Rose (AST)

**Rose** is an Italian fortune teller who wields a mysterious form of energy known as Soul Power.

## Appearance

Rose is a tall woman with long, purple, wavy hair that flows outward horizontally, with a large, zigzag forelock. She has violet eyes, a fair complexion, and a small mouth with full lips. Most official artworks of Rose make her appear to be pursing her lips.

She wears a loose, red evening gown with a belt and large gold buttons; a violet top with matching tights or stockings under her gown; a set of red high heels; and a large, golden scarf around her shoulders and arms. By channeling her mysterious Soul Power through it, she is able to make the scarf glow and wield it as a weapon. Strangely, her cleavage is easily visible through her top.

## Personality

Rose is a serene, respectful, intelligent, and independent woman who muses quite a lot on destiny and fate. Wise and sophisticated, she is not prone to anger easily, and has a very calm demeanor, even in battle. She states that power is nothing without skill and that she must continue on her path, even if it means to give up her life for the greater good.

Rose’s ultimate quest was to stop M. Bison at all cost. However that sense of impending doom she felt wasn’t her death, but her joining with him. Even then Rose did not forget that quest. Though she couldn't stop him directly as his part of her soul was too powerful. That didn’t mean she couldn’t weaken M. Bison.

Sadly while it worked and led to his ultimate demise, M. Bison was in Rose’s body for months. Due to his corrupting influence Rose began to slowly transform into the very thing that she had been trying to stop. As a way to cope she deluded herself into believing that Bison’s soul hadn’t been destroyed and he used the remains still held within her body to retake control of her. When in actuality Rose had become the very evil that she despised.

## History

### Background

A fortune teller from Genoa, Rose sensed that Doomsday was approaching, and that a person of great evil was causing it. She found the source of evil in M. Bison and defeated him, believing that she had rid the world of him for good. Unfortunately, by reading her tarot cards, she discovered M. Bison was still alive.

Sometime before facing M. Bison, she somehow encountered Akuma, noticing that his power was the same power Ryu used in his fateful Shoryuken against Sagat. Akuma promptly told her to leave but reacted with anger after Rose realizes who Akuma is, telling her to perish. The two fought and Rose was able to survive their battle.

Rose learned that, despite being a natural-born human, she shared some of M. Bison's soul. Facing M. Bison once more, she rammed her fist through his chest and channeled all of her Soul Power into his body, to no avail.

Rose, passed out from complete exhaustion, was soon found by Guy, who she met earlier when he was pursuing Shadaloo. When M. Bison was eventually defeated by Ryu, destroying his body in the process, Bison's soul went to the Psycho Drive; Charlie sacrificed his life in an attempt to destroy it but was unsuccessful. Bison then made Rose a temporary host of his soul by entering her body.

M. Bison's soul stayed in and controlled Rose's body until a new, albeit weaker, body was made for him during the time of the second World Warrior tournament. This was because Rose deliberately kept a small connection between the two which compromised his power. Her gambit worked. His powers were considerably weakened through that connection left between them. When M. Bison encountered Akuma during the second World Warrior tournament, he was easily overwhelmed with the Raging Demon, which destroyed his soul as well.

Sadly that connection left just as much of a corrupting influence on her as it did on Bison. This caused Rose to start to believe that Bison had somehow survived and regained control over her body. When actuality she had merely succumbed to the dark influence of Psycho Power.

### Story

With Ryu proving to be incompatible and unwilling to face off against Akuma M. Bison was in search for a new host body. She is currently working with the Doctor to find a stable user of the Dark-Hado. Someone who had not yet embraced the power enough to become dangerous, yet is still open to it. She learned of Kasumi Tendo’s existence while surveilling Sakura who she set her sights on once Sakura proved incompatible.

Unfortunately while Kasumi was a master of the Hadoken her personality made incompatible with its chaotic counterpart. Fortunately Neko-Kasumi was not nearly as disciplined. The Doctor needed time to re-equip the facilities to be able to contain Kasumi so that they could run test on her, so she left Shadow Lady in his care. Bison’s impatience at wanting to get a knew body caused her to pretty much ignore the Doctor as he explained the precautions he was taking for Kasumi’s eventual arrival. Though she still made sure to get the extra muscle that he requested in the form of Shadow. This prompted the Doctor what would happen to Rose once he transfers his soul to Kasumi. Fortunately and unfortunately Rose would becoming with him because at this point their souls were fused, so attempted to leave her behind would lead to the transfer failing. His only consolation was thinking what he would with her empty shell of a body.

When the last attempt to induce the Dark Ha Do within Kasumi failed the Doctor realized that he needed a gentler dosage, meant to activate more slowly. He tested out during her fight with Copycat Ken giving it to them both and it proved successful. With that they two sent Shadow and Shadow Lady to go retrieve her. Believing that Shampoo might be useful the Doctor suggested that they retrieve her as well. While they were able to retrieve Kasumi the others managed to prevent Shampoo’s kidnapping so Bison ordered them to forget about it. Despite the Doctor’s concerns she also ordered them to bring Sailor Moon back who had managed to catch up with them after they had escaped the others.

Because of Rose’s order not to harm Kasumi, the Doctor wasn’t able to invoke the Dark Ha Do within her despite his insistence that he could. Not only was she able to adapt to what he could do, but was able to eventually figure out what he couldn’t and stop fighting him all together. They were left with only one option bringing in Shampoo as a new variable.

Since she was being guarded due to their earlier attack Rose ordered Shadow Moon to be sent along with Shadow and Shadow Lady as she wouldn’t be expected. Warning the doctor that continued failure could become quite uncomfortable for him. Despite the Doctor’s worry that she wasn’t ready Shadow Moon performed spectacularly. When Saki returned with a group of fighter to rescue the two while annoyed the Doctor assured Rose that they wouldn’t get far with the magical wards in place. That view changed when he watched Frost blast through a door which she shouldn’t be able to do. He realized that she must have had one of the neutralizing keys. With about 20 minutes estimated before the group found the stones, Rose ordered for Shadow, Shadow Lady and Shadow Moon to stop or delay them.

Kasumi finally succame to the Dark Ha Do when the Doctor placed Shampoo in a room filling with poisonous gas, causing Kasumi to need its power to set her free. It was here that Rose finally introduced herself to Kasumi and revealed that she not the Doctor was the progenitor of everything that had happened. With this Kasumi vowed to kill Rose and attacked. Rose however merely smiled and thought to herself, At last!

Bison ended up transferring his soul into Kasumi’s body, using the same nanites used to control Shadow, Shadow Lady, and Shadow Moon to force her into her subconscious. Her experience with Psycho Power also allowed her to control the Dark Ha Do without going berserk. Taking the com –device from Rose’s body Bison-Kasumi put it on just as Ranma, Herb, Saki and Kuno arrived. Bison-Kasumi saw this as the perfect opportunity to test out her new abilities.

She made disgustingly short work of them. Kuno was the first to go down followed by Saki. Herb and Ranma did little better. Despite the situation the pair found themselves in, and very real danger it posed, neither found it easy to fight Kasumi seriously. That hesitation cost them dearly as Bison-Kasumi had no such reservations about attacking them. She was in the process of slowly suffocating Herb as Ranma tried to stop her when the building self destruct sequence was activated by the Doctor. Throwing Herb-chan into Ranma Bison-Kasumi over road the Doctors command of Shadow Moon and ordered her to kill him.

With 18 minutes left until the building was destroyed she ordered the other Senshi to be killed as well knowing there was no longer any time to gain control of them. As she was waiting for Shadow Moon to return to her the rest of the fighters finally arrived. She was happy to see that Chun Li was amongst them. Bison-Kasumi made just as short of them, and as she walked over their fallen bodies she complained about how easy it was while picking up Chun LI.

Chun Li tried to get Kasumi to come back to her senses and with 15 minutes before the building self-destructed, Bison-Kasumi felt that was enough time to explain who she was. Chun Li looked on in shock at this, as did the few who were still conscious. Kasumi was the perfect vessel for him, not only was she fully corrupted by the Dark Ha Do hat combined with the nanites meant she wouldn’t fight things like Cammy did. For one final insult she explained how Shadow AND Shadow Lady were imprinted with her and Charlie Nash’s memory, though replacing the later in for the authentic model would be satisfying.

She was distracted from celebrating her victory by Kuno telling her that he would free Kasumi, even if it killed him. Bison-Kasumi only replied that it might. Only after the sudden outburst of energy in the building, caused by Usagi shattering her crystal to escape the nanobots control, was Kasumi finally stopped as her true personality started to fight that possessing her. This gave Ranko and the others the opportunity to aid those fallen, including Shampoo, finding her barely breathing. Bison wasn’t that worried fully expecting to be able to subjugate her again. However much to her confusion Kasumi wasn’t the least bit worried, and after telling her that she had already given her the key to her defeat she looked Bison in the eye and asked her to leave.

However, after Kasumi cast out the possessing mind, Rose furious to find herself back in her own body would attack them, nearly finishing them off, even threatening Shampoo, but Kasumi recovered and faced off with her, allowing the others to escape. Much to her annoyance kasumi proved to be a very persistent opponent, able to match her move for move, dodging her every attempt at attack, and thwarting her every attempt to outmaneuver her. With two minutes left until self destruct Rose tried a different approach and transported them both to the sub-dimensional plain. It was the perfect battlefield. As a path by which the world's energy passes the two were closer to that energy than anywhere else. So not only would there not be any interruption, their powers would be at their fullest here.

Rose attempted to finish Kasumi off with a Psycho Blast, only for her to deflect it back with a Soul Reflect, which she barely managed to avoid. It seemed that brief period after Kasumi escaped her mental prison some of Rose’s memories merged with her. There was for Kasumi to learn most of her Soul techniques. While she knew Psycho Power as well its vile nature made it incompatible with her. As shocking as this was Rose wasn’t worried as she was fully aware of the limits of Soul Power, allowing her to easily over power it. Not to mention the fact that Kasumi was starting to show signs of exhaustion.

Luckily that was not the only thing that Kasumi had learned. The first was that the Dark Ha Do wasn’t the natural progression of the Ha Do, it was just the one that was easier to embrace. For there to be darkness, there must be light as well. Rose could only watch in shock as Kasumi used her centering to gather energies more in tune with herself. The second thing that Kasumi had learned was that Rose was not actually Bison. Rose attacked Kasumi in a blind rage as she explained this, but it did little to stop her.

Attempting to prove her wrong Rose unleashed her Psycho Crusher and this did have and affect. The impact was tremendous, and Kasumi was sent flying, the psycho energy coursing over her, attempting to overwhelm her senses. But with a force of will, Kasumi rebalanced her energies and purged herself of it before once more turning to Rose who was once more confident.

Rose began taunting Kasumi that even with her new power the only way she will win is by killing her, which is what she wanted even if she wasn’t able to admit it. Weathering the enraged Rose’s attack ignoring the pain it caused Kasumi gathered her energies, and at the right moment unleashed the Heaven's Ascension. The light counterpart to the Satsui no Hado. Rose could only look on in shock as all the energies of the Light Ha Do poured into her.

When it was all over Kasumi was left completely spent with Rose laid unmoving but breathing. If it wasn’t for Sorora leading Sailor Uranus to them, because she was fascinated by Kasumi’s mercy the two would have died. Kasumi insisted that she, Shadow and Shadow Lady be let go, explaining how Bison had corrupted her. Chun Li insisted the three be taken in for observation, and though reluctant agreed to cut them loose if what Kasumi said was correct. Rose broke down into tears upon regaining consciousness as she came to terms with everything she had done.

Much to her frustration Rose’s divination eventually led her back to Nerima. She made where way to San Cheng Huang where needless to say she didn’t receive a warm welcome. Ranma and Herb were shocked by her presence, while Shampoo and Makoto just looked on in puzzlement having never met her. Rose was led there because she sensed sensed Kasumi would be in some form of deep distress, it turns out that Kasumi now demonstrated a new personality, that of 'Tex'. Though Rose tried to tell them that she was there to help they weren’t going to allow her anywhere near Kasumi. It wasn’t until the arrival Crystal who reminded them that no one with ill intentions could enter the pocket dimension that they decided to trust her.

Herb informed her that Tex appeared after rescuing a kidnapped Lemon though he didn’t go into full detail. Genma explained that he first appeared after the Nekoken training and again after Haruka. As Rose considered the situation, a new personality displayed itself, and Rose put Kasumi asleep, directing them to take her to her room. There, after examining her, Rose said she could not locate Kasumi's normal personality, much to everyone's alarm. She suggested Kasumi might be hiding and offered to send them into Kasumi's mind to locate her. Ranma was ready to go, but Herb interjected to make sure there weren’t any risk. There were but it was equally as dangerous so they had no choice. Ranma still didn’t trust Rose, so she offered to allow herself to be bound and stated she would accept any punishment deemed fit should things go awry. Seeing that she was sincere Ranma let things go. Though Mint and Lime were still called in to watch over her.

After some discussion, they decided to go ahead, and Shampoo, along with Herb, Makoto, Ukyo, Genma and Ranma all went in. The group proved successful causing everyone to wake up including Kasumi who wondered how she got there. Later Kasumi offered Rose to stay the night but since it was almost dawn anyway and she came simply to repay a debt she declined having other obligations. Before she left she warned Kasumi that Bison was still alive advising her to stay out of it as she was still vulnerable to the influence of the Dark Ha Do. They would also discuss the matter of the mysterious door in Kasumi.