"Shi no Tenshi:

Angel of Death"

Chapter 3: "Final Retribution"

Disclaimer: Everything in this story is original. The basic plotline --- death, rebirth, and vengeance --- is inspired by The Crow, the soul-annihilating punishments were inspired by Ghost Rider, and the main character's powers of darkness are somewhat inspired by Cloak from Marvel Comics, but most of this is mine.

Author's note: We're headed for the end of this tale. I hope you've enjoyed reading it up to this point, but here is where it all ends.

I was now inside Yusaku Yagami's company headquarters. I willed myself to become intangible and walked into a private elevator. I then punched the necessary buttons to bring myself right to the floor that Yagami's boardroom was on.

I hit "STOP," sensing that if I went in right now, the guards he had outside would put many holes in me. I didn't mind getting shot, seeing as how I couldn't be killed, but it would ruin my clothes.

Never mind that. I let my supernatural ears take in the sounds coming out of the boardroom.

I heard Chameleon burst into the boardroom. By the emotional aura coming off him, I could tell he was frightened beyond measure.

"Yagami-sama!" he shouted.

"What is it, Chameleon?" Yagami asked.

"Some freak painted up like a dead whore came up and said that you made a mistake ten years ago, and that you were going to pay for it!" Chameleon replied, panicked.

"Ten years ago, hmm?" Yagami repeated. "Now, what happened ten years ago?"

You murdered my family ten years ago, that's what happened, I thought.

"Yagami-sama," another man said. " 'Ten years ago' is an obvious reference to that nasty little incident with the Kaishi family."

"I remember now," Yagami said. "Koichiro ran over a woman and her little boy. The woman died, but the boy somehow lived. . . ." I could hear his heart start beating slightly faster. "It can't be. Damn it! If it wasn't for Koichiro's sloppiness, this never would have happened. That miserable fool Yuji tried to have Koichiro put away, and if the police had gotten him to talk before I got to the captain, it all would've led right back to me! I would have been ruined!"

"Yes, you would have, sir," the man said.

"Even after we forced Detective Akiko Tomoe off the case, the idiot still persisted in making noise," Yagami continued. "So I had to get rid of him, and do it in a way that couldn't possibly be traced back to me." He paused. "Koichiro, you, the others who had a hand in burying this six feet under . . . it's the Kaishi brat, isn't it?"

"I don't understand, sir," the man said.

"It's all very clear now," Yagami said. "The boy knows what transpired ten years ago and now seeks justice with his own hands."

"He ain't human!" Chameleon shouted. "Nobody human could avoid being shot at from point-blank range!"

"Are you saying that a punk kid dodged bullets fired at him from less than five feet away?" Yagami asked.

"Yeah!" Chameleon confirmed. "He just moved out of the way and then kicked the gun outta my hand!"

The girl walked through the elevator doors and into the boardroom.

See through my eyes, Damien, she said. Instantaneously, I saw the inside of the boardroom and the meeting that was occurring. It didn't take me long to realize that I was seeing through the girl's eyes.

Yagami turned to a mysterious woman who looked like some kind of seer. "Do you know something?" he asked her.

"Yes," the woman replied. "This Damien Kaishi is not a living being. He is a dead man, returned to this world for the purpose of avenging the sins that cost him his life and family."

"Speaking of family," Yagami said, "the brat's about to lose his last connection to his parents." He snapped his fingers, and two burly men in suits carried a familiar-looking woman with her hands tied behind her back and a gag preventing her from speaking.

"Hiroko!" I shouted. The dark rage rose inside me, cresting to a black peak. I punched the elevator doors, knocking them out of the doorway. I stalked toward the double doors leading to the boardroom, despite the guards lining up to stop me. "Get out of my way."

The guards pointed their guns and fired. I leaped over the bullets and kicked the leader in the face. I whirled and knocked the gun out of the hands of another. I felt a guard pointing his gun at my back, so I grabbed another guard and whirled just as the guard behind me fired, using the guard I was holding as a shield. Then I threw his unconscious-if-not-dead body at the guard who'd fired at me.

I pushed the doors to the boardroom open and walked inside.

"Yusaku Yagami," I said, "prepare to die."

"Hello, Damien Kaishi," Yagami said. "How I hoped you wouldn't be too bitter over what I'd done. I had to do it, you see. Couldn't let Koichiro's mistakes ruin me."

"He's gonna kill me!" Chameleon shouted, scared further by my immediate presence. "He got Koichiro, he got Nakara, he got Jackal, he got Snake, he got Coyote, and now he's gonna kill me next!"

I ignored Chameleon's ravings, as I would deal with him soon. "So you murdered my father to make sure he wouldn't cause you any more trouble," I snarled. I saw Hiroko. "Let her go."

"No," Yagami replied. "I'd rather see you die." He motioned to his guards and they pointed their guns at me.

"That's where you're wrong," I countered. "Didn't she already tell you? I'm dead. That means I can't die again."

"Perhaps," Yagami said, "but you can't say that's for lack of trying."

The guards immediately opened fire on me. I flipped, cartwheeled, and somersaulted out of the way of their bullets. I jumped onto the table and kicked the rifle out of a guard's hand, breaking it in the process. I ran down the table, evading and attacking at the same time. As the guards kept shooting, I decided I needed to pull out a new trick.

I stood in a crucifix-style pose. "Go ahead. Shoot."

The guards fired at me, but I made myself intangible and the bullets passed through me. Unfortunately for the guards, the bullets that went through me struck them directly, or ricocheted and then hit them.

"That's enough!" Yagami shouted. "You want me to get hit?!"

The guards stopped, probably grateful for an excuse to stop shooting. I allowed myself to become solid again.

"Now do you see you can't stop me?" I asked. "You should've just admitted to your crimes. But since you decided to run from justice . . . justice has decided to hunt you down like the dog that you are."

"I must say, Damien, that dark angel mark you leave behind? I like that," Yagami replied. "You've got style, for a punk kid."

"Don't flatter me, murderer," I sneered. "Release Hiroko, and I might just decide to spare you the fate of your underlings."

Yagami looked to two of his remaining guards. "Take the woman and get out of here," he ordered.

The two guards took Hiroko roughly and fled the boardroom.

"You can't stop vengeance so easily," I said darkly.

Yagami turned and fled. I gave chase, despite the guards' attempts to stop me. For those efforts, I gave them a nice, permanent vacation to the dark realm. The same fate befell the Chameleon and Yagami's adviser and seer.

I stalked Yagami, never letting up once. After all, Yagami was only human. And I was dead, and the dead don't tire so easily, if at all.

I finally found him in a dark room, glowing with violet light from the center of the ceiling. I felt strange, as if something was being drained from me.

"What's going on?" I asked. I looked, and saw Hiroko, tied to a chair in the center of the room but without the gag. I saw two guards, one on either side of her with a gun pointed at a temple of her head. Finally, I saw Yagami himself.

"It's ultraviolet light," Yagami replied. "I use it for my plants. I had no idea it would have any effect on you at all."

I tried to stay on my feet, but that was hard to do considering I felt so weak. That was when I realized what had happened. Sunlight contained ultraviolet radiation, and it was that radiation which warmed Earth and gave it light. Unfortunately, light was the opposite of darkness, and my powers came from darkness. Therefore, the light of day nullified my powers, making me helpless.

"How sad it must be to be you," Yagami mocked. "The only power you've ever had in your life, or unlife, is gone. Poor pitiful you."

"Touch Hiroko and die," I snarled.

"How cute," Yagami said. "You're still trying to act like you're invincible." He walked up to me and punched me in the mouth, hard enough to make my lip bleed. I fought back, using my martial-arts skills to hold him at bay. Unfortunately, he was far stronger than I'd expected. Not superhuman like I'd been before stepping into the ultraviolet-lighted room, but formidable.

"Ha, I'm human, and I'm still kicking your murdering ass," I sneered.

"Tough talk coming from such a little boy," Yagami retorted, emphasizing that with a hard punch to the stomach. I doubled over, but didn't collapse. Yagami followed that up with an uppercut that knocked me down. He walked over and kicked me just as I was starting to get up.

"Only someone with no honor would try to kick an opponent when he's down," Hiroko said. "And you have no honor, Yagami."

"Tough talk from such a little woman," Yagami sneered.

"Untie me and we'll see just how 'little' I am," Hiroko challenged.

"Right after I kill your uncle's son," Yagami replied, withdrawing a gun from a holster hidden in his suit. He pointed it right at my leg and shot me in the calf.

"Aaaagh!" I cried out. It wasn't my first time getting shot, but it was my first time getting shot without my powers to shield me from the pain and heal the resulting wounds.

"Damien!" Hiroko shouted.

Yagami only looked at my bleeding leg, and shot me in the stomach. "Two to make your last moments hell, one to make you die," he said, pointing the gun right at my head. If he shot me there, I would either die or end up a vegetable for the rest of my life. He cocked the gun, ready to fire and finish me off.

He fired.

But I didn't die.

Instead, the girl who served as my spirit guide grabbed Yagami's gun hand at the last minute and pointed it upward, diverting the bullet from me. Of course, in doing this, she'd made herself visible.

"Who are you, bitch?" Yagami asked.

"That's for me to know, and for you to die before you ever find out," the girl replied.

Yagami tried to get his hand free so he could fire, and accidentally pulled the trigger, shattering the ultraviolet light. Without the ultraviolet light, the only light came from the full moon. I felt my power returning, healing my wounds.

I stood up and untied Hiroko. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," Hiroko replied, "but you and I are going to have a talk about this after it's over."

"And it'll be over soon," I said.

Meanwhile, the girl had slammed her elbow into Yagami's gut, causing him to back away a few steps and loosen his grip on his gun. The girl stepped back and I stepped in, kicking the gun out of his hand.

"I'm back," I said. "And this time . . . you're going down."

"Me? Go down?" Yagami asked. "I've come too far, and I'm not going to be stopped by some ghost!"

"You won't be stopped by one ghost, Yagami," I replied. "It'll be all the ghosts of your past. You have many sins to atone for."

Yagami made a run for his gun. I intercepted him in less than the blink of an eye and punched him. He stumbled back, struggling to regain his balance. I pressed my advantage with a vicious kick to his rib cage and was about to finish him when I sensed two rifles being pointed at me.

"You fools," I sneered. "After all you've seen, you still think you can take me down with mere guns. Have it your way."

The guards fired their rifles at me and I jumped over the spray of bullets, landing with one foot on each guard's chest. I knocked their rifles out of their hands.

"Time to say goodnight," I said, condemning them to the realm of darkness. I turned to Yagami, who was staring at me with mixed rage and dread. "Now it's your turn, Yagami."

Yagami knew there was no way he could escape. After all, it was an office building and many office buildings were not known for windows that actually opened. I stalked toward him, and desperate as he was, he tried to shoot me in the head. I merely let the resulting wound heal.

"I didn't even feel a thing," I said. I grabbed him by the throat. "Now it's time you paid for your sins. And I know just how to do it."

I pushed him to the window and slammed him back against it. I pressed one hand against his face, my fingers pressed against certain spots. I concentrated my power, but it was a different power, this one. Not the power that allowed me to send the souls of the wicked to the dark realm, but a different power entirely.

Yagami gasped, his eyes widened in terror and pain as he felt the power I was pouring into his very being.

"Feel that?" I asked coldly. "That's all the pain you've caused me, my family, and every single innocent person whose life you destroyed. All that pain. All at once. All for you!"

I let Yagami collapse, a broken shell of a man.

"His mind just couldn't take all of that pain," the girl said. "So it shut down."

"He won't be hurting anyone anymore," I said.

"Damien?" Hiroko asked.

I turned to her. "Hai, Hiroko?"

"Are you all right?" she asked.

I embraced her. "Yes, I am, Hiroko. It's over. At least for us, it is. All the suffering he caused us, it's now been avenged. He'll never hurt another innocent soul again."

"What happened to him?" Hiroko asked, holding me at arm's length so she could look at me.

"I made him feel all the pain he'd caused over the period of his criminal reign," I replied. "He felt the pain from every single crime he perpetrated. It ended up being too much for him, and his mind just shut down."

"But how's anybody going to know what really happened?" Hiroko asked.

"That's easy," I replied, pulling away from her. I held her hand and walked into a shadow with her, reemerging in Yagami's house of records. I found the computer and hacked into his database. Once inside, I found details about nearly every aspect of his criminal network. I also found out about the events that had preceded the events that had so scarred me ten years ago.

Yusaku Yagami, as I already learned from Akiko, was primarily a gunrunner and drug dealer, although he was also known for prostitution and white slavery. Using the wealth he'd gained from such dealings, he became a businessman in the realm of computer technologies. He'd also used his wealth to gain influence in Japan's political arena and invest in real estate, all the while profiting from his secret illegal conduct.

He'd had a whole bunch of street-level dealers selling his drugs, and he took care to ensure that none of it could be traced back to him. Unfortunately for him, he'd left a whole database behind. I also hacked into his security cameras, and found recordings of all his transactions. I downloaded all of these onto several CD-Rs, as there was just too much to be kept on one disk.

"I'll deliver these anonymously," I said. "That way, everyone will know what Yagami did and I'll be able to stay out of the limelight." I looked at Hiroko's questioning expression. "I don't think the police will take too kindly to someone who put their captain in a permanent coma, even if he was corrupt."

"That wasn't what I was about to ask you," Hiroko said.

"What was it, then?" I inquired.

"That girl who appeared to save you," Hiroko asked. "Who was she?"

"I'm right here, Hiroko," the girl replied.

"I'm sorry," Hiroko said. "What is your name?"

"Since your cousin and I will be working closely in the future, I see no reason why I can't tell you my name," the girl replied. "My name is Kana."

"Kana," I said. "A lovely name."

"I'm flattered," Kana said. "Thank you." She took Hiroko's hand. "But you must go to your home, where you will be safe." A violet-black glow passed through her to Hiroko, and Hiroko was gone. "She's home, Damien."

"Then I should be going, too," I said. "After I write the finishing words to this terrible story."

I leaped through a shadow and emerged inside police headquarters. I left the disks behind for any honest officers to find when they arrived in the morning. Then I returned home. I concentrated, and felt my face revert to normal.

"I suppose we have a lot to talk about, Hiroko," I said.

"Of course," Hiroko said. "I saw that note you left me. While I'm glad you've finally made a friend, I don't approve of the fact that if I hadn't been kidnapped by Yagami's goons, I never would've known what was really going on with you. And what if Kana hadn't saved you? You could be dead now, and I wouldn't even know it." She hugged me.

I hugged her back. "Don't worry, Hiroko. I won't die."

"Not even you can really say that, Damien," Hiroko said.

"I know," I said, pulling back.

"What happened to you?" Hiroko asked.

"When I got run over, I did die," I explained. "But the powers that be wouldn't let me stay dead because of the enormity of the injustice committed against us, so they brought me back. My powers waited until I was strong enough to handle them to manifest."

"You mean all those things I saw you do?" Hiroko deduced.

"Yeah," I confirmed. "I can't be killed by any weapon forged by mortal hands, and I can't feel pain. I'll heal from any wound inflicted on me, and I'm stronger and faster than most humans. That's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much I can do now to help people."

"I'm glad," Hiroko said. "But don't get yourself killed."

"Unless I'm in broad daylight, or ultraviolet light, that's an impossibility," I said.

"Now go get some sleep," Hiroko advised me. "You have school. And let me replace your clothes; they're bloody and ripped."

"All right," I conceded. I went upstairs, stripped off my clothes, put on my sleepwear, and went to sleep.

The next morning, I found out from the news that the evidence I'd left behind had completely buried Yagami. And not just Yagami, but his entire criminal network as well. This was confirmed by Akiko's personal testimony to me over the phone.

At school, I made one friend, Hotaru. She was genuinely interested in me, and she did have a crush on me, but she knew I only felt friendship for her so far, so she was willing to take it slow. In fact, she ditched her circle of friends for me, telling me later that if they couldn't accept me just because I was different, then perhaps she needed new friends.

That made me smile, for the first time in a very long while. It was nice to know that I had a friend who was going to stick with me no matter what.

Of course, Hotaru's friends later realized that perhaps I was worth getting to know after all. Then again, one of them did say, "He's kinda cute, in a dark, brooding, mysterious way."

That night, I brooded on top of a skyscraper, in full Shi no Tenshi mode. Kana was with me.

"It isn't over, Damien," she said. "A Shi no Tenshi is truly an angel of vengeance. You have avenged yourself and your family, but your work is only beginning. There are so many others like you, innocents trapped in the shadow of evil. They must be avenged."

"And I am the one to do it," I said softly.

"Yes," Kana confirmed.

I looked out over the horizon of the city. A whole world out there, filled with evil, greed, and terror. A world waiting for a savior.

I guess I'll be that savior.

The End

End Notes: I hope you enjoyed this fic. If you enjoyed it enough, then I'll write more Shi no Tenshi fanfics starring Damien. Who knows, maybe you want someone else as the Angel of Death. After all, Kana did allude to others like Damien being "born." So maybe someone else has the dark power, too. Anyway, review if you liked it.