Chapter 11
By LirinStar

Lirin! WAKE UP!" Ryo yelled. Still nothing. She didn’t even stir. Mia had told him to go wake her up for breakfast, which was and hour ago. He had given up thinking they’d just wake her up later. Now was later and he still couldn’t wake her. "My GOD! She’s just as bad as Rowen!" he yelled, throwing his hands up in the air, and coming down the stairs.

        "I heard that." Rowen responded indignantly.

        "Worse." said Sai.

        "Yeah, Rowen’s up." said Sage pointed out.

        "I’ll go wake her up." said Kento. He had an idea. He grabbed a bucket and stuck some ice water in it.

        "Kento, don’t!" Mia said, shocked.

        He didn’t listen and just kept walking towards Lirin’s room. Sage, Rowen, and Ryo went with him. They wanted to see her reaction when the ice water hit her face. Sai didn’t want to have any part in it, he was a little more mature than the rest of them.

        Kento walked into her room. "Lirin, if your not awake by the time I count to 5, I’m gonna pour all this ice water on yah!" Still nothing. "One…two…three…four…four and a half… four and three-fourths…five! Oh, well, I gave her fair warning!" he said pouring the ice water on her face.

        "AAAIIEEE! That’s COLD!" she awoke with a start, shooting strait out of bed and landing on her butt on the floor with a thud. "Uff!" She noticed Ryo, Rowen, Sage, and Kento, who still held the bucket, laughing at her. She pinned them all with her darkest glare.

        "If looks could kill, then we’d all be dead!" pointed out one happy Sage.

        "But since they can’t, I’ll have to settle for strangling you all!" she screamed at them and lunged towards them. The boys knew she was ready to kill and came running down the stairs on pure adrenaline, with Lirin right on their heals. Poor Kento would have been the first to go since he was the slowest, had it not been for White Blaze. The enormous tiger jumped up on her and pinned her to the ground with his front paw. Trying to get her to calm down he started to lick her face.

        "Oh, no, don’t tell me your gonna be like those two big morons I’ve got at home!" she told the tiger, referring to her two lovable St. Bernards. But, White Blaze succeeded in calming her down enough so that it was safe for the four boys to be in the same room. She thought of a way on how to get her revenge. Then an idea it her. "Hey, why don’t we all spar right now? Keep up our skills?" She wasn’t going to extract her revenge by beating the crap out of them, but it would make her feel better.

"Why don’t we all go to your dad’s dojo, Sage?" Mia asked. "That way, when you all are finished we could have a night on the town! After all, we still haven’t celebrated your victory over Talpa. And, I know a really nice restaurant in town too." She hoped that she could convince them to go out to dinner and have Lirin forget about her cooking lesson she promised Rowen. "It’s fancy, so you’d have to bring your dress up cloths."

        "Sounds like a great idea, Mia!" said Ryo.

        It was unanimous. They would all head to Sage’s father’s dojo and do some sparing. When they were finished they all have a night on the town. Sage called his family to let them know that they were coming. They couldn’t wait to see him again and meet all of his new friends.

        They all piled into Lirin’s Durango since it had more seats and room than Mia’s Jeep, and set their backpacks with their spare cloths in the back storage area. Lirin drove, Sage was in the passenger seat, giving directions, Mia, Ryo, and Rowen were in the middle seat, and Sai and Kento were in the back seat. "This is much nicer then having five of us squished together in Mia’s back seat of the Jeep." Announced Kento.

        "Yeah, your Jeep is nice, Mia, but it just wasn’t made to carry around 7 people." Sage pointed out.

        "I agree. It’s nice having someone else drive for a change too." Mia said and she settled into her seat by the window.

        Within half and hour they were pulling into the dojo’s parking lot. "Park around the back." Sage told Lirin. When they drove around back they saw the house. It was two stories high and moderately sized. Not too big, but not small either. Sage’s family came running out of the house when they saw who it was getting out of the black Durango.

        "Sage!" his mother yelled, running up to hug him. "We’re so glad to see that you’re safe!"

        His father came and put an arm around him. "Good to have yah home again, son."

        Sage’s sisters came running up to him, giggling, and gave him big hugs. Sage was a bit embarrassed at all the attention, but welcomed it. "Hi girls, hi Mom, hi Dad."

        "Well?" his mom asked expectantly.

        "What?" questioned Sage.

        "Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friends?" she ordered.

        "Oh! Yeah, of course!" He pointed to each person as he said their names. "This is Rowen Hashiba of Strata, Sai Mouri of Torrent, Ryo Sanada of Wildfire, Kento Rei Faun of Hardrock, Lirin Star of Cosmos, and Mia Koji. Guys, this is my dad, Iroko, my mom, Sandy, my older sister, Elizabeth—"

        "Please, call me Lizzy." She interrupted.

        "and my younger sister, Katrina." Sage finished.

        "You can call me Kat." She told them.

        Iroko Date was tall, with the same build as his son. He had dark raven black hair that was in a ponytail and had the same ice blue/violet eyes as sage. Sandy Date was about the same size as Mia. She had short curly blond hair and dark blue eyes. Lizzy was the same height as her mother and had her father’s raven hair and her mother’s dark blue eyes. She was two years older than Sage. Kat was younger than sage by 3 years and was about 3 inches shorter than her sister. She had the same curly blond hair, which was puled back in a ponytail, as her mother and her father’s ice blue/violet eyes. She looked almost exactly like sage, the only difference being the height and gender.

        "You all can come in and change into your karate outfits in the house." said Sensei Iroko. He was eager to see how good of fighters the other Ronin Warriors were. They all grabbed their backpacks out of Lirin’s car and headed into the house to change. Sage took the guys to his room so they could change and Lirin went into the bathroom. Before Lirin stepped into the bathroom to change though, Lizzy came up to her and asked, "Lirin, did you want to borrow a shirt to put under the top? I know that I get a little uncomfortable wearing the top without one. They just weren’t made for girls if you know what I mean." She smiled.

        Lirin grinned back. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Thanks for the considerate offer, but I’ve brought a shirt with me for that reason." And she headed into the bathroom to change. She was the last to come out and the rest waited for her before going into the dojo. When she came out they saw she had a black tight shirt under her top to match her belt. "Okay. I’m ready." She announced, putting her hair up into a thick bun so that it wouldn’t get in the way.

        When they got to the dojo, they were deciding who would face off with whom. "I’ll face off with Kento." Lirin said. She still wanted to beat the crap out of him for throwing that bucket of ice water on her this morning.

        The guys knew what she was thinking and decided that for the sake of Kento’s life they wouldn’t pair the two of them up, much to Lirin’s disappointment. In the end they decided that Sai would go with Kento, Rowen with Ryo, and Lirin would spar with Sage. Even though Sage was the best of them all, and even though they had never seen Lirin fight, they felt that she could handle him. Sage readily agreed with the arrangements, he liked the idea of sparing with the lovely Lirin. Lirin however, was a little uncomfortable with sparing with Sage, for the same reason Sage liked the idea of sparing with her. ‘Oh well.’ she thought. ‘At least I can slug him if he makes a move.’ At this thought she brightened up a bit.

        Kento and Sai were the first to fight. The rest sat on the bleachers and watched. Sai was calm and collected, while Kento was a stick of dynamite ready to explode. Sai knew exactly what buttons to push and Kento soon exploded. Sai knew that when Kento got really mad he didn’t think strait, and as a result, Sai won the match. Next up where Ryo and Rowen. Ryo was a little more skilled when it came to hand to hand combat that Rowen was, and even though the match lasted a while, Ryo still came out the victor.

        Then it was Sage and Lirin’s turn. Everyone had been looking forward to this. They all wanted to see how Lirin did in hand to hand combat. From the way she moved they could tell she was like a cat: quick, and agile. "Cunning and deadly too." she had told them. They would soon find out. Sage and Lirin bowed to each other and took up defensive stances. They started circling around, both waiting for the other to make the first move. Lirin made it by running towards him, acting like she was gonna punch him in the face. Sage brought up his arms to block the punch, but it never came. He felt a tap on his shoulder and he swung a punch around. He saw Lirin dodge the punch with incredible speed. "Common Sage, you can do better than that!" she taunted.

        She and Sage continued to toy with one another and finally Kento yelled, "Come on you guys! Stop playing around! We wanna see some action!"

        "What do yah say Lirin? Should we give em what they want?" Sage asked with a gleam in his eye. As far as he was concerned he was sick of playing around as well.

        "Sure, why not?" replied Lirin with a shrug.

        "Good." Sage moved in to deliver a strong kick to her stomach, but Lirin grabbed his foot, causing Sage to drop to the floor. Sage landed on the palms of his hands and tried to kick Lirin’s legs out from under her with his other leg. She let go of his foot and back flipped, dodging the kick. She then jumped up and sent out a kick to his face, but he ducked and she went over his head. She turned around in the air and landed facing him and blocked as he tried to through a punch.

        "That’s more like it." Said Kento. They were all waiting for one of them to make contact with the other. It finally happened when Lirin went to punch Sage in the stomach, faking it with her left, but actually punching with her right. She was just too quick for him and Sage didn’t have time to block the punch and doubled over as her fist nailed him in the stomach. She then kneed him hard in the chin. He grabbed the ankle of the leg she had kneed him with and she landed on her palms the same way he had, only instead of trying to nock his feat out from under him like he had, she delivered another kick to the jaw with her free leg and flipped over backwards to land on her feet again. Sage was getting a little angry now that she had three hits on him and he didn’t have any on her. When she punched out at his face again he grabbed her hand and went to flip her. She however grabbed his wrist while being thrown over him, landed on her feet, and through him halfway across the room.

        "I love that move." she grinned wickedly. "Works every time."

        Their sparring when on for quite sometime. Both were getting tired of fighting each other and wanted to stop, so they started dishing out the hard stuff. Lirin got some kicks and punches in on Sage, and Sage got some in on her. In the end, Lirin won when she nailed Sage with her special, not to mention super hard, ‘jump and spin’ kick, throwing him up against the wall of the area and almost knocking him out.

        Sage was a good looser, although is pride was a bit hurt. "You’ll have to teach me that move where you flipped me after I flipped you. Not to mention that whammy kick of yours." he said rubbing his jaw.

        Lirin was a good winner, and didn’t rub in Sage’s defeat. "Be glad to Sage." She said bowing again.

When they came over to everyone on the bleachers, Lirin was congratulated. Sensei Iroko was particularly impressed. "You fight very well young lady." he praised.

        "Thank you, Sensei. It means a lot to me to hear you say that."

        "Why don’t you all hit the showers now?" Mrs. Date asked. "Mia’s told me that you all are going out to town after this and I’m sure you’ like to clean up. There are three bathrooms you can use, ours, Sage’s, and the girls’. You boys’ll have to take turns, but Lirin you can go ahead and use the girls’ bathroom now, it’s the same one you changed in earlier."

        They all headed towards the bathrooms to clean up and change again.