Kat was restless as she wrote on the test papers rigidly, never having liked staying still for long periods of time. She was forced to conceal herself again, but Watari had chosen her ensemble of skinny jeans (which were unbelievably annoying to her little furry problem) some annoying suede boots and a black t-shirt. Needless to say, she would not know the names of the articles of clothing if Watari had not informed her but even then she was doubtful that he had tried to do it himself (he most likely just copied it off of the computer, or a magazine off the street).
She bit her index finger in irritation, controlling the expletives from tumbling down her tongue and out into the silent classroom. The teacher had already tried to get her to sit correctly, she had complied, if only half way. One of her legs was dangling over the chair, swinging slightly while the other was up to her chest.
Everything on the test was easy, to an extent, and full of common sense topics. Kat was about ready to start twirling her hair furiously as she finished the last stroke on the written portion.
She slammed her pencil on the desk halfheartedly, observing the humans with a keen eye. Lawliet had already finished the test, a few minutes before her and the boy named Light Yagami, the rest were either freaking out over some question or simply trying to expunge them selves of hair. As it was, Kat was ready to start spouting curse words at the next person to tell her to sit correctly or that they were extending the exam time.
She gave the clock glances every few minutes, her usually curious eyes filled with exasperation.
The time rolled on sluggishly, and Kat's limbs felt numb, stiff and anything of the above.
Lawliet had spared to his right, across the room, where he could almost feel how vexed she was, though he could not understand why all too well. Her need to jump around, do something active and dodge bullets was an enigma to him. Certain parts of their pasts were concealed to even each other, most likely too painful to even mention or ponder, but the "why's," "how's," "who's" and "when's" were building up. Lawliet, chewed on his thumb, eyes glancing at the clock just as the proctor stood up, announcing that the test was over.
He got out of his seat as Kat all but jump out of her own, stretching while mumbling some nonsensical gibberish with the words "stupid clock" and "stiff muscles" mixed in.
Kat plodded up beside Lawliet, ear twitching slightly. "Cannot even walk as I usually do, so preposterous," She muttered bothered, nose wrinkling up. Everything was so dull today, no clouds to distract her, no book on her (she refused to say "person") and not even a piece of candy or snack to drown her attitude away with food.
As soon as the Rolls Royce came into view, Kat had to steel herself into not breaking into a sprint on all fours.
Lawliet chuckled slightly as he saw her get more antsy and jittery, upping her pace a bit. Contrary to her, he slowed down, wanting to test how she would react.
He only saw a white and black blur as she jumped into the car, hearing a loud exclamation of "Finally!" in Cantonese. Kat narrowed her eyes at Lawliet, bouncing in her seat until she eventually blurted, "Get a move on, Ryuga!" It would seem very out of character for her to take this demeanor with Lawliet but this was how she was with most all humans, but in his case, it was when he egged her on a bit too much for her taste. At least, that is what he evaluated from his test.
"Yes, Yes, Kaori," He said apathetically, entering the car slowly.
Kat sighed when they were finally on the road, easing into a more comfortable position and pulling out her tail and ears.
-
For the orientation, she had overlooked what Mr. Wammy had picked for her, not wanting to feel tight and odd. After consent to some of the younger girls from the Orphanage (Via Web-cam), they had settled on a simple black and white uniform-like combo with black tights and the black boots she used for missions (without socks to her relief) and a black car coat over it. The reason for her actually caring about her attire for once being that she did not want to attract more attention to herself than she usually did with her neon green orbs, silver and ebony tresses. But her bell choker stayed on around her neck, just like how Lawliet never took off his "L" bracelet.
She sat quietly next to Lawliet, looking blankly into space. Kat had purposely sat next to the Kira suspect, even if he gave her bad vibes, because she knew how to handle dangerous situations better than her partner.
"And now our freshmen representatives; Yagami Light, Hideki Ryuga and Iida Kaori," The human announced, gesturing towards them, K (no, because Kat knew when to back off and be cautious) turned her apathetic eyes toward the podium, walking slowly behind both males.
Whispers and murmurs broke out across the auditorium; humans questioning the attire both L and she had on and their identities. Tuning them out, she snapped her sharp eyes towards Yagami Light as he began reciting the speech that was made for them all.
This human is by far too "perfect." Everything has it's flaws, living or not, and this one just seems to be able to give off the…façade of perfection? But that seems so absurd…than again, his flaw might be an estranged moral of justice. She thought speculatively, analyzing every twitch and movement he made.
Lawliet paid little to no attention to what was going on around him, immediately feeling the tense stance that Kat had adopted. She feels she needs her guard up further around him? That would prove my theory about why she sat in between him and myself.
While thinking, both of them forgot to bow when it came to it and made there way to the seats halfheartedly. Before they made it to the seats however, Kat turned to Light, giving a somewhat small wicked grin. "Yagami Light, I have something to tell you," She whispered, bowing her head slightly so that no one would be able to read her lips.
"Oh yeah? What is it, Kaori?" His lack of attention was astonishing.
"I am Agent K, and Ryuga is L," She whispered, sitting right in between them. He froze for a millisecond before calming down and turning to face us both.
The rest of the assembly was spent in silence. K bit her lip out of habit until everything was over and she found herself walking next to Lawliet towards the car. Catching a familiar scent, she brushed her hair behind her ear, mumbling, "Light, coming our way, call him over," She said subtly.
This time, she had taken charge because they had spoken of how they were going to address hands-on situations, automatically, she insisted on handing out instructions if ever the circumstance.
Lawliet turned around, calling, "Yagami-kun…"
Light turned towards them, raising an eyebrow as he saw them both together. "It was nice meeting you." He continued. "Yes, it was a pleasure meeting you," She said, monotonously, aiming her blank eyes at him.
"Yes. Nice meeting you both too…" K could tell he did not mean it all that much, especially after what she had told him.
"We'll see you around campus, then." He said before opening the door to let K in.
"Oh yeah, of course…bye." Light said as Lawliet closed the door. K gave a sigh of relief, her eyes lighting up with there usual curiosity.
"That was tedious…" She mumbled, shaking her head fast, mussing her coal locks up.
Lawliet put his thumb to his lips, eyes taking in the differences in Kat's demeanor.
"Mr. Wammy, I have a mission tonight? Correct?" She asked, an odd accent sinking into her words; a mixture of her Chinese dialect and the British way of tongue.
"Yes, the ICPO has arranged for you to apprehend a notorious Yankee leader," He spoke eloquently, turning onto another street.
Lawliet's ears perked up, this was the first he had heard of such a mission. "What mission?"
Kat turned to him, tilting her head to the side. "Ah, that is right; you were with the Task Force while Watari went to the ICPO building. They were ranting about some female gangster that had taken it overboard and killed a few high standing business humans. They are offering a high bounty for the capture of one Yuukimoto Roze." She concluded, craning her neck back to look at the top of the roof, twirling a lock of hair.
After a long silence, she glanced at him through the corner of her eyes, "I apologize for not informing you but it was necessary. We have noticed that you tend to…dote on me as if I was not as expendable as the other humans you use."
Lawliet narrowed his eyes at her, moving his thumb so he could speak. "I do not 'dote' on people, and people are not expendable."
Mr. Wammy sighed inaudibly from the front, having a bad feeling about this.
"You heard me wrong," She said bitingly, defensive feline instincts picking up. "I said how you 'dote' on me and I said the other humans you use."
The coarse silence from Lawliet was enough to tell her that she had made a point.
Even Kat was not dense enough to notice how he seemed to put her safety first, she had no clue why but she knew he did. Ever since they were young, after the whole "cookie incident" as she called it, he had tried to look out for her. In Brazil when she entered the Capoeira ring, in Moscow when she was wishing for death, in Miami with the shadowy man; all of these instances, he refused to either let her go or let her fight alone. It was annoying in a sense when it happened, and gave her a massive headache afterwards because she could not tell what the intentions under the actions were.
"So you would prefer me to not worry about my best friend?" He asked quietly, no anger present in his eyes. She rolled her head forward, pulling her leg up to her chest.
"You use these words that confuse me, what is a 'friend'? Why do my preferences matter if I am your 'friend'? And, what is the significance of being the 'best friend'? And what good is it being so advanced if I cannot answer these insufferable questions?" She spoke, squeezing her knee. Her voice was strained and tired, as if she had asked herself these questions a million times.
Lawliet seemed a bit surprised. He knew she hated humans, he knew she did not trust them, he knew he had a guide on humans yet he had never considered if she knew those terms that the best dictionary would be unable to describe accurately.
He was unable to answer as they arrived at the hotel. Kat walked in stony silence, he could just imagine her tail and ears, were they not hidden, drooping and limp.
The rest of the night was just as quiet, when the task force came, instead of seeing the usual of Kat and Lawliet searching on the same computer, chatting or something, they saw both as far away from each other as possible, one typing sullenly, the other tying a mask to her face.
"Ah, is there something wrong?" Matsuda asked the question on everybody's mind, glancing from one prodigy to the other.
Kat gave him a brief look before attaching a transmitter to her ear, "Watari, is the audio and visual connected to base O and base P?"
Three letters appeared on some monitors on Kat's side of the room, the letters W, O and P popping up. "Mine is working," He confirmed.
"As is ours," Scrambled voices spoke from the monitor labeled O and P.
"Good; O, P, make note of what I do and please feel free to make comments of anything." She finished, making a beeline to leave the hotel room, draping a long trench coat over her shoulders.
-
K made furtive steps as she stood under the flickering lights of the ratty apartment building that was home to the Ice Outcasts. She slid her hand in a pocket, unsheathing a fancy knife.
"Why are you arming yourself, sempai?" O asked, voice muffled by what she would guess was fabric. O had a tendency of covering there mouth.
"She obviously wants to be prepared you idiot," P insulted.
"Quiet, no temperamental fight while in action, if you do not know this then you will never be an effective Agent." She whispered, wincing when she heard loud footsteps.
"Whose there!?" A raucous voice, deep, obviously male. "Come out! I have a gun!"
K swung out of her hiding spot, spinning around to kick the gun straight out of the man's hands. The man, she noticed, was on the list of "Dead or Alive" that the ICPO had given her. Predictably, he pulled another gun out, but this time, K swiped his feet out from under him. As the man came tumbling down towards her, she slashed up, eyes following the trickle of blood that accompanied her knife as it disabled the man.
Turning away from the bloody macabre scene, she preceded her prowl up the cold and dank corridors, running up to the stairs, intent on avoiding as much humans as possible.
Her eyes narrowed into a glare as she found the second floor crawling with delinquents. Simultaneously, they all pulled there repertoire of weapons.
From the hotel, most of the task force had abandoned the case momentarily paying more attention to the real life action that was playing before their eyes as blood splayed the halls left and right, all of them alive but wounded to the point of invalidity.
O and P turned squeamish at all of the blood, which was the purpose of this task, to desensitize them to the spilling of the liquid of life.
Kat came out of the brawl with no visible injuries; at least, they were not visible to the untrained eye. Lawliet glanced at the screens as the small twitch in her hand alerted him to the fact that she had somehow came out scathed, like the many other times.
Breaking into a full out sprint, she took to the upper most floor, finding herself at gun point. The girl, Yuukimoto Roze, with her bleached blonde hair, hazel eyes and gaunt face sneered at her, poised to kill her.
K looked straight into the cold barrel dully, seeing the bullet at the end with her acute eyesight. Everyone, she could tell, that was watching froze.
"This, is suppose to be who they send after me? Some newbie?"
The deafening blow of a shot, screams and screeches coming from her transmitter, as she saw crimson.
Maddy: Links for pictures of Kat and L on my profile. Ja ne.