10.17pm
A lithe figure leapt with eerie grace from rooftop to rooftop, the only signs of her presence, her cloaked silhouette in the pale moonlight, and the intoxicating scent of the petals that were her namesake.
Kodachi Kuno was a woman with a mission. Too long had she to wait patiently for the commotion of those farcical ceremonies to die down. For too many endless hours had her darling Ranma-sama had to suffer without her august attentions.
Well, no more! She would prove to her darling that only she was worthy of his most intimate affections.
The Black Rose had done her homework. She had learned that the foreign barbarian girl had had any claim to her love stripped from her due to her disgraceful actions at the curch several months earlier. Also had Kodachi come to conclude that neither an arranged marriage, nor over a year of most fiendish confinement could coerce her darling into betraying her by seeking to satiate his manly needs with that common Tendo girl.
This left the Lady of the Kuno family with only two valid sources of competition for her brass ring. First and foremost of these was her dreadful nemesis, the pigtailed girl. The harridan who would claim her beloved's name. How she despised that vile strumpet. Kodachi would most assuredly take pleasure in disposing of that wicked girl above all else.
But the vagabond harlot was of no fixed abode, seeming to appear at random like the cursed gypsy girl she was. Seeking to deny her of her rightful place at her love's side. Even the vast resources of the Kuno estate were not sufficient to pin down the wench's whereabouts, save for shadowing Ranma himself.
Currently powerless to anything about the redheaded wretch, Kodachi now turned her full attention onto the only other credible rival for her love; the peasant pancake chef, Ukyo Kuonji.
Despite utter confidence in her abilities to subdue the commoner, the Black Rose had thought to bring an 'insurance package'. A thin, miniscule dart tipped with a compound of various potent hallucinogens. Once pierced by the needle, Miss Kuonji would be far more receptive to Kodachi's 'suggestion' that she accompany her without issue. Once back in the Kuno grounds, she would flush the drugs from her system, and proceed to persuade the chef to discontinue the pursuit of her Ranma-sama.
She eyed the dart held between her slim thumb and forefinger. Not that she'd need it, but even Kodachi Kuno had to admit that the girl wielded her oversized baker's peel with considerable skill.
---
Thank the heavens he'd forgotten his wallet at the Nekohanten. 'Talk to you about Mousse' indeed!' mentally scoffed the Chinese boy. And to think he'd considered not going through with his plan. Even though Saotome could have been benign in his intentions… But Mousse wouldn't take that risk. His thick robes muffled any sound he might make shuffling from alley to alley in pursuit of his quarry. He dare not take to the roofs and risk losing his element of surprise. This was a golden opportunity. If Saotome felt confident enough to postpone what could be the planning of Mousse's demise for another night, then the sex-changer probably suspected little to no likelihood of a threat in the interim.
As Mousse made use of the urban warrens to remain concealed, he failed to perceive another rooftop figure rapidly approaching his target.
---
Destiny was indeed on her side! There Kodachi had stood, on a roof adjacent to the pancake chef's hamlet of an establishment, when the heavens delivered to her a bounty among bounties. The notorious pigtailed girl herself. Finally, she would remove the chief and most persistent threat to her future with Ranma-sama.
Without a moment's hesitation, she revised her plan and gave chase. The peasant cook could wait for another night. After all, she wasn't going anywhere. The Black Rose bounded across the building, uncharacteristically containing her laughter.
---
"Did you just hear something?" asked the bandanna-clad boy as Ukyo lead him (and not without necessity) down the stairs. She paused a moment, then shook her head.
"Must be your imagination."
---
Akane eyed what was left for Ranma in the kitchen. She realized that it wouldn't even come close to satisfying her fiancé's appetite. But with Kasumi in bed and feeling poorly, what was she to do? The raven-haired girl felt a guilt-trip sneaking up on her. Ranma had spent the day labouring away for her benefit, and would come home to what amounted a sandwich cutlet to the average person.
But… if nothing else, Akane could at least make curry. That time before she had left on her return journey to Ryuganzawa had not been a fluke - as regards that single variety of dish. Sure, it wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible, either. At any rate, it would help to fill Ranma's bottomless pit of a stomach before he tucked into Kasumi's leftovers. Resolving herself, Akane began to gather the required ingredients; being meticulously careful in measuring the correct quantities of contents.
As the girl prepared her single palatable dish, she began to hum a foreign tune to herself.
---
10.25pm
She paused, poised to leap if need be. Ranma had been taking the scenic route home, in an effort to loosen her muscles having sat still for so long after the Nekohanten had closed. But she ceased her travel when she got the distinct gut feeling that someone was watching – stalking her. Somebody with more than benign intentions. Ranma had learned to trust her gut over the years, and right now it was yelling at her to employ the Umi-senken techniques, and get the hell away from there.
The redhead's arms were raised as she prepared to implement her father's cloaking manoeuvre when she blinked. Ranma had noticed a momentary flash of white silk as someone entered the narrow lane beneath her. She relaxed, chastising herself. Only good ol' Mousse. She had been worried that it was somebody dangerous like Taro or Happo-
Ite! Did a bee just sting her? What the? "S'goin' on?" Damn, but she was dizzy. Huh, the ground was approaching pretty fast, she noted.
---
Yatta! Glorious success!
"Ohohohohoho!" she chortled malignly, as she stood to her full height. The pigtailed girl had fallen to her superior warfare strategy. "You wretched girl!" she exclaimed raising her chin.. "Oh, the promises that I shall extract from you! I've got you at la-aah!"
The Black Rose wilted under the grip that had suddenly clamped onto her shoulder. Kodachi tried to scream a protestation at the handling, but only a silent wail escaped. Abruptly, she found her self being turned around like a rag doll, and mournfully grimaced as an equally powerful vice clamped down on her other shoulder, applying a doubly agonizing pain hold.
Fighting through the pain, the experienced martial arts gymnast peered at her tormentor. Discerning two hard, oaken eyes, Kodachi gasped in horror. The contempt that filled them made the amazingly gentle face that hosted the hateful orbs into a mockery of beauty.
She shrieked in mute anguish as the beautiful woman drove her to her knees. Through clenching lids, Kodachi felt she saw those wooden windows to the soul burn with a mad fervour not unlike that which the Rose encountered in the mirror.
"Not her," the woman spoke in the most serene voice, a sick counterpoint to the pain the black-haired girl was experiencing at her hands. "If anything were to happen to that girl, someone really important to me would be very sad." The voice hardened, but the tranquillity remained, "She is off-limits to you.
"Do you understand?" asked the tall figure. No response. She shifted the hold, applying more pressure to the joints she grasped. "Understand?" Nothing. With a nauseating sensation, she reapplied both holds onto forbidden pressure points. This caused the Rose to curl up further, but elicited not a sound from the tortured girl. "Do you understand me?" cried the standing figure.
Lord, why wouldn't the girl just nod? She hated doing this. But she had to. The Black Rose was as viable a threat to Akane and Ranma as anything she had encountered. Still, she hated causing pain – of any sort, let alone this magnitude – to a person. Despised herself for it. Why wouldn't she just nod?
Kneeling to Kodachi's eye level, the tall girl again gave voice to her question. "Do you unders-" Her grip slackened, and she nearly tumbled over as a small rose exploded in her face. Black petals and something she felt wasn't as innocent as pollen assaulted her senses.
As the tall figure wiped already tearing brown eyes, she grimaced as she realized her captive was no longer that. Her first blurry sight was of an uncloaked Black Rose perched twenty feet away. A ribbon – a razor ribbon – was being twirled idly in her left hand, another black rose, identical to the one that embroidered the left breast of her purple leotard, held in the other.
While disconcerting, this wasn't what troubled the figure. What truly unnerved the woman was that Kodachi was displaying no ill effects whatsoever as a result of spending a minute in a pain hold that had allegedly reduced grandmasters to quivering masses of flesh in the time it took to apply. Kodachi did not look happy, and appeared to be routing great effort to avoid frothing at the mouth in fury. Scratch that. Unnerving wasn't the word.
"Foolish, naïve girl!" haughtily remarked the Black Rose. "I've experienced things beyond your scope of comprehension. You think a verboten pressure hold will stop one who has experienced true pain?" She snarled. "Do you?"
Like a frog before a snake, she could only repeat,
"True pain?" She laughed at the question, seemingly quite amused.
"Why, the torment of madness, my dear," Kodachi answered as though discussing the weather. "For some reason, I feel… as though I can be open with you," proclaimed the Rose. "Its your face, I think. It reassures even one such as I." Before her adversary could respond, she answered. "Oh, yes, I am well aware that I am quite unsound of mind. My entire bloodline is tainted with madness," she declared. Her eyes narrowed coldly as she bitterly added, "Yet only I am cursed to retain awareness of it. That, Kasumi Tendo, is agony."
Kasumi grimaced at the confirmation that she'd been recognized. "I'm not blind, Miss Tendo. Odd attire. Planning to join the JSDF, are we?" she smirked at Kasumi's subdued growl.
"Just because I am mad does not mean my memory has holes in it. Of course it may add something extra every now and then," she finished with a moue. "Nor does it make me forgiving!" she cried as she shot out her uncoiled ribbon.
Reacting on instinct, Kasumi whipped around her weighted metal staff and parried the blow in a shower of angry sparks. She felt a wayward sprite brush over her tightly shut left eyelid, which she'd been unable to open since its contact with the 'pollen'.
"You are very strong, Kasumi, aren't you," judged Kodachi. "Stronger even than your sister. But battling at long range without stereoscopic vision? You know as well as I that you are going to lose."
Irritatingly enough, Kasumi thought raggedly, she was completely right. "Stand down," she ordered calmly. "You have done your best. But I grow impatient to claim my prize."
Prize? Oh, God. Ranma! She hadn't jumped; she'd fallen. She could be lying in a pool of her own blood right now, or even… being taken advantage of. Worse still, she was a defenceless beacon for… other things.
But why the sudden change in attitude? Wondered Kasumi. Until she realized that she was standing between where Ranma likely lay and an increasingly impatient Black Rose.
"Listen!" pleaded the Tendo daughter. "The pigtailed girl that you hate so much is Ranma! Don't you care about that?" As soon as the words left her lips, Kasumi realized that she had made a mistake. Kodachi's gaze hardened. Whereas before, her ribbon had been wary; probing – now it slithered about like a venomous serpent. With little warning, Kodachi effortlessly broke through her defence. Kasumi bit back a scream at what she knew would leave a horrible mish-mash of bruises and gashes on her entire upper body.
"I told you," clamoured the Kuno Lady, emphasizing each word with a strike. Kasumi was only able to block the first. "I am not stupid! I've seen her take his place, true. And you would have me believe in magic and fancy rather than realise it is an illusion?"Suddenly, the ruthless barrage ceased, and Kodachi once again twirled the ribbon in lazy spirals about her body.
Kasumi shivered as she felt as though she was looking at an entirely different person – one that frightened her a lot more than the crazed attacker who had already taken her pound of flesh. "Did…" the voice hesitated, as though it were revealing a secret to somebody it knew wouldn't like it. "Did you know that you are mad as well, Kasumi?" is whispered like a co-conspirator. "Maybe not yet. But one day," it lulled as if reading a bedtime story. "You will be."
The brown-eyed girl tried to ignore her, as she surreptitiously reached to her hip for a throwing knife. If she could disable her hand…
No sooner than she had made contact with the weapon, than it was struck from her hand. Kasumi howled in pain. "Naughty, naughty," admonished the black-haired aggressor. "Kasumi, dear, I'm still telling you your secret."
Still grasping her staff in her good appendage, Kasumi allowed her broken left hand to lay limp by her side. Kodachi could pass at her leisure now. With only one arm, Kasumi's ability to defend decreased dramatically. Why hadn't she taken advantage of that yet?
She grimaced, as she realized why Kodachi hadn't already claimed 'her prize'. She had found another. The self-confessed madwoman looked about exaggeratedly as though making sure they were alone on the rooftop. "I saw the sparks in your eyes. Do you remember?" she asked turning back to the older woman. "When you had me on my knees under your power?" She smiled. "I saw the sparks. All they need for them to flame is some… tinder. And then," she proclaimed gazing at the stars, "You'll burn as bright as any fire in the sky."
Kasumi blanched, grasping her staff for reassurance when Kodachi turned glacial eyes on her. "And do you know what the worst part is?" she asked caustically, her nascent friendliness fading like candyfloss in water. The leotard-wearing girl's demeanour changed as she took an aggressive step toward her target. "Knowing where the madness stops and I begin." She seemed to look inward. "I know exactly where." Instantaneously, she was all-smiles again. "If I shy away from it," she explained amicably, "the madness grows, trying to reach me: taking with it a part of me." Her tone became a feral growl as she spat, "Such is my lot.
"To give myself willingly," she stated in a voice free of emotion. "Piece, by tiny piece.
"Or," she smiled knowingly at Kasumi, "to allow it to gradually envelop all that I am, even as I pit myself futilely against it.
"This, in full knowledge that whatever small part of me remains unconsumed will still be aware of the insanity outside of it.
"So you see," she elucidated, raising a finger not unlike a teacher stressing an important point in a lecture, "I must give the devil – you do believe in the devil, don't you Kasumi? - my consent that my soul be taken, lest he take it forcibly from me." She snarled at Kasumi's expression of incomprehension. "Yes, I know that makes no sense! But I fear that if I fight, he will deign to punish me with inattention. That he will take it all, and leave just enough of me behind to know this…" Kasumi's heightened senses perceived her whisper, "Even Lucifer's company is better than being alone."
"You're wrong," breathed Kasumi, only to be apparently ignored.
"But now that I have told you all this…" drawled the Rose almost remorsefully.
Kasumi readied her weapon for what she felt in her gut was a last stand as Kodachi absently flicked her ribbon into action. Unleashing a potential deathblow, the Kuno lady cried, "I assure you Kasumi, that limbo is a far worse fate than hell!"
"You'd be surprised, child," declared the diminutive figure whose cane had intercepted the strike. Kodachi screamed.
"No! If I can't go there, then neither can she!"
"You would be advised to leave right now, girl," came the stern warning.
With an inarticulate cry of impotent fury, the Black Rose recalled her ribbon, and leapt away across the city at speed. Cologne turned back to her student. "How are you feeling, dear?"
"Not so good, Ba-chan," answered Kasumi honestly. "I think I have to sleep now." Before she could land, the Amazon Elder had already gathered up the young woman and her belongings. At a pace that wouldn't shame a race car driver, she made for the Nekohanten.
---
Ite! Did a bee just sting her? What the? "S'goin' on?" Damn, but she was dizzy. Huh, the ground was approaching pretty fast.
And with it, a certain white-robed figure.
"Ooof!" exhaled the Chinese boy as the airborne figure drilled right into his gut, bowling him over. "What the? Who?" he gasped breathlessly. Quickly appraising his situation, Mousse realized the danger of his position. He was stretched out, face-up on the ground, wheezing, helplessly winded by whoever had attacked him. Gingerly, he sent a hand out searching for his wayward eyepieces, but could barely move his arm.
Fighting for air, then realized that even winded as he was, he was having a hard time of it. Understanding came when the small person on his chest groaned softly. "Who," he coughed, "who are you?"
"Dunno," slurred a seemingly soused female voice. "Who're you?"
"I am called Mousse. Can you move?" He discerned some blurring which he assumed was the girl trying to roll off of him.
"Don't think so," she mumbled. "Sorry," she finished dejectedly, with a hushed keen.
"It's alright! It's alright!" he allayed when he heard her begin to tear-up.
"You sure?" she asked, sniffing quietly. He nodded silently, taking a deep gulp of air into his lungs. "Hey, wha?" cried the girl as Mousse shifted. With a drawn out grunt he was able to sit himself up, the tiny girl in his lap. "You okay?" she asked concernedly. Squinting, the myopic boy answered,
"I'm fine, miss. You wouldn't happen to see a pair of glasses lying about by any chance?" he asked hopefully. More blurring.
"Sorry," she said in a small voice. "S'dark."
"That's okay," he hastily replied, sensing she may cry again.
Gently as he could he asked, "Miss, what are you doing out here alone? Are you okay?" He couldn't smell any alcohol or smoke on her, which only made his suspicions worse.
"I was jus' going home," she explained. "Den I fell down." She giggled. "Silly me."
Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! So close, and now his chance was gone. Only somebody as morally repugnant as Saotome (Okay, a lot worse) would leave a girl alone in this kid's condition.
"Do you know where your home is, miss? Could you find it from here?" he questioned.
"I think so," she answered uncertainly.
"Alright," he huffed as he stood straight up, the bundle in his arms eliciting an alarmed 'eek!' "Don't worry," he assured her. "I'll bring you there."
"Wow! You're strong," she chimed up at his face. His smile at the compliment quickly became sheepish however, as she asked,
"Say, um… You couldn't give me directions out of this alley, could you?"
