"She has spells to bind demons?" Onryu asked. "Reeeally?"
What are you doing?!!
"Asking where to find Kuno," Onryu said. "And teaching these fools the errors of their ways."
Onryu leaped down to the warehouse, a grim crackling smile that was barely more than a showing of teeth.
****
"Does every Super-hero here speak English?" Spider-Man asked. Kumobara chuckled at that.
"There are some that barely have the education to speak their native language," Kumobara said teasingly, thinking fondly of Ranma. Then she continued. "English is a required subject."
"Foreign languages are required in America too," Spider-Man said. "So, now I know about a dozen words in Spanish."
"Well, there are many that pay for further teaching," Kumobara responded. Then she paused, and considered that. Ittan-Momen bore a grudge against her, Kodachi, so who did she know that spoke good English and hated her.
About half the gymnasts in Nerima, and many of the student body of St. Hebereke and...
Her shoulders almost slumped.
"I think we're attracting attention here," Spider-Man said indicating the crowd gathering. Kumobara glanced at the crowd, snapping out of her thoughts.
"Yes," she said. "I do believe we should." She glanced around and looked down the street toward the nearest tall building and pointed.
"After you," Spider-Man said, gesturing. "This is your country."
****
Tsubasa, now Kaijin, considered the problem carefully. Apparently, he was going to have to be a little more careful about approaching Ukyou than he had thought. And he wasn't sure why.
He had noticed her suspicion of course, but then her mood had just suddenly flipped to murderous as if a light had gone on. And then there had been that shooting pain in his head later on after he had gored that annoying ninja waitress...who happened to still be alive with no sign of ever having been injured.
Tsubasa was not stupid, single-minded to the point of blindness, and crazy, but not stupid.
"She read my mind," Kaijin realized. He further recalled details, like the way her spatula seemed to fly to her hands, and the sting her thrown weapons had. Kaijin smirked. "Miss Amazing and Infinity, eh?"
Kaijin tapped his fingers. So, he couldn't trick Ukyou herself...then he'd just have to convince her that she needed him.
"And how to do that?" he asked. He glanced to the pictures of Miss Amazing and wondered. "So, how will Miss Amazing's new publicity take a little tarnishing?"
****
Nabiki sat with Kasumi in her older sister's room trying to hold herself together.
Her father had been a widely feared assassin that was now used alongside the mythical Emma-O as a bogey man to scare children. She wasn't samurai...she was yakuza.
She amended that thought, she was samurai, from her mother's blood. But by the same token she was also Korean. Whatever her classmates said, she didn't know the laws of the nation inside and out, and she didn't have a fortune built up from stock market trading.
She knew the rules of her school as well as she could with the prinicipal it had until recently.
She didn't know how far back the Korean ancestry had to be to satisfy the laws that they was Japanese. She and her sisters could end up being declared "immigrants." It could affect the ability of all of them to get a job or into a good school. It was certainly never going to be far enough back for the fanatics working with Kuno.
"Don't worry, Nabiki," Kasumi assured her. "If this were going to cause us problems, it would have before now. The government has had the records all this time." Nabiki looked up from hiding her face.
"You knew about this?" Nabiki accused.
"Of course," Kasumi said. "Mother told me a long time ago. When she was teaching me how to prepare bossum."
"I always thought she just picked that recipe in some book," Nabiki muttered. Then she froze. "Somebody's on the compound."
****
Soun paused and tensed. Akane immediately noticed and looked around, Ranma was similarly tense. It wasn't just the fact that training her was going somewhat poorly. It seemed that her aura was more attuned to the forces of magic now, and the Judgement and Damnation techinques did not translate well to her form of magic.
"We have company," Nabiki's voice whispered past her. A look told her that Ranma and her father had heard it as well. Akane frowned and started forward.
"No," Ranma snapped.
"Listen Ranma," Akane snapped. "I'm not helpless!"
"Akane," Soun said. "Don't call attention to yourself." He paused and looked to her meaningfully, Akane blinked.
"Oh," she said, disappointed.
"You always say that, you dumb tomboy," Ranma muttered angrily. Akane snapped and turned narrowed eyes to Ranma. "Just take care of it!"
Ranma smirked and nodded as he cracked his neck.
****
Onryu burst through the doors of the warehouse and strode forward, glaring at the band of would-be samurai gathered there.
"I seek the Blue Thunder," he declared loudly. "He is long overdue for judgment." The assembled thugs seemed hesitant to attack the burning figure.
"Finally," a woman's voice declared. "I was beginning to think you would never show."
That's her! Run!
"It is the Lord's advisor, the most holy Miko Sucaifu," one of the recruiters declared. They all took strength in the declaration and faced the demon strongly. "Now you face the holy might of the Blue Thunder's followers demon!"
"And now!" Scythe declared. "You will serve us!"
And the demon binding spells were unleashed and the thugs gasped in astonishment as green-chains rose out of faint lines drawn into the ground and lashed out at the calmly walking demon.
"That won't work," he said. "I know a thing or two about magic, too." Though he'd never been able to actually cast a spell...now that his nature was unleashed, he knew why.
"We shall see what you know when you have been shown the light and serve the will of heaven's agent," Scythe declared proudly.
Then her chains wrapped around the demon...
...and shattered.
"You made a bad guess," Onryu said laughing.
"Well," an obviously angry, though not scared, Scythe said grimmly. "If you won't serve. You WILL die!!"
****
"The arm-guards are new," Spider-man noted as they stopped on the private roof. "I've seen pictures of you, you didn't use those in the riot."
"Yes, the riot," Kumobara said. "The current climate is requiring me to arm myself beyond my basic abilities."
"Hey I saw you moving just now," Spider-Man said. "You're good."
"You haven't answered my question," Kumobara said, sullenly. "Were you looking for me?" Spider-Man nodded, reluctantly pulling away from the attempt to draw further information from the conversation.
"As you said," Spider-Man said. "It is quite a coincidence for someone with my powers to just appear out of the blue." Kumobara appeared to consider that and then nodded.
"Had you received any packages from New York before acquiring these powers?" she asked.
"I live in New York," Spider-Man admitted. After all, it wouldn't take much for the girl to discover that. All she had to do was check the American press. "So what did you order from New York?"
"Roses," Kumobara said. "The spider, I didn't pay for. I assume you know the spider I mean."
"Yes, I know that spider," Spider-Man said. "And you got the outfit from..."
Kumobara thought for a moment as if it was a little unclear in her memory. Then nodded.
"A costume shop," she said. "I seem to remember them being quite popular a few years ago, and found this in a discount bin." Spider-Man sighed and shook his head.
"I knew I should have checked on the marketing potentials," he joked. Then he turned serious. "This is serious business, you're what? Sixteen? This is not a game." That was how old he'd been when he'd first gotten his powers, about four years ago.
"Perhaps..." Kumobara said, looking down for a moment. She looked up then and continued in a tone that Spider-Man recognized from having used it. It was the tone of someone that had recently had their world turned upside down. "I did think it was a game at first. but now...it is a matter of duty."
"I see," Spider-Man said. Duty, responsibility. They were practically the same thing.
"Now that you have found me," Kumobara asked, recovering her normal tone of voice. "Do you plan to return?"
"Maybe," Spider-Man said. "But I think I'll hang around a little bit."
"Watch yourself," Kumobara said. "My country is not as safe for gaijin as it should be."
"I'll watch myself, Kumobara," he said, preparing to leave. "If you watch yourself."
"And what name shall I call you by?" Kumobara asked preparing to leave as well.
"Spider-Man," he said, releasing a webline and swinging away.
"Spider-Man," Kumobara repeated. "I shall have to do some research it seems."
****
Ittan-Momen writhed in agony as Kumobara's concotion worked through her system. It was pure luck she'd managed to stretch out so thin and escape before it started really working on her.
She was paralyzed, her body slowly tensing up and drawing inward. At the moment she resembled an ill-proportioned midget that was slowly unstretching from what seemed to be a very painful seizure.
Slowly, she regained her own form and growled.
She was beginning to dislike Kumobara almost as much as Kodachi. This was the second time the bitch had interferred. Perhaps she should make an example of that boyfriend of hers.
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Sat, 21 Dec 2002 21:52)
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