A/N: Funny story actually...I had this weird, freaky dream in which the following events - for the most part ignoring some minor adaptations - happened. Naturally I awoke a bit frightened by it all, but even still, I have now sat down, many days later, to compose the literary version of it. This is obviously somewhat AU (explained at the end; heed that note), and the song quote is from "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning" by the Smashing Pumpkins. I sincerely hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, nor will I ever. They belong to their rightful owners and the only ones I claim are my unfortunate originals...
As London Burns
...
...
"Send a heartbeat to
The void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass
For now we stand alone
The world is lost and blown
And we are flesh and blood disintegrate..."
...
...
She stood in the gloomy shop, alone, small and flitty like a little chickadee. Her mousy hair was mussed, giving evidence to the lack of sleep she had been beset with. A black dress was what she wore, modest, high necked, and appropriate for a woman in grieving for her only relative. Below lay her brother, a certain well-to-do chap who owned a store downtown, nestled in a flawlessly fitting coffin, hands clasped, as requested, across his chest. His sister heaved a sigh and brushed away a stray tear that rolled from her eye down a cheek comparable to a china doll, and then looked up at the silver haired man standing on the other side of the dead man's resting place.
She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself, hesitant.
"What is it, little bird?" the funeral director said in his raspy sort of voice. "Don't you like my work? The fellow will indeed rest comfortably...so comfortably~"
"Oh no! No! Of course not!" She bit her pink lips and averted her eyes awkwardly. "I have no money..."
His hidden eyes widened slightly, and he placed a hand up by his ear, "Perhaps I did not hear you correctly, my dear~"
"I...I have no money...My brother was a miserly man, and left nothing to me to pay for the expenses."
His mouth thinned for a millisecond, but then he smiled largely. "How inopportune for a lovely lady like yourself. I'll tell you what, little bird, make me laugh, and I'll knock off some of the price, right?"
She frowned sadly, and stated in a grim manner, "My only remaining relative has just died, and you expect me to...make you laugh?" Just as quickly did her bleakness turn to sorrow, "Who do you think I am? I am not an entertainer to be used! I am...alone...in the world, no one is left to comfort me -"
"You have two weeks."
"E-excuse me?"
He crossed his robed arms. "You have two weeks, deary, fourteen days to procure the money."
Shrinking back, she looked more like a small bird than ever, "If not?" Her voice was small too. Small and pathetic.
He only smiled again, showing his teeth as a raucous cackle originated from his throat.
...
...
Two weeks later...
The screams of an infant reached the dark mortician's ears as he lurked through the shadows of an abandoned alleyway. His pace quickened, bringing him to the end, where he briefly peered around the corner. Initially, he saw the retreating, red silhouette of the repulsively effeminate Grell Sutcliff, the long, waist length crimson hair of the subversive Shinigami moving with each step he took. In his wake there lay a dead woman, nearly face down on the filthy ground, lifeless arms wrapped around a wailing baby. Undertaker watched closely until Grell had disappeared from sight, off to do the job that his superior, William had instructed him to do. The observer then proceeded to steal out from his place of scrutiny, approaching the pair. He stood above them, looking down upon the suffering little child with a sort of aggressive contempt.
To any of the living who had made his acquaintance previous to the sudden destruction of London, he was noticeably different to a frightening extent. Gone were the airs of frivolity that he put on around his clients, and gone was his will to hear jokes of any sort. His frenetic, unvarying grin was replaced by one of sick lunacy; one of a true madman. A madman that wanted to kill.
He took the squalling infant, splattered with the blood of the woman up in his arms and walked out in the direction Grell had gone. Once in the street, the wind that blew the flames this way and that, changing their paths of destruction relentlessly, took his peculiar top hat from off of his head, leaving his face almost entirely exposed, protected only by the curtain of bangs that fell just past his eyes. So many had wondered about them, too. Holding the baby, who had not ceased crying any at all on one arm, he ran his fingers through the silver bangs with his free hand, and pushed both sections haphazardly behind his ears.
Undertaker traveled against the masses of panicked people, fires burning sadistically through the buildings on either side of him. All around there were corpses. Some burnt to death. Some trampled. Some just dead.
It was delicious.
Lovely.
Beautiful.
All those...bodies.
Oh how he wished to bring to light their unresponsive internal organs - to all but rip into them again and again with his piercing black nails - to feel the useless lifeblood seep over his bare hands. A mortician had to be comfortable with his work after all.
His eyes, appearing as all the rest of the Shinigami did, flicked down to the sullied young thing. On its face his gaze lingered, unhindered in its intensity. "You should be dying very soon, little one~" his usually grating voice was smoother, more ominous as it fell from his tongue, "But don't you worry, I won't leave you alone for it..." Its tearstained face contorted with even more distress, its screams becoming louder, and Undertaker stroked the side of its head with one, long nail.
"You!" A familiarly pitched voice came from behind him.
Undertaker spun around, his black robes following him like a cloud of inky smoke. There stood Grell, death scythe in hand, thoroughly bloodied at that. The Reapers were busy this night.
Grell leaned in close and took a long look at the baby, then, without moving away, tilted his head up to the other man. The flamboyant one's eyes bugged. "Lord have mercy...you're gorgeous...such dazzling, piercing eyes! Such eyes could see right into the soul of a victim right before the killing blow!" He said this in a kind of shocked whisper, then pulled back, waggling his eyebrow's suggestively, "Forget the job! Drop the stupid baby and let's go have fun! Whadaya say, hm?" All of it was voiced accompanied by enthused hand motions.
Undertaker's mouth hardened. "No. You'd best be on your way. I have work of my own to do."
Beaming like the maniac he was, Grell gave a little jump of excitement, hands clasped together around the handle of his scythe. "Ohhhhh! You're so incredibly sexy when you're serious! Say something in that severe tone again for me!"
The recently solemn mortician's lips stretched up into a hysterically grin filled with the lunacy that had a grasp on his brain. "Talk to me again, and I'll not hesitate to rip your throat from your neck~"
Half-expecting something along the lines of: You sound like you'd be so rough with a woman! Undertaker was surprised to find that Grell Sutcliff was, to put it simply, bowled over at the threat, seeing the hellfire reflected in his green eyes, revealed for the first time it what seemed like years. The red Shinigami backed away slowly, not smiling anymore, gripping his death scythe like a lifeline.
"I'm...I'm so sorry...I'll - I'll be on my way. Many more souls to reap before the night is through anyway!" Grell ran, uncharacteristically in the opposite direction, leaving Undertaker to be on his way.
His eyes, green as any Shinigami's should have been, retired or not, scanned the street, when they landed on a familiar small lady in a black, tattered dress, walking inconspicuously by the side of a building, watching the shock just as he. Undertaker visually locked onto her, his feet acting on their own will as he approached her portentously, his robed figure an alarming sight against the backdrop of fire and destruction. She did not see him immediately, but when she did, her face lit up with a panic he had not perceived from anyone since his days as a Reaper. Her horrified eyes flicked from his exposed, scarred face to the bloodied baby his arms were still wrapped around. He fixed her with a gimlet stare, not slowing in his advance across the wide street.
The little chickadee of a woman covered a scream and retreated into the open door of the building she stood beside, unmistakably partially engulfed in flames. Undertaker gritted his teeth and followed her, hearing her hurried footsteps up a long flight of stairs. The smoke made seeing difficult, but he pushed his way through it like it was nothing but a trivial irritation. He ascended gradually, making his own footfalls painstakingly detectable; the young one still cried, but he did not complain. It was a sound of pain. A lone voice soon to be joined by a second, the sins of life coming back with disastrous results. It would be ever so stunning. He breathed raggedly as he reached the top, running his tongue over his lips purposefully.
The stairs lead up into a long hallway with many doors, all of which were open. All except one. He heard her terrified scream as soon as he came to a stop before the closed door.
Inside, she barricaded her body against it, knowing it would do no good. The sudden, yet minor force, caused the door to crack open for just a second. The crazed tears began to cascade down her face. She wept like a woman possessed as she was shoved backwards when the full force of the man on the other side pushed the door inward. She fell to the floor and scrambled to get up as the silhouette of the mortician and howling baby appeared just over the threshold.
"Please! Please! I was going to get the money!"
He stepped inside the room, feeling the heat of the approaching fire in the house. Closing the door, his fingers turned the lock. "I do not care about your money, little bird..." sneered Undertaker balefully. "I want your life. I want to take it from you. I want to hear you scream as you die."
Through her sobs, she choked out, "I can make you laugh! I can do anything you want me to! I promise!"
"Promises will do you no good where you're going~" He loomed upon her...
...and he sat the baby down.
It had finally grown quiet.
...
...
The room was occupied by three bodies.
Two dead.
One alive, hands covered his the results of his actions.
The two voices of pain had merged as one, a duet of demise.
He sat in a corner, one hand propping up his head, remembering those voices. Fire had begun to burn the locked door. There was no getting out. He stared listlessly at the broken little female, eyes unblinking in all of their mysterious glory. The blood on the floor ran in little trails along the boards; he fascinated himself with the patterns he had drawn out with his black nails. His pale face was streaked with the same red substance that shone just feet away, but he cared not. The woman was dead. He had scratched the itch that he never had the ability to with his departed friends.
Those who he prepared for eternal slumber.
He raised his other hand from where it rested beside him. His long fingers uncurled around a single object, a gory mess in his palm. It had once beaten, supplying life to the woman he had eradicated. It was her heart. He had ripped it from her chest.
"How ill-fated you were, my lovely, now silenced forever by the cruel hand of life, never to see the light of day again. Never to feel the soft wind through your cottony hair. Never to find someone who cares for you, as I did not~" He tilted his head only just, "Just as well though...I would have so loved fitting you in a coffin..."
The door crumpled, and the flames entered the room like apparitions.
Undertaker stood.
...
...
Now before you go: "WHAAAAAAAAT?" Allow me to explain...
1. I ignored the time when Grell took a peek at Undertaker's eyes, therefore his reaction in the street, though Grell already knows that he was a previous Shinigami.
2. I wanted specifically to make a much darker version of Unny for this fic, going along with my dream and fulfilling a wish I've always had for his character. Clearly he is more dark and demented in the newest chapter of the manga, and I reflected that here to a greater extent.
3. It is because of this darkness, that I fully believe he would be capable of killing someone in cold blood, and also doing nothing to help another, suffering innocent.
4. He doesn't die at the end, if that's what you think I was implying. He just...goes on with his life.
So, with that said, please do review! I take constructive criticism and praise, but will not tolerate flaming. Thank you and good day/night.