Well, this ended up being a long chapter. Longer then usual for me. Might be because it's a flashback on Aomi's life as a yanki. I'm guessing that this'll be about 3-4 chapters long altogether. Her past is difficult to sum up into just one chapter, after all. At least you'll get to readhigh school!Shizuo and Shinra. Heh.
Typing this chapter was ... hard. I had to make sense, and use 'she', and 'her' a lot. Like I typed before, I'm experimenting with my writing. I wanted to give the first half of this chapter a mysterious like feel to it. I hope that I succeed in that department.
Aomi's really mature for a 10-year-old, I realize this, but with everything that happened in her life, she kind of has the right to be. (In my opinion, anyway.)
Many thanks for one of my friends beta-reading this for me. (Thankfully, I didn't make too many mistakes typing this chapter. I was more careful then usual.) Please forgive me if me and my friend didn't catch most of the mistakes, just point 'em out and I'll fix 'em!~
Disclaimer: I do not own Durarara! nor any of it's characters. I just own Aomi and Tatsumi.
Blinking her eyes, a girl looked around her surroundings. Beaten up bodies everywhere, sirens going off every which way, and her so called 'team-mates' were tugging on her, urging her to run away. The only one she could really consider her real friend in the group was 'Taku'. He normally calls himself 'Dragon', for whatever reason. Sighing, the girl finally started sprinting away once the sirens came closer and closer.
Catching up to her 'team-mates'and their hide-out, she was out of breath. Part of it was because she just took out fifteen other yankis, the other part was because she didn't even notice that she was beating all of them up. The girl somehow wanted to burst into tears, but she somehow controlled herself, and instead curled up into a ball on the ground. Despite the floor being so filthy that she wanted to sneeze.
"Oi, Blue Butterfly, why're you so sad? You were amazing out there!" Taku said, patting the girl on the back.
Looking at Taku with a blank expression, the girl let out another sigh. "Just leave me alone."
"What? I thought you liked talking to me, Blue-Butterfly?" Taku said, with a shocked tone, and a little bit of sarcasm put in.
"Taku, I do. It's just that I'm... I… I don't remember anything. I don't remember anything of the fight." The girl took in a shaky breath. "When I came to… there… there were bodies all over the place."
Tapping his chin, Taku pat her back even harder now. "Ah well, at least I'm not as smallas you. I'm surprised as you were that you beat up fifteen other yankis, Blue-Butterfly!"
Growling under her breath, the girl suddenly punched Taku in the stomach, making him crumble to the ground in pain. True, she was only five feet tall, and Taku was nearly six feet tall, but in reality the girl was ten-years-old. She just lied about her age when she joined the group. Taku was almost sixteen-years-old, but he somehow became friends with the girl.
"Owwwww, okay, I think I deserved that for calling you small." Taku said, slowing getting back on his knees.
The girl once again punched Taku, only it was in the shoulder. The girl was also known as 'Taku's personal punching-bag.'She never really thought she was that harsh with Taku, but his expressions whenever she punched him said otherwise.
Just now, Taku's expression was a mixture of pain, and happiness. It looks so goofy that the girl burst out laughing. Something she hadn't done in awhile, and boy, did it feel good. Once over his pain, Taku joined in on the girls laughing spree. Thankfully, the other members were out stalking the streets again, so Taku and the girl were alone. Otherwise they'd have some very strange looks on their hands.
A few days later, the girl found herself in a troublesome situation. A situation where she couldn't defeat the person in front of her.
'Think! What're his weak points! He leaves his left side wide open, but I'd leave my entire body open if I attack him. He's so quick!' The girls thoughts were all jumbled around, as she kept on dodging his attacks. Gripping on her iron pole tighter, the girl took her chances and swung it at the man. Only to get struck herself in the process. Only, she took more damage.
Looking down, the girl saw that the man had stuck his pocket-knife in her stomach. As the man quickly slid his knife out of her, he smirked as she coughed up blood, and fell to the ground quickly. "Ah, you shouldn't leave yourself wide open like that, Blue Butterfly of Shibuya!"
Grimacing as he said that, and from the pain, the girl quickly came up with something to say, before she died at least. "Screw off you dumbass." Everything went black for her afterwards. Her last sight was a smirking face.
Quickly getting up, in cold sweat, the girl suddenly regretted sitting up so quickly. Holding her stomach, the girl winced in pain. The girl noticed that someone was sitting next to her, only he was asleep. She also noticed that she wasn't in a hospital, but a bedroom of sorts.
Holding her head in her hands, the girl laid back down again. The pain sub-sided a little, but it still hurt. 'I wonder why I'm still alive… How many days have I been out, exactly?'Sighing, the girl looked at the guy next to her. He had a school uniform on, and blonde hair. Certainly a rare color to have in Ikeburuko. Hell, even all of Japan. Not like the girl was one to speak, or in this case think, she had natural dark blue hair after all.
'Is he the one who saved me? Who'd exactly take pity on me, besides Taku? I'm a worthless human being after all.' The girl closed her eyes and brought her hand back to her stomach. She currently is debating inside her head if she should shout to wake the man up, or if she should leave him alone. She went with the latter option, sat up quickly again, and cried out in pain. Just as she figured, the guy suddenly woke up and stumbled out of his seat.
"Shinraaaaa, she's awake. Finally." The guy said, as he called another guy into the room. Only he had normal brown hair, thick black rimmed glasses, and a uniform too.
"Really? Is she?" The other guy said, 'Shinra'the girl guessed, and quickly ran beside the guy with weird blonde hair. "How're you feeling?"
"Um, fine, I guess. My stomach hurts, though." The girl said, as she studied the two guys standing before her. She guessed that they couldn't possibly harm her in any way. After all, they did save her life, despite the obvious fact that her life didn't needed to be saved.
"Well, yeah, you did get stabbed in the stomach. It's a miracle that you didn't die from blood loss. I had to gradually give you Shizuo's blood!" Shinra said, as he adjusted his glasses. The girl guessed that he was super annoying at times, but friendly at least.
The girl looked at the guy named 'Shizuo'with a blank expression, and he rubbed his head. "Do you mind if I ask your name?" Shizuo asked, still rubbing his head.
"… Aomi. Yue Aomi." Aomi said, still confused as to why the man saved her in the first place. "Um… why exactly, did you two save me? I'm a worthless piece of crap anyway."
Shizuo looked as confused as he could be. Shocked, Shinra started fumbling over his words, trying to pick the best sentence he could manage. He finally decided to change to subject. "Uh… er… I consider every human fascinatingin their own way. You're no expectation Aomi-Chan!" Pushing up his glasses, Shinra suddenly looked more serious. "See, I discovered something as I was stitching you up. Aomi-Chan, you should've died from blood loss, but you didn't. Instead, you actually started healing right away, which is very unusual for a human."
"So, uh, you can heal fast?" Shizuo said, putting it into simpler terms for Aomi. Even though he was sort of confused himself already.
Looking down in her lap for awhile, Aomi finally answered them. "… Yes, I can. I've always been able to heal fast. I don't really understand why, I first discovered that I healed fast when I broke my foot when I was five. My mother thought it was normal, so did my father. I finally noticed that I healed really fast when I became a yanki." Aomi took a deep breath after that sentence. She hadn't really talked like that for awhile now.
Shinra looked ecstatic. Finally! He had a new experiment on his hands! "I'd estimate that this wound will take six to eight days to fully heal for you. If you were a normal person, it'd take a full month for you to do regular stuff. After all, you do have a pretty deep wound!"
Shizuo looked at Aomi in amazement. He hadn't really met someone who wasn't normal, he was kind of happy to finally meet someone abnormal like himself.
Aomi's right eye twitched and she pounded the bed in anger, ignoring the pain her stomach was giving off. "I'm sick and tiredof not being normal like everyone else. I don't remember half of the fights that I'm in. I'm already considered a prodigy yanki despite being only ten-years-old. And now I'm not normal for healing super fast?" Tears really wanted to come out, but yet again, Aomi kept them in.
Grunting, Shizuo patted Aomi's head to calm her down. "Don't worry kid. No one's normal. Trust me, I'm super strong, and you don't see me getting mad."
"What? Your always mad, Shizuo! Either if it's someone picking a fight with you, or if they're annoying, you throw vending machines, or trash cans at them!" Shinra said, laughing. Shizuo ignored him, the best he could anyway.
"Eh? You're not normal either?" Aomi said, looking confused. She's never met someone other than her who's not normal.
"Erm, yeah. I'm uh… super strong. I can pick up stuff that most humans can't. Like cars, stop signs, vending machines, trash cans, and soccer nets." Shizuo said. He never really told anyone about his strength before, besides Celty and Shinra. Well, Shinra was interested in him, so he had to know. It somehow didn't make him mad talking to Aomi about his super human strength.
"Oh… I'm not super strong or anything, but I am pretty good in karate, sho-lin, and other martial arts." Aomi said, almost wanting to laugh at Shizuo's expression. He just looked so calm describing all the stuff he can pick up. "My mother insisted that I learned all of those things when I turned three"
"Really? Isn't that strange of a mother to do?" Shinra questioned Aomi, and her mother for doing those things to her daughter.
"Not for her, it wasn't. Martial arts runs in my blood, apparently. My mother was a master at all kinds of stuff. She even made me get up early before school just to train with her." Aomi's face had a distant look.
"'Was'? What happened to her?" Shinra asked, as he quickly got a swift punch to the side. Shizuo wasn't a genius, but even he knew not to question things like missing or deceased parents. "Oooowwww, Shizuooooo!"
Looking shocked, Aomi waved both of her hands in protest. "I-It's okay. You could likely already tell that my parents were dead anyway." Aomi was used to this anyway. When she joined her gang, she had to constantly tell them why she joined.
"Do you have any other family?" Shizuo said, wondering why a ten-year-old was wandering the streets alone.
Gritting her teeth, Aomi cursed under her breath. "My aunt. I hate her. She treats me like shit, while my little sister gets special treatment from her."
"Y-You have a little sister?" Shinra said, adjusting to the pain in his side. It still really hurt, though.
"Yeah, her names Tatsumi. Yue Tatsumi. She's seven right now, and currently in the third grade. According to my father, she has a photographic memory. He did too, oddly. She learns stuff so quickly that I worry about her at times." Aomi said, grabbing her stomach in pain. She really needed to stop talking on and on like this, it really hurt.
"You okay?" Shinra asked, after he saw that Aomi leaned over in pain.
"Y-Yeah. Um, can I uh… rest some more? All this talking is really hurting me." Aomi said, with sweat forming on her forehead.
"Do you want some more pain killers, Aomi-Chan?" Shinra said, quickly scrambling to wherever he hid the medicine. He didn't need her to tell him that she was in pain.
"I'll uh… see you tomorrow, kid." Shizuo said, patting Aomi on the head one more time before he left.
"Please call me, 'Aomi'. In return, I'll call you 'Shizuo'." Aomi said, a smile forming on her face. Despite the pain, she felt… happy. That hadn't happened for a long time.
Shrugging his shoulders, Shizuo went along with what she said. "Sure, Aomi."
Thanks to the people who's keeping tabs on this series!~