Preface: Here's the first chapter of the dead Kyouya in a slightly AU YnM-verse. It's a sequel to The Big League for those of you who just started reading this story. Overall, I like to stick to canon, excepting stuff I made up where there was nothing from canon! (pretty much this entire chapter...) OHSHC references may lurk in later chapters, but other characters will more than likely not be showing any time soon.

Enjoy.


In the darkened room with aisles of lights running along the walls, docile spirits waited in line for their special-case judgment. Time in between names called differed from one case to the next, a resolution met without an imposed time limit.

"Kyouya Ootori." A loud wisp of air echoed down the hall. The aforementioned vacantly stepped past the rows of floating spirits waiting, directly into the black maw of Enma's chamber, doors closing silently behind him.

Light suddenly flooded the room, revealing a 3-d representation of his most comfortable place. His room's 8.5 meter height was lined on one-side with tinted reflective windows and a view of a well-manicured lawn outside. Blinking once, he looked around at the modern furniture and pristine carpeting. Everything was exactly how he remembered it, tidy and ordered, but that couldn't be right. He had destroyed it.

"Come, Kyouya." The door that was supposed to lead to the hallway was open. Following his father's voice, he had to stoop slightly to go under the doorframe, which wasn't understandable since he should have had plenty of head clearance. Stepping into an adjunct dimly lit tearoom, there was a pillow-chair with a padded back behind the low table and a lone, still steaming cup of tea sitting atop it on a wooden coaster. He glanced behind him, when none of the sunlight from his windows were streaming through. The opening he had just exited through no longer existed.

He did the logical thing and sat down, taking the cup of tea in his hand and trying it, while his eyes adjusted to the surroundings. A reed curtain was directly in front of him and behind it; a diffused light revealed a man's shape. The tea was brewed perfectly to his taste. He entertained the notion that he was dreaming as the quality of his environment lent to, but quickly dismissed it. He was dead and apparently in purgatory. Setting the tea down, he then tried to recall what he had done between the Shinigami's sending and now, but fuzzy imagery was all he could recollect. His best guess was that he was currently sitting face to face with Enma, the Shinto-Buddhist god of judgment.

"You are a remarkable soul, Ootori. Very perceptive." A smooth lilting ambiguously male voice sent unconscious twitches into his arms and convulsive shivers down his spine, a headache forming as his jaw tightened. He imagined it was how a mild grand mal seizure felt. The shadows prickled up through the floor to reach him, but could not, and so settled back down. He put his hand on the floor to touch the material and felt shadows lump up underneath it, greeting him enthusiastically though unable to meet his skin. While he wasn't looking, the god lifted a hand and another figure joined his.

More closely observing his surroundings, he realized that there were no shadows, which defied any logical argument of how something could prevent them. Light, no matter how low-level, spawned shadows, yet somehow the material, coating the entire room, rendered it shadow-free.

A different voice spoke, one that didn't cause his muscles to spasm painfully. He knew that the god was no longer talking then. His fingers twitched wanting to write as his attention was brought back to the curtain, behind which two figures knelt. "I have a deal to propose."

Kyouya chuckled. "Why would any fool accept a covenant with the God of Death?"

"Your judgment is to remain in purgatory for a century and a half until the body I've given you has worn out with no privileges of visiting the living realm."

"…" Kyouya sipped his tea. "What is my other option?"

"Work as an employee in the Judgment Bureau for 50 years with all the entitlements granted to my servants. Once the time has passed you may apply for reincarnation."

"But not resign?"

He could hear the smile in the god's answer. "No. You would not have that right."

Knowing he would not be given rest either way, Kyouya sat back. "I will agree to the second option if two conditions are met."

"If those conditions are within my influence of control, I will grant them."

"I require a supply of high-quality ink pens and notebooks." He had been itching to write ever since he regained consciousness in the fake bedroom.

"Granted."

"My former host club members all receive long, healthy lives."

The God of Death paused, leaning back. "This, I can only do if you are willing to stay as my servant longer than 50 years."

"How much longer?"

"A century more."

He definitely would not work that much longer just to ensure his friends long lives, considering he still had no idea what kind of work being in the 'Judgment Bureau' involved, though he suspected it involved plenty of paperwork, filing, and other trivial chores like most bureaucracies. However, based on how Enma had coerced him to in the first place, he figured that he would not spend the rest of his after-life doing the inconsequential, and that piqued his interest. Besides that, the god didn't exactly consent to let him go after he had worked the required 50 years, which most likely meant he would be able to 'retire' but not actually leave his domain. "What would 50 more years grant me?"

"A guarantee of old-agedness and health to two."

It was too much time. He had died barely 17; it would not do to live three times longer than he had alive, just for two of them. Kyouya thought for a long moment, before speaking again. "And if it was just Tamaki Suoh?"

"20 years."

"I agree to your terms." Tamaki was really the only one he would sacrifice slightly more than an equivalent amount of his living time to. He was well aware that the God of Death had lifted those exact thoughts from him.

"A wise choice, Ootori." The reed curtain was lifted and the god stepped forward, an opaque veil leaving his face unseen, while his pure black hair nearly touched the ground as the silken black kimono patterned with silvery koi whispered softly over the floor. Kyouya stood giving a deep bow as the god stepped closer. Several black-clothed servants formed out of the floor, picked up the table and chair, and sunk back into the floor without a trace of presence.

The figure that had remained next to Enma's side, whose face was also veiled though transparently so, came forward. His face was young, and his eyes pure white, the dots of his pupils providing a strong contrast. Pointed ears and a smile that showed tips of canines established that this servant was nonhuman. "I will impress my Mark into you, but before that your ability must be subdued."

Kyouya realized then that Enma had been talking through his servant rather than informing it, since he had momentarily forgotten it wasn't the god speaking personally.

The servant raised his wickedly long-nailed hand, and a tag hovered up, floating just centimeters above his roughened palm. It appeared to be a gray guitar pick. The tag's color darkened, pulsing as time flowed on melting into an extremely small, metallic piece of triangular jewelry. It clicked, then suddenly flew out towards Kyouya, pinching itself onto his right earlobe. His jaw clenched showing his discomfort.

The servant bowed away letting their god step forward.

"Kneel." The smooth voice was back again, wracking him with stronger convulsions due to the god's closer proximity. His legs buckled obediently as he shuddered in defiance.

Cool hands cupped his face, scalding where they touched as they pulled him forward to meet the gaze looking intently down at him. Staring up into unavoidable, unreadable eyes that reached into him, his insides alternatively burned and cooled. The eyes contained no irises or the outerlying whites, as if the depth of omnipotence had drowned them out.

What lay behind the veil was an impressive feat of contradictions. The god's face inspired terror, too perfect and beautiful to exist, its flawlessness belying its inhumanness. The effect was both terrifying and lovely, Kyouya's logic and sensory sectors having fits and unable to come to terms with what they were processing.

"Forget my face, Ootori. Sleep."

Kyouya's face went lax and his eyes lazy. His fragile mortal mind protectively blanketed by those simple commands.

TBC.