"Shi no Tenshi:

Angel of Death"

Chapter 2: "Unraveling"

Disclaimer: What disclaimer? Practically everything in this story is mine. The inspiration I drew from The Crow and Ghost Rider, but everything else is mine.

Author's note: This is where things start getting heavy. Damien Kaishi's quest for vengeance is far from over, and no one's going to stop him. Let the story continue.

With the condemnation of Koichiro, my mission of vengeance had just begun. I ran, faster than any human being could hope to run, leaping over rooftops whenever I needed to. All the while, the mysterious girl who was my spirit guide followed me.

"I'm going to find that bastard police captain," I snarled. "I wonder what he'll say when he discovers the full ramifications of his greed!"

"Yes, Damien," the girl said. "They must all be made to pay for what they have done to you and your family."

I continued running. I ran until the police headquarters was in my supernatural sights. I leaped off the building I was on and landed silently on the rooftop. I kicked the roof access door open and ran down the stairs. Silently, I prowled through the shadows, faintly realizing that within these shadows, I was an invisible being.

"The darkness recognizes you as its own," the girl said. "That is why it protects you."

I merely nodded, and waited until the police captain was alone. It was at that moment that I entered his office.

"Hello, Captain Nakara," I said, smiling grimly.

"Who are you and how'd you get in here?" Nakara asked.

I chuckled darkly, something that had come naturally to me since the discovery of my dark power.

"I'm a ghost," I sneered. "The ghost of your own past, returned to send you to the hell your soul should have been delivered to long ago."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Nakara protested.

"Liar," I snarled. Within less than the blink of an eye, I was standing right in front of him, the desk the only thing between us.

"I'm serious!" Nakara shouted, fearfully.

I glared. "Ten years ago, you took money from a man named Yusaku Yagami. He gave you that money so that you'd find yourself quite indisposed to continue a case against him. A case that started with a hit-and-run that claimed the lives of an innocent woman and her son."

Nakara's eyes met mine, and widened in horrified realization.

"You!" he exclaimed. "You're the Kaishi boy!"

"Ding ding ding," I said mockingly. "You guessed right. Guess what prize you win?"

"But it's impossible!" Nakara shouted. "You were still alive!"

"I'm dead," I contradicted. "I have been for ten years. The only reason I was still here was to wait until the time was right to take my vengeance. Guess what? The time is now."

Once again, I felt the darkness surround me. It concentrated itself into me, and then exploded outward, seemingly consuming the world around me. I heard Nakara scream in the darkness. When it receded, everything was as it had been before. Except for one thing.

Nakara was sitting in his chair limply, staring blankly at nothing. His soul had gone to join Koichiro's in the dark dimension where he would be forever tormented by his sins.

Satisfied at this, I walked toward the door that led out of the office. Then I realized that I needed to leave a little souvenir of my presence. I turned around and touched the floor. Black energy spread from my palm, shaping itself into black angel wings. I removed my hand, leaving the black wings behind.

I smirked. "Let them see this. Let them see and realize what is coming for them."

I departed the office the same way I had entered. Once again, I took to the rooftops.

"Jackal, Snake, Coyote, and Chameleon," I said to myself. "All infamous deceivers. How ironic."

And I knew where to find the first. My senses, both physical and spiritual, led me to him.

I jumped through the shadows near the establishment and reemerged inside.

"Heh," I said. "A strip club."

I walked through the throng, paying no attention to the strippers. Again, the question of why women would degrade themselves just for some money troubled me.

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

"I remember just fine," I replied. I looked around and saw the man I was looking for. He had unkempt black hair and shady dark eyes. Silently, I walked up to him and took an empty seat right next to him. "Hello."

"Hey, kid, aren't you a little young to be here?" the man asked me. "And what the hell's up with the face paint? You look like a dead whore."

"Oh, I'm quite dead, Jackal," I replied. "You made me that way."

"I don't know what you're talking about, you crazy punk," Jackal denied. "But I know that if you leave me alone right now, I'll do the same for you. Right now, if you're gonna be here, enjoy the show."

"Sorry," I replied. "I've already got a private performance for you." As I said those words, my lips curled up into an evil grin.

"I don't know what the fuck you want, but I know you're gonna be fuckin' dead when I'm through!" Jackal threatened, standing up and pointing a gun to my head.

I chuckled. "By all means, shoot."

"You got a death wish or something, kid?" Jackal asked.

"Hey!" the bartender shouted. "There ain't gonna be any of that shit going on in here! You wanna kill that painted-up bitch, fine. Just don't spill his brains all over my floor!"

"It's all right, sir," I said in a low tone. "I'll be going now. But I'm taking him with me."

"Say what?" Jackal asked. "I ain't going nowhere with you, punk."

"Yes, you are," I replied. That said, I grabbed him by his gun hand and twisted it behind his back. I leaned over to whisper in his ear. "Now. We're going to be departing. I don't want these people to have the image of your damnation branded into their minds forever. It would be too traumatic, wouldn't it?"

Jackal merely nodded in terrified agreement. Still holding him, I led him out the door. Once we were in the shadows of an alley, I dropped him.

"Now, now," I said. "It's time you paid for what you did."

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about!" Jackal protested.

"You lie," I replied. "You know because you were there. You and your three playmates Snake, Coyote, and Chameleon drove up a street one day, found a man by the name of Yuji Kaishi walking on the sidewalk, and filled him up with bullets. The four of you fired sixty all together. Sixteen made it into his flesh."

"Oh, yeah, him," Jackal said in sudden memory. "Been so frickin' long I just forgot about 'im."

"I didn't," I replied. "He was my father."

"Oh, shit, you can't be ---" Jackal started to say, but I cut him off.

"Yes, I am," I confirmed. "I'm Damien Kaishi."

"What, you're mad that we offed your dad, so you've come to get even?" Jackal said.

"I've come to make you pay for your sins," I said.

Jackal pointed his gun at me again. "You're going to be one dead little freak."

"Go ahead," I said, smiling. "Shoot me."

Jackal fired his gun at me, six bullets striking me in the chest and head. I dropped soundlessly and bonelessly.

"See ya in hell, punk-ass," he said, walking over my "dead" body. Just as his back leg was about to follow his front leg, I grabbed it and twisted the ankle hard, spraining it, assuming I had not simply broken it. Jackal fell over, clutching his injured leg. "What the fuck was that?"

I got up, smiling wickedly with no holes in me at all. I let out a low, sinister laugh.

"You can't kill a dead man, stupid," I said. "But it appears that you've put more holes in my shirt. Someone else did that, not very long ago. Actually, it was just earlier this very night. Your friend Koichiro Asami, the guy who ran me and my mother over, tried to kill me. He should've known that bullets wouldn't stop me. Of course, now he knows. And now his soul is being consumed by the darkness of his sins for the rest of eternity."

"What are you?!" he asked, scared to death.

"I'm vengeance," I replied, the shadows once again rising, overtaking my surroundings. The darkness concentrated itself in me, then exploded outward. Jackal screamed. Then the shadows receded, and a hollow-eyed Jackal stared back at me, lying flat on the ground. I looked, and saw that the darkness had left my mark on a wall.

"Where will you go now?" the girl asked.

"To find a snake," I replied. I jumped up and landed on the rooftop of the strip club. Not hard, considering it was only about two stories tall. I leaped across to the wall of a taller building, my fingers grasping handholds that no one human could have found. I scaled the wall until I reached the rooftops. Then I traveled in my own unique style.

I ran at what felt like 70 to 75 mph, leaping across rooftops when necessary. At last, I found Snake. I peered over the rooftop, and looked down. My supernatural eyes saw everything as if I was right on that sidewalk.

Snake, a skinny, shaved-bald man, had a young girl about my age pinned to the wall with his hand moving up her bare thigh, exposed by her miniskirt.

"Now relax, girlie," he whispered harshly. "I'm not gonna hurt you, unless you make me." He paused for a moment. "Ok, fine. You can put up a little fight. I like it when they struggle."

From the very moment I first saw this, I knew what he planned to do with the girl. I also knew I wasn't going to let him do it. Silently, I jumped off the rooftop and landed just as silently behind Snake.

"Hello, there, Snake," I said. "I didn't know you liked putting 'little Snake' between little girls' thighs."

Snake turned to face me. "What, you want her or something, you painted-up whack job? 'Cause she's my bitch and I don't like to share. So why don't you take your freak ass back to wherever it is you come from, huh?" He took out a knife. "Don't make me hurt you."

"You couldn't possibly hurt me," I replied.

"You wanna test me, you fucked-up freak?" Snake asked.

"Go ahead," I challenged. I jerked my head to the side toward the girl Snake intended to rape, silently telling her to run. Fortunately for me, she took my advice.

Snake threw his knife at me. I held up my hand and let the knife's blade impale my palm. I smirked.

"Is that the best you can do?" I asked, removing the knife from my hand. I held it up to show Snake as the wound stopped bleeding and sealed itself.

"What the hell are you, man?" Snake asked, shocked out of his mind.

"Do you have more knives?" I asked. " 'Cause I'm giving you a second chance. This time, aim for some place that might actually hurt me."

Snake drew a second knife and threw it straight at my heart. With supernatural reflexes, I caught it between my hands.

"I never did say I'd let it hit me, now did I?" I asked. That said, I lunged at him and grabbed him by the throat, holding him up against the wall. Flashes of memory came to me. They were of other young girls, some of them even younger than thirteen, the age of consent in this country. (A/N: This story's set in Japan, and in Japan, you have to be at least thirteen to be legally capable of consenting to sexual acts.)

"Don't hurt me," Snake gasped.

"Kisama," I snarled. "So that's your hobby. Raping innocent young girls. You sick fiend. Now, you're going to tell me where Coyote and Chameleon are. Do you know where they are?"

"I . . . I . . ." he stammered.

"Talk," I ordered. "I don't have all night."

"Coyote's hanging out at some club, and Chameleon's out picking up some bitch for a good fuck," Snake revealed, practically choking on his eagerness to talk.

"Don't worry about telling me where your friends are precisely," I said. "I'll find them. But you . . . I know exactly where you're going." The darkness surrounded me again, swallowing everything around me. Then it concentrated itself inside me, and exploded. Snake screamed once, then was out like a light once the darkness receded.

On the wall where I had held Snake, my mark was left. Just then, I heard a female voice shout, "Turn around!"

I turned around and saw a woman, dressed in a police uniform, pointing a gun at me.

"Hello, Akiko Tomoe," I said.

"How do you know my name?" Akiko asked me.

Come to think of it, that was a good question. How exactly did I know who she was?

"Never mind," she said. "What did you do to him?"

"He won't be able to tell you," I replied. "He's not here anymore." I took a step closer to her.

"What did you do?" Akiko asked.

"His soul is trapped in darkness, the darkness born of his crimes," I replied. "He'll be there for all eternity." I took another step closer to him.

"Don't move another step," Akiko ordered, pointing the gun square at my chest.

"And here I thought the police said 'Freeze,'" I mocked.

"I am the police, and I say, 'Don't move,'" Akiko retorted. "Don't move, or you're dead."

"I'm already dead, and I move," I replied. "Guess I got the order wrong."

"Who are you?" Akiko asked.

"A ghost," I replied.

"Yeah, well, you look pretty damn solid for a ghost," Akiko retorted.

"Akiko-san, I'm afraid I must depart now," I said. I smiled, probably scaring Akiko somewhat due to the makeup I was currently sporting. "However, if you insist on stopping me, feel free to shoot." I took two steps closer to her this time.

"Are you on something?" Akiko asked.

"No, I'm very clean for a corpse," I replied. "But they always take care to clean up the dead, don't they?" I took another step closer. "I'll be seeing you again, Akiko-san." That said, I leaped past her and into a shadow, most likely leaving her confused and freaked out.

(A/N: In Japan, it's customary to add the suffix "-san" to the name of a person who's older than you or a person you don't know that well. Sometimes, it's there just for respect.)

When I reemerged from the shadows, I was right in front of a club. The name of said club was Reaper.

I chuckled sinisterly. Quite fitting, I thought. For the Coyote shall reap what he has sown.

I entered Reaper and was immediately assaulted by loud techno-rock beats and flashing lights. I didn't care very much, and no one seriously took notice of me. After all, there were some people who were garbed in a manner even more freakish than me. I waded through the sea of bodies writhing to the beat of the music. My sixth sense guided me to Coyote, who was casually flirting with a girl with purplish-pink hair and blue eyes. The girl herself was wearing a leather skirt with matching tube top that allowed some flashes of belly button and cleavage.

I walked over to the pair. "Hello, Coyote."

"Hey, freak, what the hell do you want?" Coyote asked.

"You in hell," I replied. I turned to the girl. "Excuse me, miss, but I have business with your friend, ten years worth of it. You see, he has a debt that he's been dodging for the past ten years. I've finally come to collect."

An evil smile formed on my face as I said these words. The girl got the hint and fled.

"Now it's just you and me," I said, smiling.

"What do you want with me, you freak?" Coyote asked.

I grabbed his arm and held it in a vice-like grip, impossible for a normal human to break.

"I want you to pay," I replied. "Now let's go quietly so we don't scare anyone." That said, I walked him through one of the shadows the flashing lights cast in the club. When we reemerged, we were in an outside alley.

Immediately, Coyote drew a switchblade and slashed me in the throat. I merely smiled at him, the fool.

"You shouldn't have done that," I said. At only the first word I spoke, the wound stopped bleeding and sealed itself.

"What are you?" Coyote asked.

"Do you remember gunning down a man named Yuji Kaishi?" I asked.

"Should I?" Coyote asked, trying to act tough despite the fear I sensed coming off him in waves. Wait. Just how could I sense his fear?

"Your spiritual senses will not only lead you to your family's killers, they will also allow you to see into their very souls," the girl explained. "Why else did you see how they bought off Captain Nakara and the newspaper publisher? Why else did you see the faces of the girls Snake violated before you caught up with him? Why else can you feel this murderer's terror upon the prospect of being made to pay for his sins?"

"You should remember," I said. "After all, you gunned him down so that your boss, Yusaku Yagami, could get away with ruining the lives of innocent people."

I stared at him, long and hard before continuing.

"All right, fine," I said. "I'll tell you all about it. Ten years ago, a little boy and his mother got run down by one of your drug-dealing buddies. He was trying to get away from the police, and he didn't care who got in his way as long as he escaped. He didn't actually want to kill the little boy and his mom; he just didn't give a shit about them. What happened later was that the little boy's father tried his hardest to make sure the dealer didn't get away with it, even when the judge declared mistrial and set the bastard free. Your boss didn't want the little boy's father causing any more ruckus, thinking that if he managed to get the cops back on the case, the dealer would be the first domino to fall, leading all the way back to him. So he had you and your three friends shoot him down in such a way that it looked like a random drive-by.

"But I know the truth. It was no random drive-by. Your boss didn't want the little boy's father causing any more trouble for him. He'd already bribed Captain Nakara into taking his people off the case, and he'd already bribed the local paper into stopping its investigative reporting on the case. But the boy's father wouldn't give up, and so your boss decided that that was more trouble than he could deal with at the time, so he had you and your pals take care of it for him.

"That was ten years ago. This is now. Care to connect the dots?"

Coyote's eyes widened in sudden, fearful recognition.

"You're him!" he shouted. "You're Yuji's boy!"

"You remember at last," I said. "Good. Now you know what's coming."

He turned and ran, aware at last that he didn't want to be anywhere near me. I merely jumped into a shadow and reemerged right in front of him.

"Don't even think of running," I sneered. "You owe a debt of life. And I'm here to collect." I gathered the darkness into my being, concentrated it inside me, and then let it explode. Coyote screamed once and then dropped like a stone when the darkness receded.

"Vengeance has been served," the girl said. "But you must return home, Damien."

"Why?" I asked.

"Look to the horizon," the girl replied.

I looked and saw a faint light, heralding the dawn.

"Once the sun's light shines upon you, your powers will be useless," the girl explained. "For they are born of darkness and thus cannot abide the light."

"In other words, I'll be an ordinary mortal, vulnerable to injury and death," I concluded.

"Yes," the girl confirmed.

I ran into a shadow and reemerged in the shadows of my own room. I stripped off my clothes and put on my sleepwear, then crawled into my bed and slept, forgetting I still had the black makeup adorning my face.

I later awoke to Hiroko gently nudging me. "Damien, time to wake up," she said. "You'll be late for school."

I wearily turned around to face her and get up. "Morning, Hiroko."

"Didn't get much sleep, did you?" she asked.

"No, I suppose not," I replied. I walked past her and out of my room to the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth, then stripped down and showered. After stepping out, I chanced to seriously look at the mirror --- and the black makeup that had adorned my face last night had mysteriously vanished.

How did that happen? I wondered.

"The mark of the Shi no Tenshi will not appear on your face in daylight," the girl replied. "However, at night, you can shift from your everyday human face to your 'game face,' so to speak."

"Cool," I said lowly, as not to draw Hiroko's attention. I dried myself off, put on a towel, and returned to my room to put on the standard uniform of my school. Since I was a male student, my uniform consisted of a jacket and pants, both an extremely dark blue color, dark enough to be mistaken for black from a distance. Underneath the jacket, which I wore open, I had a black shirt on.

I went down to enjoy a good breakfast with Hiroko, then drove to school for another day of rejection and silent misery. When I got there, I got a surprise.

The girl I had saved from Snake was at my locker, obviously waiting for someone. I walked up to my locker, and her by incident. Surprisingly enough, she didn't withdraw from me like anyone else in the school would have. Also, I recognized her.

She was Hotaru Michikawa, the prettiest and most popular girl in school. Of course, girls like her never associated with boys like me.

That's a laugh, I thought. There aren't any boys like me. None of them are walking corpses who can't die or get hurt, let alone can do all the stuff I can do.

"Hi," Hotaru said.

"Hi," I said.

"You're Damien Kaishi, right?" Hotaru asked.

"Yeah, I am," I replied. "You're Hotaru Michikawa, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Hotaru replied. "How do you know me?"

"Everyone knows you," I stated simply.

"Right back at you," Hotaru said.

"Yeah, I'm the 'kyuketsu,'" I replied in a self-deprecating tone. (A/N: "Kyuketsu" or "kyuketsuki" means "vampire" in Japanese.) "Who were you waiting for?"

"You," Hotaru replied.

"Why me?" I asked. "I thought no one at this school wanted anything to do with me."

"You saved my life last night," Hotaru replied. "When that bald guy was about to rape me, you stopped him."

"You recognized me?" I asked.

"It was your eyes," Hotaru replied. "They had so much sorrow and pain in them. I've seen it for a long time."

"You mean to say that you've been checking me out for the past few years since I've been here?" I asked.

"Yeah," Hotaru replied. "To tell you the truth, I've always had a crush on you."

"You're kidding," I said, though I knew otherwise.

"Seriously, I do have a crush on you," Hotaru confirmed. "I've always wondered what you were really like, when you weren't surrounded by people who ignored you out of fear."

Just then, the bell rang.

"I guess I'll see you in class," Hotaru said, turning to walk away.

"See you," I said. As I walked to my class, I heard Hotaru's friends talking to her, expressing their disbelief that she'd actually talked to me.

"There's a lot about him you don't know," Hotaru said to them.

I smiled to myself. Apparently, being an undead super-being wasn't as bad as I'd figured it would be.

"You will have no time for her tonight, Damien," the girl said, invisible to all except me. "Tonight, you finish what you started."

"All right," I said, heading to class.

Later, I sat on the balcony of my room and watched the sunset, feeling my power return to me. I went into my room and put on the same clothes I'd had on last night, but I replaced my bullet hole-ridden shirt with a new leather shirt. I added a spiked choker and spiked bracelets to my attire.

"Let's see if this works," I said. I concentrated, feeling the dark power grow within me. I smiled as my lips darkened to jet-black, with curved lines moving upward from the corners of my lips in an evil smile. The skin around my eyes darkened to black, with vertical lines framing them in such a way that they looked like slashes.

I pulled out a piece of paper and wrote a message to Hiroko. "Gone to see my new friend Hotaru. I won't be out too late --- I hope. Love you. Damien."

I came downstairs and left the note on the dinner table. Fortunately for me, Hiroko was working late tonight. I slipped into a shadow and reemerged on the trail of Chameleon. I hadn't had time to go after him before, as daylight had intervened. Now it was full night, and there was even a full moon. He wouldn't escape me.

As Snake had told me before I'd sent him to an eternal nightmare of darkness, Chameleon was in a brothel, picking up a prostitute. The one he selected was a brunette with green eyes.

"Hello, Chameleon," I said.

"Why, I didn't know you'd brought a friend," the hooker said coyly. "Ok. I'm willing to take two guys at once. And this one's kinda cute, even with the makeup."

"I'm not here for you," I replied. "I'm here for Chameleon." I smirked at him. "You wanna die?"

"No, do you?" Chameleon asked, pulling out a handgun.

"Shoot away," I said.

"Glad to," Chameleon said, shooting at me three times. I dodged all three bullets and kicked the gun out of his hand.

"Go," I said to the hooker. "You don't wanna see what I'm going to do to him."

The hooker took my advice and fled, figuring that whatever Chameleon had to offer, it wasn't worth sticking around for.

"You're going to pay for what you've done," I said. "But not now. You see, I need a messenger to tell Yagami that he made a serious error ten years ago, and he's going to get what's coming to him. Leave. Before I think twice."

Chameleon might have been a murdering thug, but he wasn't stupid. He immediately fled from my presence.

I turned away and took off at a speed beyond anything anyone human would be capable of. I ran and ran until I reached Akiko's home. I slipped into a shadow and reemerged inside the house.

"Hello, Akiko-san," I said.

Akiko gasped in surprise, but quickly regained her composure. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I wanted to see you," I replied. "Remember the case Captain Nakara pulled you off ten years ago? The one concerning the dealer who ran over Marlene and Damien Kaishi?"

"Yes, I remember," Akiko replied. "How do you think I got demoted? I wouldn't get off the case, so they put me back in uniform and on a beat."

"I know," I said. "I know because my name is Damien Kaishi."

"Were you the one who broke into headquarters and did whatever it was you did to Captain Nakara?" Akiko asked.

"Yes, Akiko-san," I replied. "That was me. Nakara had to pay for what he'd done. The reason why he took you off the case was because Yusaku Yagami, the bastard paying that dealer, paid him to do it. I need to know everything I can about him if I'm to make him pay."

"First, why do you have that makeup on your face?" Akiko asked. "And how can you do what you did?"

"I'm dead," I replied simply. "I can't really explain it, because I don't entirely understand it, but I'm a living corpse who can't be killed by mortal means."

"If you want to know, Yusaku Yagami carries on his day-to-day affairs as an ordinary but insanely rich businessman," Akiko explained. "But much of that wealth came from the blood of innocent people. He's got his fingers in nearly every pie in this city: politics, real estate, finance, drug trafficking, gunrunning, white slavery . . . the list goes on and on. That dealer who ran you and your mother over should've been the first link in a chain leading to Yagami, but due to circumstances you probably know about by now if you're going to go around putting people in permanent comas, he was freed and I was pulled off the case."

Akiko gave me a sad expression. "I'm sorry, Damien-chan. I'm sorry I couldn't put him away, make everything right for you and your family."

Surprising myself, I gave her a hug. "Thanks. I appreciate it." I released her and walked into a shadow. Before I completely immersed myself, I heard Akiko say, "Be careful, Damien-chan."

(A/N: The Japanese suffix "-chan" is often used when speaking to younger people or to someone whom the speaker has a deep affection for.)

I reemerged inside the Rising Sunlight newspaper headquarters. I walked through the building, looking for the publisher, a man by the name of Tatsuya Hatomori. I found him in his office.

"Hello there, Hatomori-san," I said, sneering upon the usage of the honorific.

"What do you want, freak?" Hatomori asked.

"For you to pay," I replied. "You took money from a man named Yusaku Yagami to take Hiroko Kaishi off the story of the deaths of Yuji and Marlene Kaishi. Why?"

"I don't have to answer that," Hatomori scoffed.

I lunged at him in a blur of speed, slamming him against the floor-length plate-glass window. Fortunately, I held back enough to avoid shattering the glass.

"Yes, you do," I replied. "Why?"

"The paper was struggling!" Hatomori replied. "I could've had to sell it just to pay off my debts! I had to take the money!"

"It was blood money!" I snarled. "Money he gained from ruining the lives of innocent people!"

"I had no choice!" Hatomori shouted, almost on the verge of tears.

"You will pay," I snarled, my voice cold. I pushed him against the window again, this time shattering it. I let go, and in the instant he began to fall, I jumped after him. "You're not going to die this way. That would be too easy. Instead, your soul will suffer torments beyond imagination for eternity!"

The darkness surrounded us, flowing into me and exploding out of me. Hatomori's soul was expunged from this world, and placed in the dark world. Meanwhile, his body fell all the way to the ground, dead and broken. As for me, I plunged into a shadow and reemerged in Yusaku Yagami's company headquarters.

"Payback time," I said. "And no one's gonna stop me."

To be continued . . .

Next: Damien's invincible, right? Not when the corrupt Yusaku Yagami pulls some tricks out of his hat that leave Damien helpless.