No, I'm never going to stop writing these, thanks.
Title: From The Mouths of Babes
Characters: Kaku, Nori (see note), a couple of random OCs
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He's his father's son, all right.
Note: You have to have read
maldoror_gw's The Games of Fate (http://maldoror-gw.livejournal.com/48632.html#cutid1) and preferably the ficlet linked to it at the end to understand this. It involves Lucci having a kid, which I think we all know no good can really come of, and Kaku consequently having to deal with all that entails. Poor guy. I wrote this to illustrate just one of the problems I imagined Kaku would have to put up with as Nori (the kid in question) got older. Here, he's about ten years old and just beginning to discover the joys of back-talk. This, you realize, can't end well.
Kaku watched Nori train from the sidelines with a sharp eye-good kid, very disciplined, very strong (Kaku still had a bite mark scar on his knuckle from eight years back)-and a hell of a weapon arm. Clearly he enjoyed working with sharp objects rather than possessing his father’s zeal for bare-handed combat, but he was just as capable either way. He was promising as he was, at ten years old; give him another six and he’d be practically unstoppable. Good genes definitely had a role in it, but so, half a dozen certain government agents liked to think, did upbringing (and, as Nori had once insistently and flatly commented, so did ice cream.) At the moment he was training against a sparring partner three years his senior and, to put it quite bluntly, kicking ass. His poor partner would need stitches later if this kept up. Kaku raised a hand to the instructor and nodded once.
“Break it up, boys; that’s enough,” said the instructor, a stout, broad-shouldered man in his late forties with a permanent squint and a voice like a sword being sharpened on a whetstone. “Ikeda, get over here.”
The older boy, lanky and blonde and bearing the unfortunate facial plague of early adolescence, gingerly rubbed at a darkening blotch under his left eye and went to the instructor like a beaten dog, head down. Kaku didn’t see much of a future in him-maybe the Marines, but he wouldn’t go far. The instructor grabbed Ikeda by the chin (carefully, but still inducing a wince) and examined the bruise on his face before pushing him back lightly and looking him up and down, taking stock of the myriad lacerations and blunt force injuries that the boy had recently collected. He whistled low. “Hell and damnation, Rob, beat the shit out of him, will ya? Get to the infirmary, kid, and don’t come back ‘til you can see straight and walk without a limp. Rob, we need to talk about a little thing called ‘knowing when to quit so you don’t permanently damage a good sparring partner’ in a minute, here.”
Ikeda limped off in the direction of medical attention, shooting a dirty glare over his shoulder at Nori. It was the sort of look meant to convey the thought “I loathe you and all of your kin” as well as “I’ll get you next time, punk”. Kaku had no doubt about the former, but found the latter threat lacking in probability. Nori waited for the door to click shut before looking up at the instructor with falcon-sharp eyes and tilting his head as if in inquiry.
“But he isn’t a good sparring partner,” Nori pointed out, sheathing the daggers Kalifa had bought for him on his last birthday. “Not if I can beat him so easily and with so little strain.”
The instructor raised an eyebrow and scoffed. “Well, that doesn’t make it okay to reduce him to a bloody pulp, now does it?”
Nori’s eyes, pale blue rather than dark but just as cold and deep as Lucci’s, flashed with something Kaku might be tempted to label as mischief coming from any other child. “Weakness is a sin,” he said calmly, “and I do not tolerate it.” His voice carried a certain inflection, fine and sharp like the edge of a good blade; he was testing his limits. The instructor scoffed again, and then laughed, wheezing.
“You’re gonna grow up to be one creepy bastard, kid,” he said, nodding, “but a hell of a good fighter.” He waved a permissive hand at Kaku and headed for the door. “All yours. I got another group to work with.”
Kaku nodded, thanked the man for his time, and tipped the brim of his cap as he left the room. Then he turned his attention to Nori, who was fastidiously removing flecks of blood from his training uniform by wiping them off the material and licking them from his fingertips. “Your father told you that, huh?”
Nori gave him the “what do you think?” look. Kaku frowned slightly. “I hope you use words when you try to communicate with other people.”
Shrugging, Nori stretched his arms over his head and flexed his hands idly. “I have to. None of the others understand semaphore. No one except for you and Dad.” He cracked his neck and flipped a lock of hair out of his eyes-the instructor wanted him to get it cut, but it was evident that that wouldn’t be happening. “So what do you think? Am I getting any better? It’s hard to improve when they won’t give me anyone much tougher than that.” He put a slight, almost disdainful emphasis on the last word, titling his head in the direction of his sparring partner’s departure.
Kaku crossed his arms and gave Nori a thoughtful look. “I’d say your offense is outstanding, but what you need to work on now is Tekkai, and how to block. The fact that most of these kids can’t hit you is no excuse to let your defense go down the tubes. You’ll need it someday, I guarantee you.”
“You could teach me,” Nori suggested. Kaku made a contemplative sound and shook his head.
“Maybe when I visit next week.”
“But I’m ready now,” said Nori, letting a little of that diamond-hard exterior slip to reveal that he was, at the core, still a ten-year-old boy. Kaku smirked.
“No. You think you’re ready now, but you have to remember that I’m easily four times your strength. You need to be at your best to deal with me, and this-” he gestured to Nori’s ever so slightly combat-haggard appearance, “-is not your best. Besides, you probably want to ask Jyabura to help you with Tekkai. Much as we all loathe admitting it, he’s still the best in that department.”
Nori sighed and removed a dagger from its sheathe, idly flipping it back and forth in his hands for lack of anything better to do. “But…Uncle Jyabura…”
“Yes?” Kaku asked, finding a bench behind him and taking a seat.
The corner of Nori’s lip curled down in what was possibly disappointment. “He’s old.”
Kaku blinked. Then he laughed, catching Nori off-guard (the kid wasn’t used to expressions of amusement, not the genuine sort that was free of irony or ridicule). “Old? Please, Nori; 40 is hardly old. And that’s not much older than your father, I must add.”
Nori shook his head, grimacing. “No. Uncle Jyabura’s not old; he just thinks he’s getting old, which is-”
“Probably worse,” Kaku finished, nodding in agreement. Someone was going to have to have a talk with him about that, really; it was going to affect his work if it kept up. He sighed. “Anyway, I brought you candy. You need it, if I remember correctly what the food is like here.”
Kaku reached into the front pocket of his tracksuit, extracted a bag of candy, and tossed it to Nori, who caught it and wasted no time in pulling it open and popping one into his mouth. “I don’t like candy,” he announced, as if he were eating it out of protocol. Kaku smiled, pulling down his cap a little as he did.
“Right, right. I’ll bring you sardines next time, then?”
“Uh-huh,” Nori said contentedly around a mouthful of confection.
“Well, anyway, I have to go. Things to do, people to see, conflicts to settle and paperwork to fill out. Day in the life of a CP9 agent.” He stood up and patted Nori on the shoulder. “When nothing exciting’s going on, at any rate.” He winked, and Nori looked up at him with an expression just left of a smile. “Next week.”
“Next week,” Nori repeated, nodding, and jammed the bag of candy into his pocket.
He was halfway to the door before Nori’s voice flagged him down again. “Hey Mom? Dad says you have a new mission starting soon. You should ask him about it; he didn’t give me details.”
Kaku froze, willing the muscle above his left eye not to twitch. “What did you just call me?”
“Mom,” Nori said simply. Kaku could hear the rhythmic one-two tempo of a dagger being tossed between two dangerous little hands.
“I’m going to regret this. Why?”
“Well, the other day Dad came to visit and check my progress. Before he left he told me, ‘Your mom has a new mission in a few days. He’s coming by soon; tell him about it for me.’”
Kaku counted to ten. Then he counted to fifteen, just in case. “I have to go have a chat with your father. Finish up here and go to bed.”
“But I haven't had dinner yet.”
Kaku sighed and glanced back over his shoulder. “Nori, do you really want to argue this point with me while I have this look on my face?”
Nori considered this for a few seconds, tossing his dagger and looking coolly contemplative. “I’m going, I’m going.”
“Good. Have a nice week.” Kaku left the room, muttering under his breath.
That man, he thought, sidestepping a large woman wheeling a cart down the hallway, is forever searching for new ways to torment me. Although I suppose it’s partly my own fault-and Nori’s as well, can’t forget him.
“Honestly, what can I expect from a kid who thinks a ‘parental unit’ is an increment of time used to measure how long it takes for one of his adoptive relatives to snap?” Kaku mused aloud on his way down the front steps.
The way back to Enies Lobby wasn’t long, which was a shame, because Kaku could have gone all day without seeing the self-satisfied look on dear daddy’s face.