"Shi no Tenshi:

Angel of Death"

Chapter 1: "Dark Revival"

Disclaimer: This story is wholly my idea. There are influences from The Crow and Ghost Rider, but this is mostly original work.

Author's note: Recently, I have developed a strong interest in The Crow and Ghost Rider. So I decided to write a story combining elements of both, along with a few original ideas of mine. By the way, this story is somewhat animé-inspired, so I imagine the people looking like animé characters. Here goes.

I remember. After all these years, I remember it like it happened only yesterday.

I was seven years old, just a happy little kid without a care in the world. On that day, I was out with my mother and father. We were eating ice cream and we all had our favorite flavors. My mom liked mint, and my father liked strawberry. My cousin Hiroko, years later, told me that that was because strawberry reminded him of my mom's lips. As for me, I liked vanilla with chocolate and rainbow sprinkles and pieces of Oreo cookies.

Ah, such a happy child I was then.

But like all things, it came to an end. My mom and I were walking down the street when a car came tearing down said street at ninety m.p.h. My mother tried to shield me and take most of the hit for herself, but with a car that fast you can't really do anything to protect anyone, least of all yourself. The car hit us both, throwing us out on the hard, unforgiving asphalt.

I wasn't really aware of anything. There was just blackness obscuring my senses and finally --- I was aware of nothing. I was nothing.

Then my senses came rushing back, and awareness returned to me. With awareness came a horrible pain unlike anything I'd experienced in my seven-year-long life. It was a pain that gnawed at my very core, eliciting a terrible scream from deep in my throat.

I realized that I was in an ambulance. Funny, I thought at the time, that there aren't any sirens.

"What just happened here?" a paramedic asked.

"I don't know," the second paramedic said. "He's supposed to be . . ." He didn't get to finish, as the first paramedic cut him off.

"He's a seven-year-old kid, for crying out loud," the first paramedic said. Then whispering, "You wanna tell him he's supposed to be dead?"

I rolled my eyes. Dumb adults. Did they really think shielding me from the truth was going to benefit me in any way?

"But he had no pulse," the second paramedic whispered. "He wasn't breathing, he had no heartbeat. He was bleeding from his temple. How do you suppose that he's up and about?" Then he looked at me.

"What?" he said softly.

"What are you looking at, mister?" I asked, sounding like the naïve little boy I was back then.

The second paramedic whispered to the first one. "What is going on here? First, the kid wakes up, and now he's not bleeding anymore. It even looks like he never got that cut at all."

The first paramedic looked at me, too. Then her bottom lip dropped in what looked like astonishment.

"Why are you looking at me like that, ma'am?" I asked, still sounding like a naïve little boy.

The first paramedic turned to her partner and whispered, "What happened to his skin? It's really pale."

I had no idea what she was talking about. The driver of the ambulance turned on the sirens and changed directions, going to the hospital. Once there, I was placed in the emergency room.

A doctor came to check up on me. "Do you know that you're a living miracle?" he asked me.

"A miracle?" I wondered.

"Yes," the doctor replied. "You've got no broken bones, no internal bleeding, no injuries at all."

"My mom, is she going to be all right?" I asked.

The doctor looked sad. "I'm sorry, Damien," he said, "but your mom isn't going to be all right."

"You mean she's dead?" I asked, though it was more a statement in the form of a question than an actual question. "It's all right. It's not like I can't handle the idea that people actually die. I don't understand why people die, but I know it happens."

"Yes, Damien, she's dead," the doctor confirmed.

"May I go to the bathroom?" I asked.

"All right," the doctor replied.

I went to the bathroom, wearing nothing but a hospital gown. Once there, I cried.

"Why?" I moaned through my tears. "Why did you die, Mom? Why am I still here and you're not?"

I looked up at the mirror and saw my tear-stained face. I also saw one thing unusual about it. All the color had drained from my face --- no, my skin entirely --- leaving it a snowy white color.

That was ten years ago.

Right now, I'm seventeen years old. And they still can't figure out what happened for me to survive that accident with no injuries.

When I got older, I learned the full details of what had happened to cause the accident that killed my mother and nearly killed me. The car that had run us over had belonged to a drug dealer trying to escape from the police. Once we'd been hit, the police had stopped their chase to try to help us. It had been them that had called the ambulance.

After that accident and my brief hospitalization, the police had fought to put that drug dealer behind bars. The charge they had slapped him with was depraved indifference vehicular manslaughter. As I learned when I got older, that meant you didn't intend to kill someone but ran them over with your car with no regard for their safety and they died, anyway. That was the primary charge against him. The secondary charge was the peddling of drugs.

Unfortunately for those who believed in justice and those who wanted him to rot in prison (i.e. practically everybody, myself, my dad, and my relatives on both sides included), he got some high-powered defense attorney on his side. In an impossible move, the jury was deadlocked and the judge declared a mistrial. That would've assured a new trial where things would hopefully go far better, but the judge dismissed the charges as well, ensuring that there wouldn't be a second trial. After all, double jeopardy stated that you couldn't try someone twice for the same offense.

My dad was furious. He got on the police to find something, anything at all that would convince the judge to allow a second trial. In the end, he failed . . . because he didn't live long enough to succeed.

It was at the age of eight that I lost my father. He was killed in a drive-by shooting. At least, that was what it looked like, but there was someone on the force who had her suspicions. She tried to pursue those suspicions, but she was defeated in her efforts by the police bureaucracy.

Without any parents to take care of me, my cousin Hiroko Kaishi, my father's older brother's daughter, took me in. For that, I would always be grateful to her.

I never had a lot of friends. At least, none that stuck around for very long. Most of the kids at school stay away from me. Because I'm so pale, they call me "vampire" in whispers whenever I'm near them. Sometimes, I wish someone would try to harass me, push me around, because then it would mean that somebody actually wanted to interact with me. I should be grateful that no one does bully me, but being ignored is so much worse.

The doctors can't explain how I survived, or how I got my unusual complexion. The more religiously minded people said that it was a miracle of God and that my paleness was the beauty of the moon incarnate, the beauty of the light that shone in darkness. That's what some of them said, anyway. Others called it the work of the Devil, and that my paleness is the Devil's mark. When I was ten, my cousin Hiroko met with one of my teachers and that teacher said to her that I ought to get myself blessed to save my soul from damnation, because my pale skin was a sign that Satan had marked me for his kingdom of darkness. Nevertheless, Hiroko made sure that teacher was never allowed to work in my elementary school again.

Enough of the story of my screwed-up life. That was merely background detail to prepare you for what's to come.

I was taking my books out of my locker one Friday afternoon, preparing to depart this quiet hell I called Shinjuku High School. I packed them into my backpack and put said backpack on my back. As usual, everyone put some distance between me and themselves when I walked out. At first glance, you'd think it was a sign of respect, but they were really afraid of me.

I walked down to the student parking lot and unlocked my car, a black 2001 Mitsubishi sports car, with the remote attached to my car key. I then threw my backpack into its backseat and sat in the driver's seat. I started the car and drove away.

I parked my car in front of my house and got out with my backpack, then locked my car again with the remote and entered the house. As usual, Hiroko wasn't there, due to the fact that she was still at the local paper as a reporter. The thing was, Hiroko was an investigative reporter and she had fought her absolute hardest to help bring the drug dealer that had carelessly ended my mother's life to justice. Unfortunately, like the detective I'd mentioned, she'd been forced off that particular story.

Sometimes, I think Hiroko had a harder time dealing with my mom and dad dying than I did. Almost like she felt responsible for them.

Anyway, I left my musings at the door and steeled myself for this weekend's homework. By the time Hiroko came home, I was halfway finished.

"Burning the midnight oil, I see," she quipped.

"It's not even eleven o'clock yet," I said.

"I know," Hiroko replied. "But you're working so hard."

"Thanks," I said.

After I was done with my homework, Hiroko and I ate dinner. "So how was your day, Damien?" she asked.

"Like my days always are," I replied. "Spent in loneliness."

"Why don't you try to talk to someone?" Hiroko asked.

I let out a short self-deprecating laugh. "Like I could. The minute anyone sees me, they keep their distance. No one approaches me, and I can tell that no one wants me to approach them. Besides, they stay out of my face and I keep out of theirs. Mutual benefit."

"Not really," Hiroko said. "You're a great person, Damien. If only they'd try to see that instead of a 'vampire.'"

"Thanks," I said.

That night, I slept. And I dreamed.

The dream was a blur, filled with darkness, blood, and dominated by a white face with black makeup on its eyes and lips.

It ended with the words, "You must avenge yourself. Yourself and your parents. Take retribution for the sins committed against your family."

My eyes snapped open. What had that dream been about? And just what was up with that face I had seen? It looked like some demon mime.

I looked at the clock next to me. Its bright red digits said 2:27 a.m.

Saturday morning already, I thought. I laid my head back on the pillow and resumed my slumber.

Two mornings later, I was headed back to school. It was the same as always. Six hours of drudgery, the morning and afternoon hours divided by the lunch period. During lunch, I would sit by myself. No one dared approach me. Hell, no one would eat unless they were some distance away from me. They were scared to even stand in the same line as me, especially if I was behind them.

Wait. I didn't even eat the school lunch. Like I would be caught dead eating that crap.

Anyway, after the class that followed my lunch period, I was hanging around by my locker, lingering until the last possible minute. I just reflected on my life, and how unfair it was that my parents were dead and I had no friends because of how I looked. Oddly enough, it occurred to me that all my problems were the fault of that accident ten years ago. And I felt such a rage that I punched the wall. However, it didn't have the intended result.

Instead of hurting my hand, the force of my punch carried me through the wall and into the girls' locker room! Fortunately for me, I wasn't in anyone's line of sight. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I saw every hormonal teenage boy's fantasy: a group of good-looking girls in various stages of undress. Then it occurred to me that if I didn't find a way out soon, I'd be hard-pressed to explain how I got in there in the first place. Hell, I'd be hard-pressed to say anything at all.

I ducked back to the wall and focused all my energy on getting back out the same way I'd come in. Just when it looked like someone would spot me, I found myself moving through what felt like air and going back where I came from.

Or not.

Because I'd actually been moving through a shadow cast by the lockers and I'd emerged into the shade of a tree outside the school.

It occurred to me at that moment that I better get to class or else I'd be in trouble for being late. Mustering all the available energy I had, I pressed against the wall and focused on getting back inside the school. After what felt like forever, I reentered the school, moving through the wall like a person would move through air. I ran to my next class, somehow narrowly escaping being late.

After classes were over for the day, I hurriedly packed up and ran to my car. Again, I simply found myself passing through the metal of the door like it was air.

Something really strange was happening to me. My first instinct was to tell Hiroko when I got home, but she wouldn't believe me. Besides, would she really believe me if I told her I could move through walls and shadows?

I decided that I had to keep this a secret at all costs.

When I got inside my house, I acted entirely normal. When Hiroko got home, I was perfectly normal. I told her nothing of my unusual new abilities.

After dinner, I went upstairs and lay on my bed. How is it that I can walk through walls and shadows like they're not there at all?

I can answer that for you, Damien Kaishi, a voice said.

I whirled around, looking for the source of the voice. A girl stepped out of the shadows of my room. Her skin was as pale as mine and she was dressed in black from head to toe. Specifically, she was dressed in a black mesh shirt over a black halter top and leather skirt. Underneath the skirt was a pair of leggings with knee-high stiletto-heeled black boots. Black leather gloves, studded black bracelets and a studded choker accented her outfit. The girl herself had black hair and purple eyes.

"Who are you? Where'd you come from? And what are you doing in my room?" I asked.

"Do not fear me, Damien," the girl replied. "I am your spirit guide."

"Spirit guide?" I echoed.

"Yes," the girl confirmed. "I am here to guide you on your mission."

"Mission?" I echoed again.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Could you please not repeat everything I say?"

"Sorry," I said, "but what's this mission you're talking about?"

"Do you remember your accident ten years ago?" the girl asked.

"How could I forget?" I asked rhetorically. "I lost both my parents because of that accident."

"I can guide you," the girl said. "Guide you to the people who were responsible for that accident that took your parents from you."

"For what reason?" I asked.

"So you can take your vengeance upon them," the girl replied. "So you can avenge your parents."

"How am I supposed to do that?" I asked. "Sure I can walk through walls and shadows, but that's not going to do much against a bunch of thugs with guns."

"You have other powers, Damien," the girl replied. "You will discover what they are soon enough. In the meantime, you must properly equip yourself."

I opened my wardrobe and searched through it until I found a pair of black leather pants. I also found a long-sleeved black silk shirt and a pair of black boots. I found a pair of wristbands made of leather bindings that extended far enough to wrap around my middle fingers individually. Finally, I took out a black leather duster and a pair of thin black leather belts that could take the place of one average-sized belt.

"Perfect," the girl said.

"Could you look away, please?" I asked. "I don't like to undress with an audience."

The girl sighed. "Sure." She turned away as I discarded my old clothes and put on the clothes I had picked out. "Can I look now?"

"Sure," I said.

"You look hot," the girl said.

I felt my skin pale even further at that.

"Oh, no one's ever given you a compliment before," the girl said, smiling. Then she got serious. "The clothes won't be enough. You need the proper face to present to your killers."

"My killers?" I asked.

"You're dead, Damien," the girl replied.

"How can I be dead when I'm standing right here, obviously alive?" I asked.

"Do you remember the moment you were hit?" the girl asked.

"Yes," I replied. "Everything went dark and it was like nothing, not even me, existed. Then I was back and it hurt."

"The process of dying and being reborn is painful," the girl said. "Your body had died and your soul was making the journey to the afterlife, except you weren't meant to die. So the powers that be sent you back into your body, with a little something extra. The pain you felt was your body and soul adjusting to the new power inside you."

"So why did it take so long for this power of mine to manifest?" I asked.

"Because you were only seven years old then," the girl replied. "Your body would've been far too weak to handle it and you would have died again. So it had to wait until your body had matured enough to handle it."

"What am I, then?" I asked. "I'm dead, and yet I've been walking around like I'm alive for the past ten years."

"You are a Shi no Tenshi," the girl replied.

"An angel of death?" I translated.

"Yes," the girl confirmed. "Those such as yourself are 'born' when their mortal lives are ended due to the immoral activities of others."

I walked into Hiroko's room and straight to her makeup drawer. I had a flash of memory. It was the dream, the dream dominated by the white face with the black makeup that made it look like a demon mime.

A perfect face for me, I found myself thinking.

I didn't need makeup to make my skin white; it was already as white as death. However, I found some black eye shadow and applied it to my eyelids. I framed my eyes in black eyeliner and used it to make what looked like vertical slashes through my eyes. I painted my lips with black lipstick and used black lip liner to draw curving lines extending from the corners of my lips, evoking an evil smile.

"Perfect," the girl said to me. "You know, that eye shadow and eyeliner really bring out those lovely dark violet eyes of yours."

"Thanks," I said. "But there are dead men walking that have to be sent to their graves."

I walked out to the balcony of my house and leaped to the house across from me in one bound.

"Holy shit," I whispered to myself. "How did I do that?"

"It's another one of your powers," the girl replied. "As a Shi no Tenshi, you are far stronger and faster than an ordinary human. Also, you will be able to perform feats of physical agility and dexterity that would be impossible for mortals. But enough of that; it's time to find your family's killers. And I will lead you to the first."

We found the drug dealer that had oh-so-callously run my mother and me over. We found him sitting in a luxurious penthouse apartment with a pair of expensive whores at his side. The sight filled me with rage. All that the dealer had had been paid for with the blood of innocents.

"His name is Koichiro Asami," the girl told me.

"That bastard killed me and my mother, and ten years later, he's filthy rich," I snarled. I was so overcome with rage that I punched the glass sliding doors. They shattered rather easily. So much for bulletproof glass.

I noticed something rather odd. I hadn't felt any pain when I'd punched those sliding doors. I knew I'd cut my hand, but it hadn't hurt. I looked at that hand and I saw my cuts heal without bleeding at all.

"It's another power," the girl told me. "You can't feel pain, you can't be killed by mortal weapons, and you'll heal from any wound inflicted on you."

I stepped inside the penthouse.

"Who the fuck are you, you painted-up freak?" Koichiro asked me.

"A blast from your past," I replied. "A blast that'll blow your blackened soul right out of your body."

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but you're dead!" Koichiro shouted, and drew a gun, shooting at me three times in the heart.

"Kisama!" I yelled. (A/N: "Kisama" is Japanese for "bastard.") "You ruined my shirt."

"You should be dead, you freak!" Koichiro shouted.

"I already am, dipshit," I replied. "That's why I'm standing here in front of you." My bullet wounds had already healed by this point. I glared at the whores. "Leave. Now. Your client has business to settle with me."

In retrospect, I didn't think I really needed to tell them to leave. They'd just seen a guy painted up like a demon mime heal from what should've been fatal bullet wounds. The two of them got their barely clad selves out of the apartment. It occurred to me when I saw them that they were barely out of their teens, not that much older than me. For a brief moment, I asked myself just why the hell they would degrade themselves like this.

"Do not trouble yourself over them, Damien," the girl said. "Remember your mission."

"Yeah, I know," I said.

"Who are you talking to?" Koichiro asked.

"What the hell?" I asked the girl. "Can't he see you?"

"No," the girl replied. "As a spirit guide, I can be invisible to all but those who can sense spirits or are caught between the living world and the other side."

"What are you, schizophrenic?" Koichiro asked sarcastically. "Doesn't matter. You're dead." He fired at me again. This time, I dodged the bullets with an incredible speed that momentarily took me by surprise.

I guess this was the increased speed factor she was talking about, I thought.

With that same speed, I leaped at Koichiro and kicked the gun out of his hand.

"You're going to talk to me," I said. "About the little boy and his mother you ran over ten years ago."

"Who the hell are you talking about?" Koichiro asked.

"It was during a police chase, ten years ago," I elaborated. "Don't you remember? DON'T YOU?!"

"Yeah, it's coming back," Koichiro replied. "Some bitch, some brat. It was an accident, so I don't see what the hell you're so pissed off about."

"That 'bitch' was my mother!" I screamed and tackled him, pinning him to the ground with a hand on his throat. "And the 'brat' was me. Now talk! Who are you working for? Who are your accomplices?"

"Hey, I remember something else, too," Koichiro sneered. "Your father wouldn't keep his mouth shut about what happened to you. He kept getting on the police force's ass to make sure I went to jail for a long time, and everyone else in our little organization was supposed to go with me. But, you know, when you've got a big-time boss running things, it's easy to get a good enough lawyer to get you off. Of course, a little money stuffed in a few pockets and a few death threats here and there never hurt."

"So justice was denied to my family because of some bastards' greed!" I snarled, tightening my grip on his throat.

"And your father still wouldn't stop," Koichiro added. "So we had to get rid of him and make it look like random chance."

"That drive-by was you?!" I exclaimed, horrified and enraged beyond belief.

"Yeah," Koichiro confirmed. "There was this pretty detective on the force, Akiko Tomoe. She tried to investigate us. We couldn't kill her; people would've really gotten suspicious. So we resorted to other means."

I had a sudden flash. Of money exchanging hands. And the recipient of that money was the police captain.

"You paid off the police captain to take Tomoe off the case," I said, my voice a dark monotone.

"And that lady reporter who also tried to investigate us, Hiroko Kaishi, we took care of her, too," Koichiro added.

I had another flash of memory. Again, I saw money exchanging hands. The recipient, this time, was the publisher of Hiroko's newspaper.

"Damn you all to hell!!" I screamed. "You fuck up my entire life, you murder my father, and you cover it all up with money!!" As I screamed those words, darkness surrounded me, seeming to encompass everything around me. I looked at Koichiro venomously. "You will tell me now who your accomplices are, and who your boss is. NOW!"

"Ok," Koichiro conceded, obviously scared. "The guys that shot up your dad are Jackal, Snake, Coyote, and Chameleon. The big boss is Yusaku Yagami."

"That's good," I said, my voice a low, venomous monotone. "I thank you. But you're still going to pay for what you've done to my family. You didn't care about anything other than escaping justice. That's why you ran over my mother and me, and that's why you had my father murdered. You will pay for your sins --- a thousandfold!"

The darkness focused itself into me and exploded from me, piercing Koichiro and expelling his soul. He collapsed, a hollow-eyed shell of his former self.

"Your soul is now and forever locked in darkness," I said. "The darkness that your sins have stained it with. Now and forever you will be tormented by the pain you have caused."

"One down," the girl said. "And five to go."

"Five will soon be reduced to none," I vowed.

I walked back out to the balcony of the penthouse and jumped off, leaping to another rooftop. I ran faster than any human ought to be able to run and leaped whenever I reached the chasm between rooftops. Throughout all this, I had one thing and one thing only on my mind.

Vengeance.

To be continued . . .

End Notes: Damien Kaishi has begun his quest for vengeance and nothing will stop him. Or will it?