Strayed Soulmates

Disclaimer: I do not own Black Cat.

So this is my first fanfic in about 7 years. I'm trying to get back into the game so please review. I was watching Black Cat and for whatever reason, this idea just popped into my head and I could not get it out. So what better way than to write it.

This will follow mainly the anime but it will have some of the manga elements as I felt the manga also had some very good moments. Also, I know in the actual series, Sven's partner dies on his daughter's fourth birthday but for the purposes of this story, he dies on her 12th birthday. I hope everyone enjoys it.

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Soul mates...such a strange term. Romantics always talk about when they marry, it'll be because they've found their soul mate. It sounds kind of absurd to me. That there is only one person in the entire universe that has the capability to know and understand you.

It's rather far-fetched to me. Don't get me wrong, I do believe in love. I know my parents were in love. They had to be since my father died and my mother passed away from the grief. Something like that doesn't happen unless you truly love that person.

My father was a great man. He was an IBI agent who worked relentlessly to put horrible criminals behind bars along with his partner, Sven Vollfied. That is, until one day one of those horrible criminals decided they weren't going to take it lying down. Revenge really is meaningless and stupid. Only the truly selfish chase after revenge. But what can you do...there is no cure for foolish stupidity.

I was 12-years-old when this revenge took place. It happened on my birthday, too. How depressing is that?! My birthday, a time normally full of joy and celebration, is associated with both my parents' deaths. I don't really need to get into the gory details. Sven, my father's partner, was kidnapped by criminals to draw my father out. My noble father went to save Sven on my birthday and sacrificed himself as noble men do. My mother tried to bear his death and she did hang on for a full year before the grief took her and she perished from an illness. I guess that's what happens when you have a soul mate.

After my mother passed, Sven Vollfied rolled back into town. I had no idea how he knew about my mother's death and it took a lot of persuasion to get him to spill the beans. Apparently, my father had a secret. He was a psychic...he could see into the future. I guess my father knew he was going to die and signed himself up as on organ donor shortly before the incident. Probably another attempt at watching out for his partner. He was like that. Always worried about Sven. He'd invite Sven over for meals countless times because he was so worried he wouldn't eat right if he was left alone. By the time of the revenge incident I was very familiar with Sven. He was like that eccentric uncle no one wants to admit they have in their family but are still happy enough to invite him to all the family reunions. Sven's right eye had been destroyed during the incident so the doctor's gave him my father's right eye. Sven, apparently, foresaw my mother's passing and came rushing back to town.

I guess he was feeling guilty. I didn't understand why he should. It's not like he told those horrible people to kidnap him... but to each his own, I guess.

Sven accepted guardianship of me and enrolled me in a boarding school. He became a sweeper to help pay for the tuition. I guess the IBI doesn't doesn't really like to reimburse the families of agents whose lives were taken on the field.

I went to the boarding school and resumed a normal life for about a month. That was when my secret kicked in. It turns out psychicness is hereditary. Who knew, right? The problem was my psychic gene didn't manifest the same way my father's did. My father could see the future, I am...I guess the right word would be empathic, though, at times, it can be much, much more than that.

At the tender age of thirteen, I found that if my skin made contact with another human's skin, I could feel all the emotions they'd ever felt and if the emotions were strong enough, I could see the memories associated with those emotions. But wait, there's more. I soon learned that after the first touch, the in-flow of emotions didn't stop. The initial touch is when the psychic bond is created. After that touch, I am wide open for that human's emotions all the time, as long as they're near me.

Sounds pretty cool, I know, but not ideal when you're a thirteen-year-old poor orphaned girl going through puberty trying to make friends at a new school with a bunch of other thirteen-year-old girls who are also going through puberty. I was trying to figure out my own emotions while being slammed with everyone else's. Some people could just tell I was different. I don't know how they knew. Maybe, the same way a herbivore knows a carnivore is lurking around a corner. They don't have any reason to suspect, they just know. The people who did be-friend were great up until I shared my secret. When you're a poor thirteen-year-old orphaned girl, you're incredibly naïve. Before I knew it, I went from being the thirteen-year-old poor orphaned girl to being the thirtten-year-old orphaned freak.

I guess humans aren't too comfortable with someone who can see into their heart. To put it mildly, I became a social outcast at thirteen-years-old. Definitely not cool. Take it from me, being a psychic sucks.

But I'm adaptable. I put up with it for three years. I dropped out of that school when I was sixteen and tracked down my guardian/eccentric uncle, Sven Vollfied. Since I had no one else to talk to about it, I took the chance and told Sven my secret. He was surprisingly okay with it. I guess having your dead best friend's future seeing eye makes you much more tolerant of psychic abilities. I still remember the conversation like it was yesterday. I had touched Sven's arms to prove my psychic abilities.

"So, empathic, huh?" he asked. I nodded. "I really should've known that something like that might pop up. You are his daughter."

"Yeah, trust me. This gene I inherited from him is nothing but a huge pain in the ass."

Sven chuckled. "If only your father could hear you now. He'd be telling you to wash your mouth out with sop for using such rude language."

"Yeah, well, he's not," I replied. "He died quite nobly four years ago. Unfortunately, he failed to leave behind an instruction manual detailing how to live your with psychic abilities."

Sven laughed again. Apparently, he found my hardships quite amusing. "I'm happy to see you've inherited your father's sense of humor."

"Sven, I don't want to go back to that school. No matter how hard I try to hide it, everyone can tell I 'm different. They're afraid of me and they keep calling me a freak. None of them want to be anywhere near me. I've been alone for four years. I'm sick of being alone. Can I please stay with you? You're all I have now."

"I don't know if that's a good idea. I'm constantly moving around and my work is dangerous-"

"I don't care about any of that. I'm not afraid. Trust me, if you experienced the things I've felt and seen you wouldn't be either. I can learn to be a sweeper. I know I can. And I can be useful. I've been taking martial arts classes. My teacher says I'm very quick on my feet...like a cat. Not to mention, I can help with your cases. You have a hard time determining whether the information you get from shady criminal-esque individuals is reliable. You're constantly worried the information they give you will lead you into a trap. Don't try to tell me you aren't. I felt it when I touched you and I saw the times when you were betrayed. I can help with that. If I create a psychic bond with those people, I'll be able to tell if they're lying or have ulterior motives. I'm basically a human lie detector for anyone who has a psychic bond with me."

Sven looked at me, clearly weight the pros and the cons to having me around. "Forget it. As a gentleman, I can't let my best friend's daughter get mixed up in this kind of life. It's far too dangerous and your father would want you to have more than this sort of life."

"Sven, please stop treating me like a child. I'm not that little girl you used to push on the swings anymore. I'm sixteen-years-old. Old enough to get a sweeper's license and certainly old enough to make my own decisions. I want to do this." Sven just kept on giving me that hesitating stare. I decided I was going to have to play dirty. "Sven, if you don't say yes, I'm just going to keep following you. You're not that difficult to track and with a psychic bond, you'll be even easier now. I'll follow you on every one of your sweeper jobs. Who knows what could happen to me if you're not by my side protecting me? Some horrible criminal might grab me and who knows what will become of this poor fragile sixteen-year-old girl then? Is that the sort of life my father wanted me to have? Can your gentleman code survive something like that?"

At first, I thought I'd gone too far. Sven looked like he was really irritated until he sighed. "You are your father's daughter. You drive a hard bargain and hopefully that tenacity of yours will remain intact because I can promise this isn't going to be easy for you. Being empathic is not a good personality trait for a sweeper to have. You're going to have to work hard if you want to be a part of this life. We'll start your training tomorrow first thing in the morning. I don't know what kind of self-defense classes you've been taking, but I guarantee it's not going to be enough to survive being a sweeper."

I guess it's because of my psychic abilities that I find the concept of soul mates so strange. Supposedly, your soul mate is supposed to be the one person who understands you completely. Because of my abilities, I understand a great many people but yet these very same people find my ability to understand them repulsive. So how can humans even contemplate the idea of soul mates when their hearts feel threatened by the existence of one empathic teenage girl?

Don't misunderstand me. This isn't going to be one big, huge lecture on how soul mates don't exist. Far from it. This is a story about family, friendship, love...and soul mates. This is a story about how I, Adrienne, the empathic skeptic found my soul mate, Train Heartnett.; AKA: Black Cat.

So please let me know what you think.