Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.

Dark Wing

Prologue

Falling. The world spins around him, pushing him downwards with invisible hands, weaving him into a perpetual black hole. His wings are so heavy, so tainted, sullied by blood-paralyzed to his back. He struggles, twisting in the grasp of gravity. His body still plummets, lower and lower. His mind darkens slowly, inky blackness creeping into each corner of his senses, blocking out consciousness. He faintly hears a dark laughter coming from above him, coming from the bloodied moon of the night sky. His body is too frail to resist gravity any longer. So he falls.

Eyes of ice silver. Watching from behind a tangled mass of white clouds in silent amusement as the winged figure plummets lower, and lower, a fading speck in the abyss of the sky. Feathery white wings sprouting from his back. Holding one bloody arrow in one hand. Dark black blood dripping from the arrow's tip. The angelic spector smirks darkly. The fallen angel had fallen. Dead, most likely. He smells the blood on his hands. If the fall didn't break the battousai's body, he would be there to finish the kill. …once and for all….