Author's note: Yes, yet another story that's been sitting around that I've decided to release while in physical therapy for my broken shoulder. Hope to be publishing all new stuff soon, but for you, I guess, this is new. Enjoy! Ye Old Legal stuff: Yori, Ron Stoppable, Kim Possible, Shego, Master Sensei, the Yamanouchi ninja school and all other characters borrowed from the wonderful KP Universe are the creations of Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, and those names are all trademarks of the Disney media organizations. All use should be considered fair under current parody law, and is not for profit in any case. Finally, this story takes place at a time at which all characters shown should be considered to be over the legal age of 18

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Communication Skills

By SHADO Commander

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Yori sat in the small cubicle that served as her living area within the Yamanouchi compound and wondered how she had come to the place where she was. Personally, not the physical room itself, of course, as this had been her sleeping area for nearly two years now. By American standards, she had learned, it was less a room than a storage closet with grandiose ambitions, but it served to fit, barely, her single tatami mat and the tiny western style desk that had been a present from her Sensei, a reward for being the youngest female to reach her current status as a Kunoichi… a journeywoman ninja.

Of course, as with all 'gifts' from her masters, it was one that came with obligations, and she was expected… no, had effectively been commanded… to use the desk to practice the skills she had been most singled out for: linguistics, especially those having to do with the English language. True, she had adapted to the odd language better than most, but given that it was an unspoken assumption that at some point in her life she would be sent to either Europe or the Americas, she had felt compelled to learn it as well as anyone who'd never actually used it practically could.

Yori smiled to herself. Ron Stoppable would no doubt have been surprised to learn that he was the first native speaker that Yori had ever spoken with. Which, at the time, was what she had convinced herself was the reason she became so fascinated with him so quickly. After all, she'd known that English was an unusually dynamic language, prone to huge shifts for both chronologic and geologic reasons, and she'd always assumed that the variant she'd learned… almost entirely from ancient phonograph educational records and a handful of old movies on 16mm (Sensai being very fond of a genre referred to as 'musicals')… was probably badly out of date, but it was another thing entirely to encounter someone and realize that a good portion of what you had painstakingly committed to memory was as dead as the Akkadian language spoken by the people of the ancient civilization the west generally referred to as Babylon. There were phrases he used such as "booyah," "yada yada yada," and "talk to the hand," that left her completely perplexed even after thumbing through the miniature dictionary she kept concealed in the wrappings between her breasts.

And thank heaven she had resisted her initial impulse to speak less formally to him with the slang she DID know. "23-skidoo" indeed.

Still, whatever she'd managed to convince herself at the time, her first encounter with Ron had only served to drive her interest in the language further. THAT was what had really changed everything. Before Ron, she would simply sit here and transcribe Japanese text to English. After Ron, the prose that she left on paper was as likely to be her own… and on special occasions, when she was feeling particularly inspired, she had even attempted the difficult task of writing poetry, Haiku, in the Anglo tongue. It was no simple undertaking, as the two languages were so completely different that she HAD to think purely in English… and somewhere along the way, the thought process that that had begun had somehow brought her here, to this moment.

Her masters would almost certainly not approve.

But this was not for them. This was not for Yamanouchi. This was for her.

Sitting in front of her was her collection of what she felt was her very best poetry related to the new master of the Lotus Blade, the estimable Ron Stoppable. The one who…

With blurry eyes, she ran her vision across the first haiku in the set.

Question

Sometimes I wonder…
Is it true what the girls say
About gaijin boys?

A tic creased the corner of here mouth, a phantom of a smile. How young and naïve she had been when she wrote that. As it turned out, true it was… something she had learned using her ninja skills within the first few days of Ron-san's arrival. Perhaps not THAT much larger, but such an odd look, so unlike what she had been taught to expect and handle in her basic sex-control classes! And yet, at the same time, how profoundly erotic without the foreskin... What would it feel like in her hand? Her mouth? Her…

Hastily, she moved on to the next piece.

Mystery

Such a puzzlement
He seems like a fool and yet
He fascinates me.

Yori smiled. Yes, this was a good poem, one that truly summed up the confusion that she had first felt upon meeting the young Monkey master. As, indeed, did the poem to follow:

Mystery 2

How can it be that
Your jokes make no sense to me
Yet still make me smile?

Now all cheer disappeared from Yori's face as she scanned the next haiku. She remembered all too well how she had felt when she wrote it… how horribly DENSE the subject of the poem had seemed to be.

Agony

You frustrate me so
When will you stop and notice
My feelings for you?

And things hadn't gotten better. She'd thought she'd been flirting in the established western style, praising his abilities and verbal wit, but clearly she was doing something wrong. It was as if she was… another boy!

And then it had all become obvious after first meeting Ron-san's so called 'friend,' Kim Possible. It wasn't fair! The girl's flaming hair and green eyes were exotic beyond all expectations AND to complicate matters, she was as competent as any Ninja… perhaps more so… and as immune to 'hints' as Ron! Of course, Ron treated HER like another boy as well, but as the next haiku proved, she'd subconsciously suspected there was something more beneath the "BFF" persona the redhead affected… and how prophetic it had turned out to b e.

Fear

Just a friend, you say?
Then why do I sense much more
When you say her name?

Pain. Longing. How she remembered the desperation with which she had written the next Haiku. Why had she not been able to express in person to him what she so clearly captured in words on paper. Why had she not even TRIED?

Want

Sheathe your lotus blade?
Yes, I would do so gladly
Why do you not ask?

Bah! If only she had been so obvious physically as she had been desperate mentally. But she knew now that one of her major mistakes had been behaving as a good Japanese girl should… Compared to the more blatant and provocative behaviors of the American females, she would have come across as almost sisterly in her intent. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She'd learned the language but not the culture behind it.

It was only when she had written this next one… and written it far too late… that she had truly begun to realize how he was failing to perceive her apparently far too subtle hints. And it was that realization that had caused her to finally give true vent to the emotions she had bottled within… and, in the process, displaying her finest grasp of current English popular vernacular to date:

Rival

How do I say this?
Kim Possible is a bitch.
Yes, that sums it up.

And indeed, it DID sum it up. What she was feeling, at least. But it had also done her absolutely no good at all to vent her feelings to a piece of paper. Perhaps if she had actually MAILED those poems to the intended subjects, they might have served some purpose, but as it was, all she had done was produce a record of her own failure.

With an uncharacteristic growl of irritation, Yori shoved the old poems aside. Clearly she had been as much of a fool as the ridiculous blonde American who had somehow stolen the most precious treasure of this kunoichi… her heart. And, just as clearly, haiku was not the sort of thing which she needed to write.

Perhaps, she rationalized, in order to communicate to Americans clearly, she should write in a format which they would instantly understand.

Pulling up the keyboard to the satellite-phone connected laptop she had 'acquired' on her last mission, she brought up a fresh screen on the word processor and began to type:

Dearest Ron-san,

Roses are red,
Violets are blue
I'll send you more,
If you ask me to.

Kunoichi Yori

She waited a second, reviewed the text for spelling errors, then transferred it to her e-mail program and attached three pictures of herself. One in her normal ninja bodysuit, one in a kimono with the top left alluringly open and… did she dare? Yes! One of herself, lying upon a table in what was obviously a Bueno Nacho, naked except for the plate of Nacos between her legs and the come hither expression on her face. That had been a difficult picture to manage, as her plan had been to order the nacos and the other food she'd posed with, then sneak back into the restaurant after the store closed at midnight. .. what she hadn't counted on was that while the dining area was closed, the Drive Thru stayed open 24/7, so she'd had to knock out the both the cashier and cooks with a memory-erasing drug, then service all the customers that showed up while completely in the nude and often with burritos and chimchangas still stuck in some very uncomfortable places, with Diablo sauce doing some of the most unbelievable things to her private regions. And then there were the shots of her covered in nothing but queso. THAT had been messy, but if the naco shot didn't work, those almost certainly would… but for now, she's save that for her second assault.

Saving the file as a draft, she turned to the more difficult half of her plan… though, again, she had already done most of the preliminary work.

Creating a new document, she began to type again:

There once was a girl named Kim Possible,
Who didn't appreciate a boy named Ron Stoppable,
But a ninja named Yori,
Found out the REAL story,
And photographed Kim and Shego doing things quite improbable.

Samples of these photos are attached Miss Possible.
As blackmail material they're untoppable,
But if you give up on Ron,
I'll make sure they're all gone,
Otherwise their publication will be quite unstoppable.

Once again, she transferred the text, then began attaching a sampling of the most titillating and incriminating photographs (three involving oral sex and two highlighting the use of a strap on, once each way.)

Yes, thought Yori, as she hit SEND on both documents, THIS time, the message definitely ought to get through.