Kouta's father survived being hit by the train… barely. But his body had suffered massive internal injuries and blood loss. His brother had called for an ambulance and hurried to his side while his wife had gotten the kids away from the scene. By some miracle the ambulance arrived less than five minutes later to take him to the hospital. But even as the paramedics loaded him in and gave him emergency treatment it was obvious there was almost no hope. He died on the operating room never having regained consciousness.

XXXXXXXXXX

Kouta's uncle told him. Kouta had really believed that once they'd gotten his father to the hospital that everything was all right. Japan had some of the best doctors and medical facilities in the world. Surely kami wouldn't let his father die. Surely his father was going to be all right. It was while he was waiting that he remembered the phone in his pocket and he'd called Lucy. He was trying to be strong for the sake of his little sister, but he really wanted her there to help him through this.

When his uncle took him and Kanae aside he already knew. He was only a little boy but one look into his uncle's face had been enough to tell him that father wasn't going to be all right. Mother had died in a car accident just a couple years before and father had, had the same look on his face before telling him. Kanae immediately started to wail. She'd been screaming hysterically when she saw it happen and had eventually subsided to quiet tears. Kouta had done what an older brother was supposed to do, he'd held back his own grief and tried to comfort her. He held her and told her it would be o.k. while she cried and shouted for dad.

After awhile his uncle had to go talk to the doctors about something. When Kanae quieted a little his aunt and Yuka took her to the ladies room to get cleaned up a little. So Kouta momentarily found himself on his own.

"Kouta?" A familiar voice spoke.

"Lucy!" He turned to see her standing in the hall about ten feet away. "Thanks for coming, did you just get here?"

"I've been here for about fifteen minutes," she approached him cautiously. "I didn't want to disturb you with your sister." She nodded to him admiringly. "It was wonderful the way you were helping her, the way you were holding back your own tears to help her."

"I… I can't cry, I'm the man of the house now. I need to be strong."

"No," she told him gently. "You can cry if you need to, it's all right." She carefully put her arms around him.

"I… I don't ne… need to. I'm fine."

"No you're not Kouta." Her words held no rebuke. They were tender and mild. "I know what it's like to hurt Kouta; I know what it's like to suffer. Sometimes the only way to let the pain out is through tears. Go ahead and cry, it's all right, I promise I won't think less of you."

He wanted to tell her she was wrong. He was a man now and men didn't cry. But instead of words a sob came out instead. The hot tears began to slowly spill out, and once it began he couldn't stop it. He put his head down on her shoulder and began to sob.

She kept one arm around him and with the other began to gently rub his head. "It's all right Kouta," she whispered in his ear. "No matter what happens I'll be there when you need me from now on. I'll take care of you, always, just like I promised."

"You… you will?"

"Yes, I'll be there for you Kouta, always."

She felt his arms give her a hug that was a lot stronger than she'd have expected. "Thank you Lucy."

She closed her eyes, such a perfect moment. "You're welcome."

XXXXXXXXXX

When Yuka came back with her mom and Kanae she saw that Lucy was there and that Kouta was hugging her. She didn't like seeing that, but she could understand that Kouta needed comfort right now. She could forgive Lucy trying to comfort him.

But what made the girl angry was the tiny little grin the girl had as she shut her eyes and held Kouta. She didn't shout or comment on that expression, she didn't want to cause a scene that would only hurt Kouta and Kanae. But from that moment on Lucy became something more than a simple rival. Yuka was sure that anyone who could smile when a friend's father had just died had to be a bad person. It was an opinion that formed and then hardened within Yuka's heart; she would never trust or accept the little red haired girl.

XXXXXXXXXX

Six Years Later.

Her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller i.d. There were only two people who had this number. When she saw who it was she answered with a cheerful voice. "Kouta! Hey it's wonderful to hear from you."

She listened for a bit. "Yes, I'm taking the morning train from Tokyo; I should be there at six. We can go have lunch together!" She paused as he spoke. "I know! I'm really looking forward to spending Christmas with you and your family! O.k., I 'm busy packing right now so let me get back to it. I'll see you soon!"

Despite her circumstance and the timing she couldn't help but smile. Just talking to Kouta was always enough to put her in a good mood. She also found the looks she was getting to be pretty damn amusing too. People were staring at her and at her cell phone. That was probably because she was currently dressed up in filthy mismatched clothes. She had a huge torn up army jacket that was about three sizes too big, a baggy pair of trousers, and some shoes with holes in them. In short she was dressed as a homeless person, and as a general rule most homeless didn't carry state of the art cell phones with them. The looks from people passing by made her laugh to herself. It was fine; she was still a ways from the target. She turned off the phone and put it in a jacket pocket.

She walked through the streets with her head down and with a slow shuffle to her feet. People avoided her, more importantly they deliberately tried to ignore her. In any large city the homeless were always the most invisible members of society. No one talked to her or got in her way as she walked the two miles to her target, a strip club called the, 'Pink Pussycat.' It was a low end place in one of the rougher parts of Tokyo. She made her way around back to where the parking lot was. She didn't have to look around to spot the huge dark blue SUV. She wandered close enough to check the license plate and confirm it was the right vehicle. With that done she looked around.

There was a dumpster on one side of the alley across from the parking lot. She judged the distance and decided it was close enough. She sat down on the dirty ground and pulled out a bottle of liquor in a paper bag. She opened the cap and spilled some on herself; anyone coming near would assume she was just some drunk. She kept it in hand as she watched people enter and leave the club. Now she just had to wait.

This was the part of her work she hated the most, the waiting. She would have preferred to have walked right in there and taken care of it. But that was hardly discreet, and her work depended on her remaining unseen. So she sat down and she waited.

As she did so she recalled how she'd gotten into this line of work to begin with.

XXXXXXXXXX

Two Years Earlier

"Do you know who I am?" The man in the cheap suit asked.

Yes, you're another pervert I'm about to kill and rob. She was thirteen, and her body was just starting to mature. She still looked like a child but she'd had a growth spurt and her breast had just started to grow a little. She'd discovered that for the ones who liked school children her breasts ruined the fantasy. So she'd gradually stopped wearing school uniforms. Now she had to dress up as hooker more and more often. She had on a platinum blonde wig that hid her horns, a red tank top, a short skirt with a black garter belt and high heeled shoes. On her face she had deliberately put on a lot more make up that she thought she needed. She had loaded down on blush and mascara. It made her look like either a clown, a transvestite, or a low end hooker.

She wished she could either go back to being twelve or else have a woman's body. Business was much worse than it had been. Apparently a tiny minority of the perverts were interested in girls who were too old to be grade schoolers but too young to be fully developed. Worse, the ones who did like her seemed to have a lot less money. She was forced to work more, which caused more bodies to pile up, which usually caused her to have to move sooner than she would like.

Which was why she was in a dirty little motel room with this idiot rather than in her bed asleep. Since he didn't have long to live she decided to go ahead and humor him. "No, are you someone important?"

He smiled and nodded. "I used to be part of a Yakuza crime family, but I got arrested and turned state's evidence. Because of me a whole bunch of important men are in prison right now." He puffed out his chest. "I have a five hundred million yen bounty on my head."

That got her immediate and undivided attention. "Really? How would someone collect?"

Laughing, he made a chopping motion with one hand. "Most bosses would want a picture and the body's location as proof. But Tenzo, he's old school, he'd want either me or my head."

"Tenzo? You mean the Yakuza boss here in Tokyo? The one who is always in the news?"

"That's right, that bastard would really love to see me dead." He leered at her and started to take his jacket off. "Does that excite you? Knowing I'm a wanted man who could be killed at any time?"

She smiled at him. "The thought of all that money excites me. But why would you tell people about it?"

"I only tell the little girls I sleep with, by the time you can tell anyone I'll be long gone to some new place."

"Well that assumes that someone I tell would be the threat. What if I were the one who was going to kill you?"

He laughed and continued undressing. "I think I can handle a little girl like you."

She sighed. "Humans are so stupid."

XXXXXXXXXX

Things were looking up. She'd gone from a cheap motel room to a penthouse atop a Tokyo skyscraper. She still looked the same though.

She was in a padded wooden chair sitting at a table. On top of the table was a little ice box. Sitting across from her was a man in an expensive white suit with a scar running down his left cheek. He looked like he was middle aged with hair that was a mix of white and black. He had on dark shades that kept his eyes hidden from view. Lucy didn't like that, she liked being able to see people's eyes and know what they were thinking. The man wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the ice box and what was inside it.

"So Hisoka you bastard," he muttered to himself. The man then turned to her. It was rare that she got dressed up and a man's interest in her didn't involve sex. He seemed very interested in her but she doubted it had anything to do with sex. "How the hell did you find this rat?"

"He picked me up."

"I see," the man seemed to study her behind his shades. "How did you know about the bounty?"

"He told me."

The man's eyebrows leapt. "He told you?"

"He bragged about it."

"Stupid," he said contemptuously.

Lucy laughed. "I said the very same thing just before I ripped his head off."

He looked at her tiny arms. "You ripped his head off?"

"I did, though I don't expect you to believe me. It doesn't matter how I killed him does it? I brought young his head; will you pay me the money you had out on him?"

The Yakuza boss nodded his head. "Yes I will, and you're right it doesn't matter who killed him. You delivered his head; the one hundred million is yours."

Lucy frowned. "He said it was five hundred million."

"Well he was a lying sack of shit," Tenzo told her. "The bounty is a hundred million yen, that not good enough?"

"It's fine," Lucy said. She looked him over. He was different from most humans. He had a sharp mind and didn't seem to let greed or perversity control him. He reminded her a little of Kouta's father.

He left her for a few minutes and returned with a paper bag. "Here you are, you can count it if you like."

She looked inside to see what was, even for her, a whole lot of money. "That's all right," she got down from the chair. "Thank you for doing business with me."

He nodded. "A man always keeps his word. In this line of work reputation is everything." he watched as she began to go. "Did you really tear his head off?"

She smiled at him. "Yes."

"Could you show me?"

She stopped and looked at the man still seated in his chair. No one had ever knowingly witnessed her power and lived. Along with never showing her horns never demonstrating her power was another of her ironclad rules. But she got the odd sense that he was someone who she could trust. She had after all just delivered a severed head to him. It wasn't like he needed anything more than that if he wanted to try and blackmail her or something.

"The man who let me in, do you care if I kill him?"

Tenzo was surprised by the straightforward way she asked that. As though ripping a man's head off was nothing out of the ordinary for her. "No, how about I call him in and you show me?" He didn't think there was any possible way a small girl like this could do something requiring so much raw strength. She he got on the intercom and spoke to his guard in order to call her bluff.

But it wasn't a bluff.

The man came into the room asking what was going on. Then right before his eyes Tenzo watched as the man's head was torn off without the girl so much as touching him. Seeing that he pulled out his gun and jumped back. He kept the gun pointed directly at her head but did nothing more.

She smiled at him. If he pulled that trigger there would be a second headless corpse in the room. "What's wrong?" She asked politely. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"What the hell are you? Some kind of demon or something?"

"Maybe, I've been called a lot of things. Demon suits me as well as anything else. I'm just… me. And I can do certain things humans can't." She waited. She expected him to start shooting at her.

But instead of shooting her he slowly lowered his gun. "How would you like a job?"

XXXXXXXXXX

A group of four men came out of the club and began stumbling towards the SUV. Finally, she thought. She recognized her target, his name was Ichiro, and he was the son of a politician who had been giving Tenzo trouble. That was all she knew, and it was all she needed to know. As she sat there unobserved she sent out a vector. The hand slipped into his forehead.

Poor Ichiro suddenly gasped and jerked about before collapsing. His three friends started shouting and asking if he was o.k. While they made their useless noise she quietly left.

XXXXXXXXXX

She went to a public bathhouse where she had a change of clothes waiting for her. She was clean and neatly dressed when she returned to her luxury apartment. Once she was safely home she turned on her big screen t.v. and flipped to a news program. As she was watching about an earthquake in India her cell phone rang. It was Tenzo.

This time when she answered there was no smile on her face and her voice was deliberately low and gruff. "This is Oni," she said.

His side of the conversation was short and to the point. He'd heard that her work had gone well; her payment would be deposited into her bank account.

"Arigato," she hung up. She didn't like discussing things on the phone.

She put her cell down and picked up her purse. Inside was a check book, credit cards, state i.d., and even a passport, all of them declaring she was Zetsumei Lucy. She took out a pen and made a notation on the checkbook, with the fifty million yen she'd just earned her new balance was just past two billion two hundred million yen, or about twenty two million U.S. dollars if she wanted to convert it.

Putting the check book away she looked about at the beautiful spacious apartment she lived in, things had definitely changed since meeting Tenzo. But one thing hadn't changed. Everything she did to earn money was just so she could get to spend time with Kouta. No amount of money could ever be as precious to her as her time with Kouta.

She turned off the t.v. and headed for bed, she would be with him again tomorrow.

XXXXXXXXXX

In a quiet office a man in a white lab coat stared at his computer. There was a quiet knock at his door.

"Come in Kigaragi."

The door opened and a young girl with light brown hair entered holding a coffee mug. She seemed to be holding her breath as she delivered the mug from the door the few feet to his desk. "There you are Chief Kurama," she sounded inordinately proud.

Kurama glanced at the mug and was not surprised to see it was only half full. No doubt there was spilled coffee in the halls all the way from the commissary to his office. He was also sure it had far more sugar than he cared for. He deliberately took a long sip, yes much too sweet. "Thank you Kigaragi, you make it just the way I like."

"Thank you Chief! I try my best."

He nodded appreciatively. It was all for the sake of people like her, the innocents that he did what he did. "You can go home now; I'll be here awhile longer."

She frowned worriedly at him. "Please don't exhaust yourself Chief you work too hard!"

He smiled slightly. "I'll be fine, good night."

"Good night Chief."

As she left Kurama wondered one more time what she would think if she knew what they were really working on here. She along with much of the support staff only knew they worked at a research facility. The exact nature of that research was a carefully guarded secret. If she knew the truth would she suddenly see him as a monster?

Probably.

He certainly deserved the title given the things he oversaw. But there was no real option, if mankind was to survive the Diclonius threat had to be dealt with.

He turned his eyes back to the computer screen. There was the image of an eight year old girl with red hair, red eyes, and horns. The photograph was seven years old now. It was the picture of a Diclonius named, 'Lucy' who had been allowed into the general population before the screening of all births had become policy. Her murderous nature had taken control of her and she had instigated a brutal killing spree right next door in neighboring Kamakura. And then she had disappeared, just vanished. Somewhere out there was a fifteen year old Diclonius who knew not only how to kill but how to remain hidden. Kurama could not imagine a greater threat to the human race.

It was his job to eliminate this threat.