan to dominate the world using his chain of fried chicken restaurants (which were called "Captain Shishio's Kuni-Tori" in the faraway, exotic language).. and this horrible soybean side dish would be perfect for bringing the world to it's knees.

They succeeded in making some horrible natto. Detestable natto. Vile and unspeakable natto. But each time they completed a batch, Shishio would bring it before his magic mirror, and say "Mirror mirror on the wall, who makes the nastiest natto of them all?", the mirror would just snort and roll it's eyes.

"Captain Shishio, it's plain to see, the worst soybeans are made by Aoshi…"

Now this pissed off Captain Shishio to no end, and he realized that he could never achieve world domination through his chain of fried chicken restaurants if Aoshi were still out there making even worse natto than him. So there was only one thing he COULD do…..

…He had to off the moody little dork while he still had the time.

The next day, Aoshi was trying to make up for his quality time by staring at himself in the pots in the kitchen as he did the dishes for the Aoi-ya and sighing heavily. He tried to get in at least a couple of good solid hours of mirror-gazing and sighing each day as part of his usual regime.

Captain Shishio's chief henchman, Houji (Whose name meant "Man who dresses like Pimp") came over , and for the price of a lifetime subscription to "Naked Geisha Bimbos" and all the fried chicken he could eat, Wise Old Jiya let Houji take Aoshi into the woods "for a picnic."

Suffice it to say, despite his name, Wise Old Jiya wasn't the sharpest kunai in the set.

Aoshi was less than thrilled at the prospect of being taken off into the woods for a picnic. He didn't like nature very much, as nature tended to be dirty, and didn't have very many reflective surfaces. But it DID make him moody, so he compensated by sighing more than normal.

As they walked, Aoshi began to realize a few things.. most noticeably that Houji was carrying a shotgun instead of a picnic basket.

When Aoshi called him on this obvious oversight, Houji cackled madly and proceeded to spill the beans on Captain Shishio's Plan for world domination. This disturbed Aoshi greatly.. primarily because it involved him being put to death, and while he was moody and enjoyed occasionally running around in black and killing people, he didn't actually want anyone to do that to him.

They wandered around for a while, as Houji tried to find the perfect place to kill him. He talked about Captain Shishio an awful lot, and squealed whenever he talked about the fried chicken. It was then that Aoshi got an idea. He didn't have ideas very often, so it was an exciting event whenever it happened.

"Look Houji!" He shouted, pointing into the woods. "Isn't that Captain Shishio, with a bucket of chicken?" Houji, of course, looked. "Captain-Shishio-sama?" Aoshi proceeded to whack Houji on the head with branch and then run like hell.

And he ran. He ran so far away. Aoshi felt like he ran both night and day. Finally, he collapsed, exhausted and very lost. (This being another reason he didn't like nature. Nature didn't have handy street signs, or any of the other luxuries of modern life.)

In the distance, he thought he heard happy little voices singing, and chalked it up to a hallucination brought on by no lunch and inadequate mirror-gazing time. It was with this thought that he promptly passed out.

Aoshi woke up some time later, tied down to a bed that was much too small and rather lumpy anyways. A very short young woman with very big eyes and a long braid was in the process of taking pictures of him when he frowned at her and tried to sit up. "…uhm.. excuse me?" Aoshi asked, trying to be polite, even though this was an awkward situation. "why am I tied up?"

The small woman shrieked and ran out of the room screaming that he was awake, and immediately came back with six other very short people. They all stared at him. He stared back. They continued in this vein for a little while until Aoshi sneezed, and they all jumped back. "Idiot" said one of the very short people. He wore a big white cape, and had several tiny pixies following him around. "You should cover your mouth when you sneeze. Baka yarou." The pixies all nodded energetically. "You're so wise, Genius-sama!"

Aoshi looked crossly at the little man. "Well, I could've if you hadn't tied me up. I didn't do anything to you." The little people all looked at each other. "Well. That was Genki Dwarf's idea." The little woman with the camera blushed suddenly and shuffled off to the back of the room. "I was afraid you were here to steal our magic sake spring!"

Aoshi looked at her, confused, and the other little people untied him. One of them whacked the one called Genki Dwarf with a wooden sword and said "Ecchi!" Aoshi sat up, and politely introduced himself, and explained to the little people why he'd been passed out in their front yard.

They all said "AWWW" in unison, seven pairs of very big eyes shimmering back at him. This made Aoshi feel a little creeped out. One of the little people patted him on the knee. "Well, you're safe here at the Dojo of the seven Dwarves, and you can stay as long as you like!"

They introduced themselves, one by one, and only got a little annoyed when Aoshi interrupted to ask if maybe they could all wear name tags or something.

The arrogant little man with the pixies introduced himself as "Genius Dwarf", and gave Aoshi a blinding smile and swigged back some sake. The pixies immediately shrieked "GENIUS-SAMA!" and Aoshi flinched. He really, really hoped they weren't going to do that a lot.

The dwarf next to Genius-sama had spiky hair and a red headband, and swatted one of the pixies into unconsciousness. Aoshi immediately approved. "Oi, I'm Badass Dwarf, and ain't none tougher, so don't worry about the chicken guy, ne? And this crabby bastard is Smokey Dwarf!" He gestured towards a stern faced little man in a policeman's uniform and a haze of smoke.

Smokey Dwarf gave Badass a baleful yellow-eyed glare and smacked him. "Ahou! Chicken head!" He took a long drag on his cigarette and pronounced himself to be "Saitou Hajime, Third Captain of the Shinsengumi" at which all the other dwarves rolled their eyes and made faces. Aoshi got the impression they'd heard this before.

One of the female dwarves, a pretty little thing with a big hair bow, pushed them aside as the spiky headed one started trying to beat up the itty-bitty policeman and smiled, offering Aoshi a rice-beef bowl. "I'm Temperamental Dwarf." Aoshi took the bowl from her with a polite thank you, even though these little people were making his head hurt. She whispered loudly to him "This really is my Dojo.. don't let these freeloaders fool you." Aoshi took a bite of the beef bowl, because all his running and being almost killed had made him very hungry.

He immediately regretted it, and tried to find a way to spit out the atrocious concoction, without offending the strange little dwarves. When he couldn't, Aoshi just choked it down and smiled weakly. Temperamental Dwarf beamed happily at him. "I'm so glad you like it!"

"Aw, he hates it! Your cooking stinks!" Said the next dwarf, who was short even for them and carried a little wooden sword. "Me, they call me Surly Dwarf. We like to call her "Cooking Sucks Dwarf". " Temperamental Dwarf descended on the stubby little dwarf with a yowl and they went tumbling off into a fist fight. Aoshi took advantage of the distraction to set the beef bowl down somewhere far away from him.

Another little female dwarf, this one with perky fox ears and a fluffy tail, patted him on the knee. "Come see me if you get food poisoning, I'm Doc." Aoshi smiled sheepishly at her as the two flailing dwarf fistfights in the background became one giant brawl.

"So, who are you?" Aoshi asked with a very cross look at the final dwarf, the one who'd been taking compromising photos of him. She grinned. "Why, I'm the Genkiest Dwarf of All!"

Somehow, Aoshi wasn't surprised.

Aoshi discovered in the days that followed that the dwarves got into a lot of fistfights when they weren't busy bottling the magic sake or calling each other bad names. He tried to be helpful by getting things off of top shelves and not getting too upset every time he caught one of them peeping at him in the shower. This was only fair since he was a houseguest, and they'd been even nice enough to give him a mirror, so he could try and get in his daily regime of gazing and sighing. Aoshi missed his home in the Aoi-ya, missed sneaking around in black and occasionally killing people, and almost even missed waiting tables, but not quite. But he knew that if he went back home, Captain Shishio would have him killed because of his silly soybean recipe. So Aoshi decided he'd stay with the happy little dwarves until they became unbearable and drove him to ritual seppuku with a pair of plastic safety scissors.

Now, Captain Shishio and his crew were still hard at work back in the town. Houji, not wanting to tell his beloved boss that he'd rather screwed the pooch royally on this one, lied like a cheap rug to Captain Shishio about killing the young okashira and burying him in a shallow grave in the woods.

Pleased that his world domination could proceed unhindered, Shishio ordered his people to make a big batch of the vilest natto they could muster, and plopped it in front of the magic mirror. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who makes the nastiest natto of them all?" Shishio rubbed his hands together with glee.. this would be it! He knew it!

The mirror stared at the stringy mess of fermented soybeans for several long minutes and made a very strange sound, somewhere between a snort and a chuckle. "Shishio, Shishio, Shi-Shi-Shishio. This natto is gross, that's very easily seen, but the worst is still made by a boy with eyes of green." The mirror looked very pleased with itself, and pondered perhaps doing it's next pronouncement in haiku or iambic pentameter.

If it weren't for the bandages that covered Captain Shishio from head to toe, his jaw would have dropped open and gone through the floor. He was very unhappy, to say the least, and promptly fired the disobedient Houji. (and when we say fired… it ain't leadin' to the unemployment line, boys and girls)

Still unhappy, Captain Shishio used the magic mirror to find where Aoshi was living with the seven happy little dwarves, and figured out a way to get rid of the pretty young man once and for all.

Aoshi was busy cleaning the dojo while all the dwarves were off at the magic spring, bottling the sake, so they said. He secretly believed they were just all getting loaded. He had his sleeves rolled up and his butt-bow tucked in, and even a cute little bandanna and apron on that Genki Dwarf had made him. He'd almost cleaned up the mess from the last fistfight when there was a knock at the door.

Perplexed, as there hadn't been a visitor at the Dojo since he'd been here, except for the mailman, Aoshi went to the door. A young woman dressed like an old woman and wearing an obviously fake rubber nose with big fake warts on it, was standing by a cart full of radishes. "Hi there, sonny!" she cackled. "I'm selling radishes! Want a free sample?" Aoshi looked at her strangely. Although the word "free" was good, it involved the word "radish", and he wasn't at all sure he wanted a free radish, and told the woman that.

"I'm sorry old lady. I don't like radishes" he said politely, noting the woman turned bright red. "I'm NOT OLD! I'm Kamitari the beautiful!" She fumed for several moments before shoving a radish at him. "They're high in fiber and vitamins and if you don't eat it you're going to die a slow horrible death from constipation!"

Aoshi blinked at her, and hurriedly took the radish, not wanting to die like that at all. Aoshi bit into the radish, afraid of losing precious fiber and vitamins in the cooking process, and promptly fell to the floor.

The dwarves were returning, redfaced and wobbling, from the spring as Kamitari went bounding away into the woods. Badass Dwarf scratched his head "What an ugly old woman", and Smokey Dwarf smacked him in the back of the head. "Ahou.. that was a crossdresser!" The dwarves all looked at each other in a drunken panic. "AOSHI!" and staggered back to the dojo as quickly as possible.

Inside, they found him, lying unmoving on the floor. Genius Dwarf snorted. "Idiot. Fell for the old poisoned radish trick."

The dwarves tried everything they could think of, from the heimlich maneuver and cold water, to things best not discussed in mixed company. Even Doc, with her medicines, couldn't find a way to revive him.

The dwarves felt really crappy about this, having done a pretty poor job of protecting Aoshi, but chalked it up to experience and decided to hold a first class wake in his honor. They debated about cremating him or burying him, but finally Genius Dwarf suggested they just pretty him up and leave him out for the wolverines to eat.

They all thought this was a pretty keen idea.

So, they cleaned Aoshi all up, and fluffed out his butt-bow, and set him in a clearing in the forest all adorned with flowers. The dwarves then proceeded to get stinking drunk on magic sake and reminisce over the photos Genki Dwarf had taken while peeping on him in the shower.

It was about this time, that a wandering ruroni was making his way through the forest. In the language of the faraway exotic land, ruroni meant "bum with a sword". He wandered around, mooching meals off of people and generally making a nuisance of himself, and saying "oro?" a lot. He had also spent a lot of years running around occasionally killing people, and he felt very bad about that, and tried not to do it any more.

When he heard the raucous laughter and general all around merry-making, the ruroni (whose name was Kenshin, by the by) figured he was golden. Where there was a party, there was free food! At least he hoped there would be free food.. especially natto. Kenshin loved natto the very best of all.

When he got to the clearing, instead of an overloaded buffet table and a kegger, Kenshin found seven very drunk dwarves, and one dead guy. The dwarves all screamed and ran around in a circle for several minutes when they saw Kenshin, before trying to draw their little swords. The only one who managed to successfully do it without falling on his face was Genius Dwarf, but before he could get all ougi on Kenshin's butt, the ruroni very politely asked what was going on, and if there was a buffet somewhere.

Genius Dwarf straightened his cape, and the pixies all swooned. He then proceeded to tell Kenshin about Aoshi's sad tale, right up to where the moron ate the poisoned radish. "All because of that stupid natto recipe."

Kenshin blinked, and the sunlight streamed into the clearing, and the breeze stirred the neatly combed black hair over Aoshi's pale skin. For a moment, the birds all stopped chirping, and the dwarves stopped their incessant babbling, and Kenshin's heart skipped a beat or two.

"Natto…."

The ruroni knelt down next to the still body, all dressed in black. The possessor of a natto recipe people were willing to kill for. Now, normally, Kenshin was one of those sorts who preferred girls. He'd always rather liked it that way, but Aoshi WAS very pretty, and this whole business with the fermented soybeans was enough to make a ruroni giddy, and he bent down and placed a kiss on the still lips.

To everyone's surprise, even Genius Dwarf (who by all accounts would deny it later), Aoshi's green eyes opened up, and he smiled. "Well, of course" Genius Dwarf began, even though all the other dwarves started making gagging sounds and rolling their eyes. "He could be awakened from the evil spell by one whose heart was pure, and who's love of soybeans unbounded."

"So, this means we can't leave him out for the wolverines?" Surly Dwarf asked with no small disappointment. Genki Dwarf turned on him with a few well placed curses, and the dwarves descended into another free-for-all, as a way of showing their relief that Aoshi wasn't dead and about to be eaten by wild animals.

Aoshi, for his part, was confused. The last thing he remembered clearly was eating a radish, and he didn't really care for radishes all that much in the first place, and now he was lying in the dirt. (and if you'll recall, dirt was one of the major factors why Aoshi didn't like being out in nature, and now he was lying in it, so you can imagine the distress that caused)

But distress over the dirt aside, Aoshi was immediately taken by the ratty ruroni and his pretty violet eyes.. not to mention the fact that he had a nice shiny sword, and it had been at least hours since Aoshi had looked at a reflective surface.

"I hear someone's willing to kill you over your …. Fermented soybeans…. " Kenshin said somewhat breathlessly, his heart doing the macarena. Aoshi just nodded, wishing he'd never ever ever made the stupid things. He then proceeded to tell Kenshin the whole story that the dwarves had just told him. "I wish I could just go home to the Aoi-ya." He added, feeling perfectly miserable, especially since he wasn't dead, and would have to spend more time with the dwarves.

Kenshin puffed up then, sort of like a redhaired blowfish with a sakabato. "Don't worry. We'll stop Captain Shishio and his evil plans for world domination." His eyes got huge and sparkly then, and all the dwarves "oooohed", while once again, Aoshi felt a little creeped out. "And we WILL make the world safe for your natto!"

"….er..We?" Aoshi looked past Kenshin and the shimmering-eyed dwarves then, for the rest of the ruroni's army.

"We." Kenshin gazed down at him lovingly. "You. Me. And the Chibi-gumi here." Aoshi was, shall we say, unconvinced.

But, now boys and girls, this being a fairytale, and all, you can imagine that Aoshi, Kenshin, and the Seven Dwarves marched back to Captain Shishio's Fried Chicken, and battled his evil counter help. Things got very scary, and very tense, and in the end, Captain Shishio was defeated when he fell in a deep-fryer vat and the board of health closed the joint for unsanitary conditions.

Aoshi invited his new friends back to his home to celebrate the closing of the enemy restaurant, and was very disappointed when he realized none of the other oniwabanshuu had noticed he was even gone. They'd all just thought he'd holed up in his room for a protracted period of looking in his favorite mirror and being moody.

(well, all of them except for Wise Old Jiya, who was in the back room looking at the Miss May centerfold of Naked Geisha Bimbos, and eating the last of Shishio's Special Hot Wings. He was very cross with Aoshi for cutting off the supply of fried chicken.)

Later, in the halls of the Aoi-ya, the sounds of "Ahou!" "Baka" and breaking crockery resounded as the seven happy dwarves settled in, and all the oniwabanshuu had gone to bed for the night, dreaming of sneaking around and occasionally killing people, Aoshi brought Kenshin some of the fermented soybean dish that had caused all this trouble to begin with.

Kenshin was salivating like a rabid dog, but a rabid dog with love in his eyes, just to be clear on that point. Aoshi set the bowl down and watched Kenshin eat, and for the first time, he didn't feel moody at all. He actually felt happy, and that was even more rare than when ideas popped into his head.

It was only a few bites before the ruroni's eyes began to water, and he turned a peculiar shade of green more suited to asparagus then a human being. He realized then, in the moment before he passed out face down in his food, that when the dwarves had said Aoshi's natto was to die for, they meant something else entirely.

A few days later, as Kenshin was lying around, pretending to still recover from food poisoning, he and Aoshi struck a deal. Aoshi would learn how to prepare natto properly, and Kenshin would let him spend as much time as he wanted looking at his reflection in his bright and shiny sword.

And in the end, they all lived happily ever after.