Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Tenshi Trail: Shin Heart ❯ Vol. Two, Chapter Eighteen: Stalker Tenshi ( Chapter 18 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Stalker Tenshi
In Heaven, the angel administrators were watching Mars deadly close. They too were aware of Sakura's shin heart. Those guys have been watching her closely since Amadeus had resurfaced. It was about time for her trial. Every tenshi-chi went through the shin heart phase. Most of them died when the shin heart over powered them. Only a handful survived. Sakura was special case. Amadeus made her differently. Despite years of close observation, they still didn't quite understand how she was created. Not only did she have one shin heart. But, she had one and a half of another one. The administrators had been arguing about what do with her for quite some time now. They had yet to come up with a clear decision. So, the head called a meeting today.
All of the angels met in the red panda board room. They didn't make a sound. The head of the administrators walked up to the board. She looked around the room for a long moment. All of the other angels sat at the table, waiting for her to do something. Their boss kept her stoic face. She slammed her charts down onto the table.
“My comrades,” the leader addressed. “We have a situation.” She didn't wait for a response. The angel pushed a button under a podium. A screen unrolled against the back wall with a low hum. The angels looked at it as the lights grew dim. Their leader started up the slideshow.
“This is tenshi-chi 005758912,” she said. “Better known as Tenshi Sakura.” Next slide.
“She was created by Amadeus. He was a rebel in the earlier days. No one knew what he was thinking next. With that in mind, he decided to make Sakura different from the other tenshi-chi. Despite my protests, Kami still blessed her late anyway. Since then, we have all kept watch over her after Amadeus died. But due to recent events over the summer, our job has been made much more complicated.” Next slide.
“But now, we have another issue in the making. Sakura's shin heart is starting to build up strength. Because Amadeus made her different from the other tenshi-chi, she has one full shin heart and a half one. This makes it heavily unstable. Because of this instability, she is more likely to become a fallen angel faster than the average tenshi-chi if she is left unchecked.” End of the slideshow. The angels turned to their leader.
“We cannot let this come to pass,” she announced. “We must stop the problem before then. So, I open up the floor on what to do next.” The other angels didn't speak at first. One angel raised his hand.
“What options do we have?” he asked. The leader shut her notes.
“There are only two ways to deal with this problem: deactivate it or just kill her,” she said. The angels all pondered this for a moment. Another one of them looked up to the front.
“Deactivating should be no problem, right?” he asked. “I mean, we've done it before in the past, haven't we, Karen-san?” The leader shook her head.
“Unfortunately,” Karen replied. “We still can't get a stable profile on Sakura's shin heart at this time.”
“Well, why not?” a third angel asked. “I thought we upgraded the lab equipment three days ago for cases like hers. So what is the problem?” Karen bit her lip as she sighed.
“It is true and we are still doing research on Sakura's shin heart as we speak,” she replied. “But, we won't get the data back in time. Her shin heart is developing at an alarming rate and one sensitive trigger could activate it without warning. At this time, there is no safe way to deactivate it.” The angels sat quietly for a long moment in thought. A fourth angel looked Karen dead-on in the eye.
“So, you're saying…” he said. The leader nodded.
“Yes,” she replied. “We have to kill Tenshi Sakura.” The others weren't too certain about this. They hadn't put down a tenshi-chi in years. The last slaughter was 1970. It had been pretty tame ever since. Did they even remember the proper way to kill a tenshi-chi? The youngest of the administrators nervously raised his hand.
“Do we really have to kill her?” he asked. “That seems a little…” Karen raised an eyebrow at him.
“A little what?” she challenged. The young angel swallowed hard. His comrades all stared him down like tigers to a gazelle. He tensed up as he pushed himself to keep talking.
“Extreme?” he finished his question. There was a long pause. Karen didn't look amused.
“Extreme?” she asked. “Sakura is like a time bomb. If we don't stop her shin hear in some way, she will be fallen! And you call our methods extreme?!?” The younger angle shrugged at her.
“I am aware of the situation,” he replied. “But, we just shouldn't jump in and kill her off the bat. I mean, we don't even know when the shin heart will activate. I think we should keep observing her until we are certain to act.” Karen didn't say anything at first.
“He does have a point,” a grandmother-like angel pointed out. “Sakura's shin heart might even develop.”
“Besides, we would have to give cause to go down and kill Amadeus' tenshi-chi in the first place,” another angel pointed out. Karen gritted her teeth.
“This is probable cause!” she screamed.
“On what grounds?” another old lady angel asked. Karen shut her mouth there. She couldn't tell them the real reason; they would still think that she was bitter about Kaze-san's death. And then, there was that deepest reason that no one ever had to know…
She held her files tightly as she gritted her teeth.
“Fine,” the angel hissed. “But after that, we will kill her!”
“Agreed!” they all said. And so, a decision was made. The angel administrators were to kill Tenshi Sakura before or once her shin heart had activated. No mercy, just a straight execution. Only the best and no excuses.
Angel Marching to Death