For a moment the violet-haired boy stared in shock. Suddenly a feeling of deja vu washed over him. and then he was screaming, screaming at the top of his lungs over the mangled corpse of his sister.

Scene 001: Shinyo Academy

I suppose ever since then I've been wandering in search of a meaning of life. That was five years ago. The boy, now a young man, puts one hand in his school uniform pocket, a brieface slung over his shoulder with the other. He wears the uniform of Shinyo Academy.

"Hey, Chou. Wanna pick up something to eat with me?" Hiryu asked. Hiryu had also given Ryuuen Chou a sense of deja vu when he met him, but it had passed.

"Nah. I'm kinda busy." He looked on into the strange distortion above the city. I suppose that all of my searching ended that day.

Scene 002: Chou Residence, One Month Ago

Ryuuen stood looking out into the streets of the city, smelling the night air. Suddenly there was a pulse. He felt something throb near his collar-bone and then it was gone, but the light. The light passed through his body.

Since then, I've had these odd powers. Nobody's noticed yet.

Scene 003: Prefectural Hospital Psychiatric Ward Five Years Ago

Ryuuen vaguely heard the conversation between a girl called Nagi Kirima and a man called Kuroda, but he wouldn't recall it later. Nor would he recall seeing the boy called Jonouchi. What he would recall is his session that day.

"You think you're such a strong person, Ryuuen, yet you're so weak." Dr. Kisugi had said.

"All I want is to join my sister."

"The Angel of Death doesn't like weak souls, Ryuuen. They taste bad."

"You keep telling me that. It doesn't help, I'm not getting any stronger."

"I have something that could help you. It's a special treatment that we're testing on patients who have severe depression and mental trauma."

The injection didn't help. It pumped through my blood system and made me sick. I went home like that. They thought I was dying, but I pulled through. Boogiepop doesn't like weak souls, after all. The voice of my sister became stronger when the light came and then...

Scene 004: One Week Ago

Ryuuen cried out at the boy crossing the streets before running before him, holding his arms out. The car didn't skid to a stop on time, but it didn't matter. A symbol glowed brightly right by Ryuuen's collar bone and the front end of the car compressed into it's self as he stopped it with his bare hands.

I could feel it, the strength I had been promised. I had the ability to save lives with this strength. I had saved a little boy. I went on, using my powers for what I thought was good. Somehow it put my mind at ease. Then I began hearing rumors both of Boogiepop and a secret organization.

Scene 005: Paisley Park

Ryuuen leaned against the railing and looked out, watching the children who weren't really children run and play. He watched them and felt sad that his sister was not among them. She would have fit beautifully within them.

"They're all dead within themselves." The mysterious voice spoke up.

Ryuuen turned to see the owner. He didn't have to ask. "Boogiepop."

She stared at him. It was all the answer he needed. She was Boogiepop in some form or other. She looked oddly familiar, yet he couldn't place her. He wouldn't have recognized this as Boogiepop Phantom or as Nagi Kirima's double.

"Are you here to take me? Will I see my sister?"

"The things you are doing have not changed the fact that you will never see your sister again. You wade through a shallow life attempting to live only to die and see your sister. You're not even evolving."

Ryuuen looked at her for a moment, eyes wide. "W-what?"

"I can't take you. You're not evolved."

Ryuuen collapsed to his knees as Boogiepop or the phantom or the angel of death, whatever she wanted to be called, disappeared. He had been rejected by death. That seemed to him the hardest rejection of all.

Scene 006: Shinyo Academy

I guess that when death rejected me, I knew it was time I began my life again. Only this time, I would protect the priestess much more thoroughly... I'm full of pride when I think of the fact that I was born with the fate of Suzaku's Guardian.