Aberrant: Mutant High - Home Is Where Your Fucking Heart Is [Complete]

[Kazuo]

Today…

“Here we are”, says Mark, as his beat up old sedan pulls past the large, wrought-iron gates and onto the long drive leading up to the Academy.

Kazuo “Kurusu” Kanai doesn’t acknowledge him. He still can’t quite believe he signed up for this shit. Place looks like somethin’ outta one o’ them boring novels about fuckin’ rich people, and to make it worse, Kazuo’s lookin’ at more snow than he’s ever seen all at once in his whole life. It looks worse’n the fuckin’ Hokkaido islands out there!

So he’s about as happy as a guy who just won a hundred grand in the lottery, only to discover the money’s gonna be doled out in five thousand dollar annual deposits over the next twenty years - half of which is gonna get eaten by the Tax Monster before it ever sees his bank account - and his name, legal identity, and eternal soul are now the property of State Lottery Board.

Fuckin’ a, man! Fuckin’ a…

Seeing the expression on the Japanese youth’s face, Mark says, “Cheer up, Kazuo. This is still better than the alternative.”

Kazuo continues to stare out the window with his one good eye for another moment, his unseeing dead eye aching in the cold air. After a moment he grudgingly agrees, “Yeah…”

Last Year…

Ryoko Mendo had always been a beautiful girl, the kind who could easily have become a model or J-Pop idol.

But that was impossible to tell at the moment under the blood and bruising that covered her face as she lay unconscious in a dingy alley behind the Seven Lucky Gods nightclub, a small pool of blood slowly congealing between her legs and in the fabric of her hitched up skirt.

Several feet away from her, four men and one boy were engaged in a fight for their lives.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!”, screamed Kazuo, clutching the freshly ruined mass of his right eye with one hand as blood flowed from underneath it and saturated his shirt below. In his other hand he still held the knife he’d taken from one of the four Yaks who were still staring at him in hatred and fear. Kazuo stared right back at them with his remaining eye through the cloud of pain even as he screamed, though there was only hatred in his eye.

He’d stumbled on the four Yakuza in the middle of raping Ryoko after he’d come looking for her, hoping to convince her to let him buy her a few drinks so he could try and charm that short skirt right off of her later in the night. There was no denying that Kazuo wanted to have sex with her too - just like the four Yaks who’d been ravaging her for the past several minutes - but not like that!

He’d stared at them in wild-eyed confusion for all of about half a second before the rage had kicked in, and then he’d attacked them like a demon oni straight from one of the Thousand Hells. Now they were all bruised and bloody, and in the past few seconds the fight had been taken to a new level of brutality as knives had been drawn and used. Kazuo had already managed to cut two of them, but had suffered several stabbings and slashings in the process, culminating with the slashing blow that had just cost him his right eye.

“What the fuck is this kid?!”, shouted one of the Yaks, the one from whom Kazuo’d stolen the knife. He was bleeding pretty badly himself where Kazuo had sliced him. He was starting to look very scared too, despite the fact that he and his associates were clearly winning this fight. “Why won’t this kid just fall down?!”

“Heh…”

The sound came from Kazuo. It sounded like a laugh, and it made all of the yakuza stop and stare. And sure enough, the teenaged thug was standing there in front of them, having already suffered multiple stab and slash wounds and having just lost one entire eye, and he was laughing.

“Geheheheheh…” The sound Kazuo’s gruff laughter slowly faded, and he looked back up at the frozen Yaks, his right hand still clamped over his ruined eye and a look of cold, merciless humor in the other remaining one. “You assholes think I’m gonna fall over from a couple of little scratches”, he asked, “after you hurt Ryoko?!” He paused for an instant and the look of mirth in his left eye turned into a look of absolute rage.

“Gonna fucking KILL YOU ALL!!”

And Kazuo charged the four rapists then, a scream of rage coming from his throat that froze the blood in their veins. Three of the four Yaks started to turn and run, but the fourth man, whose name was Ryo Tendo, kept his head, drew his gun, and started pulling the trigger…

[Kazuo]

Today…

Mark Ridley’s snow and dirt encrusted sedan pulls into the school’s parking lot with a wheeze and a groan, its engine stuttering and sputtering like an old worn out mare. He pulls the keys from the ignition before looking at Kazuo and saying in a cheerful enough tone, “well, here we are.”

“Mm”, says Kazuo, “great.”

They both pull their coats closer around themselves in defense against the frigid air as they exit the vehicle and walk around to the car’s trunk. Mark pops it open and pulls out Kazuo’s one duffel bag, struggling a bit with its bulk and size. “Think you packed enough, kid?” he asks in a humorous, goading tone. Kazuo smirks as he takes the bag from him and slings it easily over his shoulder, “Speak fer yerself, old man. Ya got more baggage in that trunk than a forty year old alcoholic with a ring, no wife, and a really long story to tell”, he counters, in reference to the two suitcases and one carry-on that Mark has stowed in the trunk and which far outweigh Kazuo’s one duffel bag.

The two of them finish hauling Mark’s luggage out of the sedan’s trunk, and then begin making their way to the school’s front entrance. Before they are entirely there, one of the most beautiful women Kazuo’s ever seen comes out the front doors and starts walking down the steps to meet them.

“Welcome back, Mark”, she calls out in greeting, “I’m glad to see you’ve returned to us safely.” She turns towards Kazuo with an appraising look in her eye. Kazuo doesn’t meet her eye, but only because he’s “appraising” her too, and isn’t really trying to hide it. “And this must be young Mr. Kanai”, she says after an instant, not quite hiding her bemusement.

“Hey Denise”, says Mark with a smile, “it’s good to be back, thanks. We ran into a little trouble in the city, but nothing too serious.”

“Oh?”, she asks in a tone both curious and concerned, in response to which Mark waves his hand as though brushing away her concern and promptly adds, “Don’t worry yourself, Denise. It’s nothing that can’t wait until later.”

The two adults exchange looks, which Kazuo does not miss but doesn’t comment on either, and then Mark turns towards him. “This”, he says, smacking the back of his hand into Kazuo’s chest hard enough for him to feel it and forget all about ogling the school’s Assistant Director, “is Kazuo Kanai. Kazuo, this is Denise Childs, Assistant Director for the Hunt Academy.”

Ms. Childs extends her hand towards Kazuo. “Welcome to the Thomas Hunt Academy for the Genetically Gifted”, she says, in a sincere, if very businesslike manner.

Kazuo stares at her hand for a moment before holding out his own. “Yeah. Thanks”, he says in a tone that utterly fails to sound thankful. “Genetically gifted; that’s me, alright.”

Last Year…

Kazuo cried out and jerked upright from where he’d been lying, utterly confused as to where he was and what was going on. The last he remembered, he’d been getting shot in the chest. Which hurt a lot, in case you were wondering.

Kazuo blinked a few times and tried to make sense of his surroundings. But even the blinking added to his confusion, because he’d forgotten about what had happened to his right eye, which was completely wrapped in bandages at the moment. He found himself in a hospital bed, surrounded by life support machinery and a surprising number of people all staring at him.

Ryoko was there, sitting next to his bed, but aside from looking a tired and troubled, she looked fine. There was no bruising on her face, or cuts or other signs of her ordeal. Her parents were there too, sitting in the chairs next to hers. There was also a strange old gaijin with gray hair and a mustache standing off in one corner of the room, staring at him with a strange look in his eye. Kazuo’s mother was conspicuously absent.

“What happened?”, he asked Ryoko, after a moment spent futilely trying to gather his wits.

“Kazuo!”, she cried happily, “you’re awake! We’ve been so worried!”

“I’m fine”, he answered, even though he wasn’t at all sure that was the case, and then he repeated his question, “Now, where am I and what happened?”

But before Ryoko could answer someone in a white coat – Kazuo guessed he was a doctor – stepped forward and answered for her. “You’re in the hospital young man. You’ve been comatose for nearly two months now, and you’ve had us all very worried. In all honesty, we weren’t sure you’d pull through, and it caught us all quite off guard when you started to wake up!”

The doctor was about to say more, but Ryoko’s mother suddenly gasped and said, “Look!”

She was pointing at Kazuo’s arms, and as soon as he looked down he saw what had her so alarmed. In the two months that Kazuo had been lying in his hospital bed, many of the wounds given to him by those four Yakuza had healed already, but many of them had not finished healing yet, especially the deeper knife wounds he’d sustained. Even as Kazuo watched, his own amazement as great as those gathered around him, some of the larger, scabbed over knife wounds on his forearms were closing up. In seconds, every wound visible on him had sealed itself off, leaving only the white lines of scar tissue in their place.

When he looked up in mute wonder at what he’d just seen, he found that Ryoko’s parents were out of their chairs and had backed up towards the doorway that exited into the hall outside, dragging Ryoko along with them. They looked afraid, and the father was gripping Ryoko fiercely in his attempts to prevent her from returning to his side. The doctor and nurses in the room had all backed away a few paces as well, though they looked less terrified than Ryoko’s parents.

The entire room was abuzz with whispered exclamations as everyone stared and tried not to point at Kazuo or catch his eye. And one word was repeated over and over again: “Mutant”.

“Mutant…”

[Kazuo]

Today…

“Well”, says Ms. Childs, looking as though she’s assessing Kazuo the way others would assess property damage, “let’s get you two inside, hmm?” To which Mark and Kazuo agree readily enough, and they head inside.

Ms. Childs turns to look in Kazuo’s direction as they pass through the large double doors of the school’s front entrance, saying, “I’ll take you to your room first, Kazuo, so that you don’t have to carry that heavy bag around all over campus, and then I’ll take you on a brief tour of the campus so that you’re not completely lost on your first day of school, alright?”

Kazuo just grunts in acknowledgement, drawing a slight scowl but no comment from the Assistant Director. Mark Ridley clears his throat a little awkwardly and says, “alright Kazuo, you’re here now, so I’m going to leave you in Denise’s capable hands and go find my own rooms. I’ll see you around though.”

Kazuo waves half-heartedly, but not entirely without feeling, and responds, “Yeah, seeya around, old man.”

Last Year…

“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”, asked the Silverfish Knight, the de facto leader of the Dark Ocean Society, his armor shimmering like oil on water as he stalked across the now-empty dance floor of the Seven Lucky Gods. Kazuo just gave him an incredulous look. “In this club”, the Knight prompted, “I’ve seen you in this club before, haven’t I?”

Kazuo shifted his grip on Ryo Tendo’s neck, so that the half-dead yakuza thug wouldn’t choke to death – yet – and shrugged. “Maybe”, he said disinterestedly, “but if you did, I didn’t see you, and that armor looks like it’d be easy to pick out in a crowd, ya know?”

This caused Sunset Mourning, the Society’s most “radiant” beauty, to titter shrilly and mockingly at Kazuo’s expense, tossing her magenta locks over one shoulder casually as she did so. “Silly boy”, she said (despite being no more than one or possibly two years older than Kazuo), “no one sees the Silverfish Knight unless he wants them to.”

This relatively straightforward statement inexplicably caused a new round of laughter, not just from Sunset Mourning, but from most of the rest of the Dark Ocean Society as well, excepting of course Mysterious Xi and Battler Doom, who both had images to maintain and couldn’t afford to be seen laughing frivolously by the rabble. On the other end of that spectrum however, was Absolute Opossum, who laughed so long and loudly in that slightly insane-sounding cackle of his that it became a touch awkward. It took the entire rest of the Society glaring at him for several seconds before the Opossum realized his gaff and finally shut up.

It was Kazuo’s turn to chuckle at their expense. Which only further ruined the mood for most of the Society mutants who’d cornered him just as he was about to end the life of the last of the Yakuza assholes who’d ruined both his and Ryoko’s life. It’d taken them two weeks to finally track him down, and in the meantime he’d lain waste to a half-dozen Yakuza strongholds in his quest for revenge, causing untold amounts of property damage in the process with his newly discovered mutant abilities. Kazuo supposed he should take it as a compliment that they’d sent the entire Dark Ocean Society after him, even if they were a bunch of idiots who liked to act like super-villains in a bad anime series.

Kazuo’s laughter was shortly interrupted by the entrancing voice of Blasphemer Heavenly, the team’s supernatural seer and seductress. “Just hand over Tendo-san to us, Kazuo”, she said, using his name in a way that implied far more intimacy than ever had or would exist between them, “we don’t really want to hurt you, you know? I think we might even become good friends, if only we can get past this silly misunderstanding.”

Her voice was as amazing as her body, and Kazuo wanted nothing more than to lose himself in both right at that moment.

Instead, he lifted the gun he’d been holding in his other hand this entire time and shot Blasphemer Heavenly in the face. Or tried to, anyway. The sultry mutant succubus was a founding member of the Society, and he doubted she’d have survived this long if that’s all it took to take her out.

Regardless, she did scream and fall to the ground, prompting the rest of the team to leap to action. Before he even knew what was happening, Mysterious Xi appeared at Kazuo’s side and tore Ryo Tendo from his grasp before disappearing again just as quickly. And then Anaranjado the Gorilla was on top of him (and who was, in fact, a gorilla, roughly ten feet tall with orange fur), laying a left hook across his face that sent Kazuo sprawling for more than a dozen feet and peeling off a good chunk of skin in the process. Kazuo hadn’t even tumbled to a complete stop before the combined energy blasts of both Nega Nuclear (who was Ryo Tendo’s younger brother, it later turned out) and Proton Bloom hit him with what felt to Kazuo like more destructive power than a solar flare.

On the street outside, people hit the ground screaming as what seemed like most of the Seven Lucky Gods' street-facing wall exploded into traffic, raining down smoke and debris onto unlucky drivers and pedestrians...

[Kazuo]

Today…

Ms. Childs leads Kazuo to his dorm room and he drops off his bag. Someone else’s stuff is there too, but no one’s in, so Kazuo knows he’s got a roommate, but no idea who they are yet. Hopefully whoever it is won’t be completely unbearable.

After that the Assistant Director gives Kazuo a brief tour of the dorm building his room is in, and Kazuo is totally blown away by the fact that the dorms are apparently Coed. To Kazuo, the possibilities this situation presents are virtually endless…

From there, Childs takes Kazuo to a big room filled with computers and tries to tell him about what it is that kids do there, but Kazuo doesn’t really listen because he’s never really liked computers and couldn’t care less what the other kids are doing with them. After that it’s the regular classrooms (even more boring in Kazuo’s mind), and then the Library (*Yawn*). And then Ms. Childs indicates that it’s time to go see the school’s excellent cafeteria, which actually registers to Kazuo’s mind as something worth seeing, so he finally starts paying attention again.

This new change in Kazuo’s attitude is not something that Ms. Childs fails to notice, and so she turns to look at him directly for a moment as they make their way towards the cafeteria before asking in a very direct and sincere manner, “So, Mr. Kanai, if I might ask, what was it you were hoping to learn during your time here with us?”

This question nearly stops Kazuo up short, but he manages to keep up his walking pace anyway, and to answer her after only a moment of silence. He looks her full in the face and says, “How to survive.”

Ms. Childs look right back at him and nods once in approval at his answer. They walk the rest of the way to the cafeteria in silence.

Last Year…

Kazuo cried out and jerked upright from where he’d been lying, utterly confused as to where he was and what was going on. The last he remembered, he’d been getting incinerated by two homicidal mutants. Which hurt a lot, in case you were wondering.

Kazuo blinked a few times and tried to make sense of his surroundings. This happened much more quickly than the last time he’d woken up suddenly like this. He wasn’t in a hospital this time around, and there were no life support machinery or gathered crowds of concerned onlookers. He was in what looked to be a very low-end motel room. The kind that charge by the hour. There was just one man in the room with him, a gaijin, standing there looking at him with a strange look in his eyes that was, along with the face that went with that look, familiar to Kazuo somehow.

“I know you”, Kazuo said to the stranger after a moment. “You were at the hospital that time.”

The stranger nodded and answered, “I was. The name’s Mark Ridley. I’m Ryoko Mendo’s godfather.”

“Huhwut?”, asked Kazuo with a look of both confusion and disbelief on his scarred face, “Her godfather? Ryoko never said nothin’ about havin’ a gaijin for a godfather…”

“Be that as it may, Kanai-san”, Mark answered, using (Kazuo couldn’t help but notice) the correct form of address in this situation, and doing it as naturally as any Japanese citizen, “I am her godfather. That is why I was in the room with her that day that you first woke up.” After a suitably loaded pause, he added, “The day you first manifested your… abilities.”

Kazuo just arched an eyebrow at him in response.

“Fine”, Mark said wearily, “don’t believe me. It’s not really any of your business anyway.”

This was an answer Kazuo could respect, at least, so he let the matter drop and went back to trying to figure out how he’d wound up here and why he wasn’t very, very dead. Kazuo asked the strange old gaijin as much, just to see what sort of answers he’d get.

“You’re not dead because I pulled you out of there before that could happen – though if it weren’t for your mutant capabilities I doubt I’d have been in time”, Mark answered, “and you’re here because I brought you here. We’re actually just a few blocks down from the Seven Lucky Gods.”

“You got me outta there?!”, Kazuo asked in a tone of pure disbelief. “What, you just fought off the entire Dark Ocean Society yerself and then carried me outta there on yer back?”

“That’s not quite how it happened”, said Mark with a touch of irritation, “and you need to realize that you’re not the only one who knows how to take care of themselves. In the confusion after those two idiots blew up half the street I got you out of there, and I got you here without anyone seeing. Alright?”

Kazuo smirked and grunted, but seemed to let the matter drop there. Instead, he simply jumped right to the Main Attraction and asked the most obvious question: “Why?”

“Because you’re special, Kazuo”, Mark answered with complete sincerity.

Kazuo snorted and rolled his eyes. “Che! Go sell that shit to someone else, asshole, cuz I aint buyin’!”

“Watch your mouth, kid!”, Mark retorted, “or I’ll give you a real reason for that bad attitude of yours, you got me?”

Kazuo turned back to look at Mark with raised eyebrows that seemed to say, Oh, really?, but he didn’t’ actually say anything.

“You’re not listening, Kazuo! I meant what I said.” Mark stopped for a moment until he was sure that he had Kazuo’s attention. When he was sure he did, he continued, “Like or not, kid, you’re a mutant now. You’re a mutant in a world full of people who fear and hate mutants, and if you think the events of the last few weeks are as bad as things can get, believe me – they aren’t.”

Mark moved closer to the curtained window and pointed out of it as he made his point, “They’re already out there right now, Kazuo, looking for you. The Yakuza and the police. They know your name, your face, and your history, and sooner or later they’re going to find you. Hell kid, you’ve already laid waste to half of Shinjuku! You know how bad they want you now? How long do you really think you’re going to last at this rate before someone catches you and sticks you in a cell for the rest of your life, or puts a bullet through the back of that thick skull of yours?”

The smirk hadn’t left Kazuo’s mouth during Mark’s speech, but most of the fire had gone out of his eye. He asked Mark, “So what do you suggest I do, old man?”

“Learn!”, the ‘old man’ answered, with a passion in his voice that surprised Kazuo, “I’m suggesting you learn to use those incredible abilities of yours for something more than violence and property damage, Kazuo. You want revenge for what those bastards did to you and Ryoko? Fine! So do I! That girl means the world to me, and she did not deserve what those men did to her. You want to make them pay? Fine! I’d be happy to help, if I thought you needed it. But what then, huh? What comes after that, Kazuo? Because at the rate you’re going, there won’t be an after!”

“Yeah? So who’s gonna teach me, eh? You?” Kazuo asked this in a mocking tone, but even the smirk had left his face by then.

And so Mark Ridley told Kazuo all about the Lawrence Hunt Academy for the Genetically Gifted and what it could offer him. He explained that it was free of charge for someone like Kazuo, and he explained that they could train him how to use his abilities much more effectively than he could now, and that when all was said and done Kazuo would have a much better chance of extracting his payback without getting killed in the process. And Mark explained that he could get Kazuo out of the country now, without his having to spend the next 20 years to life as a ward of the Japanese penal system.

When Mark was finished, Kazuo sat in silence and mulled things over for approximately ten seconds. Then he looked up at Mark with that cocksure, sharklike grin that was a trademark of Kazuo “Kurusu” Kanai. “So what the fuck’re we waitin’ for?”, he asked.

Four hours later a plane took off with the two of them on it, and Kazuo Kanai said goodbye to the city he’d spent his entire life in.

[Kazuo]

Today…

,,

After the cafeteria there’s not too much else to show Kazuo, other than the faculty offices, which are even more boring than the library, if you can believe it.

,,

“Hopefully, you won’t be spending much time here”, says Ms. Childs, in a tone of voice that makes it very clear she fully expects that Kazuo will be spending a lot of time here, in point of fact. Followed by trips to Detention, no doubt.

,,

She escorts him into Director Drumm’s where introductions are made and the two of them speak briefly. Kazuo thinks the Director is pretty cool – for a school principle, at least. After that, it’s back to his dorm room so he can finally settle in and make himself at home. Just as they reach his front door, Ms. Childs stops expectantly in a way that lets Kazuo know that he is expected to stop as well. So he does.

,,

“Now. Mr. Kanai”, she says in her most Assistant-Directorly tone yet, “I know you’ve led an… interesting and troubled life up until now, and that your experiences with those in authority have not always been pleasant. I would hope that you would find that your time here proves to be a blessed reprieve from such troubles, and that your experiences with those of us in authority will not be nearly as unpleasant as they have been in the past…”

,,

Right around here, Ms. Childs begins to fade out, as though being this nice and pleasant is something she’s not entirely comfortable with. Kazuo keeps a straight face throughout her little speech and doesn’t say anything, but he can’t quite help arching one eyebrow just a bit, as if to ask ‘are you serious?

,,

Seeing the expression on his face, the Assistant Director squares her shoulders and decides to simply get straight to the point. She breathes out once through her nose and says, “This institution is a truly special place, and it could provide you with many wonderful and unique opportunities as well, but not if you continue down the path you have been on, Mr. Kanai. What I would like from you, is a guarantee that the troubles of your past life are just that: a thing of the past. Will you be bringing any troubles into our fine Academy Mr. Kanai, or is all of that truly a thing of the past?”

,,

By this point, Kazuo’s eyebrow has risen much higher on his forehead and he’s got a look on his face that might make one think he’s about to bring some trouble into her ‘fine Academy’ right then and there. But then a slow grin creeps across his features, starting at the mouth (obviously), and working its way steadily up his face and into his one good eye (sadly, his dead eye, being dead, cannot join in the fun). Once fully formed, his grin breaks out into one of Kazuo’s trademarked, Yakuza-style chuckles. The kind of laugh that all happens deep down in the throat and chest rather than in the mouth.

,,

“Geh heh heh heh…, chuckles Kazuo as he stands there before the expectant Ms. Childs – who does not yet look like she is struggling to maintain her temper or her composure in the face of his laughter, but who does look like she might be getting close. Kazuo’s chuckle fades out almost as soon as it begins however, and he replaces it with a look that is mostly very sober, with only a hint of mirth still lingering in his good eye. “You know what? If you people were actually afraid of a little trouble”, he says, as that hint of mirth in his eye becomes a lit spark, “you never would have asked me to come here in the first place. You have a great day, Denise.”

,,

And with that, Kazuo Kanai turns and walks into his dorm room, shutting the door behind him without so much as a backwards glance.

,,

Ms. Childs remains standing outside his door for just a moment longer, but no one is there to see the small, satisfied smile she allows herself in that moment. Then she turns abruptly and walks away, heels clicking smartly beneath her.

,,

About a week ago…

,,

Kazuo rolled into Franky’s on Essex Street in a stolen ’98 Acura Integra and parked the thing off to one side of the garage, cutting the ignition, hopping out of the vehicle, and tossing the keys to the nearest mechanic in one long, smooth motion. Located at the southeastern edge of lower Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood, Franky’s chop shop had been a reliable source of income for Kazuo for a couple months now. The folks there were alright, they paid in cash right up front, and they never gave Kazuo a hassle, so he tried not to give them any either. Kazuo walked further into the shop to find Franky and negotiate his fee for the Integra.

,,

You might be wondering why Kazuo was bothering with a ’98 Integra instead of something really nice and stylish, but contrary to popular belief, most car thieves do not spend all their time jacking Humvees and Porsches. In fact, that’s actually pretty rare, and usually only happens because of some high-paying special order that comes in off the streets. Instead, most car thieves spend their time jacking Honda Civics and Toyota Camrys, and they do so for one simple reason: the parts inside of them. Most of the vehicles themselves are hardly worth a second glance, but a good chop shop can make a lot of money from the parts inside, and they’re more than happy to share a little of that wealth with the car thieves that bring them in. Kazuo was one such car thief.

,,

Kazuo liked being a car thief. In Tokyo, stealing cars had been little more than a side gig for him, almost a hobby. The Yaks and the bososoku gangs had all wanted to use him for running “packages” and, as he’d gotten older and bigger (at 6’1” and 175lbs., Kazuo was pretty big by Japanese standards), as hired muscle. Which was fine with Kazuo as far as it went, but it also tended to be a bit dangerous and the pay frequently wasn’t all that great. Stealing cars, by contrast, was almost too easy and the pay, while not exactly in the six figure range (or anywhere remotely close to it in fact), was still pretty good considering. Also, if you completely botched an auto theft, you still had to worry about the cops chasing you, but you didn’t have to worry about a bunch of scary gangsters coming after your head, or even just expecting you to cut a finger off as payment for your failure.

,,

So it totally sucked, in Kazuo’s opinion at least, when Franky’s garage was suddenly flooded with the sounds of police sirens and was shortly thereafter surrounded on all sides by actual police cars. Police cars were lame; they were always chasing Kazuo around, they had cops in them, and stealing them was right out. Weak. Why couldn’t they have waited until after he’d gotten the money for the Integra?

,,

Predictably, Franky’s Chop Shop exploded into instant chaos as everyone in the place started running in every conceivable direction, right up until the cops themselves started flooding in through every conceivable entrance, at which point things really got hairy. Kazuo didn’t wait around to watch any of it however, and instead jerked the hood of his jacket up over his head and leapt straight up.

,,

And landed feet-first, upside down on the garage’s ceiling. Immediately, he took off for the nearest skylight (thanking his lucky stars that this place had them), and tried really hard not to get shot, as the police had seen his little stunt and – realizing they had a “mutie scumbag” on their hands – had promptly opened fire on him. Getting to shoot at mutants was a rare treat for a police officer – since they didn’t have any rights there wasn’t even that much paperwork to fill out if you actually managed to hit one!

,,

Kazuo reached the skylight and “dropped” through it into the open air “below”, performing a strange kind of half-twist, half-cartwheel once he was through as he let regular old gravity pull his feet back towards the ground again so that he could land on the roof instead of the clouds floating three hundred feet overhead. Pulling his hood closer around his face, Kazuo took off towards the edge of the roof at a speed that quite simply wasn’t human, and once there he leapt higher into the air than should have been possible. His leap carried him right over the gawking policemen and their parked, bleeping, and flashing police cars, and he landed with a thud right in the middle of the street below. Immediately he took off again, rapidly building up speed as he went. Behind him, police were piling into their vehicles and already two or three cars were hot on his trail.

,,

Kazuo veered sharply at the first street corner that presented itself, narrowly dodging the attempted sideswipe of one of the cop cars that had been barreling down on him from the other direction (it seemed not all the cops had arrived yet). He’d made it about halfway down the street, already doing a good fifty-five or sixty mph by that point, when he saw a few more cop cars pull in at the far end of the block, cops pouring out of them with guns raised. Kazuo immediately changed course and leapt into the air again. Landing on the side of the nearest building, he pulled an Alex Mercer (from that Prototype video game, baka), and started running diagonally up its face, making another of his enormous leaps at the top.

,,

The jump took Kazuo clear across the neighboring street to land on another roof top and from there he took off running again, jumping from rooftop to rooftop as he went. He was trying to make his way north, but the damn cops were doing a fine job of cutting him off. The cars themselves couldn’t keep up with a mutant who could run as fast as he could and ignore gravity though, and in relatively short order Kazuo had left them some ways behind, but they weren’t the real problem. Already Kazuo had spotted no less than three different police helicopters closing in on him and they could keep up with him. Damn it!

,,

Sometimes being a mutant was a really shitty thing, and this was one of those times. All these fuckin’ cops had come to bust up a chop shop, but as soon as they’d gotten a whiff of mutant tail on the scene they’d forgotten all about Franky’s, and now he had half the pigs in New York City after him. All this effort for one car thief! Get a real job, dudes!

,,

And to make it worse he was stuck practically at the bottom of freakin’ Manhattan! Immediately west of Kazuo was Little Italy and south of him was the Financial District – neither of which were the kinds of neighborhoods where a guy like him would just blend in! What he needed to do was get himself further Uptown into one of the Villages, or better yet, off Manhattan entirely. Cursing, Kazuo dropped back down to street level as he realized that one of the ‘copters was only four streets over from him and closing.

,,

He got about five steps into his run after landing when he stopped cold.

,,

“Hey! Kazuo!”, a voice shouted over to his left, “Over here, stupid!”

,,

Kazuo’s head swiveled on his neck with disbelieving slowness, despite the urgency of the situation, until he found himself looking at - “Ridley?!”

Kazuo stared, dumbfounded, at Ryoko’s old, gaijin godfather, who was standing next a ratty, beat-up lookin’ sedan and gesturing for Kazuo to get in.

,,

“Mark Ridley?! What the hell’re you doin’ here, old man?”

,,

“Are you retarded, kid?! You really want to have that conversation now? Get in the car?!”

,,

Kazuo hesitated for a moment, prompting Mark to hop into the driver’s seat and give Kazuo a very serious look. “Listen kid, you can come with me, or go with them. Your choice.” The sound of the approaching police chopper was becoming increasingly loud, and the sound of police car sirens were rapidly becoming more than just a distant whine.

,,

Kazuo muttered under his breath, “Kuso”, but he nonetheless ran around to the passenger side of Mark’s crappy looking car and hopped in. Mark popped it in gear immediately and drove off.

Displaying some remarkable craftiness and quick thinking, Mark only drove three driveways down before turning into one, parking, and shutting off the engine. A few seconds later the police helicopter came into view overhead, sweeping the entire street before veering off north in search of their missing mutant. Mark pulled out of the driveway immediately, and had just reached the intersection when a long line of police cars came roaring by, with about have making a hard right and following the 'copter north, while the rest kept going - presumably so they could fan out or something.

About halfway through the Holland Tunnel, Mark finally spared a glance at Kazuo and asked, "So, how ya been, kid?"

"Good", said Kazuo, not meeting Mark's eye, "You?"

"Oh, you know", the old man answered conversationally, "I can't complain."

They drove in silence until a few minutes after exiting the tunnel, but finally Kazuo turned in his seat to look at Mark. He looked like he was about to say something, but then stopped himself. After a second he seemed to overcome his hesitation and went ahead and asked, "...have you been tracking me down since- ?"

"Since Los Angeles?", interjected Mark, glancing at the boy next to him with a wry smile. Kazuo nodded. "Yep. Thought I lost ya in Vegas, too, lemme tell ya. That was one cold trail you left behind, son. Must of left in quick hurry, huh?"

"Yeah", was all Kazuo said.

Mark let this slide for a few second before he demanded, "What happened kid? Why'd you run like that?"

"Why?", asked Kazuo in return, bitterness and annoyance all over his voice, "Because the goddamned Genyosha came after me, that's why!"

Genyosha being the Japanese name for the Dark Ocean Society, and the Dark Ocean Society being the band of Yakuza mutants who had stopped Kazuo from extracting the last of his revenge back in Tokyo.

"Which you said wouldn't happen if I came with you!", he added accusingly.

"No, that's not what I said!", exclaimed the older man in anger and frustration, "What I said was that I could get you out of Japan without you getting arrested by the police, Kazuo! That's what I said!"

With one hand gesticulating fiercly as he spoke, Mark continued, "But you know what else I remember saying? I remember telling you to stay in your goddamned room!!"

"Aww, c'mon!", exclaimed Kazuo, "I just went down the street!"

"You left your room!"

"Yeah, to catch up with a guy I used to know who moved to the states from Shinjuku!"

"You left your room!"

"I went to one goddamned club, Mark, which the guy swore to me was safe-"

"You left your room, Kazuo!"

"-were only there for three hours, man! How was I supposed to know they'd track me in three fuckin'-"

"You left your room, Kazuo!", Mark shouted, loud enough to drown out and cut off his scarred passenger. "That's why that happened! That's why they found you. Why didn't you listen to me, son?!"

"I'm not yer son!", Kazuo shouted angrily back at him.

"No", Mark answered after a pregnant pause, "I guess you're not."

Just about one full minute passed in uncomfortable silence between them before Kazuo, his arms crossed sulkily and his brows lowered stormily, declared to no one in particular, "Anyway... it's too late to go back and change anything now..."

Mark gave Kazuo a sideways glance of appraisal and then said, "Ain't that the truth..."

After another, much shorter, bout of silence, Mark asked, "So... Vegas? The reason you leave so suddenly like that because uh...?"

"They found me again?", asked Kazuo in return. "Yeah. Yeah they did."

Mark looked troubled as he considered this. Then; "Any reason to think they might have tracked you here? To New York?"

Kazuo glanced over at Mark for a second, and then went back to staring out the window. "I dunno. Maybe. But I don't think so", he finally said, to Mark's obvious relief. "I aint heard a whisper from them or about them since Houston."

"Houston?", exclaimed Mark in obvious surprise, "You went to Houston? Why in the hell for?"

"Hey, I lost 'em, didn't I?", retorted Kazuo.

They rode through another batch of silence then, this one several minutes longer and much less uncomfortable for both of them. Finally Kazuo broke the silence and asked, "So... we going to that school you told me about?"

"Uh-huh", was all Mark said.

"Shit... was afraid you were gonna say that."

"Uh-huh..."