exactly what I had in mind, it does fit. Hopefully, we'll get Weiss in
here soon enough. Wonder how they'll deal with Kitty... and the
situation I'm leading up to.
False Idenitity
Chapter Two: Contact
Li Xiang
"His name is Saotome Ranma," Crawford's voice cut through Farfello's
retelling of his and Kitty's adventures, "Age 16, a student of
Musabetsu Kakatou Ryu, one of the most notorious martial arts in
japan."
Schuldich grinned a bit at that-- he knew of the Musabetsu Kakatou Ryu,
granted, it was information stolen from various peoples minds. Usually
people who had just got their asses handed to them by Ranma himself.
The School of Indiscriminate Grappling was known both for their
practitioner's general lack of giving a damn about anyone, or any
rules, as theivery was one of the main components behind it's creation,
and for their ruthlessness in winning a fight. That was the reason the
school was referred to the School of Anything Goes-- because, quite
literally, anything did.
Even the death of an opponant.
"So I guess I'm off to find Saotome, ja?"
Crawford nodded, "Take Farfello with you, when you go to Nerima. If
this boy really is Kitty, he's likely to respond better to him." He
left the fact that it had been eight years since Kitty and Jei had last
seen each other, and Kitty might not recognise his former master,
unspoken.
The telepathic assassin nodded, motioning for Farfello to follow him.
--
He ignored the icy glares of Nabiki over breakfast, he ignored the
dirty looks his fiancee-- Akane-- was shooting him, ignored the
slightly reproachful look Kasumi wore on her face, and the dark glower
the three girls' father was shooting him. His own father was to
engrossed in eating breakfast to notice the looks, or the dark bruise
that comprised half of Nabiki's face.
While Ranma had been said to 'Never Hit Girls' by others, the teenage
boy never recalled himself actually saying the words. Sure he didn't go
full out on the girls that chased him, but that didn't mean he'd never
fought against a woman when he was growing up. The real reason he
didn't want to hit girls, or fight with them, was Xian Phu-- Shampoo.
Would you want to fight with a girl after what he'd been through? For
god's sake, all he'd done was defeat her in a fight and she wanted to
KILL him!
Granted, that wasn't so unusal these days, but that was really the
first inicdent where he'd fought with someone, and they'd decided to
kill him for winning. But back then, it had terrified him-- afterall,
he'd only just started to be able to clearly remember whatever happened
to him at that point, only just began to try and take his life back
from his father.
He set his chopsticks down, standing from where he knelt at the table,
making his way in silence up the stairs. He was still only wearing his
boxers and undershirt, having not bothered to get dressed before
breakfast; it was Sunday, and therefore, no school. This only meant
that his life would be more hectic than usual, as people wouldn't
actually have to be in classes instead of attempting to kill him.
You'd think they'd learn, he mused silently to himself, I've killed...
a god. I ripped him apart. Maybe if they'd been paying attention to
him, and not their own lives, and problems they might have noticed that
Ranma hadn't even gone through the standard 'oh my god, I've just
killed someone', that most people did. It was like, he hadn't even
cared that Saffron was dead, only that he protected Akane. It wasn't
that he loved her; no, it was more for the thrill of the hunt, to be
able to do something exciting. If Akane died... where would all the fun
come from?
Had he not fallen into the spring that freed his minds from the grips
of whatever the therapist and Genma had done to him, he'd probably have
married Akane already-- probably have fooled himself into believing he
loved her, through the vague, dream-like qualities of his memories. But
the curse was a blessing in disguise. Although he was stuck with
shifting forms at any tiny splash of water, he could think for himself.
He tugged off his undershirt, throwing it in a pile of disguarded
clothing, moving to pick up one of his traditional blood red tangs. For
a moment he stopped, looking at his arms, and the scars that danced
along them-- they were hardly visible, paper cut thin marks that were
the only physical remains of his training in the Nekoken. With a shake
of his head, the martial artist pulled his chinese tang on. Fingers
reached up to brush his hair off his neck in order to straighten the
collar, skimming over the slightly raised scar that ran down his spine.
That was an incident he was not likely to forget, anytime soon. Or his
own revenge on the woman who had done it to him. A faint smirk crossed
his lips as he tugged his black silk pants over his boxers. A quick tug
of his fingers through his bangs, and the Saotome boy jogged down the
stairs. He was almost out the door when he called back to Kasumi, "I'm
going out!"
Instead of responding, as she normally would, Kasumi merely looked up
at the door, then turned back to cleaning. She wasn't all that pleased
about Ranma hitting her sister, having taken the fact that Ranma didn't
like to fight girls the same way pretty much everyone else did-- that
he would never purposely hurt any girl. This one act had shattered the
illusion for the whole of the Tendou family.
Ranma blinked for a second at the unusual respond to his call before
shrugging and darting out the door. A moment later, Nabiki padded out
after him, smiling cruelly. Ranma was most definately going to pay for
hitting her.
--
"Where the hell is he?!"
Nabiki growled, holding her camera in a death grip. She had ducked
around a corner when Ranma had looked around him, as though searching
for something, almost an hour and a half ago. When she'd decided to
come out of hiding to continue following the young Saotome, he had
vanished.
Roofhopping, she'd decided. Following that train of thought, she'd gone
to botht he Nekohanten, and the Ucchan, looking for the boy, but he was
in neither place. She'd stopped by Furinkan, thinking he might have
stopped there and got caught in a challenge, but again, he wasn't
there.
So now, she was wandering about Nerima, looking for her "cash cow". And
still, no one had seen him, anywhere.
"Can I help you with something, Miss...?"
Nabiki jumped in surprise, whirling to face the man standing behind
her. She was on the edge of Furinkan-cho, about to cross into
Tomobiki-cho; although she had contacts this far from the dojo, she'd
never been in this area personally. She was known merely by reputation,
as she'd made her contacts come to her.
The man was grinning-- bordering on leering at her-- his companion
smirking, single golden eye glinting. There was something about that
single eye that made her think of Ranma in the grips of the Nekoken. It
held the same feral knowledge that he was the predator. Shifting her
gaze from the scarred man's disconcerting one, she looked back to the
man who had voiced the question.
Sharp jade eyes, and a face framed by wild red hair that bordered on
orange. His hair was only held back by a yellow bandana, a pair of
sunglasses balanced on his head. Nabiki ignored the leer, giving him an
icy look, "Only if you can tell me if Saotome Ranma has been seen
around here today."
"Kitty?" the pale haired one whispered with an odd smile, and the
redhead grinned.
"What a coincidence. We're looking for Saotome, too."
The icy glare mutated into a sinister smile, "Oh? Did he do something
to your family? Was he engaged to a sister or such?"
The pale haired one's expression darkened, but the redhead set a hand
on his shoulder, "Something along those lines. I'm Schuldich, and this
is Farfello."
Nabiki cackled on the inside. Two new, unexpected, challengers for her
freeloading houseguest. Revenge was sweet.
--
Jei's single eye followed Nabiki's form as she guided them through
Nerima to the Tendou Dojo. She had introduced herself to them shortly
after the german had given their names, stating that she lived with
Kitty. He'd growled in the back of his throat when he'd heard that,
jealous that someone else got to spend time with his pet, but it had
quickly been pushed back by a simple command from Schuldich.
/Can I kill her?/ the irishman whined to his friend, a pout in his
mental voice, although no such expression came across physically. The
redheaded assassin's own voice held a smirk.
/She's a mercenary, Farf. She's being ever so kind and guiding us to
Ranma for free./
Jei gave a faint nod of acknowledgement, /After that, can I kill her?/
Schuldich shrugged, but said nothing in return, letting his friend
muddle through his own thoughts. After ten or so more minutes of
walking, they stopped at the gate of a large-- for Japan-- home with a
dojo in back. They could hear the sound of a body slamming into the
ground, and a scowl settled over the 'Ice Queen's' features, as she
prowled around to the back.
The two assassins followed silently, not even their clothing making a
rustle as they moved.
The sight that greeted them, while not unusal for Nerima, was somewhat
of a shock to the two hunters. Kitty was pulling himself out of the
ground, shaking his head out, as a girl with short black hair cradled a
black skinned piglet to her chest, cooing to it. The piglet was also
giving Ranma smug looks, that caused the martial artist to make an odd
noise-- almost like he was holding back a growl.
Nabiki began to open her mouth to call out to the martial artist, when
Schuldich did it for her, "Saotome Ranma?"
He turned, frowning, "Yeah, whadya want?"
The german smirked at the dark look on Ranma's face, acknowledging the
veiled threat in the boy's eyes. The Musabetsu Kakatou Ryu had a
tendancy to boast themselves as the best of the best-- something that,
Schuldich, for once, didn't disagree with. Even only a breif skimming
of the martial artist's mind had come up with hundreds of tortures
beset on the boy by his own flesh and blood, not to mention the many
techniques he'd learned from it, "I think we have something to
discuss."
"And what would that be?"
Ranma's gaze shifted between him and Farfello, a faint splash of
recognition darting across the teen's face. Farfello tipped his head to
one side, staring, almost blankly with his single eye. The irishman
spoke softly, his voice lilting with the words in his first language.
"Hello Kitty."
End Chapter