Peter had found the note in the morning mail the day after his talk with Kodachi Kuno. Harry had found it, too.
"No address," he'd noted. "That was hand-delivered. Do you have your own secret girlfriend, Peter?" The voice had been half-teasing and half-threatening, as if Harry were suspicious that Peter and Mary Jane might be seeing each other behind his back.
"Not that I know of," Peter had said wonderingly as he'd opened the letter.
The handwriting inside was somewhat hurried and thin, as if the writer had been in a heavy emotional state when they'd be writing it. At the bottom of the short note was a quick series of strokes that sloppily implied a spider on top of a flower, a rose.
And that brought him to his current position, sitting in an expensive Italian restaurant with carte blanche to order whatever he liked while he waited for...
The shock wasn't seeing Kodachi Kuno be ushered to small booth and seated. The shock was that Kodachi wasn't causing his spider-sense to act up again. Perhaps she'd found someway to dampen hers, or else they'd acclimated to it during their last long talk.
Kodachi was dressed in a striking black dress and holding herself in a very superior and arrogant manner as she replaced the flower setting on the table with a small bouquet of black roses. There was something about Kodachi's behavior that set him on edge, though perhaps it was just how thoroughly she seemed to be in her act this time.
Then he felt it. That sensation that told him Kodachi was in the area. The only strange thing was that it didn't seem to be coming from the Kodachi he was watching. He had his answer a moment later when a second Kodachi, dressed more colorfully than the first, was led to the table and sat down.
****
"Ah, hello, sister," the Black Rose spoke in Japanese, smiling knowingly. "Please sit. Dinner will be here shortly."
Spider-Rose was wary, eyeing the flowers as a low-buzz, beyond what she felt from Peter, warned her that they were poisonous.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" Spider-Rose asked cautiously. "I was under the impression that we had settled our differences."
"So had I," the Black Rose answered. "I stayed in my proper setting, with my proper wealth and my Ranma-darling." She sighed romantically and sipped from her glass of water. "While you fled over here to wallow with these brutish gaijin in that garishly bright outfit of yours. It was a very clever plan on your part."
"I'm only thinking in your best interest," Spider-Rose retorted. "You need..."
"I need my money sealed away from me?" the Black Rose asked. "Doled out as a child's pocket money is from week to week?"
Spider-Rose hesitated as she realized what was going on. She was becoming the Black Rose's scapegoat.
"And whatever did you say to Ranma before you left?" the Black Rose asked. "He seemed ever so skittish about me the last time I spoke to him. My Ranma-darling had never acted that way before."
"Did you go to the doctor, Kodachi?" Spider-Rose asked. "I had set up an appointment for you."
"The psychiatrist," the Black Rose said. "You think I'd fall for something as easy as that? You really have become so dreadfully weak. I will not be shipped off to some mental institution simply because you would be rid of me."
"You need to see a doctor," Spider-Rose insisted. "Think about the symptoms. Mood swings, delusions of grandeur..."
"Be quiet you!" the Black Rose hissed. "I will not have some...weak-minded genetic freak imply that I require psychiatric help. I am the Black Rose, I am glory personified. And you're just a pathetic little spider, crawling in the corners for fear of being crushed under a boot heel." She held herself straight and viciously punctuated each statement with motions of her hand.
"And what if it's a tumor?" Spider-Rose asked.
"Then there'd be headaches," the other snapped. "Which I do not suffer from. The very idea that I could be afflicted with something so banal as either mental illness or cancer? It is quite unthinkable. Such things would turn in fear at the very mention of my name. No the only answer is you. You are keeping me from all that is mine. My wealth, my power, my Ranma-darling! You want it all for yourself!"
"Do you think if I thought for a moment that I had any sort of chance with Ranma, that I'd have left?" the Spider-Rose demanded. "No, I wouldn't have. But I have no chance with him. He remembers how acted before all this and all he can do is look at me with disgust and irritation."
"Surely he senses what a creature you have..." the Black Rose started.
"He always has looked at me, us, in that manner," Spider-Rose snapped, always. "Everyone does. And it will only get worse if you keep acting this way. I did insure that you would survive the end of that spell simply so you could throw your entire life down the toilet."
"No, you wanted to prove how much more superior were to your old self," the Black Rose said. "Well, my dear sister, I'm afraid you have severely miscalculated."
"You're going to ruin your life this way," Spider Rose pleaded. "Don't you see?"
"Ah, you care about me," the Black Rose said mockingly. "You love me. You want to save me from myself." She said the last with a brief flourish and a bitter laugh. "How droll."
"Droll," Spider-Rose repeated, angrily. "You ungrateful little doppleganger. I bled for you. Nearly died for you, so that you had a chance at life, and now you call my efforts 'droll.'?"
"Ah, at last we see a bit of the Rose still in you," the Black Rose snickered. "You really expect to believe that you want to save me? Give me my own life? Why did you flee to this degenerate country as soon as you could? How do you expect to guide or save me from thousands of miles away?"
The Spider-Rose had no answer for that.
"I thought not," the Black Rose said. "And, if you truly desire for me to have my own life. Then why do you insist on keeping the name? I want the old life, the life you say is so terrible. The name comes with that life."
"There is no reason that I cannot be Kodachi Kuno here," Spider Rose said. "While you're Kodachi Kuno in Japan."
"There's no reason for you to be Kodachi Kuno at all," the Black Rose implied. "Tell me, which of us appears completely human to all tests, magical, scientific or otherwise?"
"That would be you," Spider Rose said dangerously.
"And if I went to the authorities," the Black Rose asked as a waiter brought their dishes. "How easy do you think it would be for me to convince them to take you away for study, research...dissection."
The Roses stared at each other over their food, the Black Rose smiling triumphantly as Spider-Rose seethed in a mixture of pity and anger.
"My problem is that I want the life I remember while you hold away from me," the Black Rose said. "And your problem is that you want to save me while I don't want to be saved."
"So when do we start this dance?" Spider Rose asked.
"Soon, I hope," the Black Rose said. "But I do owe my existence to you. Otherwise I would have died when the summoned fear spell faded away. I'm still unclear about the manner in which you seperated my existence from the spell, but that is unimportant. Until I clear up that karmic debt, you're safe, but I do believe that I shall have plenty of chances to do that. Especially considering your habits these days."
"And the flowers then?" Spider Rose asked, indicating the poisoned blossoms.
"Just a reminder of who I am," the Black Rose answered.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Mon, 28 Jun 2004 07:14)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.