Prologue
All across the multiverse there are a number of constants: certain events that have to happen, certain people that have to be born, and certain truths that are impossible to change. The Silver Millennium must fall; Julius Caesar must be born; a certain pair of wandering martial artists must find trouble where ever they go. It is the how and why behind these constants that creates the differences between the realities of the multiverse. In a world where the Moon Kingdom falls, but without Her Royal Majesty Queen Serenity's interference to send the Sailor Soldiers forwards through time, magical girls of all types take up the calling. In a world where Julius Caesar never came to power, the Roman Republic would never become the Empire, and would eventually fall to Greek control, yet he would still remain a pivotal figure in history.
However, neither of these eventualities came to be in the timeline that this particular Sailor Pluto watched over. The Silver Millennium fell, and Serenity sent her mightiest soldiers forwards. Julius Caesar became the first Roman Emperor. While these events are important to the ultimate outcome of the timeline, it is the two wandering martial artists that held the Guardian's attention. A little nudge here, a little twitch there... and Saotome Genma took his young son far away from Japan in order to correct a mistake of his own making.
The chaos inherent in Saotome Ranma's blood may have prevented her from looking in on him directly, but Sailor Pluto could well understand the effects this boy could have on the timeline. Preventing the Cat Fist training's inevitable conclusion led to unknown endings for the boy, but that was far better for the universe as a whole than to have him finally succumb in his adult years and tear Tokyo to pieces. For that was the true curse of the technique: eventually the trainee would fall. No student of the technique had ever survived unscathed, and those that had seemed blissfully resilient, those who had escaped with their lives and their sanity in tact... even they would eventually fall.
Cats were and are, after all, a beloved pet of many humans. Something would trigger the training, and at that point all was lost.
Sailor Pluto could not allow that to happen and thus she had set Genma on a path that would lead him to Ireland. It would lead him to a solution, however ancient and barely understood, that would allow for a modicum of control over the cat that lived within his son's soul.
Now, if only he hadn't managed to lose the boy halfway through the ritual.
The child could not have been any older than eight years, although it was somewhat difficult to tell. He was crouched in the middle of the street and calmly licking the blood from one hand, looking for all appearances like a content cat. His black hair fell in oily clumps around his surprisingly lean face, his eyes warmly unfocused. It was a far cry from the look of beastly fear that had gleamed within their depths when he had first set his eyes upon this child.
He, himself, was only twelve years old and it was with a vacant smile that the older boy approached the younger one. His golden eyes shone with the faintest edge of madness; the beginnings of a cold rage that could warp and twist a man in ways most unholy. "Hello kitty-cat..."
The boy looked up at him with a start, back arching and confirming to the twelve year old that his mind was definitely elsewhere; somewhere inhuman, somewhere feral and dark. A slight hiss escaped the boy's lips.
"I won't hurt you, kitty-cat..."
The pale haired preteen was not afraid, despite having seen the way that the feral child had torn a rather large bird into pieces and then had eaten it raw. Oh no; the fact was that he was absolutely fascinated by this dark haired boy, in a way that nothing else had caught his attention before. He had watched the way that the blood splattered across the grass, across the child's tattered rags that may have once been a karate gi, and across his slanted Asian features, and he had been enthralled. There was something just so beautiful within the violence, and it called out to him.
The Irish boy held out his hand, and the child slipped towards him on all fours, sniffing at the air warily. Even those few movements were enough to keep the preteen captivated, and he licked his lips as he crouched down. "What are you doing way out here little kitty?"
There was no answer from the younger boy, but that had been the expected response in the first place. Feral children didn't know how to talk until they were taught... at least, that is what that programme he had once seen had told him. The programme had also claimed that feral children were rather rare, and this was something that he wasn't ready to give up on. With his hand still extended, he shuffled a little closer to the child. "Hmm. Well kitty, I'm Jei. Do you wanna come home with me?"
Truly, he should have asked his mother whether or not he could get a pet, but he also suspected that she would not consent to a real cat let alone a feral child. Besides, her argument the last time he'd asked for a pet was that he wasn't responsible enough to take care of another living being-- this would show her! He would take care of this boy-cat; teach him to hunt the birds that his sister always complained about, teach him about God and about the Savior, and then he would have both a best friend and a pet.
Apparently the boy-cat saw no reason not to trust him, and so rubbed his head against Jei's side. The pale haired preteen bounced to his feet with a wide smile, and began to head down the road towards his home. As had been expected, the curious kitten of a boy followed after him, and Jei decided that he really needed a name for the feral child. "I think I'm going to call you Kitty. You'll be my pet, alright? And we'll hunt those stupid birds together; won't that be fun?" He paused in thought for a second, and then nodded firmly, "I'm probably going to have to get you a collar, Kitty, but that shouldn't be too hard! I've seen come adults wearing collars. Strange people, those." Kitty gave an odd rumbling purr that human vocal cords just should not have been able to make, as though he were agreeing with Jei.
"And we'll have to get you cleaned up. Mother doesn't like it when I get blood in the house. Well, mother doesn't care much for blood at all. I think it's beautiful! The essence of the life that God gave us, how could you not like it?" Jei continued to prattle on to Kitty all about his family and his fascination with blood, with pain, and with hurting things.
Jei's celebration of having a "pet", however, did not last long. His mother, as expected, had quite forcefully refused to allow the blood splattered child into her home. She would not have something so... so... here she had just given an inarticulate sound and screeched at Jei to take the boy back to whatever hovel he'd dug Kitty out of.
The preteen had stormed out in a huff, with Kitty growling at his mother before he followed after his new friend. Jei had proceeded to find a small place for Kitty to sleep at the edge of his family's property, and pushed the boy-cat into the space. "Now, Kitty, you can't stay with me in the house, but you can stay here and I'll take care of you."
And so it went, for two weeks, as Jei cared for Kitty and grew accustomed to having the feral child dogging at his heels everywhere he went-- well, at least, every where he went so long as his mother wasn't around. The Irish boy had even found an old dog collar to put around his pet's neck, having painstakingly carved "Kitty" in a small silvery piece of metal. The tag had been fasted to the collar by way of a piece of thick, sturdy string.
With the sun beating down on them, Jei and Kitty made their way into the middle of the market. The other people who had come out to do their shopping gave both boys a wide berth, having already witnessed one of Kitty's more "amazing" abilities. Jei, of course, was the only one to call the ability to slash through anything with his curled claw-like fingers amazing; the rest of the population of the town considered it to be absolutely terrifying, and a sign of the devil within the child. Jei had very loudly refused to believe such rumors about his "pet".
It wasn't like either of the boys had come to the market with the intent to purchase anything; it was simply the easiest place to begin a "hunt" for proper food. Kitty had been fed an almost steady diet of meats, either cooked or raw it didn't matter to Kitty, along side the numerous insects Jei had managed to scrounge up for him. Today, they intended to hunt down something a bit more substantial, and where better to go than the market?
"There you are, Boy!" barked a rather loud voice in Japanese. Jei ignored it, but Kitty... Kitty stiffened and pulled back from Jei a bit. His back was arched and he was hissing with as much force he was capable of. This was a rather unusual reaction, and so Jei turned to figure out what was wrong. Apparently, it was the heavyset and balding Asian man wearing a dirty karate gi that had come up behind them that was setting Kitty off.
The man frowned a Jei before dismissing him as inconsequential and grabbing Kitty by the back of his new shirt. "H-HEY! Leave Kitty alone!"
The large man muttered something in Japanese, and then attempted to express his opinion in English, "He my son. I do what want with him."
Jei growled, not liking this turn of events one bit. With barely a thought, he sprang at the man in a wild attempt to take back his Kitty, and it was with a negligible movement that the man batted him right out of the air. The pale boy slammed back into a stone wall, coughing up blood as his head cracked roughly against it. Jei shook out his head, while momentarily surprised by the sheer lack of pain that he had expected from the impact. Sure, he didn't hurt all that easily, but even he had thought that slamming into a wall would hurt.
When he managed to orientate himself once again, Kitty and the large man had vanished. An unintelligible roar of fury welled up in his throat, and he let loose. The man had taken his Kitty. Kitty was his! Someone was going to pay for this...!
False Identity
Li Xiang/The Itch
Chapter One
Their friendship had started fairly simply.
After the disaster that had been the Wedding Attempt, Ranma had needed some time to himself; time to unwind in a place where he wouldn't--couldn't!-- be interrupted, and that place was most definitely not Nerima prefecture. Of course therein lay the major problem: if he were to just up and leave they would follow. If he claimed that he was going on a training trip they would follow. If he said that he was visiting his mother they would follow... all of this he had learned from unfortunate experience, and it was starting to drive him batty. There was only so much one man could take and he was realizing that there was just no real way to relax while he had to deal with it all.
Finally he had caved in to the little niggling thoughts and doubts in the back of his mind and made his way to Nabiki. He refused to call it a defeat, instead preferring to think of it as a tactical retreat. His latest attempt to get time to himself had been a rather disastrous attempt at a "training trip". "Disastrous" as he had been repeatedly jumped and attacked by rivals and fiancees alike; the kicker was that almost every time the resulting property damage was blamed solely on him and the other combatants got off scot-free. He just couldn't do it anymore.
The deal made with Nabiki was a fairly simple one, and Ranma had to wonder why he hadn't gone to her sooner. Yes, she had charged a modest fee for her help but it wasn't as high as it could have been; actually it was surprisingly low, although that was likely to do with the deal they had struck up. Instead of selling any and all information she had on his whereabouts to his personal stalkers club, Nabiki would claim that he was out running errands for her in an attempt to work off his debt. The beautiful thing about that was that it was part real and part false. He wasn't working off his debt, but he was running errands for her. Completing those errands would mean he only had to pay a fraction of the cost she wanted for keeping up on the deal.
So on many of the occasions that the ruse had been called for, he really had been out picking up this item or that paper for Nabiki. It was just that the errands didn't take as long as he was pretending that they did; suddenly, his reputation for being slow at anything other than martial arts was helping him.
While this method of misdirection certainly didn't stop the fiancees or the rivals or any number of individuals from looking for him without Nabiki's aid they had to rely on any information that they could get out of others. As Nerima was Nabiki's territory what that meant was that even that scarce information was what she had fed them, and so Ranma found himself with time to just sit back and de-stress. The easiest time for him to go and do that was while on errands that took him outside of Nerima and into other districts of Tokyo. This was also a bonus for Nabiki; while she was the "top dog" in Nerima, she was also trying to keep low and out of sight of the Yakuza. The presence of several super powered martial artists hid her within the prefecture, but once outside of that it was necessary to use others to do her dirty work.
She had no desire to get involved in the style of life the Yakuza preferred, despite her dabbling, and Ranma's request for assistance had been just the thing that she'd been looking for.
With the deal settled and brought into play, the end result was Ranma taking up some more relaxing kata in a park in Juuban every third Sunday. The use of kata was, for Ranma at least, more of a form of meditation than of actual practice. The specifics of the School of Indiscriminate Grappling did not lend itself well to structured katas when one considered that the style was based around the "anything goes" tenant of fighting. No, the katas that he practiced were from other schools of martial arts. Usually these were the schools that he boasted his skill and mastery of despite never having officially taken any mastery tests-- Genma had tended to wear out his welcome before they could get to that point.
Of course, it wasn't enough that he could claim that he had a certain level of skill: there was always someone out there that had wanted to test it, and therefore, to test him. It would be easy enough to defeat them with his family's school and put down any thought that he wasn't skilled enough to back up his boasts, that wasn't the point of these challenges. He was being called out on his mastery of a specific style and in order to defeat the challenger he had to restrict himself to that style without dipping into his personal bag of tricks. It had quickly become his favorite kind of challenge after everything he had been through. These were the normal standard styles of fighting. They weren't esoteric or bizarre; just branches of karate or aikido, judo or tae kwon do, wu shu or... well, the list went on.
So he tried to keep his skills up in the entire school and not just his favorite moves from it. This was far more difficult than it sounded as he knew a phenomenal number of moves; blocks and attacks and so many different schools, while his own school borrowed and stole from them. Keeping them all straight and separate could give him a headache if he wasn't careful.
That was why when he did kata he slipped into a meditative state. His body knew the movements. It knew how to turn and how to block or punch or kick. If he tried to think about it, he would inevitably wind up changing the kata into something else. So he didn't think, he just let his body follow the flow of a kata he had learned long ago, and let his muscle memory do what it was supposed to. Practicing this way also helped him to recall what each school taught, and it was a relaxing feeling to just let his mind drift in that blissful place while he let his body move through those well known motions...
It was because of his meditative kata, and because he was in that specific park, that he met Kirisaki Nobuyuki.
It wasn't unusual for Ranma to draw a crowd while he was practicing, and he tended to tune out the whispers and murmurs that accompanied them. The day that the two men met was really no different, although there seemed to be a few less people around than normal. This was likely to do with the amount of force he was putting into the kata; it was from one of the styles that stressed upper body work than leg work. With the emphasis on the arms and torso Ranma had rooted himself to the spot and started pounding at the air with slow but powerful attacks.
It wasn't a style that suited him. However, it was one that he had been neglecting for a long time; almost since he had come to Nerima if he was being honest with himself. With techniques like the Chestnut Fist working their way into his repertoire, it just wasn't necessary to put the level of effort and power into his blows that this school required. In many cases the repeated medium strength blows of the Chestnut Fist did far more damage than a few full strength ones. That said today he just needed that level of release. He needed to feel the strength in his arms. He needed to know that he could still lay a man out without ever having to resort to those "fancy tricks" and special techniques that had started to make up the core of his personal style.
There was a rhythm to this particular kata, and it was an easy one to fall into despite the disuse. He allowed himself to just drift off, floating on the currents of the murmuring spectators and the general calmness of the day. He just slipped along a mental pathway, weaving through worries and cares but not allowing himself to focus on them. Today was a day for the art. It was not a day for rivals or fiancees, parents or challengers. It was the pulse of blood and the strain of muscles that he desired, and so he focused himself on that goal.
It was at this point that Ranma became aware of an unusual noise floating up over the murmurs. It wasn't threatening nor was it particularly jarring. It was just a simple "tap-tap-taptap-tap" that mimicked his movements: punch block punch-punch block.
When he twisted into a different kata on the fly, the sound stuttered a bit before it started to follow his movements again. It was hesitant at first, as though still trying to get into the rhythm of it, but that didn't last too long. To Ranma it seemed like the sound had gained confidence, if that was the right way to phrase it, and with the extra little bit of flare this particular kata employed, so too was there just a little more flare to the noise.
No.
Not noise.
Beat.
With his eyes still closed in meditation, he trained his focus outwards, and then began to shake up the kata a bit. A bit more effort and style than his mimicking beat had probably expected was added, and the beat faltered at points where unexpected movies had been thrown in. Ranma was amusing himself with this, specifically attempting to throw the "beat-master" off of his game. Whoever it was, they seemed to be pretty talented as well as determined to keep up with him.
It was probably a good twenty minutes later when Ranma finally brought the "kata" to a close and finished off his little experiment. The drummer gave his own little flare to the end of the "piece" and was grinning like a loon when Ranma finally turned to get a look at him. He stood only a few feet to the left; far enough away not to get hurt unless Ranma was specifically targeting him, but obviously close enough to hear and be heard. "Oh man," the drummer half-laughed, "you are one hell of an inspiration!"
"You're pretty good at that," Ranma grinned back at him; he was always happy to take a compliment, "How'd you manage to keep up with me?"
The drummer tapped his drumsticks on the back of the bench that he had been using to keep time with Ranma. "Practice my friend, practice." At Ranma's snort of disbelief, the drummer clarified with a casual shrug. "I used to do some karate, but I smashed my knee up pretty bad. So I know what sorts of things to look for... but man oh man! You are seriously something else!"
"I'm the best."
"Ha! I don't doubt that!" still grinning, the slightly older man shoved his drumsticks up his sleeve and bowed. "Name's Nobuyuki."
"Ranma," he bowed in return with a smug grin. It was always nice to be acknowledged instead of having to prove it. Granted he had probably already proved it with their little game, but that wasn't the point.
"It's nice to meet ya, Ranma." Nobuyuki grinned, before a glance at his watch had him wincing rather theatrically. "Sorry man. I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm already late for something. See you around!" and he was off like a shot. Well... that's if "shots" included a very obvious limp from his bad knee. Ranma knew well the look of martial arts injuries, and whatever had happened to that knee had to more than just "smashing it up". More than likely he had further damaged whatever had happened by not listening to his doctor. Ranma had also seen that one a few too many times. He was also sure he had seen Nobuyuki around somewhere, but he just couldn't place the man. His clothing and hairstyle were just too "cookie-cutter", allowing him to blend in with half of the men in the park rather easily.
He shook off the thought and then shook his head in amusement as Nobuyuki left; it was only after the man had disappeared out of the park that the Saotome boy realized that his little "game" with Nobuyuki had actually managed to relax him. With a blink of surprise, Ranma slowly bent over and picked up the package that he had been sent out to get for Nabiki. It was time to get back to Nerima; while the day had been pretty interesting in the way that nothing had happened, there was still only so long that he could stall for before he was "needed" back home. The crazies wouldn't stay placated with the "errand for Nabiki" excuse for too long, after all.
That first meeting between Nobuyuki and Ranma had only been the beginning. Three weeks later, Ranma was back in the park practicing his kata. This kata was the opposite of the one he had used those few weeks ago, in that its focus was on the legs; it was all kicks and twists, jumps and flips. As long as he didn't use his arms, it was free game. The kata had originally been designed to keep a fighter going if their arms were paralyzed, broken, or otherwise out of commission.
As with the last time almost halfway through the kata a beat started up, and Ranma let himself grin. Nobuyuki's chuckle let him know that he had seen it, and Ranma decided to just let loose with some of his more impressive leg-based moves. The kata just didn't have enough of that flare, and Ranma was a show off at heart. When he was around people that actually wanted to see what he could do, he just couldn't find it in himself to say no. He also wanted to see how good Nobuyuki could be with those drumsticks of his.
While some of the moves tripped the drummer up, he quickly recovered. Usually this was just in time for Ranma to "up the difficulty". By the time that Ranma finished up his rather extended "kata", Nobuyuki was having some problems with keeping it up. Not because of a lack of skill or a lack of determination, but because he was struggling for air. Laughing that hard just wasn't good for the game that they were playing, although it certainly made it obvious that Nobuyuki was enjoying himself.
With this strange sort of game came a bit of a ritual. Every few weeks, Ranma would go to that park and practice, and Nobuyuki would try to keep time with his drumsticks. When Ranma had once asked him why he did it, Nobuyuki had answered in a way that Ranma could fully support: it was a challenge, and how better to better yourself than with a challenge? After a handful of "sessions", Nobuyuki had invited Ranma over to his apartment to see if Ranma could keep up with Nobuyuki's drumming on a proper drum set.
What Ranma discovered then was that Nobuyuki was frighteningly skilled at beating on those drums. He had been impressive on the back of a park bench; when he got the proper materials to work with, he was an artist of the beat. After that point, the game expanded. Sometimes it was Ranma who would set that pace and Nobuyuki who would play catch up, and sometimes it was Nobuyuki who belted out the beat for Ranma to attempt to match. Either way, Ranma had started to find excuses to head over to Nobuyuki's apartment more often than just every three weeks.
Suspicions had started up within the Nerima contingent, and they very likely would have stormed the apartment looking for whichever "new" girl Ranma was seeing in order to take her out of the competition. Obviously, in their very marriage-centric world view, the girls of Nerima just couldn't even consider Ranma having actual male friends. This was very likely due to the fact that his only male friends in Nerima were Hiroshi and Daisuke, neither of which could really be considered a "friend".
That outcome, however, was circumvented when Nobuyuki stopped by the Tendo Dojo one evening. He had seemed unreasonably nervous about the visit; especially so when one considered that Ranma had done his very best to keep Nobuyuki from learning anything about his life at the dojo. That wasn't including his curse, of course, as uncomfortable as the explanations for that day had been. Nobuyuki just seemed unreasonably tense, and his hand would frequently drift to his bad knee.
"Oh, hello Kirisaki-kun!"
The way that Nobuyuki flinched at Kasumi's greeting had Ranma giving his friend a strange look. Granted, there was also the fact that Kasumi had already known the man before being introduced that added to the strangeness of the situation.
"Ah. Hi Kasu-tan. Long time no see."
"Mm. Not since we graduated." The way that the unmarried housewife smiled beatifically at him also caused a flinch; something that had Nabiki raising an eyebrow as her sister introduced him as one of her former classmates as well as a friend of Ranma's. Now wasn't that a strange coincidence. If there was one thing that Nabiki didn't believe in, it was coincidences. Her sister was up to something, in a way that she hadn't been for years.
"Yeeeeeah. Anyways, I'm here for a reason, not that it's not absolutely wonderful to see you again." Nobuyuki's attempt at mimicking her smile seemed to fall flat, although that was hardly unexpected. Kasumi reached over and patted him consolingly on his shoulder. Well, it looked consoling to Ranma. To Nabiki it looked a bit more mocking.
"And some of us still remember who came out on top in our extra curricular activities." Oh yes, that was definitely mocking. It was a side of Kasumi that Ranma had never seen before, and that Nabiki couldn't remember seeing in her sister since well before Ranma came to live with them. It was a rather disturbing realization.
"Don't say it like that, Kasu-tan!" Nobuyuki groaned. "You make it sound a lot more fun than it really was."
Her cheeks turned faintly pink, and she whacked him lightly; Ranma suddenly had the feeling that he knew exactly where Akane's habit of hitting him had come from. Akane, however, didn't seem to have the same kind of restraint that her older sister did. That was what made all the difference.
"Anyways, Ranma!" Nobuyuki rubbed the back of his neck and turned his attention to his younger friend. "I'm sorry I won't be able to hang out with you this week. Or next week. I'm actually just on my way to the airport and I figured that I ought to let you know before you tried to come over."
"The airport?"
"Yeah, you know that thing with the airplanes and-- ow! Kasu-tan!" he scowled at the normally non-violent sister and rubbed where she had whacked his shoulder.
"There's no need to tease, Kirisaki-kun." it was said with that same sweet smile that Ranma knew, and the tone was light and cheerful. Yet, there was a strange edge to the words, and it made Ranma realize that he had never actually seen Kasumi interact with any of her friends. It was mostly either Akane's girl friends from school, or it was his entourage that popped up in the house.
"You didn't have to hit that hard, though. Right. Uh, well, basically I'm going to be out of the country for a little while, so we're going to have to hold off on practice. Sorry man."
"Nah, it's alright." and it was; Ranma felt more relaxed than he had been in a very long time. A couple of weeks would be nothing compared to the months of stressful havoc from before the attempted wedding. He could use the time for other things; things that he had been putting off for a while.
"Cool, cool. Oh and I'll be bringing someone back with me."
Ranma felt a chill run down his spine, and he gave the man a flat stare. His voice was flat and dry as he half-grumbled "If it's a mail order bride, I'm disowning you."
"You can't disown me! And would I do that?"
The echoed "Yes" from Kasumi was cause enough for him to pout at her. "Why do you always do that?"
"Because you never learn," she chirped, before getting back to what she had been doing before Nobuyuki had arrived: cleaning up the afternoon tea. It was a clear dismissal from the undeclared head of the household, and Ranma shook his head. It was pretty obvious that Nobuyuki and Kasumi had some sort of history, but he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to get into the mess that his friend's expression promised it to be. It was kinda neat to see a different side of Kasumi, though.
"Just drop it, Nobuyuki. Go have some fun."
"Oh I fully intend to!" the grin on Nobuyuki's face was one that would haunt Ranma's nightmares as it looked frighteningly like some of the expressions that Happosai liked to use.
With Nobuyuki gone, the time that Ranma had intended to spend over at his place had left him at a bit of a lose end. That was likely why he had dug out some of the scrolls he had been given or stumbled across during his ten year training trip, and had sprawled himself on the couch in the Tendou living room. He was fairly oblivious to his surroundings, so when Nabiki came up behind him he only noticed so much as to recognize that she wasn't a physical danger to him, and he proceeded to ignore her. Generally speaking, ignoring Tendou Nabiki could be very bad for one's health, but it was an unintentional slightly. The scroll he had picked up had captured his attention quite thoroughly, and when Nabiki spoke up it started him out of his thoughts.
"Would you care to explain this, Ranma?"
The martial artist looked up from the training scroll and blinked somewhat owlishly at his possible future sister-in-law. While it wasn't often that he found something that he considered to be worth the time to read, when he did find it being interrupted was no little bit jarring, and it took him a few minutes to focus on Nabiki. She was standing over him with that looked like an old leather strap dangling from the tip of her index finger. It was dusty and stiff from years of neglect, but the metal tag roughly lashed to it glinted in the early evening light.
"Where..." Ranma had to lick his lips, his mouth having gone dry as soon as his mind registered just what it was that she was actually holding. His voice was a bit hoarse as he continued. "Where did you find... that?" He was reaching for the strap without thought, barely even registering the movement himself. Nabiki, on the other hand, raised an eyebrow in question and moved a few steps back and out of his reach. While Ranma was certainly fast enough to have snatched the piece right out of her hands, the fact that he didn't was so very interesting. If he'd really wanted it, he'd have taken it, especially considered how she hadn't really been holding on to the piece.
"One thousand yen," she half purred through a smirk, and it sent a jolt of surprise through her when Ranma reacted more like Kunou to the demand. That is to say that he didn't even think about checking how much he had given her; he simply dug it out of his pocket and thrust it into her hands. On any other occasion, he would have been rather intent on keeping what little money he had away from her, but right now... right now he was completely and unnaturally intent on the old leather.
"It was in Genma's things," she stated rather offhandedly as a gleam of greed entered her eye. Nabiki felt no guilt in going through the older Saotome's belongings. Since he'd moved back in with Nodoka, Nabiki felt that anything he had left behind was free game; and this little piece of it had netted her nearly six thousand yen! For that amount, she'd given him a few freebies. To be honest, she hadn't expected him to have even five hundred yen on him. If it had been anyone else, she very likely would have been content to leave them high and dry, but Ranma was family.
Her mind returned to the present quickly, and she shrugged. "It was in a box labeled with your name; a curio box, I believe. It contained your baby teeth and some old clothes for the most part. You haven't answered my question. Why would this be included with those others?"
"It's..." Ranma felt... nervous. For the first time in a long time, he was nervous. He didn't really have an explanation for this, especially not one that would make any real sense, despite what he knew to be true. So, in a tactical move he rarely applied, he took a moment to gather his thoughts and distracted himself by scrubbing the accumulated dust off of the strap with the inside of his shirt. Nabiki tapped her foot impatiently, and Ranma gave her a rather hard look. "Explaining this is... hard. About eight years ago I... slipped. Jei-sama found me, took me in, and called me his own."
"Whoa, whoa. Hold up there Saotome. Jei-sama?" Since when did Ranma have respect for anyone outside of himself, let alone enough to call someone "-sama"?
"Dunno his full name," Ranma shrugged, his fingers clenching around the collar in his hands, "He gave me time t'heal after a really stupid trainin' accident when we were in Ireland."
"The tag reads "Kitty", Saotome. That makes it a collar, and someone who can put a collar on another human being doesn't really strike me as the greatest kind of guy out there.
He was surprised by how quickly the rage rose to the surface. This intense need to protect his Jei-sama... except that there was nothing to protect him from. Nabiki was not an enemy, was not someone that the cat within would purposely harm, as it saw her as a part of its family. Ranma wasn't quite sure how or when that happened, but it had. He shouldn't feel the need to protect Jei-sama from her, especially as he didn't even know if the man was still alive. He grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut while clamping down on those feelings with all his will. "Don't you ever talk about Jei-sama like that again."
"You're protecting a man that is all but a slave trader?" It was the first thing that popped to mind when it came to collaring kids; while she was well aware that there were people with pet fetishes out there-- she had used certain photographic evidence as blackmail once upon a time-- the fact that Ranma had been eight at the time brought far different images to mind. It was also an incredible divergence from the teenager's normal pattern of behavior.
The look she got in response to her incredulous question would likely haunt her nightmares. "Don't you think I know that? I have to protect him!"
Nabiki gaped at the martial artist as he stormed out of the house and leapt up onto the rooftop in order to clear his head. She had never before seen him that furious-- and more importantly, it was directed at himself. It wasn't all that difficult to connect the dots together; Ranma had "slipped up" when he was eight and wound up wearing a collar labeled "Kitty". More likely than not, that meant that he had slipped into "cat-mode", and this Jei person found him while still in that state.
What didn't make sense was how protective of Jei he was. His cat-side couldn't be blamed for this one as cats as a whole were socially independent; outside of Lions they didn't form pack groups, and it couldn't even be blamed on "mating". It was something that had caused her no little amount of amusement when she'd looked the information up, but cats were not exactly the most monogamous of mammals, and she had enjoyed teasing Ranma with that knowledge, especially when one considered his own state of romantic affairs.
She was digressing again. So if it couldn't be blamed on his cat-side, then it had to be on his honor. Except that while the idiot's ridiculous sense of honor could lead him to protecting enemies and rivals when the going got tough, that didn't mean that he would jump to protect someone he hadn't seen in eight years when they weren't around. The only conclusion was, when you brought that knowledge and his apparent self-fury together, that he was protecting Jei against his will.
It was a very strange thing to consider, and Nabiki frowned thoughtfully as she retreated to her room. There was obviously much left that needed to be discovered. Nabiki, contrary to popular belief, loved mysteries. This was shaping up to be a doozy of a mystery, and she couldn't wait to try and figure it out.
Jei paced his room with slow, methodic steps as he massaged his temples. Today his headache was terrible, a throbbing pain behind his eyes and the one constant that he had lived with since the day that fat oaf had tossed him into a wall, and stolen his beloved pet from him. The impact had knocked something loose within his skull, and dammit all if it didn't have a tendency to just throb and pulse at the most inconvenient of times, for no reason. Quite literally for no reason; despite visits to numerous physicians and health care specialists, he had never been able to get a solid reason for why he was plagued with the continual headache.
The day that his headache had first appeared has also been the beginning of the lunatic Farfarello; he believed it to be God's torture, the ultimate sign of his inability to protect his Kitty, to protect the little boy that had been given into his care. So tormented by God he had lashed out, and in that moment of weakness had learned such things that he had never wanted to know. The headache had only urged him ever onwards, towards destruction and death, towards something -anything!- that would make him feel more than that pound-pound-pound of his own blood. Spilling his own blood to relieve the pressure had not worked.
God had taken what he had loved, and so too he had decided, he would take away from God loved.
Spilling the blood of others offered him some measure of relief, and nothing would stand between him and his newfound need... nothing but for a horrible headache, through which he was given some of his more lucid moments. While they were few and far between, Jei clung to them, and to the thought that if only he had his Kitty, if only he was able to protect that feral being as he had so been charged and so failed, then the headache would fade. Then he would be able to think for longer than a few moments... he needed to hunt. Now. Soon. Whenever.
The door was locked from the outside, as he himself had requested, and the assassin growled. He raked his fingers down his arms, chanting to himself: focus. Focus. Don't slip.
The thought of his Kitty made him think of the kittens, in a round about way. Weiss... they should not be using the names of cats. Those names were for his Kitty, and not one of the little kittens held a candle to his beautiful little pet. In that oh so twisted mind of his Kitty and cats were forever intertwined, and it was... well, perhaps not sacrilege, nor disgusting, or really any true feeling. He just knew that he didn't want them to use those names.
Every time that the little Weiss kittens called their names, he wanted his Kitty. There was, if he was being honest with himself, nothing that he wanted more, nothing quite as important to him, than Kitty.
Thinking about that kid again, Farf? the amused voice drifted through his mind like a spare thought, though it was certainly not his, and in fact only managed to increase the pounding of his headache. Farfarello turned to the door of his cell, noting that it was now unlocked. This was not so surprising, considering that Schuldig stood in the door way, a cool smirk turning his lips as he took in the damage his teammate had done to himself. "Give it up, Farfie. The kid was grabbed by his dad in Ireland. You can't honestly expect to find him here."
"The man spoke Japanese."
"And obviously, that means he's going to be here." Schuldig's voice was flat, although a certain lilt to the last word gave away the amusement he found in it all. "Japan is four islands, Farfie. He could be on any one of them, if he even came back here at all. Just give it up."
"No," Farfarello turned his one eyed stare to the far wall, and an odd look passed through his remaining eye. "I will find Kitty... and then we will show Him why He should not have begun this war."
Schuldig shook his head with a sigh. And there went Jei, vanishing back into the depths of depravity that was Farfarello. The redheaded German actually enjoyed talking to the Irishman when he was lucid enough to hold a conversation that wasn't about that stupid kid, but listening to his teammate ramble on about God was just plain disturbing.
"I'll see if I can find your "Kitty"," Schuldig half muttered as he left the room. It was the same promise that he made every time that he had this odd conversation with his... friend? Were they friends? He couldn't really tell, but that didn't really matter, did it? He shrugged to himself as he closed the door, double checking that he'd locked it up again. He couldn't help but idly wonder what would happen if they ever were able to find the elusive "Kitty".
There was the possibility that Farfarello would become more lucid, as the man himself believed, but there was also the possibility that it would only drive him deeper into insanity, as Nagi believed.
Ranma lay flat on the roof of the Tendou home, watching the pale moon ghost across the sky. It had been hours since he had relaxed into the summer's heat, and more still before that that he had fled from Nabiki's questioning gaze. While he would steadfastly refuse to admit out loud that his actions were a retreat, he was trying to get out of the habit of lying to himself about these sorts of things. Ever since the battle with Saffron and the failed wedding, he had been trying his best to get past those little mental hiccoughs. He had almost lost Akane to death in that adventure, and it had truly shaken him to his core; he had a lot of things to consider in regards to himself, from his nonchalant attitude towards taking that final step and killing a living being, to the twisted knot of emotion in his chest that were his feelings for the youngest Tendou. If he was ever going to straighten that mess out, it meant that he needed to take a good hard look at himself.
He had spent a great deal of time on the roof thinking about such things, but tonight was notably different. Ranma didn't want to think; he didn't want to consider what the collar that rested so innocently on his stomach meant. It seemed to hum in his mind, a glimmer of... of... of something, he wasn't sure of what only that it called out to him, urged him to put it on and to become that playful little kitten again. It was because of that feeling that he had replaced the worn old string with a new piece pulled off of the hem of his pants, and that he had buffed the metal to a shine with his shirt. It took great strength of will not to fully give in, not to put the collar on and just let go.
He gave a harsh bark of laughter. Contemplating the meaning of life would probably be easier than dealing with the stupid collar. He couldn't make himself throw it away, or to even put it down on the roof beside him. Some part of him needed to have it on hand, and that was a part of him that he did not want to admit existed and yet had too. It was the part of him that remembered Jei with a clarity that Ranma himself did not have, and it was the part that felt an all consuming need to be with Jei, to protect him, to... love him.
It was all things that he had thought of before, as he considered his actions and reactions surrounding both the battle with Saffron and the situation with the fiancees. His needs, his wants, his emotions... all were irrevocably tied to Jei, it seemed. Such was this tie that even eight years later he was bound to Jei in a way he did not want, and in a way that prevented him from forming the sort of emotional attachments to the fiancees that they wanted from him.
That his cat side had not taken off in search of Jei the moment that he was set lose in Nerima was something that Ranma clung to with fervent hope. While it might not mean much, simply that Jei was too far away to find, it was also possible that it meant that Jei was dead, and Ranma would be able to be free of the desire to be with him. While it was a morbid hope, it was the only solution that he could think of in order to escape a situation more impossible than his suitors.
His hands seemed to be moving of their own accord, he noted distractedly, as his thoughts ran in circles. He was not, however, so distracted that he didn't notice that he was bringing the collar up to his neck as though to fasten it; and in that moment he froze. This was going to be a lot harder than he had thought it would.
For most assassins, safe houses likely weren't quite as lavish as the building that Schwarz occupied. Of course, most assassins didn't work as bodyguards for some of the most ruthless and sadistic men on the planet. As payment for their good work, and in part to keep the assassins from coming after the family in retribution, they were afforded certain luxuries.
Luxuries such as the rather massive state-of-the-art television set that dominated the far wall of the dubiously dubbed "mission room." Calling it a recreational room would likely have been a better description, given that the television was more often used to watch sports or to play video games, while there were a large number of other games sitting about. Today, however, "mission room" was the best fit; Schuldig was sprawled across the couch as he watched the video that Brad Crawford had pulled up as an 'introduction' to the mission that their other employers required of them.
While they did work for the Takatori family as bodyguards, they had been hired through a parent organization, and it was that organization that occasionally required their assistance. To disobey Takatori might result in their having to creatively dispose of someone the man sent after them. To disobey Eszett was an almost certain death sentence. The company's reach was unbelievable, although the members of Schwarz would all leap at the chance to change that fate.
In the mean time, however, a mission had come in, and Schuldig was raising an incredulous eyebrow as he looked back and forth between the paused image on the television, and Crawford's emotionless face. "So. This kid is our next target?"
The look that Crawford sent him in return for that only made him grin, and the man had to forcibly remind himself that he was far too dignified to sigh in exasperation. The seer composed himself in an instant and favored his teammate with a flat stare. "If you had bothered to listen, then you would remember that Eszett wants him."
"So why give it to us?" Missions to scout out new 'employees' was hardly the sort of mission that they normally took, especially when one considered the amount of time and effort it had taken to make them into an assassination squad. Had Schuldig been feeling particularly suicidal he might have gone ahead and chanced a peek into Crawford's mind in order to simply take the information... however today was no such day, and he leant back in order to watch the other man.
"The last three men sent were barely able to escape with their lives."
"From this kid?" Schuldig turned his eyes towards the screen again with new appreciation. A brat like the teenager on the screen didn't look to have the sort of evasion skill that Nagi had, let alone the ability to go after three of Eszett's men with lethal force-- and come out on top. If it were true, then this kid could be prime material for a new assassination squad.
The possibility of being replaced wriggled unhappily in the back of his mind, but he pushed it away rather firmly. It would take time to train a new squad, and this was just one kid. No big.
"No," Crawford's voice cut through his thoughts and brought the redhead back into the present. The bespectacled man was scanning the mission dossier once again, although Schuldig had some suspicions that he'd already memorized everything, and the action was just for show. "The boy didn't do it on purpose; it was the collateral damage from the fights they were recording. One of Eszett's men was nearly crushed by a building collapsing towards him."
"Whoa, whoa, time out. The kid caused a building to collapse from fighting? Brad, you have got to be kidding me!" Crawford merely raised an eyebrow, and started the video up once again. It would seem that it had been taken by one of the men that had gone after the boy, as the image was jerking around as it tried to follow the boy's lightning fast movements. The fight was a beautiful thing, the two fighters really pounding the hell out of each other.
In a surprising move, their target's opponent managed to land a heavy punch that sent the target crashing right through a wall. However, instead of dropping from the collision with a crushed skull or a variety of broken bones, he simply got back up. A split second later and he was launching himself at his opponent and the fight began anew. Fists and feet flew as he proceeded to pummel the hell out of his teenaged opponent.
An opponent who began to glow a sickly green color that wavered around him, and seemed to warp the video image; even through the screen a heavy weight seemed to settle onto the men. It was a level of depression unlike anything Schuldig had ever felt, and he had been invaded by some truly messed up thoughts over the years. The aura lasted only for a few moments, before the glowing youth shouted something to cause the glow to wink out.
Of course, that could not be the end of it. Even as the aura vanished, a glowing ball of light blasted away from his hands and towards their target-- only to be met with a matching blue colored blast. The target had matched his opponent step by step, although he had been off screen while the camera man had tried to get a better view of the first one to take the battle to the next stage.
The two blasts of light and energy were even enough to cancel each other out, but the difference between the two fighters was obvious. While the opponent had to take a moment to try and gather more depressive energy into another blast, their target had his own energy ready and waiting. The opponent was sent flying backwards through another oh-so-convenient wall.
It was here that the camera cut out, as the building that the teenager had been sent through began to collapse. Schuldig stared at the darkened screen for several long moments before he gave a low whistle.
"Kitty."
Both Crawford and Schuldig started in surprise, neither having noticed the insane Irishman's approach. Schuldig had long since trained himself to block out the specific pattern of thought that Farfarello normally followed in order to keep himself from going as stark raving bonkers as his teammate. Crawford had been too caught up in his study of the boy in the video in and attempt to puzzle out what sort of ability he had that would allow him to fire off a ball of visible energy.
"...what?" the German was the first to question the rather awkward non sequitur.
Farfarello sent his sometimes friend an annoyed glance before elaborating: "That was my Kitty."
"Which one, Farf?" Schuldig held little belief that either of the boys on the screen were actually Farfarello's oh-so-precious Kitty. Not only would that be one incredible coincidence, but for Farfarello to have recognized him from an admittedly blurry shot was even less likely. However, if the lunatic was content to believe that one of them was his kitty-cat, they might be able to find out whether or not his psycho-ness would get better or not.
"The one who won, of course," the way that Farfarello said it indicated that there wasn't any possibility otherwise, and Schuldig was an idiot for asking.
"How do you know that, Farfarello?" Crawford, like his teammate, did not believe that this boy could possibly be the "Kitty" that Farfarello so frequently obsessed about. The Irishman rewound the tape to approximately halfway through the fight before he stopped the tape. On the screen "Kitty" had his back to the camera, and the air currents whipped up by his movements had kicked the black pigtail that his hair was tied with up and out of the way. This left the back of his neck visible, and it was here that Farfarello pointed; it was barely visible to the camera, but it was definitely there. That is to say, "it" was the long scar that traced its way along his spine up out of his shirt only to disappear into his hair.
Farfarello was grinning viscously. "I gave him that."
Schuldig's brows rose in surprise. The image had only been on the screen for an instant, and Farfarello had been able to pick it out? Either he was even more obsessed with the boy than any of the rest of Schwarz had thought he was-- unlikely, given the telepath on the team-- or there was something else at work here. The mystical side of the world was hardly something that they were a stranger to given their own particular powers and abilities, so there was a possibility of it. Still, it would have to be something pretty powerful to still be in effect almost a decade later.
"His name is Saotome Ranma," Crawford's voice cut through the redhead's contemplation and Farfarello's gleeful muttering about "his Kitty". Both assassins turned their attention to their defacto leader. "He is age sixteen; a student of the School of Indiscriminate Grappling, commonly referred to as the "Anything Goes" School, and he is one of the most notorious martial artists in Japan."
This was a bit of a surprise to the listeners. Schuldig was familiar in passing with the "victims" of the school, as they tended to have some pretty impressive thoughts towards its practitioners; all uniformly negative. There had been more than once where he had gotten lost in the thoughts of one such victim, and it took something so un-ignorable in the world outside his head to snap him out of it. The females were particularly bad for this, given the creator's method of "interaction", but the men weren't slouches either. It was hard not to be angry with someone you had given shelter to, and then had robbed you blind while you slept.
"How notorious are we talking here?" he wanted to know. It might not be worth it to bring the boy in if he was anything like the Grandmaster, although it would certainly be funny unleashing someone like that on Eszett.
"His skill is almost unparalleled within his generation, and he gives several older generations a challenge. He's also well known through the actions of his father. The senior Saotome is a wanted thief, and almost impossible to catch. Eszett considered bringing the elder in as well, however he is both too old, and too set in his ways to be of any use to them. It's Ranma that they are concerned with, and therefore that is who we will be focusing on. There is some stipulation towards bringing in others around the boy, such as the one that was recorded fighting with him, however that is only a secondary objective, and only if it can be done without causing another such battle."
Schuldig nodded; that was an understandable restriction. It was always easier to extract someone when you didn't have to deal with full scale warfare, and from what he had seen on the tape and what he had gleaned from his quick overview of the dossier, it would be nothing less if things went sour. "Well I guess I'm off to find Saotome."
"He lives with the Tendou family."
Schuldig paused and gave the team leader a considering stare. "The Tendou family...? Well now, that's a surprise."
"Perhaps. The Tendou and Saotome school of martial arts are sibling branches of the same school. It's not unreasonable for them to be connected." Crawford, despite not saying it, had also been intrigued with this little bit of information. While the Tendou family had been out of the limelight since their Matriarch had died, most of the underground organizations had their eye on the family. First it had been for the older sister, but she seemed to slip into a life of obscurity after high school, and then it was for the middle sister. If she took after her mother the way that it seemed she was, then she would be an asset to any organization. However, until she moved out of the protection of Nerima she was considered off limits. "The second Tendou has been, according to our sources, using Saotome for her own purposes. Kirisaki has been seen with Saotome on more than one occasion, as well as within the Tendou household recently."
The redheaded German let a strange little smile cross his lips. "I'll bring them in while I'm at it, then."
"No." Crawford's voice was sharp. "We will deal with Saotome first. All others are secondary objectives, if you'd care to remember. We were given this information so we would know who and what we were dealing with and no other reason."
"Ja, ja." Schuldig nodded. It was probably for the best, anyways. It was always easier to deal with people one at a time, especially when making a "job" offer.
Crawford tipped his head towards their Irish teammate. "Take Farfarello with you when you go. If he really is "Kitty", then he is more likely to respond better to him." That it had been eight years since Kitty and Jei had last seen each other was left unspoken; it was the look in his eyes that showed that Crawford had picked up on Farfarello's nearly impossible identification, too. While there was always the possibility that "Kitty" might not recognize Farfarello, if their belief that their might be something supernatural to their connection, then it was far more likely that the boy would recognize his former "owner".
Despite that, there were a variety of contingencies in place; it hadn't been expected that Ranma would be the infamous Kitty, and the dossier also contained a handful of possible methods of contact. If Ranma wasn't Kitty, or didn't recognize Farfarello as Jei, then one of those methods would be the best bet. Schuldig would just have to take care to pick the best one based on Ranma's mental status.
End Chapter
Twenty one pages; I think this might be a record for me when it comes to chapter length! That said, I'd like to say welcome to the new readers and a welcome back to the old fans. This is the newest incarnation of the Identity Series rewrite (geez, how many have I gone through now?) and hopefully the last one.
For those who have read the original Identity Series, you may recognize Nobuyuki, despite the change from Sanzenshin to Kirisaki. Kirisaki just seems to flow better, and so I like it more. That said, I don't really know where that huge scene with him came from, but it gave me a bit of a chance to work in some of the changes I intend to do with this "Secondary Timeline" version of IS. There was a fairly large selection of original characters inserted into the original version, many of which I intend to cut out of this version. Nobuyuki, however, I felt was a necessary OC in the realm of allowing me to have an essentially "unbound" character to provide a basis for the desired changes required to bring the Secondary Timeline more in line with the original canon characterizations of the cast.
Which basically means: "I have an idea for a PLOT, and I need a point to pivot on. Using a Canon-Character won't work so it's either an original character or pulling in another crossover." As stated on both the Itchfanfic and Identityverse yahoo groups I don't intend to go beyond the original crossovers: Weiss, Ranma, Sailor Moon, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So I had to go with an original character, one of whom was already in the original timeline and who could be that pivot point to bring the canon cast of the various series (such as Kasumi) into the story. Hopefully he won't be too annoying; Nobuyuki is considered a supporting character in all of my plots and ideas, so there should be no worry about the story becoming all about him.
I also want to give the first book more depth. I've learned a lot about writing in the past six years, and I hope to apply it to this story which didn't really have a plot to begin with; just a desire to crossover Ranma and Weiss, followed by a need to point them at someone and kill. I have a plot now, and I hope you all enjoy it.
I am going to have to fess up to my long time readers and say that I've drifted well away from the whole yaoi-slash-yay-fandom thing. While I do still read the occasional well written and recommended fic, they are increasingly difficult to find. This basically meant that I had to dip into the once despised "het-fic" and to my surprise I discovered that those stories tend to have better plot and character development! Yes, it was a surprise. I was one of those phenomenally stupid yaoi fangirls who think hot + hot equals sexy awesome, even if the boys involved would sooner kill each other than bed each other.
Anyways! I do have every intention of keeping parts of the romantic subplot the same, but I'm also very well aware that I fail at writing romance. After six years of practice that has only been made painfully obvious. Some of the relationships will shuffle around, especially as I'm trying to a bit more of that "in character" thing that so escaped me when I started writing IS. I would appreciate tips, comments, and good critique to help expand my writing skills-because lets be honest. For the last couple years my writing has almost exclusively been centered on research papers, and that's a bit dry for fanfiction.
As with the original version of IS, I'm not looking at the fiancees for pairings with Ranma. I had thought about going back to the originally plotted pairings for False Identity (the major one being Aya/Ranma), but that's not a relationship that I can see the plot heading towards anymore now than six years ago when the story mutated for the first time.
More than likely this story will be Ranma/Nabiki. This would change a lot of the tone of the story, but it also wouldn't be an immediate jump in the sack type of thing. I am still up for debate on this one, as Farfarello/Ranma is just as likely in this version as in the original one, although that relationship will also have some very distinct differences between Original and Secondary should that happen. I have plots for both, and I am taking suggestions for other couples in this timeline.
Although I'll nip this one in the bud before it's suggested. While I love the pairing Ranma/Setsuna is not one that will happen in this story. With some of the things plotted for it, it's just not plausible.
Well, I guess I should get to work on the second chapter.