Once upon a time, there was an angel.
This angel was a guardian angel, bound by the Word of the Heavens to one special person. She was to protect this person from harm until the person did not need her any more. Then, she would go back to heaven and wait for the next person to come along. She has done this for eternity, and nothing has changed. Until she gets assigned one special boy, who may change her forever.
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"Tohru Honda," boomed God.
Tohru looked around in surprise. She had been sitting in the Heavenly Council room, watching as the saints and God worked out a decision for a special case. Had God just called her name?
Her friend Hana nudged her. Hana had almost been banned from heaven once, because she wore the black robes of demons instead of the white ones of angels. "He has something good for you," she urged.
Uo, on the other side of her, encouraged, "Go up there, Tohru-kun! You can do it!"
"Tohru Honda," said God again, his voice echoing.
"Y-yes sir!" Tohru stood up, her long hair falling over her shoulders, her wings beating softly. "Tohru Honda at your service, sir!"
"Psst!" Uo hissed into her ear. "Fix your halo."
Blushing furiously as He looked on, she reached up and straightened the band of golden light that floated above her head.
"Tohru Honda, you have been assigned to a Kyo Sohma of Earth."
A small squeak escaped her lips. Kyo Sohma was infamous in Heaven and Hell alike. Rumor above the clouds was that he murdered his father and ran away from home, leaving his mother alone. And he was only ten when he did that. What could he do now?
"You will be his guardian angel until he sees fit, and then you will report back here for your next assignment. The Saint's Council is adjourned."
Various saints stood up and made their way out of the large white building, some heading toward the crowd of teenage angels here for assignments, such as Tohru, Hana and Uo, others wandering off to the circle of Heaven reserved for those who did not belong in hell, yet were not yet verified to become full-time guardian angels. When things were tight, they occasionally sent a couple of them out, but never more than fifty, and each one had to pass an inspection by God first.
Tohru found Uo and Hana standing up next to her. "Don't worry," said Uo happily. "Send us a postcard from Earth, I haven't been in a while! In fact, I think World War Two was going on when I was last assigned there, see if humans have made the world any better, it was a piece of crap when I left…"
"You will be fine," Hana muttered. "Your waves are anxious, but God's waves were confident. You will be fine."
Tohru managed to nod. "Okay," she said reluctantly. "I'll do it."
"Thatta girl!" Uo exclaimed, knocking the wind out of poor Tohru with an energetic pound on the back and lifting off into the sky. Hana flew after her.
Tohru was left alone, wondering whether her two best friends in all of Heaven were right.
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Tohru couldn't sleep that night. No matter how she tried, she couldn't keep one thought out of her head. It was hard to believe, and Tohru wasn't entirely convinced it was true, but a couple centuries ago, and angel had actually been killed by his human, and sent to hell. If this Kyo Sohma killed family, why wouldn't he kill an angel? He knew he was going to Hell anyway; why not take her with him? What was stopping him?
Her power, that's what.
As long as she continued the magic ritual (the angelic ritual that replenished a guardians power while on earth) and was able to carry out his wishes, he wouldn't harm her. Of course, if she forgot, and wasn't able to help him…
But she wasn't going to forget. Theoretically, he shouldn't harm her at all unless he was even less of a human than she thought.
But theories weren't always true.
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Dawn, and time for Tohru to be sent off to Earth.
Hana and Uo had somehow managed to get tickets to the next fly-off with out actually being on it, and they were waving to Tohru as she stepped up on the landing dock. Her stomach tightened as they gave her encouraging smiles (or, in Hana's case, encouraging waves.) Butterflies played around her divine insides as the angels assembled themselves upon the giant cloud.
God gave a couple words of good luck (like He did every time for the angels on their first mission, Tohru and the other veterans had soon stopped listening to Him,) and the cloud abruptly disappeared, leaving all the angels to suddenly plunge into space.
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Normally, Tohru would enjoy the fall down to earth, but this time she couldn't concentrate. She was flashed suddenly with pictures of her first fall, in which she was hurtling down with her legs drawn up to her chest and her wings being battered by the wind as they hung freely. Now, her legs were pointed straight down, and her wings were tucked firmly back to prevent them from being torn off completely, like one rookie angel had done to his own wings a millennium or so back. She laughed slightly, realizing how experienced she was now. Her stomach unclenched slightly, as she told herself she might survive the assignment yet.
Down below, she was quick approaching what looked like a forest. She grimaced. Big cities like New York and Japan were hard enough, putting a drain on your magic by having to keep up an invisibility spell, but a forest hampered your ability to fly. All those trees. She'd rather have a rural area, like the moors of Ireland. She had had a rather nice assignment there.
She curled up, her feet down and ready to spring into landing position if she needed to. At the last possible moment before she hit the tree canopies she unfurled her wings and flapped once, twice, going up before she allowed herself to float into the treetops and land expertly on a branch.
She was promptly ambushed by a cloud of mosquitoes that happened to be passing by.
She yelled; although she was an angel and couldn't get sick, she had been deathly afraid of bugs while still alive and some of it stayed with her. She struck out at some. The forwards motion threw her off balance, and she toppled off the branch, her wings unable to help her in the enclosed space.
She landed on the ground with a heavy thud. She groaned, but noticed that a thick pile of leaves that covered the forest floor cushioned her fall. Something kicked her. Tohru picked her head up and looked at the offender.
There was a boy standing there with flaming orange hair and an angry expression on his face.
Kyo Sohma.
