Disclaimer:

Okay, this sucks like hell.

Final Fantasy IX belongs to SquareSoft and not to me.

I make no money from this fanfic, I'm just a miserable excuse for a living existence who gets creative using Square's FF characters.

So this time it's about Blank, who doesn't belong to me either.

By Queen Qeeko

The Blank Impression.

Chapter 1 - Blank Introduction.

The castle city of Lindblum was just magnificent. Magnificent in a way as in, vastly cool. Like, really really amazing. Popular from most aspects, the Business and Industrial Districts the most popular places of all. And if you weren't there you'd be in some airship flying around on an Air Tour. The nobles of Treno and Alexandria were regular visitors, and of course, Lindblum attracted a whole load of the slightly and greatly less important people too.

But then, not every part of the castle city was successful.

The Theatre District had had a small crash in popularity since the last play of "Mogsy Magic". Oh how the script writers wept. And of course, Business and Industrial workers laughed at their sudden drop in public appeal. And so it was, most, if not all of the actors, even the best of the brilliently best, were unemployed. Okay, so the Theatre District had not had a small crash. It was a huge one.

In a remote corner of the Theatre District a man stepped out of a small theatre bar with a loud "Don't come back!!!" shouted after him. The man whirled around, seized a large pot plant in one hand and shouted back: "The great Baku won't come back, he's a far better actor than any of you try-hards will ever be!!!" before promptly tossing the pot plant straight into the bar. The pot disagreed painfully with the head of the hippo-like clerk, and he fell clumsily to the floor. Outside, Baku's pointy ears pricked up at the muffled thud from inside the bar. He then set off in search of another chance of acting employment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~2 years later.~

"Get back here you little thief!!!"

"No WAY!!!"

Baku spun on his heel at his spot in front of the Business District's weapon shop window. Upon hearing those frantic voices Baku turned and saw the Business D's Synth shop keeper, plowing down the street towards him. A short distance ahead of the Synth keeper, also hurtling along the street, was a small boy. He was tripping over his large muddie T-shirt every now and then, and he had red shoulder length hair that was flapping in his stitch covered face. Reddie brown anyway, whatever.

"Stop that kid!!!" the Synth keeper shouted to anyone in particular. The people in the street, rather than stop the child, drew apart to allow him to run through. It didn't change much, the boy was stumbling uncontrollably and running into people along the way.

It was about then that Baku made up his mind out of sheer curiousity. He stepped outward just as the child was about to wizz past and caught him by a handful of his oversized T-shirt's colar. Baku yanked him back as gently as he could for his large build, but still caused the child to choke a little.

"Thank you sir!!!" the Synth keeper exclaimed happilly as he slowed down, approaching Baku. Baku pulled the boy away from the Synth keeper when he tried to grab him, tucking the boy under his arm, ignoring his parthetic squirming and kicking.

"What's the kid done wrong, SIR?" Baku didn't like Synth shops or their keepers very much. Those dratted people charge like wounded bulls.

"What's he done?!!" the Synth keeper roared, "that little $#*%  walked into the store and stole my latest works and my cleaning rags!!"

It was only after hearing this that Baku noticed the objects the boy clung to. Under the boy's right arm were a pair sheathed short swords, and using his left hand he held a bloody cloth over his left eye. His right eye was tightly shut as he struggled endlessly and pointlessly to free himself. A few rocks fell out of the pocket of his brown shorts. Baku guessed they were for throwing at the Synth keeper.

Baku pryed one sword out of the boy's small hand and unsheathing it exaimined the blade.

"Are you sure they're yer 'latest' works? Look fairly ordinary to me" Baku said, not looking up and still holding the boy under his left arm.

"YES!!! They are! And that dratted boy stole them out of my st--"

"And the blade is kinda bent there."

"But--"

"And this hilt is a very old make."

"AND they still don't belong to him!!!"

"Let's ask the boy" Baku suggested and turned his attention to the child, who was still wriggling.

"Kid" the boy squirmed more frantically now Baku was talking to him, "why'd ya steal those steels?"

"Needed a blade to protect myself! Needed somethin' for my eye! I need to eat too! So I gotta hunt!!" the boy exclaimed defiently, not giving up his struggle.

"You can't hunt with a weapon you can hardly lift, kid" Baku reasoned.

This caused the boy to stop all movement entirely. He opened his uncovered eye, but Baku could swear that the boy wasn't looking at anything.

"And I need to make a living! I can't sell what I don't have!" the Synth keeper protested.

"Why? How much are they?" Baku asked, sheathing the sword again and returning it to the boy who grabbed it protectively.

"9000gil!" the Synth keeper spat "a lot of work went into those!"

Of all the things that could be bought with 9000gil! Damn Baku hated these damn Synth keepers!

"And like I said, I can't sell what I don't have!"

"Fine, you just sold them".

"EH?!!!"

Baku dug his free hand into his back pocket, withdrew about 10,000gil and tossed it at the Synth keeper.

"There" he said "gimme 1000 back"

The Synth keeper did this silently, and turning to return to the store after this unexpected 'sale' he shot a hateful look at the boy who didn't seem to notice it.

"Come on kid" Baku said setting off without dropping the boy from his tight grasp.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was late afternoon when Baku returned to his home in the Theatre District. The small house was long overdue for rent, and Baku knew that now it was going to be harder to comply with the landlord's fee. He set the boy down on the table in the middle of the room. The child made no protest to this, he merely sat, clutching his precious twin swords with his right arm, his left hand still holding the bloody rag over his left eye. His uncovered eye was also closed. Baku figured the kid was tired from all his earlier resistance.

Baku was busy filling a small hand basin with clean water, talking about how lucky the boy was that he ran into him and saved his hide.

"Okay kid, let's see the damage" Baku said, bringing the basin and a clean rag over to the boy.

"Easy for you to say" the boy muttered quietly.

Baku set the basin and cloth down on the table where the boy sat, then drew up a chair in front of him. When Baku touched the bloody cloth, the boy winced away roughly.

"Hey hey hey! Calm down, I'm not gonna hurt ya, kid. I'm just gonna take a look at yer wound, that's all" Baku explained.

The child slowly turned towards Baku, as if considering whether this large, funny looking man was trustworthy. Not like he could tell whether he was funny looking though. There were plenty of nasty people around, the Synth Keeper for one. Finally he decided to give in, and still hugging his swords, drew his cloth away from his eye.

Baku had to bite his tounge to stop himself from cursing a blue streak.

The crimson mess upon this boy's young face made Baku pity the the kid all the more. Baku was sure that the wound was going to be a gash or something in the boy's eyebrow or something like that, but not in the actual EYE.

"...Geez" he breathed.

The wound looked as though the eye had been stabbed with a blunt object, bruising the skin around it and the whole lot swelling into a horrible crater of blood. No wonder the kid constantly had his other eye tightly closed too. His face probably hurt like buggery.

"How the hell did you manage to do this to yourself, kid?" Baku asked, dipping the clean rag into the water and dabbing lightly around the child's eye. Or what used to be an eye.

The boy didn't say a thing, he just held as still as possible while Baku cleaned the wound.

'The kid probably isn't too thrilled about all this' Baku thought, 'Pretty tough not to cry out though'.

He rinsed the blood out of the rag in the basin.

"How old are ya, kid?" the large man enquired.

"Four" the boy replied. His voice seemed so small all of a sudden.

'Shit, not too bad behaviour and reactions from a four year old kid' Baku mused.

The water was becoming quite red now.

"You can open yer other eye you know, it's not as if a whole-in-one is gonna blind ya" Baku kicked himself mentally for his stupid comment. That was hardly gonna make the boy feel any better.

"But it did" the boy said quietly.

"What?"

"It did"

"You mean?"

The child nodded his head sadly, and opened his other eye. It was an amazing green, easy to get lost into. But the boy wasn't focusing on anything, not even staring into space. His eye wasn't looking at anything, it was just opened.

"You ARE blind" Baku said quietly once he found his voice.

"I was already blind in my right eye" the boy explained, "but I could see out my left one. Now I..."

Baku sighed as the boy pointed towards his face, not pointing in the right spot because he couldn't see.

"...Now I can't see at all" the boy finished.

Satisfied with the cleansing of the wound, Baku dumped the now bright red rag into the basin and waved a hand in front of the boy's opened eye. He didn't notice the movement, he just sat there in front of Baku. The blank expression on his face was most unreadable.

"Don't move, I'm just gettin' some bandages for ya" Baku said, getting up. The boy nodded obediantly. Baku returned shortly with some bandages and dressings. Suprisingly, the child's eyelid was not damaged in the slightess way. Baku closed the eyelid then he wrapped the boy's wound up the best he could. He then gathered the boy up again and carried him into a small bedroom. He layed the child on one of the beds with a promise of some food after he woke up.

"Don't go anywhere" Baku said before quietly stepping out, but a thought came to him before he closed the door.

"Hey", he asked the child, "just what is yer name?"

There was an awkward silence.

"I don't have one" the boy replied.

"Oh, well, nevermind. My name is Baku" the large man announced, then stepped out again, closing the door.

The child rolled onto his side, using his now free left hand to feel the surface he lay on. The two sheathed swords were still tight in his grasp. He could still tell about some things around the place even for lack of vision, like the fact that 'Baku' would soon have to introduce who the third person with them was.

Back out in the main room, Baku paced around, thinking of what to do next. Here he was, still only getting by with the pay from minor gigs in some places and now he had another mouth to feed.

"Boss" a quiet yet strong voice came from the darkess corner of the room.

Baku sighed.

"What is it, Marcus?" he asked, turning to face the 'third person'.

In the corner sat a small goblin like child, about five years old, his arms crossed, looking at Baku expectantly.

"Who was that?" Marcus asked, voice dripping with innocent curiousty that only a child can master.

Baku sighed again. Yeah, he knew that Marcus had been sitting there the entire time he cleaned up that stray kid, and was really thankful that the smart alec brat had stayed put and kept his trap shut throughout that whole little episode.

"He's some kid I rescued from bein' turned into a Leather Wrist" Baku announced. He could think of some things he'd like to turn that Synth keeper into...

"He looked scared" Marcus said, coming out of the forming shadow, now it was getting on in the day. He wore a grey sleeveless shirt with stained green trousers, and a huge belt that went over his left shoulder and under his right arm.

"You can tell?" Baku raised a bushy eyebrow. That stray kid's expression was nearly always as blank as a new unused, unstained piece of paper.

Marcus grinned, "Well kinda".

"Bah" said Baku, "Well I'm gonna go out and get some chow for us and that kid. You stay here and keep an eye on 'im".

"Gotcha Boss" Marcus gave a mock salute and waltz over to the bedroom door.

Baku left the buliding swearing to himself that if that little so-and-so did anything to that stray boy he'd pin Marcus to the Lindblum Castle's docking bay.

Marcus watched him leave. Then he entered the bedroom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Baku punched and kicked and thumped and flogged himself mentally. Stupid, stupid, stupid! The worse thing he could had done was leave the stray kid with Marcus! That boy was always making a nuisence of himself. Loyal to the last sentence of imperial duties he was to Baku, but a pain in the ass all the same. But it was unavoidable, he had to go out and he needed someone to stay home.

Now what was he doing again? Oh yeah, buying some food and talking to that Items shop guy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marcus stood quietly next to the door of the bedroom. So the Boss had brought in a new kid eh? Sure sure, like this stumbeling burden could be of any use. Marcus drew closer to the boy who layed curled up on the farther most bed. He seemed to be asleep, Marcus noting that he was still hanging onto those swords. Hmmm...Marcus reached over the boy, trying to get hold of one of the swords. He then gently began pulling it out from his grasp.

Marcus' suprise was undescribable when a fist shot up and smashed straight into his nose. Marcus lept back with a yelp and the stray boy flew up to stand on the bed, dropping one sword at his feet and unsheathing the other.

"You bastard!" Marcus yelled, holding a bloody nose.

"You tried to steal my swords!" the stray boy yelled back.

"So what? You stole them to begin with!" Marcus began swabbing his nose with a spare rag from his pocket.

The stray boy paused a little, "how'd you know they were stolen?"

"I know coz the Boss has 9000gils less in his pocket".

"Boss?"

"You know who I mean, Baku!"

"What about him? You checked his pockets?"

"I always do".

There was a silent moment, both boys working the other out.

"So uh, yah, whatever," Marcus started, "Anyway, I just wanted a look at those steels".

"You can see 'em from where you are" the stray boy announced.

Marcus turned red. He never took orders from anyone bar the Boss. But that was all part of his respect for the man who took him in off the streets.

"Whatsamatta? Think they're too special  for me to see 'em? 9000gils isn't much" said Marcus.

"I'm suprised you can count so high" the stray boy answered.

"Hey! C'mon, just lemme have a look!" Marcus pounced towards the stray boy, who dodged the young gobliny boy and ran across the room.

"You don't have to come close! You can see them fine from there!" he told Marcus.

"Well of course I can see them! I'm not blind like you!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So this kid, see? He can't see at all, not now he bunged up his eye, see? And he could still get some idea of direction as he ran, see?"

"Uh huh".

"And I just don't understand, see? How does he not run into stuff when he can't see?"

"And that's why you came to see me?"

"Yeah, you see my point?"

"Unfortunately".

For the past quarter hour the Item shop keeper had been listening to Baku explain the weirdness of his new descovery. So the kid could sense his surroundings, big deal. So could a lot of gifted blind people.

"So if I bring this kid into the store could ya help 'im with his new lifestyle change?" Baku asked hopefully. With a kid like Marcus hanging about, that stray kid's was gonna have to learn to get around quickly.

"Maybe, but you'll have to take in an extra charge" the shop keeper offered.

He beckoned to Baku to follow him into the back room. Once there, the shop keeper pointed over to a very young boy of some odd desription sitting in one corner, chewing on a section of an old chariot wheel.

"Oh you gotta be kiddin' me! What d'ya think I'm runnin'?! An orphanage?!" Baku sat down heavily.

"Would you rather this child stay in this dump with me?" the shop keeper asked.

Baku didn't answer him straight away. If he took yet another child in, then he would be sorta benefiting both kids. The stray one could learn to reconise his world telepathically and this kid could get some place better to live in. But how the hell was Baku gonna take care of three kids?? But then, having three sets of small hands could have its advantages...

Baku sighed, "What's the kid's name?".

"Cinna, come over here".

Cinna, roughly three years old, stood up clumsily, fixed his black shorts and dragging his wheel, waddled over to his new-to-be guardian. Or whatever.

"Cinna, you're getting a new home".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Baku stumbled into his home. Not because he was tired, he was overwhelmed. He dropped his bag of groceries on the table and unloading the various bought objects, loosened the cap on a Potion for the stray boy. Cinna followed him, dragging a now smaller section of his chariot wheel. The young child rubbed his eyes wearily.

"Bit tired are ya?" Baku asked him.

"Yesm" Cinna yawned.

The boy followed Baku across the main room to the bedroom door before promptly running into him, and then looking up he questioned why the large man stopped so suddenly.

Baku pressed his ear to the door. There was loud scuffling inside, or maybe what sounded like...someone bashing another someone around. And muffled voices and yelps. Baku flew into the room, while the door went banging on the opposite wall. He leapt foward and grabbing Marcus by the back of his colar, separated the two boys who were fighting on the floor.

"Alright! How long's this been goin' on?!" Baku shouted, still holding Marcus aloft in one hand.

"It's his fault! He made fun of me for being blind!" accused the stray boy.

"You wouldn't let me see the swords!" Marcus shot back.

"They're mine! You wouldn't just look!"

"The Boss paid for them!"

"CUT IT OUT!!" Baku intervened.

Both boys froze, and Baku took a deep breath to calm himself.

"Okay," he said at last, "that's enough out of you two. Marcus, leave him alone. They're his swords, even if they're as big as he is. You kid, you could just let Marcus have a little look. He won't steal them from you, not while I'm around anyway. Yer' both gonna have to get along okay? I got another kid out here that I gotta take care of, so you pair make a good impression".

Baku went out again to find Cinna asleep on the floor next to the wall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As a result of the fight, the stray boy was nursing a red jaw and Marcus had a black eye. Cinna paid no mind to the fight and was more amused with the grumbling of the other two boys. Baku believed that neither of their injuries were worth a Potion, but the stray boy's left eye certainly deserved one. It remained pretty quiet between the two older boys, both wishing silent beratting on the other.

A week went by and Baku's kids adapted quickly to the new family changes. The stray child had started his visits to the Item shop keeper to learn to understand his world a little better and he quickly became competent with his surroundings, so much that he was running errands for Baku all over the Theatre District. He had also aquired a leather band from Baku to put around the top of his head, at an angle to cover the abused eye. Marcus got along with Cinna very quickly, and while the stray boy had nothing against the odd looking three-year-old, he avoided Marcus like the plague.

Much to the stray boy's excitement (and to Marcus' irritation), Baku had a sword harness designed for the boy's small build so that he no longer had to carry his heavy (heavy to him anyway) twin swords in his arms anymore. It fitted comfortably around his shoulders and waist by four leather straps and the sword sheaths sat crossed over on his back. The second advantage of this device was that it helped to strengthen the boy's muscles. After a few years of this, he'd eventually be able to fight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~3 months later.~

"Hey, look at that up there!" Marcus shouted to the other two boys.

The stray boy jumped down from a branch in a small nut tree and Cinna withdrew his head from a squid barrel. Both boys came up to Marcus' sides and turned their attention to the noted scene he'd found.

"Up there" Marcus pointed to the red tiles of the building's roofs.

High up on one of the rooftops, a small blond boy was running along in quite a hurry. Behind him were three other people, a man who looked related to a fish, an old woman with a sack of gysahl pickles on her back and the same man who had chased the stray boy: Business Dictrict's Synth shop keeper. The boy was wearing a blue vest with no undershirt and white trousers that cut off just below his knees. The boy appeared to have upset the three people very much, as he carried all bundled up in his arms a pillow case full of bread, a smaller sack of pickles and a large crowbar. He seemed neither bothered or worried about his situation as he jumped from one roof edge to another, far from it he looked rather pleased.

Marcus, the stray boy and Cinna watched the chase for a full five minutes before it was abruptly cut short by the Synth keeper throwing a loose roof tile at the boy. The child tripped on the projectile and stumbled uncontrollably towards the edge.

"LOOK OUT!!" the stray boy shouted. Whether the boy on the rooftop heard him or not, it didn't matter. At last loosing his balance he slipped and fell over the side. The three persuers rushed over to the roof-end, their possessions forgotten, and peered over the edge. Only some shattered tiles, a loaf of bread and a few pickles layed on the ground at the end of the long drop.

"Must have rolled under from the impact" the fish-man suggested regrettably. The people turned away and returned to their stores.

Marcus and the stray boy stood stock still, horified by the blond boy's sad end.

"Tail" said Cinna.

"What?" Marcus turned to him quizzically.

Cinna pointed to the roofedge the blond boy had dispeared over, and when neither Marcus or the stray boy understood his meaning he lead them back behind the corner of the buliding. There they found the boy, still clutching 90% of his original load, suspended under the overhang of the roof by a monkey tail. They never noticed his tail when he was being chased by his three 'victims', but now it was very hard to miss.

He looked thouroughly suprised that the three children had decovered him. He leaped down and ran away into the street, shouting some unintelligable exclaimation and ducked into a side alley. The three boys knew without asking each other that it was agreed they should find him. But first they grabbed the loaf of bread to share between them.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I wonder where he went" the stray boy wondered out loud.

They'd been searching for the enigma of a boy for two hours already. The boys had looked the entire Business District over and turned the Theatre District upside down. Now that they'd finished with the Industrial District, they were ready in their disapointment to return home.

"I'm just gonna look around that wall again" Marcus announced. Said wall was on the outside of the Air Car station, where they had checked the inside of a sizable crack. If only it was a little larger, a child of similar size to the three boys would possibly fit through.

Taking another look at the hopeful location, the boys found nothing different from before.

"Lets just go home" the stray boy suggested.

"But I wanna know who that kid was!" complained Marcus.

"I do too, but we can't find him" the stray boy reasoned.

"What would you know? Maybe we can't find him cos you can't see him" Marcus sneered.

The stray boy was about to answer with a retort but stopped when Cinna asked, "That boy go home?".

"He might have, but I don't think he has a home" he said instead.

"Well where else can we look for him?" Marcus asked.

"Theres no place else to hide here" said the stray boy.

"So?!" We could look somewhere else!" Marcus shouted, and a passing noble scolded him for disturbing the peace.

Marcus kicked a few rocks around, seemingly too stubborn to give up their fruitless search. The stray boy sighed audibly, and sat down on the ground, not at all in the mood to argue with the irritable gobliny boy. Cinna busied himself with picking the bark off the trunk of a tree.

"Well, are you thinking?" Marcus asked his companions after a few more moments of rock kicking.

"About what?" the stray boy asked in return. His face showed no expression, but his voice betrayed the blank look. He was very bored with all this.

"About where that kid went!" Marcus burst out in frustration.

"No, I'm waiting for you to stop" the stray boy replied. While it was a shame that they had lost track of the other kid, the stray boy didn't care that much anymore. Marcus on the other hand, was at his wits end with failure, and this smart alec (that the Boss seemed to always favour) was really getting on his nerves.

"Shut up!" he yelled at the other boy, and seizing one of the rocks on the ground threw it at him. Even impared vision didn't stop the stray boy from getting out of the way in time, and the rock instead went through the crack in the wall at such a sharp angle it almost would have bounced out again.

A soft "ow!" came through the wall.

The three boys stared dumbly at the wall, and strained their ears to hear anything else. After a short moment a gysahl pickle flew out a struck Marcus on the knee. It didn't hurt really, but Marcus almost lost it from there. He immediatly looked around for some other way into the wall, around the base on the ground, behind the tree, even back inside the station.  When he returned to the cracked wall again the stray boy and Cinna were nowhere to be found.

"Ouch!" Marcus yelped as something else hit him on the head. He looked up for the source of object, and found the stray boy and Cinna high up among the tree's branches. Marcus spyed the seedpod in Cinna's pudgy hand, working out that one of those pods must have been the what got him. The stray boy pointed to the same crack they had been baffled with, and showed Marcus how it traveled far up the wall and gradually got wider until it created quite a large hole.

Marcus was up into the tree and throwing himself into the interior of the Air Car station wall before Cinna could consume another seedpod. The stray boy and Cinna followed quickly behind, and the three boys found themselves in an almost hall like passage, roughly three feet wide. They could walk single file comfortably, but side by side in any formation was pushing it a bit. It was dark and dusty in the wall, with lots of cobwebs that looked like they'd been gathered up and pushed to the sides.

Luckily for them, the boys need not walk far anyway, as they were already standing infront of the monkey tailed boy, who looked both full and content. He apparently didn't care that the other boys had found him this time, he merely burped to prove the satisfaction of his meal. What was left of his lunch (namely a loaf of bread and a few pickles) layed scattered around the place he sat, with the crowbar by his left side.

"Um.., hi" the stray boy said awkwardly. He had little idea what to do at this point. They'd found the kid: objective one complete. Now what were they suppose to do? The monkey tailed boy waved back in response.

"Hey, I'm Marcus" Marcus informed the boy, "and this is 'Nameless' and Cinna, what's your name? The stray boy frowned at Marcus' descriptive nickname for him, and vowed to pay back an equally unfair favour to the gobliny boy once they'd returned home.

"Zidane" the monkey tailed boy said to answer Marcus' question.

"Why'd you steal all this stuff from those oldies?" Marcus continued.

 The boy who'd introduced himself as 'Zidane', took a bite out of another pickle, and answered full mouthed, "Was hungry".

"Don't your parents give you food?" the stray boy asked worriedly. Zidane scratched his blond head in a confused manner at the question.

"Parents?" he asked.

"You know, a mom and a dad" Marcus pressed. Zidane shook his head, not quite understanding, and noticing Cinna sniffing a gysahl pickle, offered him some.

"I think he doesn't have any parents either" the stray boy said to Marcus.

"Really?" Marcus turned his attention to Zidane again, "are you an ophane like us?" Zidane tilted his head to the side and waited until the stray boy said "thats a kid who has no parents", for an explaination.

Zidane nodded his head to answer them, and devoured another pickle.

The stray boy felt someone dragging him away, and a gruff "C'mon" helped him indentified that someone as Marcus. He stopped dragging the other boy after a few feet, and began fidgiting with the belt on his shoulder.

"We found him" Marcus stated, "but now what do we do?"

"I don't know, he doesn't seem too lonely"

"Should we find his home?"

"I think he should come home with us"

"But what about the Boss? What will he say?"

"He took me in, and Cinna, he could take Zidane"

Marcus kicked at the dust as he contemplated the outcome of the stray boy's suggestion. True, the Boss had 'adopted' all three of the boys willingly enough, two of them on the same day. But that didn't mean he wanted another one running about. The idea seemed all too dangerous to Marcus, and he couldn't remember why he even bothered to descuss it with the stray boy. But then again, he supposed it couldn't hurt to ask...

"Hey Zidane!" Marcus called over to the new ophane, who was engrossed into his own conversation with Cinna, "wanna come and meet someone?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"What?" Baku asked suspiciously.

Marcus and the stray boy mumbled continuessly, trying to think of a good approach to consult Baku about Zidane. The monkey tailed boy was busy digging a hole with his new toy (the crowbar), outside Baku's house. Cinna watched their adoptive father cautiously, ready to bolt, should the large man become angry with them for bringing home another child off the street.

"We said uh... um... said we f-found a-ah... erm..." Marcus stuttered, scratching the back of his head.

"Found another kid and... er..." the stray boy tried to help Marcus out, but ended up choking on his words just the same.

"And?" Baku questioned. He had a feeling he knew where this was going, and that wasn't where he wanted it to end up. "Anything you wanna tell me about him?"

Marcus sighed a defeated sigh. "We want him to be our brother too" he said finally, causing the stray boy to shift uncomfortably. Baku slapped a hand over his eyes. He knew it the minute he layed eyes on the boy, trotting along with the other three.

"So what makes you think I'm gonna take him aswell? Eh?" Baku asked, using his height over the children to say 'You got some nerve'.

"But he doesn't have a home!" the stray boy argued, Marcus following up with "And he has to find food all by himself!"

"And he looks healthier than both of you, so I'd guess he's doin' just fine already" Baku pointed out.

"Only 'cos he stole from three different shops!" Marcus exploded. Baku took interest in that statement. He glanced over to Zidane, now sitting against the wall and examining the bend of the crowbar.

"Is that where his jimmy stick came from?" Baku asked the boys. They nodded slowly and cautiously, wearing identical expressions of 'Oh no, we said too much'.

Baku sighed inwardly, looking over all four boys one after another. Truthfully, the out of work actor had been contemplating changing from a life of performing to one of thieving. He didn't really want to of course, but it was looking to be the only choice he had. And small hands are less noticable he reflected, and the younger the pupil, the better skilled the thief later on. Baku was a fairly reasonable to good fighter himself, so he assumed it would be wise to educate the boys in that field so they could defend themselves if they were to ever be caught.

Baku shook his head came up with an alternative. He'd resort to thieving later, but for now he'd use the boys in performing. Once again, the younger the pupil, the better the end result. It also occured to him that young performers were indeed appealing when very skilled.

"I s'pose it couldn't hurt, and I could make some use out of the four of you together" Baku anounced finally, and the pleading faces of Marcus and the stray boy disapeared, replaced by ones of joy and relief.

Baku smiled an amused smile at the children. "Well as long as he puts in, it's fine. I don't need any other trouble"

The boys nodded obediantly, and would probably had bowed down if the large man had requested it.

"Well I mean you kids are all pretty easy to take care of so I'm sure if he hangs with you lot he'll come 'round too, I'm sure he not capable of burning the house down and what the hell is he doing with my wallet?". The two boys looked around at the place Zidane before sat, only to find he was no longer there and instead was perched above the door, leisurely going through the contents of Baku's purse.

Baku patted his sides just to convince himself that it was indeed his wallet the monkey tailed boy possessed, and once he confirmed it, all four boys jumped when he burst into a loud round of full blown laughter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The stray boy looked outside at the rain. Well, it wasn't really the rain his psychic gaze followed as he sat by the window, but the three figures dancing around in it, roughly all the same height as he. Marcus, Cinna and Zidane weren't used to soft, thick rain like this, and were enjoying the current occurence of it. He sighed as he 'felt' them play. He was allowed to go and play in the sun, but he was still learning to sense his surroundings, and it was too early in the peace for him to find his way in the confusioin of the falling liquid.

"Feelin' a little blue eh?" Baku's voice pulled the stray boy out of his contemplation. He turned to show he had acknowledged his adoptive father's presence, and rubbed the edge of his leather eye band.

"You'll learn ta get around soon enough. Don't worry too much, yer' doin' great" Baku said as he held out a peice of candy. Proof of the boy's success to feel out the world

with his mind revealed itself as he reached out and took the offered sweet from Baku's large palm.

Baku ruffle his hair and made to leave the room. The stray boy returned his attention to the scene outside and sighed. Yes, he'd eventually be able to do the same, but not knowing how long it would take wasn't any fun.

"Hey, kid" Baku's voice intruded into his thoughts once again. The boy turned fully to show he'd be happy to forget his current predicament and listen to the large man instead.

"I think I've got a name for ya" Baku anounced. The boy's usual blank expression brightened slightly, and he slid off his chair and approached Baku.

"W-what is it?" he asked quietly.

"Blank".

Next Chapter - Blank History

~Queen Qeeko