The cicadas droned on their wavering song, giving him at least a little comfort of the familiar, as he stepped out of the station into the warm summer’s day.
Looking up and down the street he noted the complete absence of people.
‘This can’t be good. I feel like I’ve stepped into an episode of ‘Tales of the Unusual’. Nah, probably just something my… Gendo had a hand in.’ He thought bitterly, ‘It’s not enough just to move me around 3 months to keep me from making friends and interrupt my schooling. He’s decided to evacuate the city so the risk of me having any actual human contact is even further reduced.’
Suppressing the strange urge to yell ‘Gendo Ikari, this is all your fault!’ took a moment and allowed him to get a handle on his anger.
‘I must be going nuts. The old man ain’t got that kinda pull. Still doesn’t explain why the city’s empty tho’.’
Dropping his seabag against the wall, he used it as a chair while waiting for whoever the old man sent to pick him up. ‘Where are they? They knew what time I’d be arriving, so they should be here already.’
A querulous noise from inside his leather trench prompted him to pull out his tiny passenger.
A small grey kitten about half the size of a paperback rested in his hand, if by rested you meant attempted to eat his thumb. Lessons about biting the hand that feeds you had apparently never been taught to this fractious feline, or if they had they were from a ‘How To’ manual.
“If I promise to get you some fish will you stop trying to eat me?”
The kitten paused as if considering this before releasing it’s death grip on his thumb. Looking up at him it voiced a simple “queerrrpt?” which Shinji seemed to understand.
“Yes an actual fish. Nothing preprocessed.” He smiled as the kitten purred as he scratched it’s head before it hopped on top of his hand and ran up his arm, burrowing into his unruly mane of dark brown hair that covered his shoulders.
Grinning he turned back to search once more for today’s keeper only to see a girl standing in the middle of the street.
Brown eyes locked with crimson ones, as he tried to figure out why she looked so out of place. Blue hair and red eyes struck him as a bit strange considering the reverse was usually true. The pale skin explained the red eyes quite well though. Albinos weren’t common by any means, but they were quite well known.
‘That still doesn’t explain the blue hair. Could it be a dye job?’ His eyes slid down her slender form. A couple inches shorter then him, making her just over five foot two with a nicely developing rack and… ‘Nope. That’s her real hair color.’
He blinked and checked again, ‘Yep, she’s naked.’
His gaze traveled along her form once again from top to bottom, with short stops along the way at the scenic vistas, before reaching her feet. ‘No shadow. How the hell did I miss that the first time?’ Taking in her lack of attire he nodded to himself. ‘Yeah that would do it.’
He’d had some experience with ghost breaking. It was hard not to notice things like that when you move from place to place and wander around a lot, looking for a place to practice katas where no one will bug you. The places you tend to end up are the places that everyone else avoids and with no friends, no one had warned him about them. The simple fact that the majority of the human race had gotten wiped out during second impact made those places far from rare.
Getting involved gave him a purpose and while the usual ghost sweepers were all a bit weird, they were a friendly bunch. It always hurt to have to leave them, but apparently his father didn’t want him to have friends for some reason and as soon as it became known he had some, or three months went by, he was moved again.
He’d managed to keep it down to mostly every three months for the last five years by playing the wuss, so everyone would avoid him in public and letting any group he hooked up with know the score. It hadn’t helped him with his temper however. It seemed playing spineless in public just insured that by the time he lost his temper he really lost his temper and with a dan level ranking in several martial arts the results were never pretty.
Working as a ghost sweeper helped him by allowing him to channel his anger into something useful and while It was never ‘end of the world’ or even life threatening for the most part, it was satisfying. Sending restless spirits to the other side and squashing the occasional imp or ghoul was a great stress reliever.
At any rate, his knowledge of things unusual allowed him to enjoy the scenery without too much worry. He had a couple of wards in his pocket and she wasn’t threatening, whatever she was.
The flock of birds that erupted past Shinji’s spot didn’t distract him at all. Too many times he’d had something cornered when a convenient distraction allowed it to escape. Keeping your eye on the ball was an on the job skill that he’d taken to quickly.
The rather large missile that roared past along with some sort of attack helicopter did distract him however as did the rather large explosion from down the street and the way the train station was turning into a battle zone.
His priorities quickly switched from ‘Who’s the naked chick?’ to ‘Where the hell’s my ride?’
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(Posted Sun, 18 Sep 2005 19:44)
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