Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction ❯ False Echoes ❯ The Changing of the Guard ( Chapter 7 )

Witch Hunter Robin
False Echoes

Chapter VII - The Changing of the Guard

Disclaimer: You know by now I don't own Witch Hunter Robin®, which belongs to Sunrise® and Sci-Fi® Channel. You know this already.

Nor do I own the song False Echoes; I just borrowed its title.

Storyline, Plot, Kenny Avery©, Roger Williams©, Kichiro Wantanabee©, Rick Richards©, Michael Campbell©, Rosalind Nichols© and Mr. David Rica© are mine.

Author Notes:

Well, SD made some good points, and she was also the 100th reviewer and I'll try to answer all of her questions in this chapter.

Also, please note:

Polly Nichols, a 45 year old prostitute was indeed the first of five women killed by the notorious "Jack the Ripper" in London, England, in the year 1888.

She had five children with her husband William before the marriage broke up and she became a prostitute. Just for the sake that it'll work with my story, I have made Rosalind be one of those five children.

Of course, if you haven't figured it out by now, Rick Richards is "Jack the Ripper".
Of course not for real, since no one knows, or may ever know who the Ripper really was.

The historical information about Jack in this story comes from a website

txtx.essortment.com/victimsjackrip_rbzf.htm

If it is not historically true, don't blame me. ^^

Also, I'd like to apologize for the fire cliffhanger. That was just too evil. I beg you forgiveness, and shall skip the cliffy for this chapter.

------------------

"Michael-"

"No time." Michael shot to his feet, which like the rest of him had now been completely healed, and moved his hand out to quickly grab Robin's petite arm. He began to pull her with him as his feet carried him away from the portrait of Rick Richard and the others, and down towards Jyou's office. Jyou himself was following along behind them with a slight moan.

Robin was so shocked at what was going on, wondering if perhaps she had missed something important, that she did not struggle as Michael pulled her across the marble floors and towards the door at the end of the artwork filled hall. Still in the shadows, screams of the scared rich folk could be heard, but Michael could not worry about them. Not now.

The figure of Rick Richards, waving the rapier around like a mad man, was now back. It was running after them calling out the name 'Campbell' all the while, and drawing ever closer. Michael was faster though. He quickly made his way into the room and swung around, causing Robin to trip and fall onto the floor. A second later, Jyou shot into the room like a bullet and Michael slammed the door shut just as Richards appeared.

The angry screams of the figure of a man who had lived and died over a hundred years ago were heard outside the room as he smashed the sword into the door; Robin wondered, as she pulled herself up, how long it would be before the door broke down.

"Sorry," Michael said suddenly, reaching a hand out for her. Robin, who had never before been this confused, merely stood without his help, and Michael felt a stabbing twinge of guilt. He sighed and turned away from her, staring at the door where a pounding could be heard from Rick's feet.

"Michael, what's going on?" Robin asked from behind him.

"The watch," Michael answered as he reached into his pocket and extracted the small gold pocket watch. It was a beautiful watch, gold, and engraved with tiny words that said "To One Hell of A Cop". The watch had been given to Michael Campbell by none other than Rick Richards himself.

Michael Lee knew that because he now had all of his ancestor's memories.

"Michael Campbell, Rick Richards, and Rosalind Nichols were all Witches," Michael said as he turned around to face the woman he loved. "Richards and Campbell were the leading investigators on the Jack the Ripper case. Rosalind was one of Polly Nichols children; Polly was the Ripper's first victim.

Michael learned all of what he had just explained now the second he had touched the watch. Robin and Jyou just looked on in amazement as he spoke.

"Campbell and Richards instantly fell in love with Rosalind. Being the friends they were, they decided to flip a coin to see which of them would be allowed to court her. Richards won, and he tried to court her, until he found out she was pregnant with Michael Campbell's child. Richards backed off and let Rosalind and Campbell marry. But then, on their wedding night, Richards came to the door demanding to see Rosalind. Campbell tried to turn him away, and Richards killed his one best friend."

Michael could see these memories as clearly as he could remember the first time he'd kissed Robin; these memories were crystal clear in his mind. Of course that was because of the watch.

Robin sat in silence for a moment as Michael told the rest of the story. The orange-haired hacker stood facing the door, still in the navy blue suit that had appeared on him like magic when he had touched the watch. Her eyes watched him from where she sat on the metal fold-out chair at Jyou's desk, while Jyou himself was stuck inside the small mini-fridge in the corner of the room, a beer can in his hand.

"Michael," Robin said quietly as she stood and walked over towards him. "That's a horrible story, but right now I want to know how you survived. I . . . I almost. . ."

"Robin," Michael replied at once, turning around and taking her small hands in his own, intertwining their fingers just as she had done before. He was comforting her as she had after his nightmare.

The memories of the nightmare in which a bulky brown-haired man had called him `Campbell', and Robin had died in his arms had not faded from Michael's memories, and in fact, he was horrified at the very idea. Of course in the dream they were in a room, not in a museum. And the man who had spoken to him was not Rick Richards.

Still, he couldn't worry about the dream now.

"Robin, Michael Campbell was a Witch. While he may have lived over a hundred years ago, he was still my ancestor. That makes me a Seed." Michael smiled at her as he kissed her cheek quietly, desperate to explain it to her. "I had to take a chance before. I knew that Rick Richards had imbued a false copy of his soul inside that sword. I thought Campbell might have done the same."

He paused as he tried to put this into words. "You see, Robin, Campbell and Richards made Echoes of themselves using the Craft and put them inside those items. Even once the Echo was made it continued to absorb their memories. Richards wanted to kill me because I'm Michael's descendant, and I had guessed that Campbell's Echo would wanted to help me, heal me, to stop Richards."

Robin pulled away and looked up at Michael's sky blue eyes as she processed this. Michael had guessed that the watch would save his life after she had nearly ended it. Suddenly, she became furious with the hacker and slapped him across the face. Michael was stunned, but Robin was even more surprised; she had never slapped anyone before.

"You! You made me light you on fire on the slim chance that a watch would save you?" Robin choked out.

Michael sighed. "No, Robin. I made you light me on fire because Rick Richards has a grudge against Michael Campbell. I'm Michael Campbell's decedent, which means that the grudge goes to me. Have you noticed that every time I'm in pain that ghost vanishes?"

Robin nodded quietly as tears filled her emerald eyes.

"I knew that if you put me in pain, he'd vanish. And I had to test the watch theory. It was a good plan, and it worked."

"Michael . . ." Robin mumbled, and Michael's eyes widened in surprise. It was a soft, but chilling voice, unlike any she had ever used. It was almost as if Robin were so angry that mere fury could not express it.

"Robin, I'm sorry. I know it was hard on you, but everything is okay now."

"No, it isn't," she said in a tone so far from everything being `okay', that he instantly filled with dread. "If you had died, if your idea had failed, if I had murdered you, do you know how I would have felt? Do you know what that would have done to me?"

Michael sighed and tried to hug her, but Robin pulled away, unable in the least to look at him. The hacker gave a great sigh as he comprehended the fact that he had made a massive mistake.

----

"Start damn you!"

Haruto Sakaki heard the words fly out of someone's mouth from somewhere to his right, and he realized at once that they were coming from Doujima's mouth. He knew that voice; he had heard it every day for months.

Sakaki was walking along the deserted back alleyways of the great streets of Tokyo as he wandered in circles, looking for the father he had always hated, and thinking about what would happen if he found him.

He had been able to buy a gun from a pawn shop down in the bad side of town, and he had it loaded inside his jacket. He had the gun ready for his father. The rookie was determined to kill Kichiro Wantanabee as soon as he saw him. He'd viciously murder his father. No. It wasn't murder, it was a righteous death. It was killing a killer.

And yet, instead of finding the father he hated, he found the woman he loved. After the first scream, Sakaki made his way cautiously in the direction the voice had come from, wondering what the blonde was yelling about now. Finally he found her, standing over Robin's vespa, kicking it angrily.

"Start you damn thing! I have to find Haruto!" She kicked it again, and then let out a cry of pain as her foot smashed painfully into the metal muffler. Sighing, she sat down on the seat. Sakaki couldn't help but smirk at her. That was, until he noticed her face.

It was the same beautiful face he had fallen in love with; the same soft skin, pale with a slight pinkish hue in her cheeks. The same deep, blue eyes that Sakaki could get lost staring into. The same nose that he had loved to poke and plant small kisses on the tip of whenever they were flirting in the back of a movie theater or on his bike.

But now, the face had an all-too-familiar slash on the right cheek that reminded him all too much of the scars his mother would sometimes get after she and his father had had a fight. Normally, he would have chalked it up to coincidence, if not for the fact he father was in town and angry.

"Yuri-chan?" he mumbled quietly, and the girl gave a huge jump as she turned around to face him. They stood for a minute under the silent nighttime sky before she ran towards him and threw herself into his arms, embracing him tightly.

He pulled away, still angry with her from before, but concern for her safety had overridden the anger for now. He moved his right hand up and touched her cheek, but she gave an "Oww!" and yanked back.

"It was him, wasn't it?" Sakaki asked quietly.

"Yeah," Doujima responded, not looking her boyfriend in the face as he called his father some names so dirty even HBO wouldn't allow them on TV.

"What happened?" Sakaki asked when he was done cursing his father.

"I called Miho after you left," she explained quietly, still not meeting his cobalt eyes with her own deeper, cerulean ones. "Well, Miho came and got me, but then he showed up. We tried to fight him, but he was too strong. He cut me and tried to kill Miho too."

Sakaki cursed again and closed his eyes. Karasuma was his partner, and, besides Doujima, was the most important person in the world to him. Karasuma had been like his older sister since he'd met her. Occasionally she got angry with him and told him off, but that only made her feel more like family.

"But it's okay," Doujima added quickly seeing the pain on Sakaki's face. "Because Amon came. Amon got him, Haruto."

Sakaki's eyes flashed open at this and stared at Doujima the second those words had been uttered. Got Him. Those words struck the hunter like an arrow. His father had been gotten; his father had been stopped.

"He's at the factory now. Your dad is gone, and he won't be back-"

"The factory?" Sakaki blurted out at once, ignoring everything else she had spoken and tried to speak after that word. "But-"

"Amon brought some Orbo with him," Doujima explained. "He's gone, Sakaki. That's all that matters, he's gone, and you didn't have to kill him."

Sakaki turned away from her and stared down at the eerie shadow the streetlight was casting on them. "I wanted to kill him."

Doujima made a small noise in her throat, and then she crossed over to stand next to Sakaki. When he turned his face to look at her, she slapped him harder than she'd ever slapped anyone before, even harder than she had slapped David Rica three months ago. Sakaki was stunned.

"Murder isn't as easy or as nice as the movies make it sound!" Doujima snapped bitterly. "Even if you kill someone you hate."

"But-"

"No buts, Haruto. I hated David Rica worse than anyone on the planet. Worse than anyone. And yet, not a day goes by where I don't regret killing him. Oh I'm glad I killed him; I'm glad I saved you and Robin. But I wish I could have done it without taking a life. Because Haruto, once you take someone's life, your own changes forever. It's the power of God, taking lives. And that's a power and a responsibility that no human should have."

Sakaki stood in silence as she spoke, tears once again forming in her eyes. She had vented her anger and frustration, and Sakaki felt his own vanishing as well. He couldn't stay mad. His father had been punished, and Doujima was still here. That was all that really mattered.

"Here," Doujima said suddenly, reaching into her pocket and pulling something out. To Sakaki's amazement it was the necklace; s silver chain, with a small, golden flower and a fake diamond in the center at its end. The necklace he'd bought for his mother on the day she died.

"What? How did you-"

"I took it out of your dad's pocket," she clarified. "I thought you might want it, so that the next time you go to your mom's grave, you can take her something better than roses."

Sakaki suddenly let it go; the hate, the anger, the pain. The feelings of horror he'd harbored since the death of his mother. He let it all go.

He would never forget his mother, and he couldn't, no matter how hard he would try, forget his father either.

But he would move on; he'd make a future without either of them.

A future with Doujima.

----

"Mr. Zaizen?"

Zaizen sat in his office, weary of work, and feeling that perhaps he would have another smoke and then call it a day, when his head scientist entered the office delicately. Zaizen sighed and turned the chair around.

"Any progress on Toudou's disk?" the gray haired man asked.

"No sir, that's not why I came to see you." The scientist hesitated.

"Oh. Well what is it?"

"The new Witch that was just brought in, he tested positive for Orbo extraction. Shall we begin?"

Zaizen nodded, but suddenly blinked and turned towards his computer. Typing up something quickly, he looked back up at the scientist, who, it appeared, had expected this and hadn't tried to move in the least.

"What new witch? We didn't have any hunts today." Zaizen's dark eyes shot up to the thin man in the white lab coat.

"Of course, sir," the scientist replied. "But Mr. Amon brought him in."

Zaizen's eyes widened with fury. "Amon? The STN-J is on a vacation, you know that!"

The scientist nodded somberly. "I know sir. But Amon caught a Witch and brought him in. We couldn't turn him away."

Suddenly, a look of grave understanding crossed Zaizen's aged face, and he sighed as he asked a question that he was dreading the answer to. "What is the Witch's name?"

The scientist fidgeted. "Kichiro Wantanabee, sir."

Zaizen cursed loudly and pounded his large fist on the cold table. The scientist sighed.

"I take it that as a no, then, for Orbo extraction?"

"Damn right it's a no!" Zaizen yelled in fury. "Bring Kichiro to me."

"Right away sir." The scientist smirked evilly as he slipped out the door, leaving the brooding Zaizen alone to continue to brood.

Silence engulfed the room like black engulfed the night, and every second Zaizen sat casting his gray eyes at the door was another second where he grew angrier. Finally, after a wait that had been only ten minutes, yet felt like ten days, the door opened and Kichiro Wantanabee walked in.

Kichiro was in a weak state; the Orbo had drained his powers, and he had been shot six times. He moved slowly, and staggered like a drunk. He walked towards the chair in front of Zaizen's desk, but before he could sit down Zaizen pounded his fist on the table again and made the witch jump back.

"Did I say you could sit?" Zaizen growled.

"No, but you did say none of your team would have the Orbo, you stupid prick," Kichiro responded with ice in his salty voice. He was weak in the body, but his mind was still strong.

"I did not foresee you screwing up so many times," Zaizen replied coolly. Kichiro cursed but Zaizen merely shook his head silently.

"Well, next time-"

"Next time?!" Zaizen snapped quickly as Kichiro tried to speak. "There is no next time, my simple friend. You're about to die, don't you understand that?"

Kichiro narrowed his eyes, but the craft did not work. Zaizen laughed; the Orbo was still burning inside Kichiro's system, and his craft was useless for hours more.

"Baka." Zaizen reached into his desk and pulled out a small, silver handgun. Kichiro's entire body went lax, and he realized there was no escape for him.

"Wait, I still have information on Rica," Kichiro spoke quickly.

Zaizen sighed. "Tell me everything you know."

"No," Kichiro replied bravely. "Once my son is-"

"Tell me what you know now," Zaizen repeated. "And I'll let you live to kill Sakaki."

"What reassurance do I get that you won't shoot me the second I tell you?" Kichiro asked in a whisper.

"None." Zaizen smiled. "But you either tell me now, or you die now. Which is it?"

Kichiro sighed and decided to tell him.

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*Listening to Kenny Chesney's She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy*

*Waves*

Konnichiwa!

Okay, number one, I'd like to again apologize for the Michael/fire cliffhanger. That was horribly mean and I shalln't do anything that mean again.

Number two, I think it's time to talk about sequels.

Firstly, go read I Promise You Freedom by SanoGirl, it's a great story, I love it, you will two. Trust me. You trust me, don't you?

Secondly, while I'm mentioning sequels, let me mention the so far Unnamed Sequel to False Echoes.

That's right. We're only on chapter seven, and already I'm planning the next one. I really don't know what I want to happen yet, but below is a list of things that MIGHT happen.

If it's in bold, then it probably will happen, and italics, then it's got a 50/50 shot of happening.

Doujima's Past

I've gone over Sakaki and Miho's pasts a lot in this one, some of Michael's family's past, and the show tells us about Robin's past, so next I'm setting my sights on Doujima. Probably there will be someone from her past, who will probably be evil. Maybe an ex boyfriend, or a jealous sister, or something.

Rica Returns

Good chance that the undead zombie from New Orleans will be making a third appearance in the fourth sequel. Just because I love writing about Rica, and lots of people enjoy his shenanigans, so he's coming back.

HTH

Remember "Hunt the Hunters" from Time Off? The people Nobunaga worked for? Well they may come back with a new boss.

That's the only ideas I have right now, so I'll bid you all farewell on these notes and hope that you come back for chapter eight.