Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Crow: Shinigami ❯ Prologue ( Prologue )

A/N: I wrote this more than a year ago; it's not finished yet (`cause I got a case of severe writers block), and I've since changed muses (so I don't know if Cyra and this story are compatible; this was Malysa's baby), so bare with me. I'm hoping some fan encouragement will help me finish this.

I'm pretty much sticking to the Crow rules (unlike the idiots who were responsible for the most recent Crow movie), but there's a difference in interpretation (actually, I'm in the process of writing a Crow Screenplay along these same basic lines; so if you attempt to steal my interpretation, I'll be very upset); let's just say it's not your stereotypical Crow fic, and leave it at that; also I'm borrowing a bit from the TV series (just the part about the markings not being makeup). There are a couple of minor differences from what's usually in a Crow fic, the only major difference is that Duo is _extremely_ unbalanced (believe me, you'll see what I mean). Anyway, enjoy.

Disclaimer: The only thing that's mine is the storyline; and maybe a few original characters.

WARNINGS:

Death; someone dies, pretty straightforward.

Angst; depressing.

Violence; what some people say is on TV too much.

There will be Yaoi; yes, there will.

The Crow: Shinigami

Prologue

He could hear the footfalls just around the corner behind him as he ran madly down the corridor. He felt the warm blood soaking the fabric of his right sleeve, running down the exposed skin below his elbow, dripping off to splatter on the white floor; leaving a trail even an idiot could follow, never mind the person hunting him.

His vision blurred.

'Not tears, not from fear, not from-it's only from the pain in my shoulder.

'Boys don't cry.'

He could practically feel the hunter gaining on him, knew that there was only so much time before the predator found its prey.

'Window at the end of the hall.

'Crash through?

'Two hundred foot fall into the ocean. Not much chance of surviving that.

'Take the corridor at the end.

'Hope he doesn't come around the corner before I get to the end of the hall.'

Close to the end of the corridor he began to angle his run, so he could make it around the corner without loosing too much speed. He realized he'd have to slow down more or he'd crash into the floor-to-ceiling window.

A crash of thunder and burning agony in his right thigh took the situation out of his hands. He slammed into the window head first at nearly full speed.

The world went black.

The first thing he noticed, upon opening his eyes, was the silvery spider web of cracks in the glass that dominated his field of vision from where he lay on the cold floor, mostly on his stomach. The second thing was the warm, sticky wetness trickling down his forehead to the outer corner of his left eye, and the headache accompanying it. The third thing, which brought him fully back to reality, was the footsteps resolutely making their way down the hallway to where he lay.

He pushed himself up onto his knees with his good arm, hissing as the position put pressure on the bullet wound in his thigh, and saw the hunter stalking towards him.

The youth desperately regained his feet, realizing immediately that any attempt to walk would most likely end with him falling back to his previous position on the floor. His injured arm hung limply at his side, blood dripping from the fingers onto the floor. The hunter stopped walking and leveled the gun at him.

'I'm gonna be killed with my own gun.' The boy thought. Other ironies of the situation occurred to him[1] and a sickly smile flickered across his face. This is the same place[2]...' The grin vanished. 'How stupid.'

His eyes met those of the hunter, and he felt a thread of despair knot with one of fear.

'I thought I'd be ready when my time came...

'I'm not.

'Not like this... Please, not like this!'

The cold, malevolent gaze wavered, changed, only for a moment. The predator lowered the gun somewhat; still keeping it trained on the youth, and, almost hesitantly, walked forward, stopping two feet from the young man.

Fingers brushed the high collar of the youth's shirt, and the injured boy shivered involuntarily, unsure of what was going on. Then the fingers hooked around the collar and violently ripped it, tearing the front of the shirt, revealing the gold crucifix against the pale skin of the boy's chest.

The predator lifted the crucifix, examining it, then the hand closed around it and tore it from its owner's neck. The youth cried out; shock, loss, anger, anguish, and fear combined.

Stepping back, the hunter leveled the gun at his prey's heart.

"Oh, God." The injured boy whispered, closing his eyes in resignation to the absolute knowledge that his death was staring him in the face. He met his killer's eyes. "Why?"

The cold eyes widened briefly, the lips parted; then the malice returned.

The trigger was pulled.

The force of the bullet sent the victim crashing back into the window and through it, as the already shattered glass gave way.

Reaching up desperately with his blood-streaked hand, stinging from several gashes from the glass, he saw fragments of his shattered reflection in the shards of glass that glittered in the moonlight as they fell through the air around him, and his chestnut braid waving in the air above him...

...all fading to red...

...and then black.

To the dark figure in the window it seemed that the black-clad, braided youth reached out to his killer in a final entreaty, before gravity took him and he plunged down, down, to fall beneath the waves of the ocean below.

A crow, black as night with strange, amethyst eyes, flew through the window to land on the ground before the murderer. It opened its beak and cawed, seeming to break the spell that held the killer in perfect, deathly stillness.

The crucifix dropped, clacking against the floor, from the killer's lifeless hand, and the dark figure fell, like a puppet with its strings cut, to its knees, staring out at the restless waves below, acknowledging nothing, even when the bird took the crucifix in its beak and flew away into the night...

Notes:

1: If you've watched Gundam Wing enough that you've practically memorized the series, and you paid close attention to the details in this story, you might be able to figure out what those ironies are; probably not, but tell me if you do. All will be revealed later in the story.

2: If you figured out the 1st note, than it won't be much of a stretch to figure out where they are.