Author's Note : it's more of a prologue than an actual chapter... but hell.

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"just a bang then a clatter as an angel hits the ground.."

I was lighting up a cigarette when they shot him the first time.

There is a sublimely primitive grace to everything that Sho does, from the way he stretches in the morning to the way he wields a forty-five; a fine thread of instinctive precision woven through even the most mundane of gestures which is neither practiced nor premeditated. A long-lost piece of human nature's intricate puzzle, dormant and buried deep beneath modern practicality - a gift, a fluke, an errant gene. Call it what you want to call it. Fed by the streets and strengthened by anarchy, the seed of transcendence has sprouted within Nobody's Child. With patience and nurture, it has flourished into something nearly feline in nature.

I have taught him so much. I have taught him so well.

There is only so much that one can learn about life, in Mallepa; or, rather, there is only so much that one can apply to it. Brilliance is wasted here. Compassion is a precious commodity, and trust is nearly always fatal. Perhaps some other place, some other time ... ah, but it pains me to think about all the things he'll never be. I can only take solace in what he has become. He has everything that he needs to make his way through the cracked and crowded stretches of war zone that pass for the streets of this city. He is already smarter, faster, and far more capable than the general population. His guard is virtually impenetrable. In time, he will be nothing short of untouchable. In time, I will not have to worry.

That time is coming sooner than later. He barely needs me here, tonight. He could do this with his eyes closed. Toshi's latest batch of Isoflurane had cooked up particularly potent, and the pack of comatose, low-rate Indochinese street thugs posed less of a threat to Sho's life than the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. I worry too much, he tells me. I should know better. Tonight, I sit on a can-littered card table while Sho picks pockets, one by one. The safe will come after. It's always best to pat them down early, while the drugs are at their strongest. A safe can be shot in a second, any second. Sho knows all of this as well as he knows his own name. There's no reason to interfere.

Nevertheless, I watch him like a hawk; mostly out of habit and partly because I enjoy looking at him. He has always been beautiful to me, in various ways and for various reasons. I look at the tall, lithe creature stepping light as a ghost through the rubble and remember him at nine, at twelve, at seventeen. I remember the quiet and calculating child with an angels face and tiny, birdlike hands; the way his bones seemed made of glass and his soul of iron. One seldom finds a child with more dignity, more presence of mind. I remember the phantom weight of him in my arms, warm and relaxed and utterly pliant in the way that only children can be when they sleep. Yes, he was beautiful, then; and beautiful, too, as he grew towards adulthood - as his face smoothed and sharpened with the lines of manhood, gathered its wisdom and tucked it away in his cheekbones and jaw, and in the folds of his eyes. I loved to watch his bones stretch, his muscles harden. I took pride in these things. Now I watch him vault lightly over a comatose obstacle - two steps on the wall, then next on the ground, silent as a mouse all the while and never for a moment unsure.

"Nothing worth a good goddamn in this place," he mutters over his shoulder.

"Gold teeth, maybe?" I offer. Sho is on the verge of prying open a mouth when my ill-smothered laughter stops him. He shoots me a decidedly dirty look.

"You'd better hope so," he counters, and threatens me emptily with a shake of his fist before the little smile that I know and love so well finally slips past his ruse. He riffles through some drawers, dumping them in piles on the desk and glaring at the contents with distaste. I shake my head, chuckle under my breath, dig through my pockets for a battered pack of cigarettes that I'm fairly sure Sho hasn't confiscated. Yes, he could do this with his eyes closed. He barely needs me at all, tonight.

The shot goes off with a ping and a hiss, nearly silent. The world snaps into slow motion around me, a dreamlike haze in which hours take seconds, and seconds seem like forever and then some. The bullet takes the gun from his hand, grazes his fingers, shocks him silent. Sho steps backwards lightly, pins his back to the wall, stares at his hand in wide eyed shock for a moment. He doesn't scream. He barely even gasps. The place is so quiet that it's nearly deafening. I drop the cigarette. Sho reaches with his good hand for the gun at his hip.

The next three shots hit me square in the chest; silver light explodes behind my eyes, and my body goes numb. Somewhere very far away, I hear Sho shout my name, and his gun barrel explodes with a crack. I'm aware of falling backwards; it's the shock of the landing that finally hurts. My head cracks against the wall, and then I can feel it - the white hot pain welling up in my chest, seeping out through my limbs, coiling around my throat. I will not die. Even as the blood pools on my tongue, I know I will not die. I will hurt, I will bleed, I will struggle for consciousness, but bullets alone cannot kill me. I have found it to be both a blessing and a curse.

Footsteps. Shouting. Another muted shot hisses past somewhere to my left, and there are guns cocking behind me. The reverberation in the floorboards rattles my broken ribcage; my lungs seize, my world spins. There are four voices all speaking at once in sharp, rapid Cantonese. I force my eyes open, but my vision falters, and there is an all-too-familiar ringing in my ears. Somewhere inside my head, a small voice is screaming; move, get up, you have to help him. But my body is very light, now, and the world is tumbling out of focus.

The last thought I form before slipping under is that I was wrong, so very wrong. He needed me after all, tonight. And I have failed him.

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A/N : I've got the next two chapters ready to go - but tell me what'cha think of this one, first. Constructive criticism makes my day. :)