Chapter 2:

New Name? New Owner? New Living Nightmare!?

The Ginger Death


"In case it's not already clear, last week I was stalking my new target but after the worst car ride of my life I had the further indignity of being hit by a car." Haji thinks as he remembers what happened before saying "I was out cold for 3 days and had a run in with an evil god who may be the jerk behind me being a cat!"

"And now, four days later..." Haji thinks as the backdrop shifts away from his memories revealing he's in a super cutesy basket the total opposite of his tastes with a look that says "I REALLY hate this" clearly not enjoying his bed rest before he says "I'm stuck here in this gawdawful basket recovering while that bastard god is probably laughing!!"

"I swear, as soon as I can get back on my own four paws I'm not sleeping in this thing again!" Haji says before moving his legs a bit and thinking "Barely any pain yesterday and practically none today so probably an improvement, guess the Evil God healed my major injuries so if I remember right and what the Vet said is accurate I'll be back on my paws in a few days."

As he sits there still not happy about his bed even after 4 days he looks at the window and sees a calico cat sitting there outside staring at him with a real dirty look as he notices the name on its name tag before realising something and thinking "That's ‘Mittens’? Seriously!? Am I in the same neighbourhood as that guy?"

Mittens glares at him like he knows who stole his dinner and who dropped a flower pot on his pal Akira as Haji looks at him thinking "So you actually want to start something over your meat and the mutt? Did you not hear what happened to the last guy that messed with me?"

Suddenly Tanisuzu walks into the room saying "So how're you doing today Haji?"

Haji looks at Mittens calmly before sticking his tongue out at him as he thinks "Don't worry Mittens, you've made my To Do List so I'll deal with you later."

Tanisuzu notices Haji isn't looking at him and looks at the window and sees Mittens and says "Already making friends! You sure are quick on the button Mr. Popularity!"

Haji looks at him and hisses as he thinks "I AM NOT FRIENDS WITH THAT DORK!! AND I DON'T LIKE THIS BED!!"

Tanisuzu looks at Haji realising he just upset him and says "Sorry, I'm too busy gushing over your friendships to give you your fresh food and water."

Tanisuzu quickly brings over the bowls of fresh food and water and places them on the floor before he replaces the bowls in the bed with them and pets Haji on the head saying "I know you're a Tsundere but you don't need to be embarrassed about your feelings."

Haji sits there hissing with annoyance at just how helpless he is as he thinks "DAMN YOU HUMAN!! I AM NOT A TSUNDERE!!!"

"I'll give you some peace while you recover Haji." Tanisuzu says as he stands up and walks out of the room with the two old bowls.

Haji looks at his fresh food and water as he thinks "This may be far from my preferred home life but at least the food is good and the water isn't overly chlorinated."

"Guess I'll eat some of my food before my stomach starts growling." Haji thinks as he begins eating his food before suddenly a familiar voice says "Looks like you're close to being healed to the point you can continue sending me offerings."

Haji nearly chokes on his food and coughs before thinking "CENSORED!! Are you trying to kill me!?"

The evil god laughs and says "You should have seen your face when you heard me, if I had a twitter account my followers would be seeing a pic of it with the caption ‘#My Favourite Cat, serial killer Haji the Ginger Death nearly chokes when I surprise him!’, it'd probably get thousands of likes!"

"Oh, haha, go on, get your kicks at my expense, see if I don't add you to my murder list..." Haji replies with a serious look as he continues eating his food calmly before the evil god replies "It takes some guts to threaten an Evil God who helps serial killers, you'll go far!"

"Maybe I'll just ignore you and have a drink since putting up with you is thirsty work." Haji replies as he switches to his water and begins drinking calmly completely ignoring the Evil God but the Evil God simply replies ominously "You can ignore me but I'd not ignore Mittens if I were you..."

"Why, is he another one of your reincarnated serial killers?" Haji replies sarcastically as he continues to casually drink his water.

As Haji drinks his water without a care in the world the Evil God goes eerily silent before saying "Actually no, he's a detective reincarnated by the god of detectives and he is likely onto you..." causing Haji to accidentally bite his tongue out of shock before the Evil God says "Just kidding..."

"THAT'S IT!! YOU'RE DEAD!!" Haji shouts at the Evil God sitting up with a look of furious rage.

The Evil God Laughs maniacally before saying "Then what about the Seven Gods of Fortune?"

Hearing that Haji looks at a nearby good luck charm and says "They'll be the Seven God of Dead Fortune when I'm done with them..."

"Then what about Amaterasu?" The Evil God asks with an excited tone before Haji raises his front left paw to his throat and raises his thumb claw before doing a throat slitting gesture saying "I'll leave her corpse to rot in a cave..."

"What if that guy worshipped by the guys in Rome decides to come after you?" The Evil God enquiries with a note of Evil Curiosity before Haji uses his claw to scratch a crucifix in his food before liking his paw clean as he says "I'll crucify him and his top subordinates in the plaza of their HQ!"

"What if other pantheons want to cause you trouble?" The Evil God asks leading Haji as if he's not even trying to hide what he's doing anymore before Haji makes the shape of a skull in his food with his claw and cleaning his paw again saying "Then they're not just Dead Gods, they're Foolish Dead Gods..."

Meanwhile Mittens sits there at the window confused by what he's watching and just gets up and walks away with the look of someone who's decided to pretend they haven't just seen what they just saw.

Suddenly just after Mittens walks away Tanisuzu walks back into the room saying "How's my little Haji's appetite?"

Haji freaks realising that he'll see what he did in his bowl and quickly eats the evidence thinking "Censored, I got carried away!" as the Evil God laughs and says "I'll just leave you to your din dins Haji..."

As Haji hurriedly eats his food to hide the evidence of his handy work he thinks "Censored that Evil God! He tricked me into doing all that so this would happen! Censored!!"

As Haji eats Tanisuzu walks over and sees he's eating his food and says "Looks like you have a good appetite, I'll leave you alone, I'll bring more fresh food later."

As soon as Tanisuzu leaves the room Haji sits up and gets off the bed thinking "I've had enough of this bed, I'd rather take the pain after the humiliation of rising to those provocations..."

After getting off the bed Haji walks closer to the AC unit and notices how cool it is and sits there before looking at the TV and thinks "This spot has a nice temp but being able to watch the news would also be nice, just one problem, where's the Remote?"

Haji looks around the room looking for the remote and sees it on a short table and thinks "If I can jump up there I can use the remote."

Haji walks over to the table and looks up seeing the height with a confident look and before jumping up thinks "This small of a height should be no problem, if a human can get their knees under there comfortably then it's barely a jump for a Cat!"

No sooner than he finishes thinking Haji takes to the air and while making a beeline for the table he thinks "The easiest thing in the world for a cat! You don't need to be a Feline Gold Medal Olympian to pull this off!" Before sticking the landing but looks like he's keeping up a poker face as he thinks "Censored! That hurt more than I expected it to!"

Haji stays still for a moment before slowly raising his paws and staggering toward the remote thinking "I may have over sold my recovery to myself a bit..."

"Now to put on the news!" Haji thinks as he pushes a big red button he assumes is the ON button but nothing happens so he pushes a different button and looks at the TV only to see it hasn't turned on and thinks "Censored! He uses one of those Censored TVs with a Censored remote with a tricky button layout!"

Haji pushes a button in the middle of the three buttons at the top of the remote and thinks "Censored! That's not it either!!"

"Wait!?" Haji thinks as he remembers something from his past life as a Human and thinks "That's right, some digital remotes have a button that switches the signal from one frequency range to another!"

As he stares down at the remote Haji remembers the details of how such remotes worked as he thinks "If I remember right then it's a simple case of which button in this layout does what, if I can figure out which one is the ON button then it's just a Fifty/Fifty shot."

Using that information Haji pushes the buttons until he figures out which one is the ON button before finding the correct button causing the TV to come on once he gets the remote to work and as the TV comes to life he thinks "Gotcha! Even if I can't see in full colour or see anything close up I can still figure things out!"

After checking the TV Haji realises that the TV is on a show about police going about their jobs as he thinks "Augh... From one hell to a fresh hell like this one..."

"Guess I'll figure out how to change the channel, the text is tiny so I can't read it worth a Censored so I'll just have to get lucky I guess." Haji thinks as he experiments before finding the channel buttons and flicks through the channels and finds a page on the local news.

While Haji jumps down from the table planning to head back to his chosen spot on the floor he hears the newscaster say "A Repeat of today's Top Story, the Serial Killer once known as the "Ghost of Kanto" was secretly captured late last year and convicted just before new years before being executed."

"Wait!? What!? It's about me!?" Haji thinks as he reacts to the story turning his head to the TV screen and seeing a picture of his human face on the screen in a corner as the news caster says "This Terrible Menace had a confirmed kill count of 30 people including 3 police officers, a JSDF Officer with the Rank of Colonel and 7 elite business professionals and their staff."

"More than 79 Accidental Deaths, Suicides, Overdoses and Deaths by Natural Causes are being investigated under suspicion those that died may be among his victims." The Newscaster states as Haji looks at the screen not impressed by what she's saying as he thinks "Is that all you morons have uncovered? You're worse at your jobs than I give you credit for if that's all you think I did when I was still a biped."

"The hero who ultimately identified this evil man was the Pro Esports Champion Hideyoshi Akasuchi!" The Newscaster states showing a picture of the gamer before stating "Mr Akasuchi said in an interview on the subject that he ‘Caught the unmistakable feeling someone was after him on multiple occasions’ and that after that he began planning an ambush for his stalker."

"He claims ‘I recognised the feeling as I've had many a sniper in contests try to put a bullet in my head’ and claims that this was his secret weapon in tournaments." The Newscaster states as she continues the story while Haji sits there looking at the screen thinking "That Censored Gamer Freak, how the Censored do you sense such things in a Censored Game!?"

"I swear I'll kill him this time..." Haji says as he jumps back on the table and turns off the TV before jumping back down thinking "Dying from choking on one of my own hairballs would be less humiliating than dying because of him again."

"Guess I'll take a look around my new house while my prey isn't looking." Haji thinks as he walks out an open door into a lightly decorated hallway with the usual knickknacks and photos you'd expect in someone's home but Haji catches the scent of someone he hasn't met in the house and notices a pair of shoes at the entryway that aren't from Tanisuzu and look more formal than Tanisuzu's usual choice as he thinks "Seems my prey has a guest."

"He's probably the type to mention he took in a cat so it might be worth my time to take a look at this person." Haji thinks as he looks around for where Tanisuzu and his guest are and hears voices coming from a nearby room and thinks "Guess that room I was in wasn't the main room, I wonder why it had a TV then, is this Tanisuzu guy making that much money?"

"I mean, it wasn't exactly a 50inch plasma but it was about a 25inch LED by a major brand, gotta have cost him 25000Y at least." Haji thinks as he approaches the sound of the voices before coming up to the edge of the open door and peeks inside and sees Tanisuzu sitting across from another man sipping tea as the other man with him says "Are you sure taking in some stray cat is the wisest course of action? What do you even know about this animal, for all you know it could be infected with who knows what!"

"If I didn't agree I'd consider this guy quite rude." Haji thinks as he looks at the man and notices a slight family resemblance as Tanisuzu says "Ichiro, why are you being so rude! I tell you I've taken in a new member of our family and you accuse him of having fleas and diseases!? What's wrong with you Brother!?"

"Did he say brother!?" Haji thinks hearing Tanisuzu refer to the man as his brother before thinking "Wait, wasn't the guy who arrested me named Ichiro Tanisuzu?"

"Maybe it's my cop instincts but something about this whole story just stinks, if we were talking about a human I'd be accusing them of being a con artist!" Ichiro replies to his brother before putting his hand on his tea before taking a sip and says "If our parents were around Yasuo they'd tell you to take a closer look at this creature's history before you take it in!"

"You know as well as I do they'd not take sides in this! Also, Dad isn't dead, he's senile and Mom's living in Miami with her current husband! Not that you'd care Mr Hero Cop!" Yasuo replies angrily before he notices Haji hiding by the door and says "Haji! Come on in kitty, don't let my mean older brother scare you."

"If they've seen me already then no point hiding at this point." Haji thinks as he walks into the room and takes a seat near the door and starts licking himself as he thinks "Gotta keep up appearances and act like a cat would in this situation so they don't get suspicious."

As Yasuo watches Haji's behaviour he says "Aw, you're such a shy little Tsundere as always."

As Yasuo reaches into his pocket he says "I guess you got bored in that room all by yourself for the last week."

"Good thing I thought ahead and bought this!" Yasuo says as he pulls out a laser pointer and uses it on the floor in front of Haji.

As Haji sits there looking at the Red Dot on the Floor Haji thinks "What the Censored!? Why can't I stop looking at that annoying Red Dot and why do I want to attack it!?"

As Haji stares at the red dot he shifts from a sitting position to an offensive stance ready to attack before without warning quickly brings his paw down on the Red Dot with his claws out as he thinks "CENSORED!! I won't let myself be mocked by a mere Red Dot, I'm the Serial Killer that guy at the Table couldn't arrest until that gamer escaped my grasp, you won't best me!!"

"What's with this cat? Its behaviour before seemed contrived like it was some kind of act, but why, why would a cat pretend to be relaxed in this situation?" Ichiro thinks as he watches Haji chasing the laser pointers Red Dot around trying to attack it before thinking "When I heard where Yasuo found this animal I wondered if it was the same one Hanagawa said his partner Pochi saw under a car that looked like my brothers."

"Just what is it with this cat that has my detective instincts telling me it's dangerous?" Ichiro thinks as he continues to watch Haji jumping around chasing after the laser pointers Red Dot as Yasuo moves it around the room before taking a sip of his tea while thinking "If this cat really was the one hiding under my brothers car then what was it doing there and just how long was it there?"

As Haji keeps chasing the Red Dot Yasuo looks at his brother's face and realises he's thinking something rude and says "My Haji isn't some kind of criminal, don't look at him like he is!"

"Even I wouldn't believe a cat was a criminal Yasuo!" Ichiro replies with an offended look before saying "Besides, I was wondering if he's the same cat I heard was under your car, I also heard a local cat with similar colouring went missing recently."

"That mangy thing has owners, Haji didn't or he'd have been chipped when I found him!" Yasuo replies sternly before saying "Also, it was my fault Haji got hit by that car!"

"He's got a point, if this were some kind of scam getting nearly killed makes little sense." Ichiro thinks as Haji sits there attacking the red dot that hasn't moved during this argument before Yasuo pulls out a piece of paper and a pen and writes something before handing it to Ichiro saying "You want a criminal to chase? Then Here! That's the licence plate of the hit and run coward who ran over Haji! Put him to death like you did that serial killer!"

Ichiro looks at the licence plate number and takes it thinking "It is technically a hit and run but I'm not sure the higher ups will do anything with this."

As Ichiro takes the piece of paper he finishes his tea before getting ready to leave saying "I'll admit that I came into this argument ill equipped to win it so I'll back down for today but keep an eye on that cat, I don't know what it is but I just don't buy his wounded animal act."

"My little Haji isn't putting on an act!!" Yasuo replies as he stops using the laser pointer and looking at Haji before saying "Isn't that right Haji?"

"You'd be surprised by just how right he was..." Haji thinks as he turns his head toward him before getting an annoyed look as he thinks "Also, who the Censored said you could stop with the Laser Pointer! Turn it back on, I still have business with that Red Dot!"

"Wait! What am I thinking!? Why do I want that Censored Laser Pointer turned back on!?" Haji thinks realising that his new cat brain is getting the best of him as Ichiro watches closely before saying "By the way, Haji wasn't it? I'm keeping my eye on you, I don't know what you're hiding but remember, I'm not as naïve as Yasuo."

"I'm no fool either Ichiro Tanisuzu and I still remember you..." Haji thinks as he looks at his old nemesis hoping Yasuo will think he's just reacting to hostility with hostility as he thinks "I'll add you to the pile of corpses alongside your brother before you figure out more, I promise you that..."

As Haji looks at Ichiro he turns his head away as he walks toward the door thinking "I think I'm spending too much time at work if I'm seriously considering the idea that cat could be a threat to anything other than Mice and Birds."

As soon as Yasuo hears Ichiro exit the house he grabs Haji and starts rubbing his face against Haji's saying "I'm so sorry my little Haji! I should have never let my brother upset you like that! Please forgive me!"

As soon as Yasuo grabs Haji he immediately starts kicking and scratching in an attempt to get away thinking "CENSORED HUMAN!! Let me Censored GO!!"

Yasuo regains his senses a moment after Haji scratches him and puts him right back down saying "I'm sorry Haji! I forgot you don't like being picked up!"

After getting free Haji runs out of the room looking for somewhere to hide while he regains his senses as he thinks "Curse this new body and this feline brain!! I'm becoming more and more of a Censored Cat every day!!"

"I need to collect my thoughts before I do something I'll regret later!" Haji thinks as he finds a dark corner in the kitchen behind a bag of dry cat food before thinking "I should be able to relax here until I can plan a way to kill that guy."

As he sits there Haji sees the refrigerator’s power cable and gets an idea as he thinks "An Accident maybe?"

Haji looks at the cable and notices how close part of it is to the sink and thinks "If I have this correct then I might be able to open up the covering of the cable enough to expose the electric current, and if I can arrange a spillage or leak I can electrocute Yasuo to Death."

"It will take some planning and hard work to make it work but if I do this just right I might be able to make it look like a random accident and not my doing!" Haji thinks as he looks at the sink trying to figure out a way to make the accident happen.

As he stares at the sink Haji remembers what Ichiro said and realises something important as he thinks "That's right, that cop is on to me again, I'll need to deal with him too!"

"Maybe I can mess with his breaks or plant a live rat in his car." Haji thinks not noticing Yasuo entering the room.

"Whatever I do it'll have to be untraceable as far as leading back to me." Haji thinks before Yasuo moves the bag looking to fill Haji's food bowl before saying "Oh, sorry Haji, I didn't know you were there."

Haji jumps behind the fridge in utter shock at the suddenness of his realisation Yasuo was there as he thinks "Censored Human! Someone ought to put a bell on you!!"

As Yasuo fills Haji's Bowl Haji thinks "One thing’s for sure, being a cat isn't going to make killing easier, if anything it's going to be more difficult, good thing I've always been creative with my kill methods."

To Be Continued

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Hussain Maknoon
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