Chapter 1: Descending from Heaven
Words far from grasped the majesty of the pure white light streaming from a small hole in the black clouds overhead. Rain poured around it but somehow everything illuminated by the light was dry and nearly sparkled. It couldn’t be compared to anything ever seen by human eyes.
The light grew ever brighter but somehow didn’t illuminate anything besides a small circle on the ground. Its outline was stark, very clear against the pavement, like a boundary line.
A small shadow was the only thing that broke the clear light. From the ground the figure was tall and imposing. Only the brow, nose and cheekbones were lit, leaving everything in shadow. Gentle and soft looking wings unfolded from its back and folded partially in front.
The eyes opened.
They were a common dull brown but filled with a rare intelligence. A curiosity that leaves children when they enter the adult world. It made those eyes special, beautiful.
Silky black hair fell in front of the eyes and the spell was broken. The light simply disappeared. Time continued. The figure soon grew darker as the water soaked its wings. Its original majesty had fled with the light.
As the wings spread apart once more, their stark whiteness contrasted completely with their black tips.
A bad omen.
An evil angel.
Chapter 2: Raiden and Amaterasu
“Ama! Hey, Ama!”
“I’m coming Onii-chan!”
It was an average morning. Raiden was at home again. Amaterasu needed a ride to school after a late night of homework.
Raiden knew he should have applied for university more than a year ago but the time had never seemed right to him. Eventually, the deadline had come and gone and he had barely noticed. He was only 19, he had plenty of time. For now, he had more important things to take care of.
Amaterasu tripped running down the stairs and rolled. The deer-in-headlights look on her doe face was worthy of a movie. The boys at her school didn’t even mind hitting on her when Raiden was around.
Ama landed on her butt and skid halfway across the hall.
“Ow…Onii-chan, why didn’t you catch me?” She closed one perfectly shaped and sky blue eye with lashes that seemed endless. She bit her wobbling lower lip as her eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away frantically as they began to slide down her cheeks.
“Oh, you’re such a baby Ama. You need to learn to take care of yourself.” Raiden bent over and extended his hand. Amaterasu accepted it readily and used him as a counter weight to pull herself up.
Amaterasu was like a fragile china doll. She flinched and ran away from everything new. She was clumsy - always tripping over nothing in particular, quiet and oblivious. Raiden had often complained that her name should have been Shika, meaning deer, rather than named after the all powerful sun goddess. His Ama was nothing like the Amaterasu of the heavens who battled her brother Susanoo, kami of storms.
Her blonde hair rippled down her back in long waves like the sea though its colour was the sun. A fiery yellow and orange flame somehow perfectly controlled. As she gathered her balance, Raiden took note of how her bones seemed to stick out more than usual. She had always been very small, reaching only five feet in height, and slender, but now…
“I’m not a baby Onii-chan,” Ama whined without any conviction. She stuck out her lower lip in an almost false pout. It was getting hard for Raiden to tell if she was faking or not.
Raiden sighed. This could be a long day. He brushed Ama’s hair back from where it now fell into her face and tucked it behind her ear before pinching her cheek. As she twisted her face in annoyance he muttered, “Get your butt in the car Ama or I’ll carry you there and put you in a car seat.” His smile was lopsided and seemed to say he was joking but his eyes said he was serious.
Ama stopped whining immediately and pushed his hand away. She was wearing a short chocolate coloured skirt today and if he carried her, she knew he wouldn’t mind throwing her over his shoulder and flashing the world her underwear. She backed up quickly, pulled her mini black trench coat over her lighter brown long sleeve shirt that exposed her shoulders. She only wore a pair of white sneakers on her feet but somehow managed to look formal and composed. Raiden realized fully for the first time how pretty his little sister was. It was no wonder the boys her age chased her and risked his wrath.
By no standards was Raiden exactly ugly either. It was just that he contrasted so wholly when he was near Ama that he didn’t seem to measure up. Alone, he was average at worst. He pushed his own shaggy cut blonde hair back and covered it with a black bandana to keep it down. It had more gold than Ama’s but not the same lustre. It seemed extremely dull in comparison. It was the only thing he shared with his younger sibling.
As he pulled a grey sweatshirt over his orange t-shirt, he snagged his backpack for appearances sake and led Ama out the door. A few elementary school children took one look at him and ran. Raiden sighed and shrugged as he dug around in his jeans pocket for the car keys.
It might have been because he scraped ceilings at almost seven feet, the glaring red that flashed out of his brownish eyes or just the partial scowl that was his normal expression, but he was sure it was his reputation for fighting. His name often made lesser men quake in their shoes. Named after the kami of lightning and thunder, Raiden had a natural ability for fighting that still sometimes took him by surprise. He would find himself dodging blows he hadn’t seen coming, finding the weaknesses in defence that should have been undetectable. He was a bit proud of himself for his infamy, it helped keep the men away from Ama.
“Get in the car,” he told her gruffly as he tossed her the keys to the old blue Volvo. He could hear the TV on in the house. They couldn’t afford to waste money on electricity. The next check wasn’t due for another two weeks and the bill came in half that time. He half ran inside and into the pastel coloured living room, his aunt’s sanctuary. Not that she knew how much it was used when she wasn’t around.
“Earlier this morning, a large unidentified explosive destroyed half of St. Mark’s Church on Avondale Road,” boomed an anonymous male reporter with greying hair.
Raiden stopped his hand just as he was reaching down to flick the power button on the TV. “What…?”
The reporter pointed off screen and the camera operator swung the video feed around to show the still burning wreckage of the popular church. It looked more like a focused laser had bore through it than a bomb. A huge smoking tunnel cut right through the church and the roof had begun to collapse on top. As Raiden watched, bodies were being carried out on white clothed stretchers and a number of ambulances pulled away slowly.
“- witnesses report seeing a young man in an angel costume near the church last night. Police sketches will be shown when they become available. In other news-” Raiden hurriedly hit the power button and ran out of the house. Locking the door behind him, he jumped into the car with a poker face. He glanced at Ama in the passenger seat to make sure she had strapped herself in, she could be such a ditz, before pulling out of the driveway as he buckled himself in.
The drive passed without a lot of conversation between the siblings. Amaterasu seemed preoccupied with what class she had to go to first while Raiden couldn’t stop thinking about what he had seen on the TV. He wasn’t very religious himself, he barely thought religion had any real value, but people were dead.
He slammed hard on the brakes when he realized he had already driven himself into the school parking lot. He and Ama lurched forward and back in their seats. Raiden managed to hit his head on the roof of the car.
As he rubbed the sore spot to chase the stars from his eyes he flicked the car into park and raised his left arm in time to catch the ice pack Ama had thrown at him. He smiled gratefully as she waved goodbye and left him to join her friends, the car door’s slam piercing into the center of his developing headache.
He held the ice to his head even long after he had left the school and decided to drive around for a few minutes before meeting up with a couple of his “buddies.” He barely knew them, they barely knew him but they both fought on the same side whenever one of the other gangs decided to try scratching out a larger territory. It was in their interest.
He caught sight of a red flash from the corner of his eye. He dropped the ice pack regretfully so he could steer into convenience store parking lot more easily. The moment he stopped and put the car in park, a body hit the hood and kept rolling.
Raiden leapt from the car, unconsciously locking it behind him. “Damn! You still let her shove you around?” He started laughing. “What kind of man are you?”
A tanned boy with bright green eyes and short but shaggy brown hair used the hood of the Volvo to haul himself back onto his feet. Standing, he was as tall as Raiden was and had a lot more muscle on his thicker frame. Raiden wasn’t so secretly jealous.
“He’s a fucking pervert! He copped a feel and expected to get away with it!” the girl yelled, gesturing wildly. She was tall too, with black hair and green eyes so similar to the boy’s they could pass as brother and sister. Raiden wished they were, the girl was hot, even with-
“a mouth dirtier than a toilet full of shit; Kat, leave Duskin alone or he’ll call the cops for spousal abuse.” Raiden was joking of course. Kat and Duskin had been together ever since he’d known them. He almost thought them a married couple already… though he wouldn’t be too disappointed if things went bad for them if he could snag Katrina for himself. “Besides, you have almost no boobs to speak of, what’s there to feel up?”
He ducked at she tossed a rock in his direction. “Perverts! The lot of you!” Her temper was beginning to burn out and her conviction drained now that she had shouted it out.
Duskin approached her again, and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Ah, chill will you? It was only a joke.” He wore a good-natured smile. According to him, this was her normal behaviour.
She punched him solidly in the arm, enough to make Raiden wince from just watching it connect. “Shut up.”
“Okay, okay. Both of you shut up,” Raiden intervened before the cycle began again. Before he continued, he spared a second to let his eyes linger on Kat’s curves. “You called me out here at eight in the morning for what reason?” He scratched the lump on his head accidentally and made himself wince.
Duskin and Katrina smiled the same little malevolent smile they had when they were about to pile up a few unconscious bodies. “Oh, nothing,” Kat began.
“Just that the Sais have been stepping outside their little ghetto recently,” Duskin finished. He shrugged casually.
“We figured you’d want to assist, knowing they have associates in your sister’s school.” Kat was teasing Raiden, dangling a bait she knew he would take if only she was delicate enough.
When Raiden didn’t bite, she took a different approach. She slipped out from Duskin’s embrace and stepped within three feet of Raiden, using her sex appeal to its fullest. She tipped her chin up, exposing her neck; a gesture of submission. She leaned in such a way that it made her look like a model from a men’s magazine. From this distance, he could smell her. Her scent was an intoxicating aroma of moonlight and barely repressed ferocity. He could feel it working its way through his system, fogging his thoughts.
Kat delivered the final blow only then. She leaned in a bit further, just enough to whisper gently in his ear, little more than breathing the words, “Surely you want to protect your little sister?”
Raiden’s head nodded of its own accord. Kat smiled and waltzed back over to Duskin, her aim accomplished. Duskin draped his arm over her shoulders and led the way toward the city center. Raiden might have been less reluctant to go if he hadn’t heard Kat whisper as he followed the pair, “See? I told you. Teenage boys only ever think with their ‘little heads.’”
(I combined them simply because Chapter 1 was too short to be by itself. Anyone who happens to be reading Tainted will recognize the cameos of Katrina and Duskin. No, they won't show up again. They're only there to create humour and help instrument a meeting that will take place soon. Please comment! I need editing help :/ )
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