Permanent 14, The Black Rose strikesPermanent 14, The Black Rose strikes! Gosunkugi sat in his room in his bedclothes. He was sitting at a small and cluttered desk reading a large tome Ranma had given him for study. His eyes were beginning to drop as sleep threatened to overtake him. He yawned and turned off the lamp he had been using to read and climbed into his bed. He didn't notice the window open seemingly on it's own. Sasuke snuck silently through the shadows and tried to think of what to do next. "Mistress Kodachi only said to bring him, did she mean by force? Oh, well," thought the ninja as he emerged from the shadows and walked over to the bed. He reached up and shook the form under the covers. He frowned as he realized that the boy's body gave way a little too much. He flung aside the covers to reveal a pile of pillows. He froze as a light came from behind him. "Who are you? What do you want?" asked Gosunkugi as he stood over in the other corner of the room. Sasuke turned and positioned himself offensively, surely a boy would be no match for his skills. He froze in fear as he saw the glowing orange ball in the boy's hands. "I suggest you back down! This won't feel very good if it connects, if your lucky you might be able to put the flames out in time..." said the boy from his corner weakly. "How? How could you know?" stammered the ninja. "Easy, you stood in the corner thinking out loud fool," said Gosunkugi with a small smirk. "N-now don't move!" "I bring a message for you, Mistress Kuno wishes to speak with you," said Sasuke as he relaxed a little. "Why would she want to talk to me?" said the boy in surprise. "It doesn't matter, My orders are to bring you using any means necessary," said the small ninja as he reached back behind his back. Gosunkugi swallowed. "H-how dare you speak to such a powerful mage like me like that?!" he stammered lamely. Sasuke smiled as he realized that the boy was posing. He jumped and flung a wire net at him. Gosunkugi reacted quickly and shoved lightly at the air. The net flew upwards ripping a hole in the ceiling as it exited the room. Sasuke froze in shock at this. "What the?" "Ooops, I guess that was too much..." said the boy as he looked at his hand. The ninja backed away and tossed a small gas ball on the ground. He frowned and placed a mask around his face as he did so. "This is more difficult than I imagined," he muttered as the cloud enveloped him and began to spread towards the gothic boy. "Life within the air I summon your power, come into my hands!" murmured Gosunkugi as he uttered a passage from the book he had been reading. A small breeze could be felt in the room as he cupped his hands together, a ball of gas and air filled them. Suddenly he remembered exactly which spell he had just muttered. "Oh, shit! Wrong spell. -Tornado blast!-" with that a huge gust of wind shot from his palms and slammed everything in the room into the opposite wall. He almost cried as a few pencils, a dresser, and his bed smashed through the wall and into the hallway. "Ooops." Sasuke just sat in the crater his own impact had made in the wall and looked at the boy in shock. The bed had almost taken his head off. "Such power! I must defeat this sorcerer to honor my ninja heritage!" he cried almost with tears of joy in his eyes. He seemed to vanish and Gosunkugi frowned as he realized that his opponent was probably much more experienced at this sort of thing than he was. Now was a good time to run. He turned for the door just as a few throwing knives and shiruken embedded themselves in the floor where he had been standing moments before. Gosunkugi almost passed out, he stumbled through the dark and barely avoided the multiple projectiles that were being sent his way. Somehow none of them connected, mostly because he was stumbling about and falling as he ran through the darkened room. He often tripped or painfully ran into various objects that were strewn around in the room in his mad scramble for escape. Sasuke finally ran out of things to throw. "Such skill! To think that he would avoid all my shiruken!" he gasped in awe. Gosunkugi stopped when he began to realize that nothing was being thrown anymore. He turned and put his hands over his head. A ball of light formed in them and he glanced around trying to spot the ninja in the shadows. He finally looked upwards and saw him clinging to the ceiling; Sasuke laughed nervously and fell on his face in the middle of the floor. Gosunkugi backed away from him in terror; Right into a pair of long white legs. He turned and looked upwards to see Kodachi standing on the remains of his desk twirling her ribbon in the air lazily. Under her arm was the book he had been reading. "Hey! That's not mine! Give it back!" he whined as he tried to grab the book. "Really treating a lady so, you should be ashamed," said Kodachi as she wrapped him tightly in her ribbon. He panicked almost immediately and began to struggle. "It seems there is some merit to this...magic after all." "Mistress, I..." started Sasuke, but he was cut off by a glare from Kodachi's dark eyes. He hung his head in submission and growled. His honor would not be fulfilled now until the battle with the young sorcerer was finished. Kodachi pulled the boy up close to her face and smiled at him. "I may need this one, he has experience in such things as this," she said to Sasuke as she held up the book. "Yes, mistress," said the ninja simply. "A bit boring isn't he?" she said as she gazed into the petrified Hikaru's eyes. He made a whimpering noise and passed out. "Ah, surely I am cursed with this humble beauty. I do hope he has the courage to speak to one as fair as myself," she said as she dropped him and tried to look demure. "Sasuke, bring him." "Yes, mistress Kuno." Ryoga Hibiki looked at the gates of the Tendo dojo. He frowned and looked at the map in his hands. "This is it, I'm back," he muttered to himself. He entered the gates and half expected to find himself in some strange yard in some other ward. It wasn't though, the Koi jumped in the pond and he smiled lightly. The dojo stood in the back where it had always been. Kasumi was in the kitchen cleaning and humming to herself. He opened the door and smiled a little more as he walked in and kicked off his shoes. "Oh my, We have visitors," said Kasumi as she walked out to greet him. Soun looked around his paper with slight interest. "Ah, Ryoga! We weren't expecting you back for some time," he said cheerfully. His opinion of the boy was still uncertain. He had seemed honorable and a nice enough, but his relationship with Ranma was questionable to him at best. "I need to speak with Ranma," he said with a large grin on his face. "Oh dear, Ranma is in school right now," said Kasumi looking worried. "That's all right, I can wait," said Ryoga as he sat down at his usual spot at the end of the table. Soun glanced at him one last time before settling. Accept for the large stupid grin on the boy's face, everything seemed to be falling back into the usual pattern. Soun liked predictability, but that seemed a distant memory since the young sorceress and her strange family had moved in. Akane sat at her usual place at lunch with Ranma. Yuka, and Sayuri. New today, however, were the two newest students of Furinkan, Ko-li and Talcum. Neither of them had moved very far from Ranma. They seemed to cling to her for protection from the strange culture around them. However close to Ranma they sat they always held their heads up in almost pride, most of the boys had started to drool immediately. The two girls took it in stride and ignored them as they should as Amazon warriors. The boys didn't exactly make them want to socialize, most of the girls didn't appear to interested either. Ranma at least could speak their language. Ranma and the two girls had become pretty close since she had started working for Cologne a few months ago. Ranma had even succumbed to calling them sisters. They had always called her that and made an extra effort to make her feel welcome to the Amazon tribe. Ranma was wary at first, mostly because of the nature of her induction into the tribe. Eventually she realized that they did not blame her for Shampoo's condition directly. In fact they seemed to think she deserved it. Ranma had spent more and more time outside work with them as the weeks drug on. Akane was a little jealous of the closeness the three had shown in such a short time. She had known Ranma for much longer than either of the two Amazons and they had a sort of bond that she just didn't understand. Ranma was still closer to her than either of the two girls but it still made her feel a little awkward when trying to talk to them. It was as if they really were sisters, and she was...She didn't really know. Sometimes she felt like a twin sister, other times she felt like they were dating. Ranma was very protective of her at times. She didn't really understand their relationship, but that was probably why she liked being around her so much. Ranma stopped eating, "Ryoga's back," she said simply. "Huh? How did you..." Akane started to say when she remembered Ranma's strange hobby. "Is boy friend?" asked Talcum. "More like brother," said Ranma with a mouth full of food. "Ah," said Ko-li with seemingly instant understanding. The other girls looked at her and Ranma in confusion. "It's like that with Mousse. I still understand him like no one else, even with the way he is now," she said simply. asked Ranma in Chinese stopping her meal. Akane and her friends just looked at them blankly. "Sorry, it's kind of personal," explained Ranma. "It's OK, I sort of understand," said Akane with a shrug. "Both of them give me the creeps," said Ranma with a shudder. "Well he stays with her most of the time, he has to really. We keep them upstairs when you work. They have free run of the restaurant when your off though," said Ko-li with a friendly smile, she leaned on Ranma playfully and Ranma shrugged her off. "Cut that out, you know I hate hearing about those two," muttered Ranma. "Oooh, Is Ranma scared?" chimed Talcum as she leaned on the other side of Ranma's back. "Hey! I ain't scared of nothing!" cried Ranma angrily. Akane and her friends giggled, Ranma saw this and blushed. "Meow!" said Talcum in Ranma's ear. The girl froze and shivered. Akane looked at her queerly for a moment and smiled. "Is something wrong Ranma?" she said as she leaned closer to her. She had a mischievous look in her eyes that Ranma didn't like. "No, why would...there be?" stammered the girl pathetically. Luckily Akane backed away and Ranma sighed in relief. "Well, if it isn't the lazy school girls," said Cologne with a sour glare at Ranma and her two sisters as they entered the Cat Cafe' and tied their aprons around their waists. "Sorry Ghoul, we sorta had to stay late for some paperwork," said Ranma with a quick smile. "And they needed you there?" said Cologne with her eyes narrowing as she gazed at Ranma. Ranma laughed a little nervously and backed away. As much as she liked the other two girls, she had no real love for Cologne. "Need Ranma read Katakana Hirigana," chirped Talcum peppilly as she entered the floor with a tray and headed for a customer. "She's right, I still can't read all of them," said Ko-li as she followed. Cologne snorted, "Just don't let it happen again." That was when a familiar scream came from directly behind her. She turned to see Ranma standing on a table with a look of complete terror in her eyes. A small white cat sat and bat at her with it's paw playfully. It jumped for the chair in an attempt to chase her and missed by about two inches to the right. It's ears perked up and it jumped again. Ranma shrieked and jumped back further onto the table. Cologne's staff came down on the animal's head and it passed out. "How did you get out? I told you to stay in you room with your wife you blind fool," said Cologne as she picked Mousse up by the scruff of his neck. She pogoed up the stairs and tossed him into the room before closing the door. Ko-li was trying her best not to laugh. "You make sure Shampoo is not running loose as well. I'd hate to have Ranma freeze up in the middle of the rush." "Is not funny," snorted Talcum as she helped the still shaking Ranma down off the table. "I'm sorry sister Ranma, I just...you should have seen the look..." Ko-li fell into yet another fit of laughter. "Jerk," muttered Ranma as she stormed off and calmed down a bit more. Talcum walked over and hit Ko-li on her head. "You be nice to sister Ranma," she growled. Kodachi sat in her chambers with the book open before her. Gosunkugi was bound by chains hanging from the wall and had long since given up struggling. He simply hung there and waited. Kodachi snorted as she closed her hand and smiled at the smoking remains of one of her brother's practice dolls. "Interesting," she muttered as she tried to find some formula or explanation for what had just happened. Nothing came to mind. Gosunkugi noticed her look and frowned. "You c-can't calculate it, Th-that's why its called m-m-magic," he stuttered. Kodachi had not bothered to change her leotard and the boy was not accustomed to seeing quite so much. "Quite," snorted Kodachi as she realized that there was some truth to what the boy had said. "Oh, look a demon summon spell!" she said in excitement as she flipped and stopped on a page. "NO!" cried Gosunkugi in shock. "You can't!" "Can't I?" she said smugly. Gosunkugi almost gave up. "If you can't be sure if you can control or kill it when it comes we could all die," he said weakly. "Perhaps your right, I suppose we'll have to come back to that one," Somehow Hikaru Gosunkugi was not reassured by that. "Some one had better figure out what happened quick or we are all in a lot of trouble." He hung his head and struggled weakly against the chains that bound him to the dungeon like wall of Kodachi Kuno's laboratory. TBC... Coming Up on Yahoo! Chat More... Tomb Raider! Join us for a webcast and live chat from the set of next summer's most anticipated film - Tomb Raider! It all takes place on Thursday, November 9th at 2:30pET/11:30aPT (8:30pGMT). It is your one chance for an exclusive sneak peek at the production from Pinewood Studios in London. Chat with the film's producer Lloyd Levin, stunt co-ordinator Simon Crane, production designer Kirk Petrucelli and more! Coming Up on Yahoo! Chat [Close] undefined [Close]