Chapter 5- Guns and Roses

It had taken a good six hours, but, with Ryou's steady assistance, Hazelnut had managed a passable replica of the cake she and Pudding had earlier liberated.

"Thanks for your help." Hazelnut said, unsure of how to feel about it.

Ryou nonchalantly folded his hands behind his head. "Well, watching your attempts at cooking is like watching a dying trout flop around at the bottom of a barrel."

She just smiled. "Hey, at least I finally learned how to cook rice."

"With a rice cooker."

"So what? Rice is rice, and at least I'll never starve."

"As you like it." He shrugged noncommittally. "Anyway, since I did practically all the work there, I'll leave the clean-up to you."

He tossed his apron on a chair and walked out of the kitchen.

"Ah, Ryou, it's a good thing you left," Hazelnut thought sardonically as she picked up a sponge. "We might have had what was dangerously close to a friendly conversation."

It was very late and very dark as Hazelnut walked home that night. She didn't mind. She was used to this kind of thing, having stayed out much later than this before.

She was cutting through a back alley when she heard the commotion.

Somebody screamed.

Curiosity raised, Hazelnut headed in the direction of the noise. Crouching behind a car, she saw a boy bending over a now inanimate body. She couldn't quite see what he was doing, but the pointy eared figure seemed kind of familiar…

"Oh, right," she thought. "It's that cocky alien kid, what's his name?" She rapped her head against a tree, trying to remember. "The one with the crush on Ichigo? The little one is Tart and the purple one is Cake or Pie or something; I swear this guy has some sort of pastry theme to his name too…"

Then it came to her. "Quiche!"

The boy whipped around, searching for the source of sound.

Hazelnut ducked down, not wanting to lose the element of surprise should it turn out to be necessary.

He turned back to the body and Hazelnut saw a glowing pink orb disappear into a little pouch on his belt.

He was stealing souls.

"Disgusting, evil alien," she thought. She reached into her sleeve, ready to whip out a weapon, only to discover that she didn't have one. Stupid Ryou and his stupid 'Nothing potentially lethal on your person while you're working' policy.

"Oh, wait, I have superpowers." She pulled out her pendant.

Kish remained on his guard while he finished counting the pure souls he'd collected that night. Twenty-three. Deep Blue would be pleased.

He was about to take off, when a hand grabbed his ankle.

"Not so fast, alien scum."

Hazelnut, already in Mew form, yanked him back down, causing his bag of souls to be flung into the street.

Kish, newly distracted by the girl pointing razor sharp claws at him, didn't notice.

"Is that how you want it, Orangey?" Kish chuckled. "Fine then, I'll leave you a little toy to play with."

He glanced around for any hapless woodland creatures to mutate.

"No animals around for you to hide behind here," she growled. "Just you and me."

Kish gave a mock sigh and threw his hands in the air. "Ah, well, I suppose I will have to deal with you myself."

He called his swords to him. Hazelnut grinned in anticipation and took a fighting stance.

She had expected him to make the first move. However, he instead chose to circle with her, both sizing each other up.

"Hmm, he's not as amateur as I expected," she thought. "I'll have to be careful."

He finally struck, and it was perfectly timed. Hazelnut only stopped the blow at the last minute. She pushed him back and retaliated with an onslaught of her own, viciously slashing out with her claws.

He blocked everything with relative ease. "I must be out of practice," Hazelnut thought. "Either that, or he's better than he's ever let on."

Still, she'd faced more skillful opponents before. They just required a bit of a different strategy.

"So, speaking of Ichigo," she said as casually as she could while blocking and thrusting.

"We weren't," he said through gritted teeth.

She ignored him. "You really ought to figure out a better way to flirt with her. Constantly trying to eradicate everyone she cares about is getting a little old."

While Kish made no verbal reply, his attack increased in frenzy.

"I mean, mutated animals aren't exactly romantic, and using the excuse that you just want to see her in that outfit is a bit perverted, you know? You ought to try doing whatever Aoyama-kun is doing; it seems to be working well for him."

"SHUT UP!!" Kish roared, viciously stabbing at her with all his might. He wasn't thinking his moves through anymore, just slashing randomly in anger.

"Anyway," she continued. "all I'm saying is maybe you could try being nice to her once in a while, perhaps do something sweet, like bring her flowers. Girls like that kind of thing." There, what she had been waiting for, an opening.

With a few deft movements, she knocked the swords out of his hands and pressed a claw against his jugular.

"Hmph. This isn't over, Orangey. Someday, I'll destroy you," spat Kish.

With that, he teleported back to his own dimension.

Hazelnut sighed to no one in particular. "A girl just tries to give some friendly advice and she gets death threats instead of a thank-you."

"Oh, Quiche left something behind." She picked up the bag of souls and opened it. Tiny glowing pink orbs floated out and began wandering toward their owners.

She smiled and struck a heroic pose. "Justice is served, thanks to the mighty Mew Hazelnut."

"Still," she mused. "That was very educational. I'm not likely to underestimate him again."

Ichigo bounced into the café the next morning with an unholy amount of cheerfulness.

"She's wearing her heart on her sleeve again," commented Hazelnut as she watched the redhead joyfully clean tables.

"Something good must have happened," Pudding deducted, wearing an intellectual frown.

"Must have been, what's-his-name, that environmentalist kendo kid."

"Aoyama-kun?"

"That's the one, Pudding-chan! Let's go investigate."

They sauntered over to the table that Ichigo was so contentedly scrubbing.

"So, what's new with Aoyama-kun?" Hazelnut asked casually.

Ichigo's cheeks turned as red as her hair.

"Oh…um…nothing." She sidestepped to the other side of the table.

Hazelnut trailed after her. "You and I both know there's something. Why don't you tell your Hazelnut onee-chan? Come on, you can trust me." She gave Ichigo a winning smile.

"Ummm…okay. I, well, found this in my shoe locker this morning."

She produced a single red rose and turned even more scarlet then she already was.

"Ah, that's so sweet! You really have a good thing going with Aoyama-kun, don't you?"

"I…I guess so."

Hazelnut laughed. "You guess so? Ichigo, you worry too much."

"Well, there wasn't a note or anything, and Aoyama-kun never said anything about it, but it must be from him, right?"

"Well, unless there's anyone else…"

"I know! It could be from Shirogane onii-sama, na no da!

Hazelnut froze.

Ichigo gave a nervous laugh. "Don't be silly, Pudding. There's no way Shirogane could have opened my locker without a key. And I keep the only one with me at all times."

Pudding was undeterred. "Well, maybe-"

Hazelnut clapped a hand over her mouth. "That's enough deductions for today, Pudding-chan."

Alright, so Guns and Roses is a band. But the only rose themed song I could think of was "The Yellow Rose of Texas," and that obviously doesn't work.

I'll see if I can find a doctor who will give me a creativity injection.

Just so everything's clear, I don't own Tokyo Mew Mew or any related devices. Yeah, didn't want to keep anyone in the dark on that, because I'm sure you were all wondering.

Stay groovy, everyone.