idea. If anyone says otherwise, then I'll be in a bad mood. This means
that none of the characters belong to me. Unless they're random people
getting killed. Then they either belong to me, or themselves, in which
case I'm in a bad mood, anyways.
False Idenitity
Chapter One: Kitty Found
Li Xiang
"Hey Ranma, what's this?"
The black haired teenaged martial artist looked up from the manga he
was reading. Sticking his finger in to set his place, he looked up to
see his fiancee's sister holding what looked to be a black strap of
leather in her hands. It was dusty from years of not even being
touched, and stiff for the same reason. A grimy metal piece hung from
the leather, between her lands, dancing in the early evening light.
Sapphire eyes locked on the collar and he very carefully removed it
from Nabiki's hands, "Where did you find this?"
"1000 yen," Ranma tugged the money from his pocket, not even bothering
to look as he dropped the money into her awaiting hands. No, his eyes
were locked on the collar, excitement thrumbing through him. He'd
thought it lost...
"It was in Genma's things," the brunnete stated, a gleem of greed
entering her eyes. Ranma had just handed her 5000 yen! Well, she
supposed that he deserved more information for giving her a lot more
than she had expected. Honestly, she hand't even thought that he'd have
500 yen, "In a box labeled 'Ranma'. There was some other odd things in
there, like all your baby teeth and a rather nice black t-shirt. So,
what is it, Saotome?"
Ranma-- very carefully, mind you-- used the inside of his red silk
chinese shirt to clean the dust and grime from the collar, revealing a
silvered metal dangling from black leather by a sturdy, old string. In
english, 'Kitty' was scratched into the metal, "I'll hafta get the
string switched with a chain, but..." he shot Nabiki a grin, "Jei-sama
gave this to me. About... eight years ago."
Not even hestitating, Ranma moved to tie the collar around his neck
when Nabiki grabbed his wrist, "Hold it Saotome. Jei-sama?"
"Dunno his full name. He kept me from Oyaji for awhile when we were in
Ireland-- gave me time to heal from a... really stupid training
incident."
"But Jei-sama?" Nabiki hiked an eyebrow, "And a collar that reads,
'Kitty'? What was he, a slave trader?" Ranma's fist caught her in the
face before she even knew what hit her, and Ranma was on his feet,
seething.
"Don't you ever talk about Jei-sama like that again. I owe him my
life, Nabiki!" and the ebone haired sixteen year old stalked out of the
living room, hopping onto the roof, and vanishing into the night. The
middle Tendou daughter rubbed her sore cheek, already knowing that it
was going to bruise, and bruise bad.
"You're going to pay for that, Saotome."
--
Jei paced his room, rubbing his forehead. His headache was terrible
today-- the one constant he'd had since the day that fat oaf had tossed
him into the wall and taken Kitty. He'd knocked something loose in his
head, and it had a tendancy to throbbed like all hell for no particular
reason.
That day had been the one when he'd killed his family. In a psychotic
rage from loosing his only friend, his pet, his Kitty, Jei had vanished
into the lunatic known as Farfello. Although he was much more lucid
these days than in ones past, the headache still threatened to knock
him over the edge. He needed to hunt something.
He needed Kitty.
Weiss... Abyssian... Fujimiya Aya... or rather, Ran. For some odd
reason, that was the only one of the Weiss kittens he liked. He wasn't
really partial to any of the others-- the only kitten he'd ever liked
had been his Kitty, and he didn't like Weiss using cat names. Somehow,
in that twisted mind of his, Kitty had been linked to all types of
cats, and cat names.
Everytime he heard Weiss using their codenames, he wanted to find Kitty
badly. Very, very badly.
/Thinking about that kid again, Farfie?/ the amused voice floated
through his mind, and Farfello turned towards the door of his cell,
where Schuldich stood. The redheaded assassin entered the room, and
dropped down onto his bed. This time, the telepath spoke outloud, "You
should let it go, Farf. The kid was taken away by his dad in Ireland,
you can't honestly expect to find him here."
"The man spoke Japanese."
"And you expect him to be here? Farf, Japan's four islands, he could be
on any of them, just give up on Kitty."
"I can't," Farfello turned in one eyed stare to the far wall, an odd
look passing through his eyes, "I'll find Kitty... then we can hurt God
together..."
Schuldich shook his head, standing up. Jei was vanishing back into
Farfello again. He liked talking to the Irishman when he was lucid
enouh to hold a conversation-- that wasn't about the mysterious Kitty--
but listening to Farfello talk about hurting God was just plain
distrubing.
"Alright Farfie, I'll see if I can find your 'Kitty'." It was the same
promise he made everytime he had this odd conversation with his friend,
before he drifted out of the room, wondering if, just maybe, if Kitty
was found...
... would Farfello become more lucid, or more insane?
--
He crouched on the roof of the dojo, watching the pale moon ghost
across the sky. It had been hours since he'd flitted from his room to
the roof, to reveal in the heat the late summer's night. And even more
hours since he'd retrieved the collar. With the metal buffed to shine,
and the leather polished to a glinting black, it looked no older than a
few days-- the old string having been replaced by a thin silver chain.
No sense in having the tag fall off due to a string that was more
likely to break than not.
He had removed the dragon whisker from his hair-- not that he needed it
any longer-- and his dark hair swirled around his face in the breeze.
Fingers reached up, to brush against the metal piece on the collar.
By tommarrow night, 'Kitty' would be properly engraved in the back-side
of the metal. That would be the side he showed to the world in
general, the side with 'Kitty' merely scratched in it would be
something only Jei-sama would see.
"Idiot Therapist," Ranma grumbled, standing from his crouch and
dropping off the roof. Silent feet moved the teenager like a shade
through the yard, "Idiot Oyaji..."
He could still see Jei being thrown into the wall by his father-- still
see himself attacking in a blind rage, but to no avail. Genma had
unsealed the forbidden Techniques in order to subdue his wild child of
a son, knocking the boy into peaceful oblivion.
After that point, he really only had vague, fading in-and-out memories,
like those fo a bad dream, for the next eight years. Some of the
trainning "accidents" he could remember in crystal clear detail, but
other things-- and people, such as Ryouga-- were nothing more than
shadows to his mind. However, after the plunge into Jhusenkyou, the
springs of sorrow, all that had happened to him were as clear as the
day of Jei's attack.
It was like he'd slept through life until that point.
Although, the 'dream-state' of life he'd been going through, began with
a woman's face, and awoman's voice. A voice that whispered to hims that
it wanted to help, to help him return to being a normal child.
Some help, he thought, bitterly. Dependant on Genma for everything, the
inability to think for himself, to choose his own destiny... it was as
though he had been nothing more than a toddler-- not the teenager he
had been in body.
So, what was he now? Now that he could decide for himself? Was he the
teenaged martial artist known as Saotome Ranma? Or was he the cat-like
child-hunter Kitty? Perhaps some being in between? He just didn't know.
And the shade flitted from the Tendou garden, into the streets, to
hunt.
--
The Telepath hiked an eyebrow, looking between the paused image ont he
screen, and Crawford's blank face, "So... this kid's our next target?"
The look he got in return meerely made him grin, and Crawford had to
forcibly remind himsel that he was too dignified to sigh in
exasperation. Oracle composed himself in btu a split second, "No. Esset
wants us to scout him."
"Why us?" Schuldich would have just pulled the information from
Crawford's mind, had two things not stopped him. The first was that
Crawford's sheild were practically impenitrable. The second was his
gun-- Schuldich really didn't want to to die just yet.
"Because the last three scouts barely managed to get away alive."
"From this kid?" If this boy was good enough to throw off three of
Esset's men, he could be considered one fo the best of the best...
"No, not from him--" eh, oh well, "--but from the collateral damage in
his... fights. One of the scouts was very nearly crushed by a building
collapsing on him."
"A building? Collasping from a fight? Brad, you have got to be kidding
me!" In response, Crawford hit play, and the video began. It was
apparently taken by one of the scouts, as the camera jerked a bit as it
followed the boy's movements.
'The kid' was on the recieving end of a punch that sent him crashing
through a wall, only to having him launching hismelf fromt eh impact
crater mere seconds later. Fists and feet flew as he proceeded to
pummel the hell out of his bandana'd opponent.
Said opponent began to glow a sickly green color. Even just watching it
through a screen, the depression of the aura was palpable. The two
fighters split apart, and the glowing one, shouted something. the aura
vanished from around him, to be shot in a blast from cupped palms.
A spark of blue light had started in the original boy's hand. His own
brillant blue aura flared aroudn him, before vanishing into the orb set
in his palms. When the other had shouted his attack, he followed suit,
sending his own blue light beam outwards. The beams clashed, battlign
back and forth for a second, before the blue one overpowered the green,
sending it's creator flying backwards and through another wall.
The camera cut out as the building began to collapse. Schuldich stared
at the darkened screen for several long moments, before uttering, "Holy
Shiiit..."
"Kitty."
Both Crawford and Schuldich started, neither having noticed Farfello's
approach-- Schuldich had long ago learned to block out the insane man's
thoughts to prevent himself from going stark raving mad, and Crawford
had been studying the boy in the video. Attempting to figure out what
sort of ability he had to let him fire off a ball of pure, visible,
energy.
Farfello frowned, "That was Kitty."
"Which one, Farf?" Schuldich didn't really believe it was Farfello's
Kitty, but hey, if the lunatic thought it was, maybe they wouldn't have
to do with his episodes?
"The one who won. That was Kitty."
"How do you know that, Farfello?" Crawford, too, didn't believe that
this boy could possibly be the 'Kitty' Farfello was so obsessed with.
Farfello rewound the tape to about mid-fight, before pausing it.
'Kitty's' back was to the camera, the breeze from his own movements
kicking the small black pigtail up and out of the way, allowing the
back fo his neck to be visible. It was to here Farfello pointed-- to
the thin, white scar that ran along his spine from within his hair to
beneath the blood red chinese shirt he was wearing.
"Kitty got that from my mother," the irish man grinned at that, "He got
her back though..."
End Chapter