September 21, 2002

4 years, 2 months, 2 days prior to Incident

She'd printed out a list of all Noguchi Gyous, Ueno Arakis, Sugimoto Shous and Onishi Asahis in Tokyo, and then asked Kaito to point out the photos of the men that had attacked him.

Noguchi Gyou and Ueno Araki were easily located in this manner, but she'd had to keep widening the field of search until the last two were finally found... in Kyoto. Surprisingly, Sugimoto Shou and Onishi Asahi were both high school students. Unsurprisingly, they were both well-hated bullies.

She couldn't kill them both at once, that would be too suspicious. She'd have to hunt one of them down today, and return to the other one after a few more months.

Her chosen victim for now was Sugimoto Shou, 19, a third year in high school. He had great physical strength, but wasn't very intelligent; he'd failed senior year and was retaking it so that he could go to community college.

An easy enough target.

Mikami Teru cried out in pain as he was shoved against the brick wall. The face of one of his most violent bullies filled up his entire line of sight.

"You're a dumb little shit, thinking that you could save anyone." Sugimoto Shou smirked. "Look, the shrimp's already run off - so much for being grateful, huh?" He reared an arm back and smashed it into his victim's stomach, driving himself forward with the entirety of his 86 kilograms.

Teru's head cracked against the brick from the force, knocking his glasses askew. He coughed harshly and crumpled into himself as he was dropped to his feet. Before he could catch his breath, a booted foot flew towards him.

Teru winced and prepared for impact, his lungs heaving.

There was a rush of wind, and then... nothing.

The seventeen year old cracked an eye open, clutching at his violently throbbing abdomen with an arm as he peered up.

In front of him stood a strange figure, covered completely in black. Their height was questionable, as was their build, and Teru's eyes couldn't properly focus on them, even after he fixed his glasses.

"Sugimoto Shou," they said. The voice was some strange amalgamation of soprano and tenor, making it impossible to judge the gender. "On July 26, you attacked a young boy with blue hair. Do you remember that day?"

"Yeah, some psycho came in and started killing everyone. Was that you?"

"So you remember. That's good. At least you'll know why this has to happen, Sugimoto-san. You will suffer for your actions."

"What the fuck are you on about, you loony?"

The stranger did something with their hands that Teru couldn't see.

"Magen: Chishi Akumu no Jutsu."*

Sugimoto's eyes went impossibly wide as he stumbled away from the figure. Pathetic whimpers escaped from his throat.

"No, no, no, NO PLEASE NO- " he clutched at his head and began to convulse. "ARHHHH - !"

"Tsk, so noisy. You'll attract attention." The stranger did something else with their hands and the noises coming from Sugimoto were suddenly silenced, though Teru could clearly see his mouth wide open and his adam's apple trembling with his screams. Trails of saliva were starting to meander down his jaw line, intermingling with his tears as they formed dark blotches on the dry cement.

"Kuh - " Teru doubled over from the sudden surge of white hot pain from his stomach.

It hurts, it hurts, it HURTS!

"Here, let me see that," he heard a girl's voice say. Teru looked up. The figure in black had lost their strange blurriness - instead, in front of him stood what was obviously a girl, short and slim and significantly younger than him. Her face was hidden by the shadows of her hood.

"How - " he coughed again and let out a low groan.

She swatted his hands away and replaced them with her own tiny ones. Teru watched in fascination as the pale appendages glowed green.

"Let's see... Internal hemorrhaging from trauma in the liver. That guy used to pack quite a punch, huh?"

Noting her use of past tense, Mikami Teru glanced at where Sugimoto had been, only to see that a large mass was slumped on the ground, streams of blood oozing lazily from both forearms. He held a knife - a knife that Teru was rather familiar with - in one loose fist, announcing to the world that he'd taken his own life.

"It should be fine now," the girl said, straightening up.

To Teru's shock, it was. There was no residual pain, nothing to suggest that he'd ever been hurt in the first place, let alone so grievously.

"Are you a God?" he asked, awed.

She snorted. "Hardly. Anyway, you should get out of here quickly, before anyone sees you and thinks you killed him. I checked for cameras and there weren't any, so you should be fine as long as you don't mention this to anyone."

She turned to leave, and then stopped. "By the way, you can't tell anyone about me or my existence. Don't let anyone know about what I did today. In fact, swear that you'll pretend that this event never happened."

"I swear," Teru hurriedly said. He watched as the girl seemed to fly up the building and onto the roof. She shot off into the distance, becoming fuzzy once more.

As he aimlessly wandered around the city, Teru pondered over the strange occurrence.

The concept of the girl's divinity had been met with scorn, but there was something…

The feats she had been capable of were impossible for any normal human, and the way she had judiciously punished Sugimoto Shou would not leave his mind.

"You can't tell anyone about my existence," she'd said.

So if she wasn't a God, and she wasn't a human...

Then she must be an angel. One with the authority to exact judgement on God's behalf.

Yes, that was precisely it, he decided. He'd just met an Angel of Retribution, face to face. God truly existed, and He'd allowed Teru the honour of witnessing proof of His fair nature.

Mikami Teru finally jogged home, a satisfied smirk playing along his lips.

Fuyuno Sakura - age 12, 2nd year junior high

Mikami Teru - age 17, 2nd year high school

*Demonic Illusion: Lethal Nightmare Jutsu. The user brings the opponent under a genjutsu that drowns out all of their senses with their fears, nightmares and phobias. This compilation of horrifying mental and physical torture causes the victim to enter a state of panic and terror. The victims are eventually cast into complete madness, and are then urged to commit suicide by the genjutsu.

AN

The technique comes from my brain and google translate. Sakura used more chakra on it than she expected, so she had to undo one of her current jutsus if she wanted to heal the innocent bystander. Which she does, because she used to be a Konoha-nin, not to mention Naruto's teammate and Tsunade's student.

I am 5000% tempted to make a Durarara cameo in the story. You don't even know how much I want to do it. Imagine, having Sakura meet Izaya and Shizuo during one of their famous fights… Watermelon would be involved. I WANT TO DO IT. WAHHHH

Review Reply

Candy Dream: I now realize I wrote dere dere instead of tsun tsun in my last reply to you. Oops..

Guest: So does he, hahaha. And yay!

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