A/N: This is based on a couple theories my good friend, Miss Axolem (Writer of Kuroshitsuji fics "Devil's daughter" and "Death comes to all"), and myself came up with. The main idea of this added up to numerous things (according to us) so I decided to write this 'little' thing~

Love is like the wind. You can't see it, but you can feel it. At least according to one Nicholas Sparks. Undertaker, however, begged to differ. He knew its name and he knew how it looked like. Its appearance came in the form of a beautiful blue eyed woman whose name was Claudia Phantomhive. He remembered a time as a child where he sat on the sofa and looked around as if he'd never been in his own living room. He vaguely remembered sighing and making a promise to himself.

"When I grow up, I'll gift all this. I have no need for an empty mansion." He had said to what he supposed was an empty room.

"Young master Phantomhive, you can't possibly be serious." The Phantomhive butler stated with an amused smile. The butler had approached him and kneeled down in front of him. "Most kids your age can only dream of having anything you have." The butler had said.

"But I don't need it, Takuya." He replied with a smile.

The Undertaker looked through the window of his dreary old shop where laughter once echoed through the rooms. "I want to be a funeral director when I grow up." He echoed the words he had spoken as a child. "Help the living, praise the dead." He added quietly.

"You do realize that you can't get any lower than a funeral director." He could still hear his butler's answer.

"Low? Than who will take care of you when it's your time?" Undertaker felt a smile tug at his lips at the memory of the surprised look Takuya had given him. The Undertaker shook the memory away. It hadn't exactly gone as planned. He could still feel the sting of a thin blade on his throat. Not only the blade, but his own hands moving of their own accord was an ever present echo. It still frightened him. The peace he had felt afterwards and the bright light flashing before his eyes was when he realized what he had done.

"Earl Phantomhive!" Takuya had shouted, his voice sounding too distant for the young adult to reach. He could scarcely imagine what he must have looked like. A young man with long silver hair, deep blue eyes staring at the ceiling, unseeing of the ghosts surrounding his body.

He had become a grim reaper. Became one of the best in existence, or so he was told. He was a valuable asset to reaper dispatch, but he remembered his human life. He felt it carving meaningless words into his soul. He could hear its atrocious whispers. He knew why he had killed himself. He felt the same desire to end his own suffering creeping up on him, shortening his days, haunted by the appalling memories of the lives he had witnessed end. The souls he was forced to reap brought a smile filled with lunacy to his lips.

He became a funeral director at last. Laughter was his constant company, a welcome one for sure. Mainly because it was his only company.
One day, however, his laughter had replaced itself with a genuine smile of not lunacy, but love. He looked straight into the eyes of a young woman, her eyes as blue as his own once had been.

"Good day, sir." She had greeted him. "I…" Grief filled her dulled eyes.

"I understand." The Undertaker had told her. He searched for her eyes, waiting for her to meet his gaze.

"Of course you do." She had said. Undertaker suppressed a giggle, for once being successful.

"Shall.." Undertaker never got to continue. Delicate, feminine hands had found themselves on his face. There was a hand on either side of his face. They were so warm and gentle. Undertaker had noted.

"You have the most beautiful eyes." The woman told him. Undertaker smiled. This time he couldn't hold back the stubborn fit of giggles. The woman lowered her hands and looked away immediately, obviously embarrassed by her own boldness. "I…I apologize. I don't know what overcame me." She excused herself. She turned away from him completely, moving for the door. The Undertaker fought the giggles and quickly reached for her arm.

"No, don't leave." The mortician almost begged. His expression had lost its smile, instead a lonesome longing was filling up most of his strange, green phosphorescent, eyes. The eyes of a Shinigami. The woman stared at him for a moment longer, the Undertaker suspected it was an act of bravery. She must be frightened. He supposed. Well, who wasn't? He let go of her arm and forced a smile, allowing her to move away from him any time she saw fit.

"You're all alone." She said as if stating a point. The Undertaker tilted his head, fascinated by her words. Was he truly alone? He wondered to himself.

"Um…" He tried to respond, but for the first time he felt that words did not come to him as easily as it should have been.

"Please, accept my apologies." She said, realizing she was getting bold again. "I'm Claudia Phyntom." She introduced herself with a smile. She had forgotten why she was in the shop of an undertaker it seemed. Not that the Undertaker minded, of course.

"Of course, I am the local undertaker." He greeted her with a cautious smile. His words earned him an actual laugh, one not of his own for once. He felt a strange warm feeling well up inside his chest.

"So I gathered." Claudia said. "Tell me at least your surname. I want to know who I'm talking to." Claudia insisted. She was an adamant woman, Undertaker had noted. He considered his words carefully, but he found he simply couldn't lie.

"Well, miss Phyntom, it's Phantomhive." The Undertaker told her. He knew he had made a mistake the moment he saw her eyes widen. She knew his name.

"Didn't they all die?" She asked him in a whisper. Undertaker looked down at his buckled boots. Yes. "The only person inside the Phantomhive mansion is rumored to be the grand grand grandson of one of the head butlers." She told him. Undertaker looked up in confusion. Before he had become a reaper, Takuya had been the head butler, but he didn't have any children. Undertaker fought back the faces of his past, urging his body into moving away from the unusually social woman, afraid she could see them too if he stood too close.

"I'm afraid I need to go for a little while." He excused himself and left his shop. He didn't care if someone snatched anything from his shop. After all, he could hardly lock the door with Claudia still inside. He ran through the city and through the vast landscape he had memorized long ago. It took him all day, but when he arrived at his destination, he couldn't help but hold his breath. The mansion still looked the same. He saw a shadow moving passed a window, its back straight and its head held up high. Takuya? No. He should be dead by now. Undertaker walked up to the front door and opened it, uncaring of the person he saw at the window. If they attacked him, he could easily overpower them. He was a reaper after all.

He stepped into the hall. The same old floor. He looked at the stairs. The same old carpet. He looked at the lights. Still too dark. He felt the comforting weight of his scythe, hidden in another dimension, ripped open easily.

"Can I help you?" He heard Takuya's voice ask. He looked at the top of the staircase where an exact copy of his butler stood. Only, it wasn't him.

"Yes. What's your name?" Undertaker asked. He lowered his hand to his side, gripping his hidden scythe. The young man in front of him looked confused.

"Tanaka Ito." The young man said. "I'm the Phantomhive butler." He continued. Undertaker shook his head.

"There are no Phantomhives left, boy." He told Tanaka who seemed to disagree. Tanaka pointed at the wall next to the Undertaker where the reaper knew hung a large painting of himself.

"The earl is still among us." Tanaka said. He knew. Undertaker realized with a start. The younger man knew about Shinigami. "He's right in our midst."

TO BE CONTINUED...