PLEASE READ THIS NOTE FIRST!! THIS MEANS VETERAN READERS, TOO!!

THIS STORY ONLY FOLLOWS THE DP SERIES UP TO "My Brother's Keeper" BECAUSE THAT'S WHEN I STARTED WRITING THIS PIECE. So it's AU after MBK, but that doesn't mean I don't incorporate later episodes. No Valerie here and no elemental powers for Danny. Sorry. Oh!

Disclaimer: I own this story, its plot, and other stuff in which I shall take claim over as they appear in certain chapters. I do not own Danny Phantom or other stuff that belongs to Butch Hartman, Nickelodeon, and other respective owners.

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Aka-Nami

CHAPTER ONE: ICHI

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It was the dead of night and shockingly, there was not a single star shining along side the moon or a light zephyr sifting through the chilling night air. Everything was silent and still; even the crickets kept to themselves. The streetlights, which were supposed to remain lit until 6 AM, had left the lone moon to illuminate the dreary night. Indeed, this was the most lifeless night she would ever experience as she hurriedly stumbled over the deserted sidewalk.

"Danny ..." She forced herself to run despite her weakened state. Involuntarily, the young girl winced and clutched her abdomen with both her arms. In her haste, she didn't even bother looking down to see the trail of bright red she was unintentionally leaving behind her.

"Danny ..." Her grip tightened on her mid-section, unknowingly causing crimson to seep between her fingers and spill over her arms. There was urgency in each step she took, but she knew that her strength was leaving her. With a shallow intake of air, she desperately tried to quicken her already slowing pace, causing her vision to blur.

"Danny ..." For a brief moment, her eyes widened as her whole body became numb, stopping her dead in her tracks. Something tangy, sticky, and thick dribbled out of the corner of her mouth. She looked up at the full moon, the warm liquid now flowing down her chin and onto her neck.

"Danny ..."

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Danny Phantom quickly dodged the charging mass of green. The sickening colored blob took the form of a decaying griffin and chanced another attack with a swiping claw. With little effort, the young ghost hunter phased through the attacking limb and body-slammed the griffin into a nearby wall of the fully packed warehouse, pinning the beast.

"Tucker! The thermos!" On cue, the meat-lover appeared from his hiding place behind a crate, Fenton Thermos in hand.

"Tuckerino to the rescue!" With that, Tucker opened the Fenton Thermos, aiming at the oppressing ghost.

Danny quickly jumped out of the way as the blue vortex came crashing down on the lion-eagle hybrid. However, the snarling grin on the beast's face wasn't something Danny was expecting as the griffin locked eyes with him.

"I have served my purpose." Before Danny could question the griffin on what he had meant, the feathered/furred fiend had been contained.

"What was that about?"

Danny looked at Tucker and shrugged, his fifteen-year-old form encircled by two rings of light as he returned to normal. "No clue. We should get going, though. I don't want to be caught sneaking around at night." His response was a simple nod as the duo headed towards the exit.

Danny ... The halfa turned his head towards Tucker. "What was that, Tuck?"

Tucker raised an eyebrow at his now human friend. "I didn't say anything."

Danny scratched his head. "I guess it was just--" A whispering voice echoed through the blue-eyed teen's head.

Danny ...

"Hey, man, are you okay?"

He looked at Tucker. "Sorry. It's nothing, but I swear I heard someone call my name."

Tucker looked around the area. "There's no one here but you and me. Maybe you've just been working too hard."

Danny shrugged. "Maybe ..."

Danny ... He groaned, half in defeat and half in frustration.

"Are you sure you didn't hear that?"

Shaking his head from side to side, Tucker gave Danny a confused look. "I'm positive Danny, you must be under some serious stress if you're starting to hear voices. Now c'mon. It's 2 AM; we gotta hurry if we don't wanna be grounded."

Danny nodded while thinking for a moment, a feeling of apprehension filling his being. "You know ... The voiced kinda sounded like--"

Danny ... The image of a fifteen-year-old female ultra-recyclo vegetarian goth flashed through his mind.

"Sam."

Tucker was about to ask Danny 'What about Sam?' but the not-so-normal youth had gone ghost and taken to the dark skies.

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His pulse was erratic and his breaths came in short gasps ((1)), his ears deaf to all sound except the whistling of the wind. Small shivers of the bad sort ran down his spine and his hands trembled with something fierce. Something was wrong. Something was terriblywrong. Worst of all, whatever had occurred had happened to Sam. With that mere thought, he urged every fiber in his fifteen-year-old body to hurry. How he knew where to go, he wasn't sure; all he knew was that Sam would be there.

And he was right.

She stood there on the sidewalk, staring into the night sky with glassy amethyst eyes. He began to let out a sigh of relief but the feeling was quickly replaced as if someone (or something, in some cases) had knocked the air out of him. A dribble of blood marked a trail from the corner of her mouth to the collar of her black tank-top, undeniably noticeable against her pale skin. Her arms were tightly wrapped around her mid-section, where her top was soaked through and tainted with a vivid crimson. Red covered her arms and left trails down her purple leggings, only to pool around her feet. On the track of sidewalk behind her, he saw a path of shimmering red that seemed to go on forever.

How far had she walked like this?

Without knowing it, he had reached her side and was staring her in the eyes with genuine concern, noticing that she wasn't looking at him. It took only the mere weight of his hand on her shoulder to break her from her daze and look him in the eye. Immediately, she collapsed and he caught her in his arms, gently laying her down on dry sidewalk. A raspy gasp escaped her throat before she started coughing uncontrollably, blood spraying from her mouth and onto his black jumpsuit. It was painfully obvious that she lacked the strength to lift her own arm.

His own blood ran cold, more so than it already was.

With a few deep breaths, he carefully removed her arms away from her abdomen and applied pressure to the injury that was unmistakably there. The garnet liquid stained his gloves, but he barely noticed it as he concentrated on stopping the bleeding.

"Danny ...?"

Looking away from his now blood-soaked gloves, Danny locked eyes with his female best friend, a grim expression on his face. Her skin was paler than usual and gave off a faint eerie, ethereal glow from the bright moon. The rise and fall of her chest was slow and shallow, the deep rasp hinting damage to the lungs.

He was enraged and needed to know the source of this crime so he could outlet his anger. "Sam ... Who did this? What did this?"

Sam's heavily-lidded eyes wavered as she struggled to breath, which only made her tremble and wither in pain. Danny's eyes hardened at this and his breath only caught in his throat when he felt how cold she was as he instinctively drew closer to her.

"... Ghost ..." The pressure on Sam's wound was increased and she audibly whimpered at the gesture, making Danny flinch and quickly reply with an apology. The anger that had overwhelmed his being just seconds before vanished at the sight of Sam's agonized look. She shook her head and opened her mouth to talk again, urgency in her eyes.

"... Said ... that ...--" A fit of bloodied coughs racked her small frame and it took everything in Danny to focus on stopping her bleeding and not on how venerable she looked, which made his gut churn. With a firm pat and a gentle rub on her back, he gave her a curt nod to continue when the coughing ceased.

"... That ... 'life is ... fleeting ... you must ... live it ... without ... regrets ...--'" Wincing, Sam shut her eyes tight in pain and took a few more shallow breaths before her body went limp.

His heart stopped.

"Sam?" He pulled his now damp, red gloves from her damaged abdomen, paying no heed to the fact that the bleeding had stopped. One shaky gloved hand came to rest upon Sam's neck just above her black choker, feeling for her jugular and smearing more blood upon her deathly pale skin in the process. The faint pulse under his touch caused his own heart to beat again. Removing a glove (only to find that the blood had seeped through the material), Danny smoothed Sam's damp and matted hair, breathing a sigh of relief.

He gathered Sam into his arms, being as gentle as he could, before flying towards the hospital at the highest speed he was able to go without harming her. It had only taken a few minutes for him to reach the emergency unit, but in that time it had felt as if it had taken an eternity to reach. This had only made him feel as if he wouldn't make it in time to get Sam the treatment she required.

Mutely, Danny (who was now human and covered in Sam's blood) watched as nurses took Sam away from his numb and shaking arms. He kept his eyes on her frail form as they rushed her into the emergency room, the doors swinging shut behind the fast speeding gertie. The moment Sam was out of sight, Danny's knees buckled from under him. It took a few moments for the nurses to come back and rush over to him, preparing to check his person (seeing as he was covered with blood, which they didn't know was not his own). They barely got three feet within distance before he shot up from his broken position on the titled floor while drawing blood from his own tightly clenched fists. He stood there with eyes glaring off straight ahead into the distance, stormy blue orbs ((2)) hidden under heavily tousled jet-black hair. Combined with his rigid demeanor, Danny looked downright frightening.

If one were to look into his eyes at that moment, they would see dark blue fire, raging with a malice that even Danny himself didn't know he possessed (but didn't seem to care). In fact, an aura of pure hatred surrounded him in a way that made the whole hospital deathly quiet and still in his wake, only adding to the already supernatural chill of the building. As the nurses witnessed this, they cowered back in fear, too afraid to ask the young man the simple question of what his wounded friend's name was.

And in the silence his loathing had created, Danny swore under his breath an oath of vengeance upon the specter that had attacked Samantha Manson. Unknown to him, a young teen fighting for her life in the emergency room heard every single word as if they were being whispered right into her ear.

Whoever or whatever did this is going to pay three times over ...

And if she doesn't make it through ...

There won't be anything left of them to take back to the Ghost Zone ...

((1)) I know that Danny doesn't breath or have a heartbeat when he's in ghost mode (at least I don't think so), but I wrote this on a whim, so please bare with me.

((2)) I also know that Danny's eyes glow green when he's really pissed, but I'd really prefer to see his baby blues have their own kind of emotional glow when he's in human form.

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Sakura Scout