Akaneko is, because I say so, that little red cat shown at the beginning of the Flying Ship episode. You know when Milly was using her tracking device to find Vash and it turned out to be two cats under the bed eating his breakfast? Well the little red cat there has been named by me as Akaneko. Oh and this is another one of those "what is with that black cat?" sort of thing. I hope its original. Two more things and then I'll stop I swear, 1) this is after the whole series, 2) REVIEW, please?
Akaneko
Knives opened his sapphire eyes and stared at the offending weight on his chest. The red cat raised its head and 'mreowed' loudly, green eyes closed to slits. He ground out a curse and lashed out at the creature. A moment before his hand would have connected with its body; the little cat darted off the bed and disappeared into the shadows surrounding the room.
Chest heaving from his exertion, Knives settled back against the lumpy pillow under his hand. Why did all the imperfect beings in the universe decide to pester him while he was in such a vulnerable state? If those two damnable girls his brother was with weren't bad enough, that stupid cat had decided to watch him. It always stared at him with those eerie green eyes, strangely reminiscent of his brother's own sea-green orbs. Vash had mentioned that a black cat had, for some reason or other, randomly appeared wherever he went.
We are more alike than you know, he thought to his slumbering brother a few rooms down. Now they both had stupid fur-balls stalking them.
* * *
A soft amber glow pierced the dazed man's barely opened eyes as he struggled back into consciousness. Everything was so warm, it was like he was wrapped in a gold blanket of comfort.
"I see you've finally arrived Chapel."
Everything snapped into focus as Nicholas D. Wolfwood gasped in shock. That coldly silken voice, he recognized it. Instinctively his hand reached for the Cross Punisher that was no longer there. Feeling his hands closed upon empty air he reeled away from the darkly glowing being.
"Legato," he hissed, staring into the golden eyes of his enemy. "What are you doing here?"
"You don't even know where here is," Legato scoffed, a condescending smile on his face, blue hair falling to obscure the burning flames in his eyes.
"Sine you're here I'm assuming it's hell," the priest retorted, drifting a short distance away. Of course distance was an impractical term since there was no dimension, no up or down. Everything was a faded amber color, unmoving and unchanging.
"We might be, considering we're dead," the psychopath admitted laconically. Wolfwood's blue eyes narrowed dangerously. How could this monster find their situation so damned amusing? "The others are here as well," Legato continued. "Seems as though all of our Master's minions have traveled here after their deaths."
"I died before you, you nihilistic bastard," Wolfwood raged, furious at having been put in the same category as those other slaughter-mad fiends. Though in truth he was more upset over the fact that that assessment was completely accurate. He had yielded his soul to Knives for the kids and that man always collected his debts.
"Well, you're purer than the rest of us. You didn't completely sell your humanity for the cause," the blue-haired man replied with an indolent shrug. "Still, here you are."
"Don't bicker you two," a new, masculine voice chided with indulgent amusement. The two turned to regard the intruder.
Hovering a few feet away was a black-haired man with vibrant green eyes. He cradled a nubile young woman, her aqua eyes regarded them quizzically from underneath the red bangs that partially shielded her face.
"Who are you?" Wolfwood demanded, Legato settled for looking mildly interested. He gave off the air of one who was waiting to see if the upcoming show was worth his attention or not.
"I'm sure you've seen me around," the man replied, unwinding his arms from around the young woman. The woman, perhaps more like girl for she couldn't be older than seventeen, stretched lazily and drifted closer to the two men, her rather translucent white dress shifting about her shapely thighs.
"I don't think so," the priest retorted.
"Oh I didn't look like this," the man laughed gesturing at himself, he was clothed in a nothing more than a pair of dress pants, "I was…furry."
"What are you talking about?" Wolfwood demanded angrily, he didn't like being toyed with, especially when he was dead and stuck in the same vicinity as Legato.
"The black cat, you know the one that always shows up wherever you go," the girl informed them as she waited patiently between the two dead men.
"What? How?"
"They want us to keep an eye on those two troublemakers that have made life on that desert ball rather…interesting," the black-haired man replied. The girl nodded in confirmation, her aqua eyes earnest and knowing. Neither had to ask who the two troublemakers were, they had a pretty good idea of who the two meant.
"Who's they?" Legato asked, deigning to speak to the two odd people. The girl drifted closer to him, her entire focus center solely on him.
"The plants," the man replied straightening up, a flash of interest shown in Legato's eyes, "Those two are their appointed guardians, their independent appendages if you will."
"You smell like both of them," the girl commented, her delicate nose twitching slightly as she sniffed at Legato. Come to think of it she did move with an uncanny cat-like fluidity, Wolfwood thought.
Without any warning the girl grabbed Legato's face and gave him a deep kiss. The priest could only stare at the two in shock. What was that crazy girl doing now? Horror plainly expressed on his face he turned to look at the man who claimed he was a cat. The man's arms were crossed and as amusement danced in his emerald eyes. Apparently he didn't give a whit if the girl went around kissing dangerous men.
"But you don't taste like them," the girl announced pushing herself away. There was something almost disappointed in her manner, like a child who had found out that the toy wasn't as good as she had expected. Legato stood there a look of dark humor on his face, cruelty reflected in his predatory, golden eyes.
"The twins have drifted off course during the past decades. One was almost fanatic in his devotion to us and his brother," the man replied with a bemused shrug, "The other's concern centered solely around humanity. We had hoped that the two separate ideals planted earlier on would have come into a harmonious fruition, it didn't."
"But now it might, if everything goes well," the girl added as she went to the man. "It's so hard to tell how experiments will react in a chaotic environment."
"Are you telling me Vash and Knives were merely your 'experiments'?" Wolfwood demanded, Legato looked disinterested in the whole affair.
"Isn't life just an experiment?" the man countered, taking the young woman into his arms again. "We were worried for awhile that they would have to be terminated and new guardians created. Fortunately it didn't prove so. After all it is rather difficult to create here when your entirety exists outside of what humans call time."
The girl gave a little wave and the two slowly faded from view.
"But why are we here?" Wolfwood demanded furiously of the vanished pair. Legato laughed cruelly, the priest shot him a dirty look which only made him laugh harder.
* * *
A dark frown marred Knives face as he was awakened to a familiar weight on his chest. It was that damned cat again. What was going on in its limited mental facilities that caused it to sit on his chest in the middle of the night and wake him up?
"Get off," he hissed, not bothering to open his eyes.
"But it's quite comfortable," a sweet feminine voice remarked with guileless innocence. His eyes flew open in surprise and found that instead of the red-furred creature was a redheaded young woman. No she was more like a girl, she didn't look any older than sixteen or seventeen.
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded angrily, being unable to place her face. Great, he was now being mauled by random females from the degenerate species known as Homo sapiens.
Without waiting for her answer, and not particularly caring, he twisted violently in an attempt to dislodge the offending being. His wounds screamed out and he bit back a cry of pain. The girl countered his sudden motion with an uncanny gracefulness. When his tired and agony filled body settled back the redhead settled herself back down.
"If it hurts you shouldn't do that," she advised him sagely.
"How did you get in here?" he grated out. If his strength was back he would've throttled her or perhaps snapped her neck, either way her annoying presence would be gone.
"The door," she answered precisely, smiling serenely. He wasn't amused by her response.
"I could kill you," he told her with a cockiness that would have proved more effective if he hadn't winced as she shifted her weight.
Without warning she sprawled atop him, her face hovering above his own. She had the most unsettling look of scientific inquiry on her face. As if he was some fascinating new specimen and she couldn't wait to dissect him.
"He doesn't taste like you," she informed him, becoming thoughtful. "He tastes…dark."
A sudden fury overtook him and he grabbed her slender neck with a strength he wouldn't have ordinarily possessed. He had no doubt of whom she spoke of and he wasn't happy about it. He could strangle her, snap her neck and no one could stop him. A dark sense of power took root in him, the same feeling he had lost after the final confrontation with his dear brother.
"You dared touch my brother?" he demanded coldly, squeezing his hand against her windpipe. She stared down at him with blithe unconcern about her dire predicament.
"Of course not," she laughed airily even as he exerted more pressure. The only signs of discomfort were the slight spasms beneath his crushing hand. "He's not part of my assignment."
"What assignment?" he inquired silkily, sapphire eyes burning with an unholy light.
"Akaneko," came a warning voice from the other side of the room. The girl blinked twice, a guilty flush creeping across her elegant cheeks. Without even trying she broke from Knives' grasp and jumped off him, ignoring the grunt of pain from her 'chair'.
"I wasn't doing anything," she said with the petulance of a young child.
A tall, dark-haired man detached from the nighttime darkness that settled like a funeral shroud in the small room. Gently he enfolded the redhead in his arms and the two faded from sight. His last impression, before he slipped abruptly in dreaming, was a pair of burning aqua eyes.
* * *
Thank you for reading my little endeavor, please review because it would make me incredibly happy. Of course you all don't care, but that's okay. I try to get the next chapter out real soon in case you guys like it.
