Chapter seven of Soun and Genma's… Operation Conquer the World!

'Perhaps they'll kill each other!' Tatewaki Kuno thought to himself gleefully, it was indeed the most elegant of solutions to multiple of problems that plagued his life.

"But I digress, we are getting ahead of ourselves and you readers shouldn't be dropped in the middle of a story like this. 'Who am I?' you ask, the answer is both simple and complex… for you see… I am Mu Shu, a wandering Chinaman in search of fulfilling his one true dream. Though everyone here calls me Mousse… and since I am not currently in China I will respect that name as long as my business requires me to stay here."

"Hey, Yuka… who is that? And why is he talking to himself in the middle of an empty lot?" Sayuri asked her friend indicating the long-haired boy wearing thick glasses.

Yuka on the other hand just shook her head and dismissed the whole thing. "It's nothing, and we'll be late for school, Sayuri."

"I thought you wanted to be a nurse…" Sayuri said with a questioning look, "It doesn't seem right for you to leave a mental patient out there like that."

Yika huffed, "And how am I going to even get into med-school if I can't even get to our own 'normal' highschool on time?"

Sayuri just sighed and shook her head, sometimes Yuka was impossible to talk to, and this looked like one of those times.

Mousse ignored the girls. They were, insensitive as it seemed, irrelevant to his story or purposes and as such he gave them all the attention that they deserved, which was none at all. Clearing his throat he began agin.

"Let me start at the beginning, as far as concerns this latest incident…" Mousse said as he began to spin a tale to regale and entertain the readers, a tale of mystery, adventure, romance, and yes, even comedy.

– – – – – – – – – –

School passed both rapidly and uneventfully for Ranma Saotome that day and he was in the mood for a little snack before diner. In fact, he was unusually hungry, which is why he didn't even bother to change out of his cursed form after that little accident with the park sprinklers.

Upon requesting five buns from the local bakery she was surprised to receive a half-dozen. Sure she knew that the public schools in the area were a bit lacking, but even that was stretching it.

"Hey, I said five… why'd you give me six?" She asked the paper-hatted vendor.

He got a friendly grin and a chuckle with the explanation that 'she was just so cute that he had to give her another bun'.

This was decidedly a good thing for Ranma in that it meant that he could use his cursed form to get more food. If he were Tatewaki he would have said 'Truly it must be that not even the gods could be so cruel and perverse as to cause such tribulation upon the entirety of my own mortal person.', while Ranma, being less poetic and dramatic, just thought 'I guess this curse isn't all bad… I mean, I get free food!'.

Walking towards the Tendo dojo at a brisk pace while eating the buns Ranma was not particularly paying attention. Not until a ribbon suddenly knocked one of the buns from his arm, and then Ranma was extremely disturbed, to attack him was one thing, fine… but to waste food, that was unforgivable!

Ranma launched into action and grabbed the ribbon locking eyes with the girl at the other end. "Oh, you'll pay for that free bun…"

"Huh? You caught my ribbon as if it were nothing!" the girl said, somewhat astonished, "You're no ordinary girl then."

"No, I'm not." Ranma agreed, but if that little trick of catching her ribbon caught her off-guard then this girl was in for a big surprise.

"Good…" the other girl said and made a swift movement to launch a club into the air and into her waiting hand. "Because I prefer…"

The other girl lunged into an attack which Ranma ducked under, and she finished her sentence. "Not to treat girls with ordinary courtesy!! Eh?"

That last part was from Ranma sweeping her feet from under her. A nice little move that the other girl never saw coming. It didn't stop her from turning it into a cartwheel and landing back on her feet. "You're quite good… Remember me, I am called the Black Rose of St. Bacchus's School for Girls. Kodachi, the black rose. Don't forget it."

With that somewhat strange monologue she, Kodachi, bounded off laughing maniacally. Maniacally enough to send shivers up and down Ranma's spine. It was a horrid thing that seemed to twist life into something dark and… twisted.

Ranma shrugged and continued walking home.

– – – – – – – – – –

Ka-Boom! Acrid smoke rose from the crack in the door to the guestroom, both thick and black, as it rolled along the ceiling setting off the smoke alarms as it dissipated in its quest to find an exit.

Kasumi coughed as she waved her kitchen towel to clear away the smoke as she opened the guestroom door reveling a carbon coated Genma Saotome. "Oh my."

The two stood staring at each other for a moment before Genma broke the silence, or rather the ambient noise of the wailing fire-alarms. "Eh, heh-heh, don't worry about this Kasumi, I'll clean it up."

Kasumi nodded, "What happened Mr. Saotome?"

Genma shrugged and pointed to a strange machine in the middle of the floor, "It seems that my project here fried its wiring… which I don't understand, I used high-grade wire…" Genma trailed off as he inspected some wires that were sticking out of the device, half melted as they were he could still see that they weren't the high-grade wires that he'd put in there. "Now who could 'a…"

– – – – – – – – – –

"Yarp! Yarp!" Storm happily barked to himself as he finished attaching the high-grade wiring. It was finished, finally! All save for the motivator which was supposed to come in today, and that would be a five minute hook-up.

Storm hopped down off of the shoulder of the gargantuan robot he was on, soon it would be complete. Storm smiled a dog-smile and grabbed the tarp with his mouth and dragged it up the crouching form of the robot, placing it over the head and securing it in place despite the robot being much too large for the tarp to cover.

If he thought about it he would have considered it strange that his humans hadn't seemed to notice. But then again, he had built it slowly and always covered it with a tarp, so maybe it was like a tree growing; nobody really noticed it until it was too big to pull.

So, finished with his work until that part finally came in, Storm trotted happily into the kitchen to beg Kasumi for some scraps, which from the smell might be beef teriyaki. Storm's doggie-smile grew bigger, if that was even possible.

"Oh my, Storm…" Kasumi looked at the dog who had tracked mud into her kitchen like the bad, bad dog he was. Only a bad dog would track mud into Kasumi's kitchen. "Look what you did!"

Storm turned around and looked at the trail of muddy dirt and leaves. 'Damn,' Storm thought, 'There goes my teriyaki…'

– – – – – – – – – –

Genma left the guestroom, now clean save for the smell of fried electronics that would linger for a while. What had happened to his wire? He'd gotten the high-grade wire to handle the power levels in his little project. One that, when finished, would certainly be a boon in their quest to conquer the world. Genma sighed, they'd been so close to conquering Cuba too. It would take a while before they could recover from that setback, minor as it was.

Well, there was only one thing to do right now… and that was go and see if they had more of that high quality wiring in stock. Genma grumbled as he looked through his wallet and passed Akane's room where Akane and Ranma seemed to be talking to a group of bruised girls.

"Hey, Ranma, what's going on here?" Genma asked as he stuck his head through the door.

"Ah, hey pops," Ranma said, "These girls here want Akane to fight for em in a Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics match against St. Bacchus's that'll be held next week or something, I'm telling them that they shouldn't be asking a graceless, figure-less, uncute tomboy to do it for them though…"

"Ranma!" Akane yelled, indignant at the indigent description of her figure.

"So, are you suggesting that you do it?" One of the girls asked.

"What? Me!? No way!" Ranma scoffed, of course he couldn't tell them that the girl they all saw right now was really a guy, so he made up a quick lie, "Um… I'm allergic to leotards."

– – – – – – – – – –

Ranma and Genma left the girls as quickly as they could, Ranma in his haste to leave behind any idea that he participate in the rhythmic gymnastics and Genma to find his high-quality wiring.

The two martial artists entered the store much like any normal person, that is, through the front door only to be met by the proprietor and guided to the proper section. "Now, Ranma my boy, I'll bet you'll be surprised with what I've done when you see it!"

"I'll bet I won't." Ranma replied sullenly, the only reason he'd come along was to get away from those rhythmic gymnastic girls from his school and their loony ideas about having him in a leotard and prancing about like a girl in front of all his friends… all two of them: Hiroshi and Daisuke; how embarrassing would that be?

"Say, do you have this in a larger gauge?" Genma asked, indicating a roll of thick copper wire.

The owner blinked at that, what would someone need with wires that were nearly as big around as a pencil? He couldn't imagine anything at the moment, well aside from some sort of heavy duty electromagnet like the one he'd built for science fair when he was in the third grade.

"Ah, no. We don't carry anything in stock like that, I'm sorry sir." The clerk said, still wondering what it was going to be used for; well, it couldn't hurt to ask… "Eh, well, what are planning on using it for?"

"A device of such horrendous nature that the mere sight of it would leave permanent mental scarring of a magnitude unlike any you have known in all of your existence." Genma said as he smiled.

"Uh, right…" The clerk was unsure if it was a joke, and the sudden laugh that the customer gave didn't make him feel any more confident.

"What was that all about pop?" Ranma asked, wondering if it was possible that his father had done the impossible and made him even more uncomfortable than he'd been with those girls from the rhythmic gymnastics team.

Genma just grinned and said, "You'll see, Ranma, you'll see…"

– – – – – – – – – –

"Gyah!" Ranma gasped in dismay pointing at the pile of stuff that his father wanted him to carry, all nicely piled into a large wooden crate. The contents looked heavy, metallic, and like they would cause anyone's chiropractor to smile with glee… which, for some reason, Dr. Tofu was doing at that moment, though he didn't know why.

"You want me to carry all that!?" Ranma yelled at his father.

"Ranma! I'm carrying things too, so quit your complaining." Genma retorted as he picked up a cardboard box full of stuff Ranma couldn't quite make out. "It's the fragile things."

"Right…" Ranma mumbled under his breath as he started to carry the crate back to the Tendo place. He was having some serious misgivings about wether it had been a good idea to accompany his father on this errand before he remembered the discussion that was leading to the result of him in a leotard, shuddered, and changed his mind. It was far, far better to be carrying a ridiculously overweighted box for the half-mile or so.

– – – – – – – – – –

"Now, at about this time, Kodachi had heard that the remnants of the Furinkan had gone to beseech one of their school who was an exceptional fighter to embrace their cause and fight for their school's honor." Mousse said, pausing a moment to clean his glasses, "As she prepared she gave a strange look to the young and handsome man talking to himself in their livingroom, which was quite odd, but not quite as odd as her brother, she thought. 'Sasuke!' she yelled, 'Take this lowlife and dispose of him!'"

"Yes mistress!" Sasuke, the diminutive ninja servant of the Kuno household grabbed Tatewake Kuno from his meditation room and threw him out into the streets. Upon returning, however he found that Kodachi had already left on her errand… and master Kuno was quite put out for some reason.

Kodachi, however, was bounding across the rooftops of Nerima and laughing gleefully as she sped across town to deliver her good news. After all, it was always good news when Kodachi Kuno, the Black Rose, found that she was going to win yet another match… and good news made her want to laugh, so she did, unwittingly being the instigator of several police calls and more than a few scary-stories that big-brothers told their little sisters. Those same little sisters would spend years trying to forget the sound, but that is of no interest unless you're a therapist, and if that's the case we'll have to talk about a commission after the chapter.

Kodachi alighted to the sidewalk corner where she pulled a city map from her leotard, followed by a phonebook apparently she had to stop to look for the directions to get to her rival's abode.

"Just you wait Akane Tendo!" Kodachi sneered just before running into something had, like a brick wall.

Ryoga never noticed anything as he trampled Kodachi Kuno, staring intently at his map, before stopping for a moment, atop the gymnast of course. "Ranma Saotome! Just you wait!" He yelled to the sky. Tears streaming down his face in a manner that Soun would admire, before continuing, completely unaware of the trampled figure he left in his wake.

'Not bad,' Kodachi thought to herself as she pulled herself up and looked after the man who'd just trampled her so easily. 'Now that's what a man's supposed to be like. Oh how I wish I could meet someone as manly as he is…' she thought to herself as she watched him depart.

Kodachi finally tore herself away from the sight of Ryoga's behind when he turned a corner and disappeared from her view. Only after that did she return to her map and phonebook, first looking up the address and then finding the address on the map… Kodachi smiled, Akane Tendo would never expect a house call.

– – – – – – – – – –

Inside the Tendo house everyone was gathering to eat another fine meal prepared by Kasumi. Chicken Teriyaki, Storm whimpered as he looked sadly at the plates of food only to receive a scowl from Kasumi.

"Storm! I already told you that you're not getting any." Kasumi said as she grabbed the dog's collar and forcibly pulled him away from the table. She pulled him out the back door and shut it before he could get back in. That was what happened to bad dogs that tracked mud in on her floor.

"Why did you put Storm out, Kasumi?" Soun asked, entering the room just in time to see her put Storm outside.

"Because he was being a bad dog today." Kasumi stated mater-of-factually.

"Oh?" Ranma asked, rudely breaking into the conversation as he sat down. "What'd the dog do?"

"Storm tracked mud into the kitchen." Kasumi explained, and while her voice seemed cheerful there was something underneath that gave him the distinct impression of Kasumi skinning the dog alive… of course she would cook the meat and use the skin in some sewing project; Kasumi would never kill something for just the fun of it.

Ranma blinked. Kasumi would never do such a thing; it must have been a product of his literature class. Yeah, that had to be it, there was way too much killing in those stories: Julius Caesar, Romeo & Juliette, The Life and Times of Jack The Ripper: An Immersive Psychological Study.

"So, Kasumi…" Ranma laughed nervously as he saw Kasumi's gaze dart his way for a moment and then forced a smile as he said, "This looks great Kasumi. What is it? Chicken teriyaki?"

"Yes, it is." Kasumi said, positively beaming with pleasure at Ranma's comment.

Ranma sat in awkward silence as he watched everyone else start in on their meals. Everyone seemed a bit off to him for some reason that he couldn't quite put his finger on. His dad was still trying to swipe his food, Akane was acting huffy because her father had again confused her with PenPen, Kasumi was glaring at Storm as he whined outside, and Nabiki was busy making unhelpful comments regarding the relationship between Akane and her father. Yes, everything seemed normal… wait! Kasumi glaring?!

Ranma did a quick double-take and indeed, the eldest Tendo girl was staring daggers at the whimpering animal. Ranma looked down at his food and decided that he should never ever track mud into Kasumi's kitchen.

"Um… Ranma?" Akane asked, suddenly changing the topic… she swallowed hard, the bitter taste of her pride sticking in her throat; she had to ask Ranma to help her train for the Rhythmic Gymnastics match she had with Kodachi later… it was obvious that she needed a little help to get into the rhythm.

"Um… what?" Ranma replied in a mocking caricature of Akane, throwing in an exaggerated flip of the head that indicated emptyheadedness.

"Ranma! You jerk!" Akane threw her plate into Ranma's face and was about to pound him with a potted plant that was in the living-room when she caught Kasumi's eye and the unspoken threats about wasting food and getting dirt all over the floor.

"Um, heh, heh, whoo…" Ranma sighed in relief as Akane set the plant down and then sat down.

"Um, Ranma, I wanted to ask you to help me train for the upcoming Rhythmic Gymnastics match against Kodachi…"

Ranma nodded, "I understand."

"You do!?" Akane broke into a smile, "That's great!"

Yeah," Ranma nodded, "I understand that forcefully hitting people with a plate of food and then almost braining them with a potted plant is obviously the best way to ask for someone's help."

"Ranma!" Soun broke in loudly but then continued in a whisper as he leaned over to Ranma, "Don't you get it, she is asking for your help, that means she sees you as obviously superior and wishes to emulate your skills!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ranma muttered quizzically under his breath.

Genma leaned in and joined the whispering, "Obviously it's a ploy to get with you alone! You should take advantage of opportunities like these!"

"What the heck's gotten into you all of a sudden, old man!?" Ranma asked, edging away a bit.

"Indeed, it's obviously the opening of negotiations to a better working relationship." Nabiki leaned in and whispered.

Ranma shuddered and then looked over at Kasumi, "What did you put in this?"

"Nothing special… why?" Kasumi replied with a sweet smile.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ranma sat on the floor of the dojo as Akane began to warm up for her practice. It was kind of relaxing, he could just sit here and watch, pointing out flaws in form as his heart desired… and he had been asked to do it!

Soon, however, it became apparent to Ranma that Akane lacked the talent, and even natural grace to perform in any sort of gymnastics as well as the timing for anything rhythmic in nature… and Ranma had no problem letting her know it.

"Ranma! It's been thirty seconds and you're already telling me that I'm a hopeless failure!"

"Now that's not true… it's only been twenty seconds; and it's true, you've already broken your pins and ties yourself in a tangle to the hoop."

Akane growled, but she was unable to move because she had tied herself up pretty good. "When I get out of here I'll..."

"You'll what?" Ranma asked flipping over on his side so he could look her in the face, "You can't lay a finger on me, see?"

Ranma picked up a dowel and prodded her with it, it elicited a grunt and a mighty squirm from Akane, but the ribbon held fast. Ranma grinned and did it again several more times.

After a few minutes though, the novelty wore off and he did help her out of the tangled mess that she'd gotten herself into.

Akane glared at him for a moment before he stammered some sort of something; it may have been an apology.

- - - - - - - - - -

Tatewake Kuno took his seat in the St. Bacchus's School for Girls and scanned the room for his sister, Kodachi. One could never be careful enough when dealing with that strange, demented psychopath and her twisted sense of reality. Why, just the other day she'd almost poisoned their pet dog, Snuffles, because she thought he was an IRS agent… again.

It was probably that crazed view of reality that had given him this great opportunity, that is to see his sister and the horrible Ranma Saotome kill each other.

Kuno paused a moment, wondering what Ranma Saotome was doing fighting a Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics match with his sister in a girls-only highschool… Kuno shrugged, it was probably nothing.

"Hot dogs, get your hot dogs!" a girl called to him… it was someone from his school but he couldn't remember her name.

"I'll take three!" Kuno motioned to the girl. Hot dogs were great, not only were they tasty and nutritious, but unlike Kodachi's cooking they weren't usually poisoned. Yes, hot dogs… verily the world's most perfect food: for they didst contain all of God's good creatures.

The announcer said something drawing everyone else's attention to the ring as Kuno enumerated all of the virtues of hot dogs. It wasn't until he reached "they won't melt in your pocket" that he realized that the match was on!

Author's note:Well, it's been a while, but here's some more to the exploding-penguin saga of the Saotome and Tendo clans. I hope you all enjoyed it and that the story didn't ferment badly as it aged in my head.