And now we go on with the next, take a breather... you're going to need it.
= = =
Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
Chapter 12/?
|Evening Workout|
The Kuno estate had been empty since Tatewaki had gone to be treated for his injuries. When he would return it was not known, but for now the seat of the Kuno clan was Kodachi’s dominion. In her solitude, Kodachi had taken to redecorating the house in her image as she had done to the school, black and deep purples and reds being the overwhelming colors of the house’s interior.
Walking down the long hallway from her bath to the sitting room of the house, wrapped in a bathrobe and holding a smartphone in her right hand and the towel she dried her hair with in the other. After such a long and eventful day–as every day seemed to be for her lately–Kodachi was quite keen to lounge around in her big empty house and relax until it was time for sleep.
Tonight would be no different in her routine, were it not for the ringing of her doorbell. Odd, to have visitors at so late an hour, but she wasn’t the sort to release Mr. Green Turtle without entertaining them first. So she trotted over to front door and opened it.
“Yes?” She asked before she recognized the seven young women standing outside her door. “Oh, well this is unexpected.”
“Hello, Kodachi-senpai!” The young women in front of her were in fact the members of her old school’s Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Club. The dark-haired Tomoe, her former vice captain who ascended to the captaincy and was the closest to Kodachi’s equal, Rin, the red-haired new vice captain, the pink-haired Asuna, the floor exercise specialist with clubs, Iwa, the blue-haired master of the flag, Tamaki, who was exceptional with hoops, Otsune, a twin-tailed girl who mained the ball, and Ryoko, a tomboyish blonde who was a ribbon expert.
“What brings you all here?” Kodachi asked, looking among the other young women.
Tomoe stepped up. “There’s an important matter to discuss, Senpai. We’ve heard rumors that you’re building up for war against Saginomiya of Kolkhoz.”
Kodachi’s eyebrows rose. “I see. And you have come to lend your support?”
“We want to help out,” Ryoko said roughly. “The girls of St. Hebereke aren’t fragile.”
There was a chorus of affirmations from the other girls, as Tomoe nodded. “However we can, Kodachi-senpai, we want to fight alongside you.”
Kodachi looked among the girls, before she closed her eyes and nodded. “Please, come in then. Make yourself comfortable so we may discuss matters more freely.”
She opened her door wider for them, and turned to lead them into the house. “I didn’t think that you would want to take part. I had left St. Hebereke specifically to spare it being pulled into my conflict with Saginomiya.”
The seven girls followed Kodachi inside, Tomoe leading them. “I appreciate your wanting to preserve St. Hebereke’s peaceful beauty, senpai, but after all our time spent together the fact that you would go off without us almost feels like an insult.”
Kodachi walked from the doorway and across the foyer, passing close to the stairs leading up to the second floor and towards her living room entrance. “I apologize for that, Tomoe-san. Furinkan High School needed much work after the damage done by my family. Someone with a firm hand and a brilliant vision was necessary to guide it, so I took the first opportunity to do so almost without thinking of the consequences.”
Tomoe hummed in agreement. She then looked to her left and right, at the other girls as they began to spread out behind her.
Kodachi continued speaking. “There is one thing you are mistaken about, though.”
“What is that?” Tomoe asked as she stopped walking.
“I left St. Hebereke in peace, because as far as I care…” Kodachi slowly looked back at her former classmates, seeing all of them now with weapons in hand. “… You’re all so insufferably inept that you would be more hinder than help. You did not even attack the moment my back was turned.”
Rin, Asuna, and Iwa fell upon her, wielding a baton, a pair of clubs, and a quarter-staff respectively to bring them down upon her head. All three weapons smashed into the polished marble floor, cracking it, before Kodachi landed neatly upon Rin’s head and then leaped again, spinning over the other girls and landing behind them.
“Slow, as well,” Kodachi added as Tomoe whirled around to face her. “Did I teach you nothing?”
Tomoe’s face twisted into a snarl, as she immediately produced a riding crop and pointed it at her former captain. “You taught us teamwork!”
Otsune was next, whipping a ball at Kodachi that the Black Rose narrowly avoided with a quick sidestep, the ball leaving a large crater where it bounced off the wall. As she moved, a pair of hoops thrown by Tamaki narrowly missed her, embedding themselves in the wall as she reached the stairs and jumped up onto the banister.
Setting her feet on the inclined railing, Kodachi maintained her footing as she ducked under a club thrown at her, the maneuver allowing Iwa to vault onto the banister a few steps above Kodachi. Twirling the staff in her hands she swung at Kodachi and stabbed at her with the weapon, forcing the Black Rose to evade the strikes and parry them with her hands away from her center mass.
Behind her, Ryoko landed atop the podium at the very end of the railing, a ribbon trailing behind her that she whipped around then swung for Kodachi’s back. She jumped over the lashing ribbon, side-flipping over the stairs to land on the opposite railing.
Taking the staff and adjusting her grip, Iwa thrust the staff with such force that when it impacted where Kodachi was, it left a jagged hole like it were hit with a high-caliber bullet.
“Your form is too aggressive! It takes too long to pull your weapon back!” Kodachi warned, as she avoided the second stab, and then jumped straight up over the ribbon slash that cut a gash in the wall and sliced through the railing. At the top of her jump, she kicked off the wall, avoiding Otsune’s ball twice–first the actual through and second the rebound.
Twisting herself into a backflip, she landed atop the decorative archway above the entry to her living room and huffed as she adjusted her bathrobe.
Tamaki, with hoop in hand, looked aside to Asuna, who nodded in agreement. When Tamaki threw a single hoop at Kodachi, and the Black Rose avoided it by leaping towards the end of the hallway, Asuna was already there on an intercept course, swinging one of the clubs for her head.
It is caught in Kodachi’s hand, the second club suffers the same fate as they land on the carpet. “How predictable.”
“We couldn’t agree more,” Asuna said with a smirk, before a bright yellow cloud of mist ejected from the clubs and into Kodachi’s face, causing her to stumble back, coughing as the fast-acting toxin took hold. A paralysis agent!
“You taught us very well, Kodachi-senpai!” Asuna taunted.
Tomoe saw this, and cracked the riding crop against the floor. “Quickly!”
Iwa quickly ran up the railing overhead and jumped down, slamming her quarterstaff into the block Kodachi as Asuna brought her clubs down. As the two drew back, Ryoko’s ribbon caught around Kodachi’s left arm and allowed Iwa to clock her across the face with the end of the staff. Staggered, she was left wide open by a downward swing from Asuna, that forced her head down. Rin’s baton caught her forehead, forcing her head back up, and she staggered back.
Otsune’s ball hit next, striking her in the stomach and pushing her back, leaving her open for Tamako to run up and–rather than use her rings, turn around and spin kick Kodachi straight in the chest, slamming her up against the corner. The beating didn’t stop then, with each girl laying into Kodachi with their weapons, keeping her pinned in the corner with their strikes as Tomoe walked over, dragging her riding crop along the floor.
“Forgive us, Kodachi-senpai,” Tomoe said, “But after you forsook us to go to that commoner school… we were offered an opportunity to transfer to the ranks of the elite. You chased your ambitions without a single word of warning to us, and you expect us to not feel sore about that?”
Under the hail of blows, Kodachi responded. “You think… I can forgive… treachery…?”
“You gave us no choice-” Tomoe began.
“I can,” Kodachi cut her off. “But I will never forgive…!”
She then caught one of Asuna’s clubs with far greater dexterity than she should have been capable of, and disarmed her of it. An instant later, the six girls were flung back, hitting the floor and walls after a sweeping blow from Kodachi, who wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth.
“… Is
anyone besmirching Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics by striking me with a barehanded blow!” She said in a voice tinged with fury.
The other girls quickly got back up to her feet, with Rin advancing forth slowly. “Don’t let up for a second!”
Asuna agreed with the vice-captain. “She should be slowed down because of the toxin!”
Otsune readied her ball. “Forgive us, senpai, but you’re only one person against all of us!”
Kodachi smirked. “Ohohoho… these are the fairest odds you’re going to get.”
Rin and Iwa were the first to strike, the longer reach of Iwa’s weapon reaching Kodachi before Rin’s own shorter, sword like baton. Jumping onto the extended pole, Kodachi vaulted over Iwa, landing behind her and clubbing her across the back of her head, dropping her in a single blow.
Rin saw this, and swung with the baton. “Bitch!”
Kodachi parried the weapon with one blow, and then with the second disarmed Rin upward before she realized what happened.
“Wha…?!” Rin began before Kodachi caught the baton in her free hand and jabbed her in the Solar Plexus, throwing her onto her back with the wind dislodged from her lungs. “Ugh!”
Asuna attacked with another pair of clubs, Kodachi blocking with her two weapons and, with greater speed, striking her in the chest and stomach, launching her back and into Tamaki. Both girls crashed into the banister, and crumpled, as above them Mousse walked down the stairs, casually observing the throwdown. Beside them, Otsune attacked decisively, throwing her ball with all her might at Kodachi.
Raising her rod, Kodachi struck the ball and directed it right into Ryoko, who was slashing at her with the ribbon, the ribbon sliced the ball into two halves, each tagging Otsune and Ryoko in the face and knocking them flat out as well.
Tomoe looked around at the best of St. Hebereke’s Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Club, all fallen like freshly reaped wheat, and then back at Kodachi with eyes now filled with fear. “… I-Impossible…! The toxin…!”
“That I have perfected in the use of since my childhood?” Kodachi asked, prompting Tomoe to blanch with fear.
Of course she would be immune to such things…
Kodachi lowered both her weapons, before tossing them to the floor so she could readjust her bathrobe. “Tomoe-san.”
Tomoe went rigid where she stood.
“When Saginomiya offered you a place at Kolkhoz, was it dependant on you defeating me?”
Tomoe’s eyes grew larger, before she slowly nodded.
“Ohohoho…” Kodachi laughed. “Well then, it would appear you will have to shamefully return to St. Hebereke’s as backstabbing traitors and idiots on top of being weaklings who smear the name of the sport they claim to perform!”
She folded her arms. “Contemplate that during your brush with oblivion.”
It was then that Tomoe sensed someone behind her, but it was too late, and with a mighty, ringing blow the current captain of St. Hebereke’s Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics team collapsed to the floor–bashed over the head by a goose-shaped training potty wielded by Mousse.
Not that Kodachi saw it, in the speed with which he struck.
“Thank you, Mu Tsu,” Kodachi said as she walked past him.
“You’re injured,” Mousse said as he observed her.
“Hmph! A light evening workout, nothing to be concerned about,” Kodachi stopped and looked back at the girls strewn about the floor. “I’m more concerned with the fact they came to send my rival her regards.”
“Ah, your school war,” Mousse observed. Frankly such things didn’t interest him, though he respected and regarded it as a conflict between villages.
“It seems that I will have to punish Saginomiya much sooner than I had planned on,” Kodachi lamented. “Ah well.”
As calm and confident as she appeared upon the surface, underneath she was fury incarnate, bristling at the idea that her own former classmates, her own team could be so easily turned against her. For what? A chance to go to an overrated school full of subpar students who by no account should even be allowed to consider attending on academic merit alone?!
She stopped in the entryway to the living room, and narrowed her eyes. No, for this she wasn’t just going to humiliate Kolkhoz. She was going to bury them, and she had an idea of how.
“If you would be a dear, Mu Tsu, dispose of this embarrassment?”
Mousse looked back at her and extended a long knife from his robe. “Permanently?”
Kodachi was aghast at the very idea. “No, I want my enemies to suffer their humiliation. Besides, I’d rather not have a foot massage with blood splattered hands.”
At that Mousse returned the knife up his sleeve and set out to drag the first of the unconscious girls out and toss them over the mansion’s wall.
|The White Lily’s Black Witch|
If there was one thing Asuka Saginomiya couldn’t stand, it was someone else having even a fraction more popularity than her. A few weeks ago she could post a picture of a blank wall and get a firestorm of likes and comments. Now? Now all she saw when she browsed Instagram were people commenting on some common Furinkan student’s photo sets, a sloppy mess of amateur work, and her own lovingly done and artfully rendered shots getting absolutely zero love.
However, what she hated even more than any old random peasant stealing her thunder, was that her rival, Kodachi Kuno. The student council president and undisputed master of Furinkan High School had gone to her Instagram account and posted security footage of her being cornered by, and then destroying the very best of the traitorous St. Hebereke School’s Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics team.
“Submitted for your approval, the fate of TRAITORS,” the video’s caption read.
“How can you be so strong, Kuno Kodachi…?!” Asuka seethed angrily after watching the video for the fifth time.
She was loath to admit it, but her mortal rival’s transformation of her buffoon brother’s fiefdom into something worthy of attention had been a success. What had been just another school for delinquents and perverts in Nerima was suddenly clawing its way to prestige so fast that the surrounding property values shot up ten percent in just a week!
Worse yet, it wasn’t mere style, as the destruction of Butsumetsu High School’s fighting strength showed that the school had deadly substance–power that was deliberately left to go untapped. Kolkhoz High School’s own combatants could offer no challenge either. The Kendo Club’s best champion dispatched to send a message brought a chilling reply from Furinkan, leaving him so humbled and destitute that he withdrew from school days later, demanding that none come looking for him.
Kodachi’s swift dispatch of her own former classmates from St. Hebereke, her own former comrades, was only another debilitating setback for the White Lily that seemed to cost the Black Rose nothing. Soon Furinkan High School would move, and all rivalries with the Kuno family would be put to a sudden and devastating end.
By contrast, her school seemed to have little motivation to build its steam, and Tomobiki High School, their nominal rivals, were mired in some sort of dysfunction that made finding out what was going on there difficult. She hadn’t heard from Mendou in weeks.
“Is it hopeless?” She asked no one in particular, as she was alone in her sanctum slash office at Kolkhoz High School. “Has The Black Rose truly surpassed me? Will this be how our rivalry ends…? With the triumph of her little ‘garden’ relegating me to a distant nuisance? A lowly creature not even fit to cower in her shadow?”
She dropped down, dramatically, laying her arms onto the table and letting her white-blonde hair fan out across the oaken surface of the desk. With a deep breath, she raised a fist and dropped it onto the table.
“No… I refuse…” She pushed herself upright. “I refuse! I defy thee, Kuno Kodachi! For you are the darkness that threatens our realm, and I am the brilliant radiance that shall be its savior! Ohohohohoho!”
She stopped when she realized that her dramatic speech had an audience. Standing in front of her, with a timid look on her face, was an exceptionally pretty young woman, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, dressed in a pure white version of a Catholic Nun’s habit. Puzzled, Asuka stared at the Nun, who stared back at her.
“A-are you… Saginomiya Asuka-san?” The nun asked, nervously, as though she were sincerely hoping that the seemingly demented person she was speaking to was not her.
Asuka continued to stare. “Yes, I am Saginomiya Asuka, the White Lily of Kolkhoz High School.”
The Nun’s face fell immediately. With a sigh of resignation, she introduced herself. “I am Sister Angela of St. Mary’s Convent, I am the translator for your new self-defense instructor.”
At that, Asuka huffed.
“Another one? Outrageous, I thought Daddy got the message when I dismissed the first two. I have no need for self-defense lessons, my time is extremely precious and my skills in combat are more than adequate.”
It was at this point Asuka felt something poke her in the back of the head, causing her to freeze where she stood. It was round and had a hard metallic feel, yet it wasn’t sharp at all. Was… was that a gun?
“Eres pendejo, o que?”a woman with a husky voice spoke in a language that was definitely foreign. It sounded like Spanish, but the dialect was a little off.
How did she get into the room? When? She never saw anyone until she noticed that Nun. The nun! She looked to Angela. “What did she just say?”
“That you spoke too soon about your training being adequate,” Angela replied.
“Un niño de cinco años podría apuñalarte en la espalda, y ni te darías cuenta cabron” the foreign-speaking woman then said.
“You don’t look out for yourself very well, for someone with so many enemies,” Angela translated after a moment’s hesitation.
Asuka turned around and came face to face with a bizarre woman. She was dressed in the style of a gothic lolita, wore a black short-sleeve ballroom dress sans petticoat over a black lace body stocking, as evident by the lace patterns going down her arms and ending at rings that fit over her middle fingers that matched the patterns going down her legs to her Mary Jane shoes. She was aiming a bolt action rifle at her face.
Her most startling–and disturbing–feature however, was her long braided black hair, speckled with splotches of white that varied in size, and her titanium white eyes.
“And this… person… is…?” Asuka asked.
“This is your instructor, Ysidro Lida-san,” Angela introduced, as the woman lowered her rifle and and chuckled.
“Does she understand Japanese?” Asuka asked.
Angela shook her head. “No.”
“Well tell this foreigner that I have no need of her services and she can leave. The other two were complete wastes of my time and I don’t want another distraction,” she said with an upturned nose.
“Ella no quiere que le enseñes nada, dice que ya es suficientemente buena,” Sister Angela said gently to Lida.
Lida laughed at that, before she cheerily replied. “No me importa lo que esta perra pendeja quiera, me están pagando por resultados, asi que va a aprender algo aun que no quiera.”
This was going over Asuka’s head. “What, what did she say?”
Sister Angela, a bit flushed, looked from Lida to Asuka. “She… she says that she is only getting paid if she teaches you something. So, it is in your best interest to learn.”
Asuka huffed in annoyance. “Is that a fact? Well what can she teach me? How to dress like a creepy prostitute?”
Angela winced, and simply asked Lida what Asuka could teach her.
Lida, her brows raising, let out a smooth laugh. “Ohohoho…”
Asuka stopped at that and narrowed her eyes at Lida, was she mocking her?
“Tu eres un inútil pedazo de mierda en una pelea. Tu entrenas por qué quieres que te cojan, pero en este pueblo te van a violar como la perra que eres! Si tuvieras que pelear con cualquier persona en este momento, te descuartizaron en pedazos. Y creeme, ellos lo disfrutarian. La una oportunidad que tienes…”
She then lifted up her rifle, indicating it. “Es aprender a dispararles antes de que te pongan las manos encima.”
Asuka looked at the rifle, then at her, disbelieving. “You’re saying I should shoot them?!”
Angela was surprised she got the gist of that. “Actually, yes… that’s basically what she’s saying.”
“Nonsense, I can go to jail for that!”
Angela quickly translated what Asuka said, to which Lida only chuckled again.
“Tu y tu familia tambien pueden ir a la carcel for todo el fraude..”
Angela did a double-take. “Wait, what?”
Asuka whipped her head over to Angela. “What did she say?!”
“Porcierto, ni te atrevas a decirle sobre eso,” Lida then said to Angela quickly.
“She… er… she says that it’s absolutely imperative that you do something to bridge the gap between your strength and your enemy’s. Th-they have all trained for years as martial artists, so in that sense you don’t have a chance to fight them if you had to now. Learning to shoot will make up for that difference easily.”
Asuka frowned. “I don’t know what you people do in the west, but here in Japan we aren’t allowed to even own guns without heavy regulation.”
Angela sighed and spoke Asuka’s concerns to Lida, who just rolled her eyes at the idea.
“Las armas de fuego son permitidas en este pueblo para que la gente pueda matar a los extraterrestres. No es una ley escrita, pero a nadie le importa,” Lida explained.
Angela recoiled, before she nodded slowly. “You needn’t worry about that, Saginomiya-san. The legal repercussions of owning and using a firearm are no issue.”
Asuka huffed. “Then in that case, why not just be my bodyguard?”
“We were not hired to do that,” Angela quickly replied.
Asuka turned her nose up. “I’m sorry, but did I ask
you that specifically, Kirishitan?”
Angela recoiled, the implication that came with Asuka’s words biting deeply into the young nun. She frowned at the girl, how shameful! How rude! She turned to Lida, and translated her request.
Lida wore a momentary scowl, before she answered. “Si me vuelvo tu guarura nunca vas a aprender nada, perra malcriada.”
“You won’t learn anything, if all she does is protect you,” Angela warned.
“Whatever my father is paying you to be my instructor, I’ll pay you double to be my bodyguard. No! I’ll triple it!” Asuka quickly offered.
Angela’s frown deepened, but it looked like this headstrong girl was not going to listen. She turned to Lida, and translated the offer to her Spanish. When she got it, Lida let out a chuckle that turned into a deep and throaty laugh.
“Esta bien, voy a ser tu guarura,” she replied, “Pero te vas a arrepentir.”
Angela grimaced. Of course she would.
“What, what did she say?” Asuka demanded.
“She… she said she’ll be your bodyguard,” Sister Angela revealed. “And she’ll take double what your father pays her.”
Asuka smirked. “You didn’t tell her about the triple part?”
“I would rather you not spoil her,” Angela revealed, before glancing towards the woman. “Ysidro Lida-san… she is a woman of God, like myself.”
Her? A woman of God? Asuka gave her a confused look, an eyebrow raised upward at the very idea. She was dressed like she wanted to be in some dark anime about witches or something.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. All that does is that now I have something to stand between myself and Kuno,” Asuka said with a dramatic flair as she turned and walked towards the windows of her office, to gaze out it contemptuously onto the schoolyard of Kolkhoz below.
“As a member of my security detail, the first thing I order you to do is to make sure this school is secure.” She looked back at the two. “I’m sure that a reprisal will be coming from my enemies, and I want to be ready for them!”
She then looked ahead. “And when they come… I will gaze upon Kodachi and laugh as all she’s built is shattered like cheap glass! OHHHHOHOHOHOHOHO!”
With a resigned sigh, Angela turned and asked. “Ella quiere que te encargues de la seguridad estudiantil.”
“Ella quiere que pongas a su pequeño ejercito en forma. Eso esta bien, pero no tengo la intención de hacer nada de esa mierda.” Lida replied.
Angela nodded slowly. “Entiendo eso.. pero si cualquier cosa le pasa a ella…”
“Ella va a regresar arrastrándose. Me va a suplicar que la ayude a hacerse mas fuerte.” Lida reasoned. “Dios ayuda a quienes se ayudan a sí mismos.”
She looked over at Asuka, who was laughing at her own sense of superiority over her enemies. Angela shook her head, how embarrassing. She hoped her enemies would go easy on her.
They wouldn’t.
|The Empress|
Kuno Kodachi was insane, to put it in simple to understand terms. She’s mad, nutty, off her rock, twigged out and whatever pleasant euphemisms you want to use to describe the fact that she was fuckin’ batty. But to simply call her mad was to do a disservice to both the girl and yourself because there was so much more.
Underneath the madness, the laughter and kooky behavior, was a certified genius. A mad genius yes but a genius for sure. She was a fusion of this two extremes; intelligence and insanity, toned into a package to conquer whatever was put in front of her.
When you toss in the fact she was rich you now had something truly dangerous on your hands.
In the most basic sense possible, no one but Kuno Kodachi could turn an ordinary High School into a high fashion crystalline citadel filled to the brim with aspiring Men and Women ready to burn a path to a better future. One reason was the funds and the other was that no one could ever conceive of an idea. But that again spoke to her genius and spoke even better on the influence of her new inner circle.
Down to brass tacks, since making friends with Akane and Katie, Kodachi got shit
done. She removed her brother’s old fan club and fashioned them into the dream of every high school girl reading manga or playing Prince games in the space of a week. Overnight she built a fortress to shelter her forces and foster inside them the sense of worth and self respect they had never had before.
Yet all that still wouldn’t be enough for Mousse to want to follow her.
It was, to his eyes, how those friends of hers reacted to her appearance after the fight with Shampoo had finished. He had watched Akane, a nice if naive outsider girl, outskill Shampoo with her bamboo stick like the Champion of the Amazons was an amateur. That girl who was a timely intervention from her opponent’s husband away from putting Shampoo down for the count.
And yet that same girl blushed and fawned at the mere sight of Kodachi. She stumbled for words and tried to offer excuses for her loss even though it was almost surely a quirk of timing Ryoga had managed to interfere. He looked at Katie, a strong woman who burst with violent energy and thought, surely a demon given human form.
She too reacted in much the same way, guffawing like an idiot in the face of this girl Kuno Kodachi.
He had to know what was the truth of it. Were they flattering her because of money? Or was Kuno Kodachi someone to throw your lot in with? In truth, before he could even ask her to take him in she simply told him that he would come with her in a tone that told him death awaited a refusal.
The tribe had tried to instill a sense of pride in clinging to their traditions. Which meant that the outside world was treated with scorn and derision even as evidence of their advancements and betterments trickled back. His eyes, long a thorn in his side, were simple things to fix for her.
Verily, she had given him the ability to see clearly that Kuno Kodachi was no mere girl.
Only the word empress could suffice to describe her, a font of destiny and dominance bringing to order from the chaos that humans naturally wrought. The fact she had dispatched those seven girls with such insulting ease did not surprise him. Nor was her refusal to kill them, not out of misplaced morality but a simple understanding of making her enemies suffer.
Before his thoughts could go further, Kodachi emerged from her bedroom dressed below her status but still nevertheless elegant. A pair of tight pants, a loose black violet long sleeved shirt that hung over her shoulder with a gold-loop belt that hung off her left hip, and a large matching hat hat that hid her long hair. She had places to go incognito.
“So what has become of those girls?” He asked.
“They are persona non grata at St. Hebereke. My influence has seen to properly punish them for their treachery,” Kodachi said as she stopped to take one more look in an adjacent mirror and adjust her hat.
“Are you planning on going out?” He asked in a clipped tone, one he quickly learned she liked.
“Yes, I will be out for a few hours at the least.” Kodachi replied after she finished adjusting her hat. “I may need you for later tonight, depending on how things go.”
“Tell me what you need and it will be done.” He answered, nodding his head as she detested seeing him bow.
“Simply be up until I return or call otherwise.” She explained, pulling out a smartphone and handing it to him. “For you, by the way, .”
He walked over and took it from her. “Very well. Where are you going?”
“Oh, out for a jaunt,” she answered with a sinister smile. “My investigation into clan Saginomiya family’s many sins has barely even begun and I’ve already found a starting point where they often overlook: in the so called gutters of humanity.”
“Understood.” He answered. “Remember to film anyone stupid enough to attack you.”
She simply smiled and left, a parting laugh echoing off the walls. “OHHHHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!”
Ah yes, another reason to follow her was that she had an amazing ass.
To put it bluntly, ramen was not a dish familiar to Kodachi. Indeed, it was Tendo Nabiki who introduced her to the delight as well as inspired her first move; a little shop just on this side of the border with the neighborhood of Taian–a wealthier part of Nerima where a lot of tourists and foreigners liked to spend their money for more local fare. This place, with its high quality ramen and low price alcohol, was a popular stop for such individuals, as well as two teachers from Kolkhoz Academy who Kodachi had been directed to.
Hello Black Rose-sama, we are like-minded individuals inside of Kolkhoz Academy’s inner circle. We have heard of your interest in taking down the school’s Queen from a mutual association, and we would like to pass a few bits of intelligence that will help you on your way. Before you meet us, however, we insist that you check out this ramen shop we like…
The message she had received had not deceived. Kodachi arrived exactly on time, before they had even finished their first bowl. It was a simple thing: order a bowl, take a table close enough to eavesdrop but not so close the people you were snooping on could tell and put up walls.
Yes, a classic fly on the wall maneuver, as shown to her some weeks ago by Nabiki.
“Regulars are easy to spy on at restaurants. They have a routine they zero in on so much that they forget everything else. They’ll sit in the same spot and not think of anywhere else. So you can be as close as a table away from where your mark’s sitting and he won’t even care you’re there” Nabiki had explained.
“Is it really so simple?” Kodachi asked, clearly puzzled by the world of intrigue and scandal Nabiki preferred to reside in.
“Creatures of habit are the most careless lot, I mean… a predictable martial artist is easy to defeat, right?” Nabiki asked, putting advice into the younger Kuno’s brain that would last her years.
And from there to here and now, where Kodachi found herself ordering.
“Ah, lovely customer-san.” The friendly shopkeeper greeted her. “What brings such an elegant young woman to my humble shop?”
“I was in the neighborhood and decided it had been too long since I had something truly enjoyable. An extra spicy beef ramen with a side of gyoza please.” Kodachi returned it and ordered at the same time to save on chit chat. “And a pineapple juice to drink.”
From there, the money was exchanged and soon Kodachi had her food and drink and her seat in that sweet spot close to her target. Now to listen in and see if there was anything to learn. The two men seemed to be in especially high spirits, laughing among themselves like they’d been telling jokes all night.
As it turned out, what they had to say was
hilarious.
“Ah a long day of babysitting out of the way, eh Goto-senpai?” One of the men said to the other as he leaned back from eating. He was a younger guy, who had spiky brown hair and glasses. “To think we’re getting paid so much for this, and bonuses on top of that!”
“Of course Makabe-kun but you have to be careful with those words.” Goto, a balding man with a ponytail and a shitty beard, said. “We’re not supposed to get bonuses.”
“Ah, sorry, sorry.” Makabe replied. “I’m just so excited about this job I keep forgetting.”
“It’s not what you expect for teaching though right?” Goto replied with a chuckle.
“If this job was any easier I would literally be stealing candy from babies,” Makabe said with a boisterous laugh of his own.
Kodachi’s eyes narrowed for a long second. There was no way Kolkhoz’s teaching could be easy, they had the best students with the best grades in Nerima since their inception. Something was rotten here.
“It pretty much is,” Goto went on, taking a sip from what was clearly alcohol of some kind. “Hell, a kid like you who went to teaching school is overqualified for this.”
“Overqualified?” Kodachi repeated in her mind.
Makabe looked surprised. “You never went?”
“I’m not even licensed, man.” Goto said with a laugh.
This came as a shock to Kodachi as well.
“Unlicensed?!”
Makabe nodded, understanding. “Well, to be honest I never graduated. I actually washed out at the end of my first semester. That’s fine though some of these kids are too dumb to eat miso soup without supervision, let alone tell if their teachers are full of it.”
“Makabe-kun!” Goto admonished with mock scandal. “Those are the, heh, future leaders of Japan you speak so ill of! Have some respect.”
“I apologize, senpai!” Makabe snickered as he failed to contain his amusement.
“You know half of them would have to ask their butlers to tell them what miso soup even is!” Goto continued, setting off a boisterous round of guffawing from the pair of buffoons.
It didn’t add up in Kodachi’s twisted, brilliant mind. Why were these “teachers” disparaging their students despite their cushy and decidedly undeserved positions? The High Schools of Furinkan, Tomobiki, and Butsumetsu neighborhoods were well familiar with cruel teachers. Given the delinquency of their respective student bodies, the faculty was adversarial–if not outright antagonistic–to even the most behaved students.
No such atmosphere existed at St. Hebereke, due in part for the fact that it was a wealthy Catholic Private School with extremely difficult standards for its students. Kodachi had assumed that Taian Neighborhood’s other prestigious school would have a similar environment.
More concerning… if the academic standards were in fact so low, why was someone as intelligent as Tendo Nabiki not attending Kolkhoz? Or her little sister Akane? Both girls were far too brilliant for her father’s vanity project. A boxer with Hatanaka’s punch should have the best Academies the nation over vying to have him. Why was he at Furinkan? It just didn’t make sense. Something was rotten and even someone without a nose could smell it.
No matter, she would finish her food and make some calls, and maybe she would close in on her first chance to tighten the noose around Asuka’s throat.
Finishing her food and drink as the two men continued to boast about their good fortune, Kodachi rose from her chair and coasted past. She made to produce a small bottle of aerosol on her way, and gently spritzed a bit over their shoulders. A gentle fragrance easily overpowered by the aroma of street level food… and a potent diuretic and laxative with a slow release. Come the next day, their charmed lives would be miserable.
Once you’ve had some dinner, come meet with us at the karaoke bar down the street to talk all about it. Our mutual friend has some pretty good taste in music, so we hope you pick a good song when you show up, on their behalf.
The karaoke bar in question was a rather nice and upscale place, like just about everything else in Taian, ideal for anywhere from teenagers to salarymen to come and sing away their troubles while enjoying snacks and drinks provided by the staff. With her entry, she was quickly told she was expected in the room furthest down the hall, near the emergency exit.
Going down the hall, she reached a partially open door where she could hear the sound of laughing and bickering over music selection. Opening the door, she found a small group of three boys and two girls. The boys were wearing the uniforms of Kolkhoz, while the girls were dressed in Tomobiki’s.
The boy closest to the karaoke machine, a tall, gangly young man with blonde hair held back by a headband, stood upright and gave her a friendly smile. “Yo! Uh… can I help you?”
“Hello,” one of the Tomobiki girls said with a friendly wave.
Kodachi was surprised. “Ah… I came here on behalf of Tendo Nabiki. She said that the next song you pick should be by Akino.”
The other students quickly shared looks, before the boy at the machine smiled and gestured for her to close the door. “You got good taste in music, I’m Sousuke.”
Kodachi stepped in and shut the door behind her. “I am understanding that you are all close to the White Lily’s inner circle?”
One of the boys sitting on the couch between two of the Tomobiki girls put on a grin, he was a foreigner with reddish brown hair and a face full of freckles. “We’re part of the Student Council, yo! I’m Paul. And these cute gals are Ichiko and Eimi.”
The second of the two seated gave a thumb’s up. “And I’m her last ‘boyfriend’, Soichiro.”
Kodachi blinked several times, and then pointed at him. “Ah yes, I remember you from my last meeting with Saginomiya. How did things work out?”
“Ah, you know, soon as she was declared the winner I got kicked upstairs to the Student Council and ordered to never speak with her highness ever again unless requested,” Soichiro replied. “What happened to your guy?”
“We parted on amicable terms,” Kodachi said with a perfectly straight face. “My condolences for your breakup.”
“Eh, I’m on the student council,” Soichiro said. “So what’s up.”
“Following your boss’s advice, I was able to overhear a pair of teachers relaxing after their day at work. Their incriminating and less than flattering statements about themselves and their students has left me curious about the actual climate at Kolkhoz High School.”
Sousuke, the leader of this cadre of informants patted the top of the karaoke machine and shook his head. “You mean how most of the kids are pretty much rich window lickers or pretty airheads? Well, they ain’t wrong.”
“You are aware of it?”
“Student council, babe,” Paul said in immaculate Japanese. “The only requirement to be on it is that you’re not dumb as a brick, or you dated Asuka.”
“Hey,” Soichiro sharply snapped, to the laughter of the girls.
The two girls from Tomobiki, sitting with the two boys, nodded in agreement. Eimi then spoke up. “Yes, my twin brother is in the Fashion Club goes to Kolkhoz, but I got a better grade on the entry exam.”
Kodachi was surprised. “You failed to enter Kolkhoz?”
Ichiko nodded. “Me too, but apparently I bombed the test pretty savage despite studying for weeks beforehand.”
Sousuke nodded. “Comparatively speaking, I consistently get some of the lowest grades in school.”
Kodachi stared at the odd mismash of students, especially Sousuke. “But you’re on the Student Council.”
“Well yeah, that’s because my parents paid premium for it,” Sousuke replied. “Same as with Paul and Soichiro here, and Eimi-chan’s brother.”
Secondary education in Japan was not free, but “Premium” tripped a flag for Kodachi. “What do you mean…
premium?”
Paul offered the answer. “Simple, you pay a little bit extra, and your kid not only gets into Kolkhoz, but they get good grades no matter what. You’re on the fast track to graduation and placement in a superb college if you pay a little more on top of that.”
Kodachi gaped at the foreign student, then looked back at Soichiro, and then at Sousuke again. “They are… paying to pass?”
“Oh yeah, it’s how Kolkhoz Academy has the highest percentile of students in the entire country,” Soichiro said. “Pretty crazy, isn’t it?”
Kodachi was almost stunned lucid by it. “Those scoundrels, those con men… but wait… such fraud would be easy to detect, would it not?”
“It would, but there’s a trick to it,” Sousuke said. “I’m not exactly privy to how the trick works, but they can make any grade a great one. Including the students of national exams.”
Kodachi recoiled.
“Nationals?”
“If you want a free ride to Tokyo U, Kolkhoz is where you go,” Paul said.
Sousuke clapped his hands together. “The trick though, and I’m certain of it, is located in the offices of the school! You get in there and find out what they are doing, and you’ll blow the whole lid off the biggest scandal in Japanese school system of the 21st Century.”
What a tempting opportunity, but Kodachi was crazy, not stupid. “I am curious, what do you have to gain from the shame soon to befall your school?”
Sousuke shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t get dragged into your stupid war with Saginomiya for one–no offense.”
Soichiro nodded. “No offense, but I’ve already been in that meat grinder, and I don’t want to go again.”
“That is fair,” Kodachi agreed.
Eimi then spoke up. “Because of Mendou-san, we’ve been wrapped up in this too, and we want out. Things are already bad enough at Tomobiki because of the Crusaders.”
Ichiko then added. “We want this to end, and we’re going to do it by supporting you.”
“And besides… after what you did to Butsumetsu? Morale’s at an all time low because we know how strong you Furinkan monsters are, no one wants to fight you guys except for the stupid diehards for Saginomiya,” Sousuke finished.
“More like Try-hards,” Paul corrected.
Kodachi nodded. “I see… this information, it’s going to be put to good use. However, if I’m going to I will need one final piece.”
Sousuke cocked his head slightly. “What?”
“A floorplan of Kolkhoz Academy and any information on the school’s defenses,” Kodachi replied.
Sousuke smiled. “Oh that’s not easy to come by, so that’s going to cost you.”
Kodachi stared at the young man somewhat dangerously now. “Cost me
what?”
At that, Sousuke held aloft the karaoke microphone. “How’s your karaoke skills?”
Kodachi’s gaze dropped to the microphone, and then rose to Sousuke’s face, as if what he was saying was utterly ludicrous.
“You fool,” she said, before smirking, “Do you realize that I went to an All Girl’s School? Karaoke is not merely a pastime.”
In an instant, she had the mic in her hand and she was posed dramatically, ready to sing. “It’s a way of life!”
Naturally as expected of a girl of so many talents, Kodachi killed it.