Woo hoo first story everyone! So, without further ado...
Have a disclaimer! I know, I know, they're annoying, but I brought in a special guest who's name absolutely will not appear in this story. Take it away Ran Mao!
Ran Mao: ...wakame.
Me: *facepalm* this is why you're not invited to things... I don't own Kuroshitsuji, guys. There would be way more shinigami-orientated episodes if I did.
I was floating, suspended in a sea of black.
This was death, I supposed. Where was the bright white light at the end of the tunnel? Where was the choir of angels? Where was I going?
Was there even a heaven for creatures like me?
In life, I was nothing, simply a soul in its purest form. I was a being in between life and death. I traveled through space and time, never settling. I couldn't live, and so I couldn't die, or so I thought. When I actually did die, I was living as a teenage girl by the name of Sophia Takins, Sophie for short. I lived a good 17 years in her stead before the accident. She was hit by a car, a drunk driver by the name of Jackson Grypes. Both died on impact.
What an absolute waste of a perfectly good host.
It wasn't as if I'd stolen her life, in any case. She'd been a stillborn; I just saved her parents from heartache. If I hadn't come along, she'd be dead anyway.
Still, it felt like 17 years down the drain.
The only thing I could even really remember doing was spending my afternoons watching an anime called "Black Butler", or "Kuroshitsuji" in Japanese. Everything else bored me; if I counted all the times I'd been through high school, I'd be counting for years. There was nothing new here. But this one strange plotline caught my fancy. I identified with the otherworldly characters. All of them. As if each was a personified sliver of me. The show had me hooked. I was glad I finished it before I died.
It would have been the real tragedy if I hadn't, I laughed to myself.
And then I was laughing, laughing, laughing...
The darkness suddenly tasted stale.
I suppressed a scream; my veins felt like they were on fire as the strong smell of formaldehyde and other embalming ingredients filled the confined space I found myself in. Six slanted walls encompassed me, lined with a plush fabric I identified as velvet.
Oh dear. This is a casket, isn't it...?
My limbs (after the screaming pain had subsided) felt stiff with rigor mortis, and I moved as far as my apparent coffin would allow, stretching them out.
Outside my confines, I could hear a faint humming, a funeral march. How suiting for one who had surrounded themselves with death. I'd supposed by this point that I was at a mortician's, as I knew how being buried alive felt (don't even ask) and this certainly was not it. And I couldn't be at a funeral, as there was only one voice I could hear.
I pushed on the cover of the coffin, and with minimal effort, it slid off and onto the floor with a tremendous banging sound. The humming ceased.
"Seems one of my guests has awakened from their eternal slumber, hm~mm?"
A pair of blurry yet strikingly green eyes stared back at my unknown-colored ones. The color was extraordinarily familiar, but I couldn't place why until silver bangs cascaded over them, distracting my gaze to the rest of the person's face.
That (hazy) grin.
Those (fuzzy) scars.
That laugh...
It could only be the one Kuroshitsuji character I'd never compared myself to in the slightest:
"Undertaker...?"
His smile faltered for a moment.
"Well, yer not supposed to exist at all, are ye?"
A curious, strange question, but I answered it nonetheless.
"I suppose not..."
He pulled himself back, allowing me room to sit up.
"Those eyes are what I'm questioning m'dear~. Ye must be a reaper! The only catch is," and here he chuckled, "Female reapers do~n't exist... KYAHAHAHAHA THAT'S JUST GREAT WILLY-KINS IS GONNA HAVE A COW!"
Willy-kins...?
I could only assume he meant William T Spears, another reaper. Speaking of reapers, I now had to wonder how I became one in the first place.
I interrupted the mortician's crazed laughing with a low cough.
"Excuse me, Taker (you don't mind me calling you that do you?), but could you tell me what color this woman's eyes were before they were 'reaper green'?"
He raised an eyebrow, as my question seemed random, but answered nonetheless: "Why, they were blue, love. And what the hell, call me Unnie for all I care, hehe~."
I'd been in plenty of bodies that weren't my own (all of my bodies hadn't been mine, actually), but I'd never changed a single feature on them.
Much less the entire body.
I pulled myself up and out of the casket and walked to a mirror some few feet from where I'd woken up. My hair changed color as soon as I gazed at my reflection, going from a charming red to a deep, bluish-black. My cheekbones then suddenly (painfully) became more pronounced, my skin lightened just a shade, and I seemed to drop a few pounds, and inches, simply by standing there.
As my body finished changing, my blurry vision began to clear. Then I realized it was just Undertaker slipping a pair of silver glasses over my face from behind.
"Better?" he asked as I turned around. I giggled.
"Yes, thank you!"
He flashed me one of his signature grins. Up close and non-blurry, it was absolutely dazzling. Slowly, it began to turn thoughtful as he studied me.
"...Take a picture, it'll last longer."
He roared with laughter at my statement and I smirked at the faint blush he was now so desperately trying to hide. But, I mean, I couldn't blame him in the slightest. The body I now possessed was truly beautiful... and not very well clothed, I realized, my smirk fading as I found myself wrapped in nothing but a dark grey sheet.
"Do you happen to have some clothes that might fit me, Taker?"
He wiped the tears from his eyes as his laughter subsided yet again and lead me to a large wardrobe towards the back of the room.
"They're my clothes so they may be a tad long, but ye can have yer pick of 'em, hehe~"
I found some black pants and a light grey shirt that fit me like a tunic when paired with a black chord around the waist; a black robe that I was sure was from Undertaker's earlier years; a pair of boots that seemed far more fitting for a teenage girl going through her scene phase than a reaper-turned-mortician.
While I donned the clothing, Undertaker slipped off to make tea. When he returned from (the kitchen? a lab?) he carried two beakers of tea and and urn filled with bone-shaped cookies. I hadn't realized how hungry I was until I tasted a bite of one of the cookies and then suddenly had two more crammed fully into my mouth.
"Hehe~, hungry are we? I suppose that makes sense, what with ye being dead for a week."
I nearly choked on my mouthful of cookies.
Swallowing, I exclaimed, "A week?! How am I still able to live in this body then?"
He laughed.
"As one of my wealthier~ guests, I preserved ye to the absolute best of my abilities... though, ye coming back to life has completely ruined all that hard work... A pity, really. Ye were one of my favorites..." A dreamy look crossed his face and I raised an eyebrow.
"Though ye are much prettier how ye are now, I must admit. That body was a sight to hide yer children from when ye first came to me. All horribly mangled and such? Like a piece of meat almost. But I made it pretty again... Then ye showed up and perfected it. Scars are gone, just like that."
I mused over his words for a few long moments. My soul... I couldn't feel my soul... like it and this body had become one thing...
Was this living?