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Something to Life For

Chapter 3

It was five days later when Asano was willing to unchain Kadaj and let him move around the apartment on his own. While Kadaj had been chained, he pondered a bit about why his powers didn't seem to work anymore. It must have been the Planet! Once again it was stunting his growth and trying to prevent him from reaching Mother! Kadaj had made up his mind that as soon as he was free to go, he would find Mother and destroy the pitiful piece of rock.

Kadaj had just opened the door to leave the bedroom when, out of nowhere, an empty can hit him square on the face at full speed. After ricocheting off Kadaj's face, it landed into a nearby trashcan.

"Morning brat," greeted Asano.

"Asano," said Ken, who happened to stop by this morning. "That wasn't very nice…"

Ignoring Ken, Asano said to Kadaj, "Aren't you going to thank us for saving your stupid ass?"

"But, Asano, you've never thanked any…ow!"

After a swift punch to the stomach, Ken was quivering on the floor. Aya, another of Asano's 'friends', had just come in to discover what the racket was all about. One look at her and Kadaj got the feeling that she was not someone to mess around with.

"Asano!" she yelled. "What do you think you're doing? Jeez, making a racket like this at 5:00 a.m.!"

"You're voice is louder than mine…"replied Asano.

"That's not the point!"

"Anyways," interrupted Ken staggering a bit from his encounter with Asano's fist. "Shouldn't we get Akira to register ….ummm…? Sorry, I don't think I've ever gotten your name."

"I don't have to tell you," replied Kadaj rather childishly. "Why should I?"

"If you don't tell us your name so that we can properly register you," said Asano slowly. "Then we'll just have to use one of the names I've got here."

In his right hand, Asano held a roll of paper. Curious, Ken took it and looked it over. It was a rather long list, for it reached all the way to the other end of the hallway.

"Asano… these were just the nicknames you've come up with for him…" stated Ken a little surprised.

"Yup," agreed Aya taking a look. "They're all here too…from Spoiled Brat to Momma's Boy…"

"Do you really think that they'll accept names like these?"

"No," answered Asano. "But I thought that it'd be rather amusing…"

"Couldn't you have at least given him a nicer name? Like Alan or something like that?"

"What the hell!" shouted Kadaj as he snatched the paper away. They weren't kidding after all…

"Spoiled brat seems nice to me," commented Asano. "It fits his personality real well."

Suddenly, the light above them started flickering on and off, but no one paid any real attention to it. But then, the entire room started to shake as if an earthquake had come into town. What happened next, Kadaj noted, was like what happened on the streets when the funeral bell materialized out of thin air. The wires from the surrounding bits of technology came to life and were moving in snake-like movements, however, there were a few differences. Digital data appeared before them in the center of all the wire and then a blinding flash of light.

When the light faded away, Kadaj saw that before them stood a youth about the age of seventeen. With long blood-red hair and emerald green eyes, he looked rather dangerous but majestic, like a blazing fire or a phoenix.

"Hi Akira," greeted Ken enthusiastically.

"When you ask me to do a favor," said Akira in an emotionless monotone voice. "I expect that you'll get me the data quickly so that I can get the job done…"

"We've getting there," said Asano. "The momma's boy over there just hasn't given us his name yet."

"My name's Kadaj!" screamed Kadaj. He'd gotten rather fed up with Asano's nicknames for him.

As soon as he said his name, the wires in the room came to life once again and surrounded Akira. He couldn't quite hear what Akira was saying, but Kadaj heard something about rewriting… After a few seconds the wires returned to their lifeless selves and lay in their original places.

"Overwrite was complete," stated Akira.

"What?" asked Kadaj who was rather confused.

"We've Registered you into the government's database," said Asano. "Meaning you can now wonder around town without having to worry about getting arrested for not being Registered."

"It doesn't matter," muttered Kadaj. "I'm going to the Reunion!"

With that Kadaj stomped out of the room and out the door into the cold wintry streets.

"He sure seems excited about that Reunion of his," stated Ken.

"Whatever," muttered Asano as he opened up another can of coffee.

"Aren't you worried?" questioned Akira without a trace of emotion.

"Why?"

"That boy, he's an Outsider…"

"So what's your point?"

"You just let him walk outside alone with no weapons to defend himself with and he probably doesn't know where he's going…"

Asano made some sort of a gagging noise as if the coffee he was drinking went down the wrong tube. Anyone could tell by his eyes that he's completely forgotten about that little detail.

"What's wrong, Onii-chan?" asked Hiroshi who had just woken up (I don't blame him, after all that racket…)

"Nothing," muttered Asano as he reached for his trench coat. "I'm going out for a bit."

Asano was out the door in a few minutes and slammed it shut behind him. It was a few minutes before anyone else would speak.

"You're Onii-chan's a very bad liar," said Aya.

"We should go after them too," sighed Ken. "Aya, can you stay with Hiroshi?"

"Fine…I don't care."

"Hang on you stupid Momma's boy!" shouted Asano when he finally caught up with Kadaj.

"My name's Kadaj!" yelled Kadaj, a bit pissed off.

"Whatever," said Asano. "I don't know what you're going to do, but wandering off without a clue where you're going is not a good idea! Also, you don't have anything you can use to defend yourself with!"

"I can take care of myself!"

"Well you haven't been doing a real good job of it lately!"

"There you guys are!" called out Ken.

"Asano," said Akira. "There's a signal…a faint one, coming from the sector 8 region…"

"Now?" questioned Asano. "There hasn't been one in some time… Let's go then!"

"What about Kadaj?" asked Ken. "What to come along?"

"Why?" asked Kadaj.

"We're headed towards an abandoned lab," explained Ken. "It's good for sightseeing…"

'A lab,' thought Kadaj. Come to think of it…wasn't Jenova first found in some sort of lab, or something like that? It he went…maybe he'd find her…

"He'll only give us more trouble," said Asano. "I say we leave him back here…"

"I'm going," stated Kadaj.

"What!"

"I'm going to see if I can find Mother there."

"Again with this Mother stuff?" asked Asano. "Oh well, I don't care… Ken, after we pick up Daisuke we're heading over to your place."

"Huh? Why?" asked Ken.

"Because from what I know by experience, that one (points to Kadaj) is going to wander off and cause trouble. So he'll need a weapon of some sort to defend himself with."

"Daisuke lives here?" asked Kadaj out loud.

They were in a small alleyway that was basically filled up with garbage cans of all sizes. Dogs of all shapes and sizes were napping everywhere. It seemed impossible for anyone to live here! Asano and the others didn't seem surprised at all about the living conditions of the area. In fact, they seemed to know where they were going. They walked all the way towards the dead end of the alleyway and stopped in front of two trash cans.

"I forgot," said Asano. "Was it this can or that one…"

"I don't really know," replied Ken.

Both Akira and Kadaj remained silent as Asano walked up to a garbage can and gave it a kick…

NightRain0: Next chapter, we'll introduce Daisuke! Please review!