Three Kitties and a Tomcat

Author: Opus
Title: Three Kittens and a Tomcat
Summary: This is a continuation/ AU fic for both PSOH and Weiss Kruess. It takes place after the end of the PSOH manga, and I'm putting the timeline for Weiss 7 years after Aya joined. So...that makes Omi 24, Ken 26, Aya 27, and Youji 29 (Youji's almost 30, scary, ne?) Taking a little from what I've heard about Gluhen, Omi has taken the place of Persia, leaving Weiss one short. And Schwartz has become an increasing threat- more than just the three of them can handle. Omi has to find someone to take his place...
Warnings: R for language (Leon is still a potty mouth) Spoilers: None.
Author's Notes: I think in the actual series, Weiss was the only actual assassin unit. I just made up the idea of Kritiker having snipers as well
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Chapter 1 - A new cat in the house

13 years later-

We find Leon fast asleep in his San Jose apartment, his large 6'2'' frame sprawled all over the king-sized bed, taking up most of it. He had kicked off most of the covers in the night, showing that he slept in a white wife-beater tanktop and a pair of gray sweatpants. A scruffy orange tabby was curled up on his stomach, and incredibly, was snoring louder than he was.

The clock radio clicked and turned on.

We spotted the ocean
At the head of the trail
Where are we going, so far away
and somebody told me
that this is the place
where everything's better, where everything's safe

Walk on the ocean
step on the stones
flesh becomes water
wood becomes bone

Leon groaned. What a depressing song to wake up to. "All right, you. Off." He was addressing the cat.

You Mangy Bastard opened one evil yellow-green eye for a second, then closed it again. He had no reason to get up.

The tall blonde casually grabbed the animal by the scruff of the neck and tossed him over to the other side of the bed. Having successfully avoided being scratched for getting up, he sat up and swung his long legs over the side of the bed. He sat there yawning and rubbing the sleep out of the eyes. The song was almost over.

now we're back at the homestead
where the air makes you choke
and people don't know you
and trust is a joke
we don't even have pictures
just memories to hold
that grow sweeter each season
as we slowly grow old.

CRUNCH

The poor radio was crushed under his fist. Those last few lines cut a little too close to home.
He walked over to one of his bags. He had been forced to become neater in his habits, as his job required him to pack up and vacate his residences on little or no notice, and leaving stuff behind meant leaving possible clues. Therefore he knew exactly where to find the laminated crayon scribble, the only tangible evidence he had, or for all he knew, existed of his little brother.

He frowned. By the time he had woken up, he had been pronounced dead, his possessions appropriately dealt with. So what few pictures he had from his former life were gone.

It didn't matter. He vanished and made a new identity in Japan with Kritiker. He hadn't returned to the U.S. until a year ago.

That was when because he was phenomenally good at what he did, he had been chosen to hunt down Schwartz along with four other sniper experts. The new Persia apparently thought Kritiker had a better chance of getting rid of the assassin group if they struck from a distance. They had been warned that 3 of the 4 members of Weiss had paranormal powers, but the other four had laughed it off. Leon was more cautious. Now he was alive, while they were all dead. And Schwartz was still at large somewhere in one of the 50 states.

He put the paper away, and pulled out a clean pair of jeans and a Black Sabbath T-shirt. With his coloring and stature, there was no way for him to blend into the crowd in any Japanese city, so he had made no attempt to do so, opting to look perpetually the young American tourist. The only attention paid to him was from the young ladies who found him attractive, and there were quite a few.

Leon sighed. Too bad he'd lost interest in girl chasing. Not because of D- though he'd realized way too late that he had never hated the pet shop owner- he had just wanted to. No, he preferred not to dwell on the past. That way lay madness. His new line of work had been the major dampener on starting any kind of a relationship, whether it be with a woman or a man. Personal ties were dangerous...

He stood in front of the mirror to brush out his shoulder length yellow-blond hair. Brilliant blue eyes stared back at him- eyes that were older that the face they were set in, which had not aged since his life in L.A ended. Looking at himself critically, he opted to leave his hair loose. He looked like the stereotypical young American male, and he cultivated that image, even after coming back to the states.

He'd almost killed the one called Farfarello. That one had been outside their safehouse by himself. Somehow the blue-haired guy had realized he was there at the last second and threw a knife at him, throwing off his aim as he dodged, and he ended up hitting him in the side instead of between the eyes as intended. Then the rest of the team came outside, and the scaffolding as sas standing on collapsed. Fortunately he had jumped to safety and disappeared before the other members of Schwartz could catch him. One of them was supposed to be telekinetic, and he didn't believe in coincidences. He didn't think he could take them all on if they did indeed have the powers he'd been told they had.

Schwartz was lying low now, while their comrade was recuperating, no doubt. While not fatal, the wound was deep. Leon took the opportunity to look up his family, to see how they were doing. To his shock, he found Chris gone without a trace. Not kidnapped in the normal sense- it was as if he had never existed in the first place. There were no records of him, no one seemed to remember him, not even his uncle and his family, who had been taking care of him. He told Kritiker he was taking time off for personal business, and since then he had been trying to find out what happened to his brother. Now Kritiker had sent him a message saying his vacation was over; they needed him to join Weiss. The wording left no room for negotiation: Come back now-or else.

Leon growled unconsciously. It wasn't just that he wanted to keep searching for his brother, which he wanted to badly, but that he worked alone- he hadn't even had so much as a partner since his days in the LAPD- and that was ugly at times. Now the new Persia wanted to just dump him into an already established team dynamic to take his place. He didn't like it. He picked up the folder containing information on his new partners. He used his own sources to gain more personal information on them than Kritiker would provide. An invasion of privacy, to be sure, but he wanted an idea of the personalities he was going to have to deal with, not just their assassination skills. One of them was a former PI- he was sure they were doing a complete background check on him as well. No doubt they wanted to know as much about him as he did about them.

He wondered what they would make of what they found.

He wondered how well he would be able to help them fight Schwartz.

Only time would tell. He put his few belongings into his car, a shiny new Camaro, which was sporty enough for him without advertising how well off he actually was. His cat was a problem. The old tom fought him every step of the way as he tried to shove it inside. He finally got it in, despite the little devil's attempts to rip off his arm. He'd already given up on the concept of a cat carrier - that just cost him too much blood. Now he could only hope it didn't piss all over the upholstery.


******************************

Aya, Ken and Youji sat around the back counter in their new flower shop located just outside the edge of San Francisco's Chinatown. Youji was looking through a folder of his own. "Omi wasn't able to give us much information on the new guy- looks like a lot of Kritiker's records were lost during the upheaval. His name's Leon Orcott, sniper extraordinaire, often referred to as the 'Youma' (Ghost) for his skill in moving silently and seeming to disappear at will. He's the sole survivor of the sniper team sent after Schwartz."

"They sent snipers? Omi should know better than that!" Ken blurted out.

"Saa, don't be so hard on the bishounen. It's hard to attack a group that has someone who can see what you going to do before you do it, and someone else who knows what you're thinking of doing before you do it." Youji said calmly. "It was worth the try to see if they could get around that by sending in the long range specialists. I'm impressed though, it seems he actually managed to hurt Farfarello and get away without a scratch."

"How could he do that?"

"Doesn't say here. For some reason they couldn't see him coming, as they do everyone else. I assume he used his legendary disappearing act to get away, " Youji said. "I looked up his old pre-Kritiker records, too. He was a Detective in the L.A. police department.

"An Amerika-jin, great." Ken muttered.

"Quite the young hothead, if these reprimands in his record are any proof. But his arrest record is something else. No wonder he made full detective by the age of 23.
There are some strange things in here, though. Hospital records show him healing from a wound that you would think would be fatal. It also seems that Kritiker didn't have to fake his death, either. His remains were supposedly recovered from an explosion at a university laboratory. The FBI agent he was assisting died there as well, and the head doctor they were investigating disappeared without a trace." Youji scratched his head. "Weird. Apparently Leon had a very influential friend in the Chinatown community, a pet shop owner, of all things. Go figure. The people there considered him to be an unofficial protector of the guy, so a lot of prominent figures attended his funeral. And hear this- the pet shop owner disappeared the night of the explosion as well, never to be seen again."

"I wonder who he's hiding from?" Ken thought out loud. Aya merely grunted and looked through some of the papers.

"It's not really a who. I don't like to talk about it." Came a deep voice from right behind him, speaking in slightly accented Japanese.

"YAAAHH!!" Ken instinctively brought his fist around, but the American easily ducked out of the way and caught his wrist.

"Hi, I'm Leon Orcott. So is this how you greet all the new guys, Mr. Hidaka?" Leon asked.

"Two for two, so far," Youji answered cheerfully, winking at Aya, who grunted again and said nothing.

Ken was still a bit shaken. "Do you always sneak up on people like that?!!"

"Nah. I just thought it would be fun to catch you guys in the act." Ken looked a bit sheepish at that, but Leon made a dismissive gesture. "Don't worry, I expected it."

He sat down at the counter. He noticed Youji seemed to be studying him closely. "You're dying to ask me something, aren't you? Spit it out already."

"It's just....you're 38 years old, aren't you?" He picked up an old picture of Leon at 25 and waved it around, "How do you do it? How do you keep looking so young?!" It was true. The American appeared to be younger than all three of them.

Ken put his face in his hands. Aya simply plucked the picture from Youji's fingers and looked at it closely.

Leon's right eye twitched ever so slightly. "Good genetics, I suppose."

The playboy visibly deflated. "Some guys have all the luck," he sighed.

"Youji's the guy we're afraid is going to hang himself with his own wire on his 30th birthday," Ken muttered.

Leon chuckled. "I wouldn't worry. I find that assassins with a death wish usually commit suicide by carelessness on a mission."

"Saa...I'm not that afraid of getting old..." Youji grumbled. He was jealous of his new teammate's seemingly perpetual youth, but otherwise the American didn't seem too bad. And after his initial startled reaction Ken seemed to accept him. -KenKen probably just didn't like the thought of him being American because he was afraid the guy wouldn't speak Japanese.- he thought with amusement. He watched Aya's body language carefully, though. The guy was hard to read, impossible if you didn't know him well. But he seemed perplexed, not hostile, and Youji took that as a good sign. Omi hadn't liked the idea of sending them a new guy, and then sending them immediately after Schwartz any more than they did, but too many Kritiker agents were being killed by them. They didn't have the luxury of time. As soon as Farfarello healed up, which couldn't be too much longer, Schwartz would be back and taking their men out again. Personality incompatibility would be fatal at this point. But hey, he and Aya had the most incompatible personalities ever, and they still managed to work together.

His thoughts were interrupted by a screeching noise and a series of yelps. All four assassins turned their heads toward the door. A bloodied mongrel ran by, fleeing for its life. Moments later, a large orange tasaunsauntered inside, sat down, and started licking his paw as if nothing unusual had happened. It was ugly. It was the kind of animal that would look utterly dirty and unkempt no matter how much you cleaned and groomed it. A chunk of its left ear had been bitten off during some skirmish or another.

"There you are, you mangy little bastard. Picking fights with dogs again, I see," Leon said.

The little beast looked at him with hooded eyes, and leisurely made his way over to the counter.

Ken thought it was the most evil looking animal he had ever seen, and backed away from the counter when it jumped up. Tail twitching, You Mangy Bastard looked them all over. The cat wasn't fat, but he was huge, almost as large as a bobcat, and it was all muscle. And his bearing indicated to all of them that he did as he pleased, no matter what they thought. When he finished his scrutiny, the little demonspawn flopped himself down right on top of the open folder.

"Hey, I was reading that, you furball!" Youji said in irritation. You Mangy Bastard gave him a look that indicated that he really didn't give a shit.

Aya, being a little braver (or more foolhardy) than the others reached out a hand to scratch its head.

"Be careful," Leon warned, "If he doesn't feel like being petted, he'll try to tear your hand off."

The redhead froze in mid-reach and slowly retracted his hand. Youjuld'uld've sworn the cat was smirking evilly.

"How did you end up with that little monster?!!" Ken asked.

Leon shrugged. "It was classic. A box with four kittens in it showed up outside my door one day. Most animals avoid me like the plague, but nothing fazes this guy. So I kept him and found homes for the others. That was about ten years ago."

"Not exactly the cute, fluffy little kitty he used to be, is he?" Youji commented.

"Oh, little Jack was an ugly bastard from the start, but I took a liking to him." Leon reached over and scratched him behind the ears. At first the cat seemed pleased, and even started purring, but then his mood shifted, and Leon suddenly had teeth in his hand and four sets of claws firmly dug into his arm. He lifted his arm up and away from the folder before he got blood on the papers. "Where's the bathroom?" he asked calmly.

Ken and Youji pointed as one toward the hallway. Aya continued to sit with his arms crossed as Leon walked past. Jack kept his arm in a deathgrip in his claws while doing his best to gnaw his owner's hand off.

"Odd guy," Ken said once he was gone.

"And we're normal?" Youji asked, eyebrow raised. "I'm going out for a smoke. I hope our new teammate keeps that thing locked up in his apartment. It'll scare away customers for sure if it wanders around down here."

Ken nodded in agreement.

Ran stood up, too. "Aya...?" Ken said.

"I'm going to tell Leon he should go move his car before he gets a ticket." He didn't further than the beginning of the hallway before there was another unearthly screech, and a blurry, wet streak of orange blew past him, almost knocking him off balance. Seconds later, You Mangy Bastard had found a spot on one of the top shelves and sat there dripping.

Leon came out of the bathroom, wiping his arm off with a towel. The bleeding had already stopped. "Fucking bastard..." He muttered in English.

"Your car's in a fire lane," Aya told him tersely.

-Wow. This guy has a voice after all- "I know. I'll move it as soon as I bring my stuff in. Where'd Kudou go?"

"Outside. To smoke."

"Sounds like a good idea to me. I'll bring in the bags first though." He walked outside and opened the trunk. He removed the few bags he had and put them inside the shop.

"Is that everything you have?" Youji asked, surprised, when he came back out.

Leon looked at him with a convincing gaze of non-comprehension. "Say again?" he asked in English.

The honey-blonde mentally smacked himself. They were outside on a busy street. Of course the obviously American man wouldn't want to attract attention by speaking fluent Japanese in public. "I said,is that all you have?" He repeated in English.

"Yeah. I move around a lot, so I don't collect a whole lot of stuff. Do you guys have a garage?"

"Just around the corner. The name of the shop's on it, so you can't miss it. Here's the key."

Leon took it. "Thanks, I'll be right back." A few minutes later he came back around the corner. Youji had already finished his smoke break and gone back inside. He still needed a cigarette himself, though. He pulled one out and lit up. He took a long pull, and slowly breathed it out. That wasn't so bad. He was usually a good judge of character, (save where D was concerned), and his new teammates seemed like decent guys. He felt Ran come outside and stand next to him. He pretended not to notice. Of the three, he found Fujimiya the most intriguing. He supposed in some small way the guy reminded him of D. Asian, handsome to the point of being beautiful, and hiding his true feelings behind a mask.

"Are you going to take your things upstairs?" Ran asked finally.

"Yeah, I just need my nicotine fix." He heard Youji laughing inside the shop.

"At last, I'm not the only tobacco addict in this outfit. Take that, Aya!" he yelled out to them exuberantly.

For the first time, Leon saw Ran's shi-ne death glare, and was glad it was directed at the playboy, not him. He sighed, intuitively working out the meaning of that. "Why didn't you tell me you don't like cigarette smoke, Fujimiya?" He promptly extinguished what was left of his death stick.

"Call me Ran," the younger man said so softly that most people wouldn't have heard him, but Leon did.

Back inside the shop, which was still empty of customers, he started speaking in Japanese again. "So where upstairs, exactly?" he asked Ran, grasping him by the shoulder. Much to Ken and Youji's surprise, Ran not only did not try to kill him, but made no attempt to shake him off, either.

"This way," he said. Leon followed, removing his hand on his own. You Mangy Bastard jumped down from the shelf, shook himself off, and followed them up the stairs.

Ken heaved a sigh of relief. He could feel that thing staring at him even when his back was turned. "Good, maybe we'll get some customers now."

Youji merely chuckled, then grew serious. "Is it just me, or is Aya actually being friendly toward the new guy?"

"By Aya standards, I'd say so." They both looked toward the stairs.

Leon put his things down in the furnished apartment and started to unpack. The tabby found a sunny windowsill and sprawled out on his back, paws up in the air, and promptly fell asleep. Obnoxious snoring noises followed soon thereafter.

It didn't take the former detective long to put his meager belongings away. He was aware of Ran's presence in the doorway the whole time. His new team leader was staring at him intently for some reason. "Something on your mind, Ran?" He asked, facing the younger man. The redhead hesitated for a moment, then turned and walked away. Leon shook his head. Strange kid.

+++++++
Schwartz.

"So Kritiker is sending our favorite Weiss assassins out after us, eh? Last I heard they were short one kitty." Schuldich said with a lazy smile.

"I'm sure they've found a fourth," Crawford said, "We just don't know who he is yet. Not that it makes any difference. We'll find out soon enough, and when we do, he's just as dead as the rest of them."

"They're as hard to track as we are, but if they try to use their front of a florist shop here in the U.S., they'll be easier to spot," Nagi said. "But what about the sniper that attacked Jei? None of us could sense him."

"It was a vengeful spirit," Farfarello said. The psychopath was known by his teammates to see ghosts from time to time.

They didn't concern themselves too much about it.

Crawford snorted and said, "I don't think a spirit would have ducked out of the way of your knife. Don't worry, we'll find and eliminate him as well."

Nagi sighed. "We don't even know what he looks like. No name, no description. Not even I can track someone on that little. I tried breaking into Kritiker's computer files to find out who their snipers are, but either they've lost the records, or they don't keep the names on their computers."

"I'm sure he'll come after us again, and we'll be ready for him. See if you can find out where Weiss is now, Nagi."

Nagi nodded, and left the room, but his heart was full of unease.

*********
TBC


Song lyrics by:
-Toad the Wet Sprocket 'Walk on the Ocean'