Her name was Arisa.
And yes, her hair was bleached blonde from her Yankee days, her eyebrows where just starting to grow in and she always wore long skirts. But she was Arisa. Nothing mattered.
Not to mention she was friends with a psychic freak, a overly polite girl, the prince of the school and his crazy relatives. Or the fact that she would bring in pipes and knifes from her gang days under her clothes just to scare the Sohma Yuki fans.
Of course, no one called her by name anyway, she was always "Uo-chan" or "Uo", thanks to Honda Kyoko.
Except for Sohma Kureno.
In his mind, she was his angel, his beacon, his only grasp at a hope to live a normal life out from under Akito's watchful eyes. Her wide smile, laughing eyes, and pissed off attitude all meant love to him.
Now she was dead. Lying in a brown casket, being carried by her friends - Sohma Kyo first, then Hanajima Saki, Honda Tohru...
As the casket passed by Tohru to its dark hole in the ground, Sohma Kureno burst into line.
But he was too late to take her hand, kiss her face, pull the loose hair away from her nose. The casket closed and dropped into the hole, a mounful sound, but nothing compared to the crying of a man, standing in front of the only one he ever really loved.
Sohma Akito blew in with the solemn wind, bearing her iron will and readying her hand to strike.
She truly died with the first crack of the slap.
Her name was Arisa.