No Rest for the Soul
Prologue
High above in the clouds I was in the fight of my life, flying a very well used Spitfire across the Channel in pursuit of one of the Nazi's V1s with a pair of ME109s in hot pursuit of me, trying to shoot me down while I was trying to shoot down the V1. It was so fast. The only reason I'm able to stay with it is because I was diving right for it, with a pair of gerries constantly on my tail, and my wing man was nowhere in sight, most likely either been shot down or was forced back and was still playing catch up.
Soon enough I got into optimal rage and angle for my attack. I lined up just ahead and used my window of opportunity to put in one long burst from my guns and cannons, and was rewarded with a satisfying explosion as I hit the terror weapon's fuel tank. But my satisfaction didn't last long as I heard an innumerably large number of pings across my fighter's fuselage, and soon enough I felt several hot things pass through my body, and my fighter began Dutch rolling, and I felt a tremendous loss of control, and was now nose-diving into the Channel.
So this is how I die. Not of old age, like my parents would have liked to happen, but with a giant splash and a ball of flame. Blood covered my entire upper body and poured down as I saw the water rushing up to me, and then there was nothing but darkness for a few seconds, then I felt something solid beneath my feet. Slowly my eyes opened and I was floating high up in the clouds, with nothing holding me up. I saw that I had a circular piece of metal above my heart with a half metre long stretch of chains connected to it. I watch as what I assume is my fighter hurtle down into the drink, and also saw my wingman come flying in, through me like I wasn't even there. "Hey, watch where you're flying, you damned yank," I yelled after him, and saw him take on the two ME109s by himself, but quite shortly after he disengaged. Most likely he was low on fuel.
I soon noticed that someone else was here up in the clouds with me. A man was approaching me, practically walking on air as if strolling up to me in a park. He wore some sort of black robes, I remember from a cultural briefing about Japan that it was called a kimono, with a silly straw hat on top of his head.
"Tough break kid. Sooner or later you knew that you could not escape death's cold grasp!"
"It certainly wasn't for a lack of trying," I said ruefully. "Don't tell me you're the grim reaper?" I stated more than asked.
"That would be a rather rough translation into your language of what we call ourselves. The term 'Shinigami' can also be translated as Soul Reaper, which is basically what we do."
"What, you collect the souls of the dead?" I asked perplexed.
"We help souls such as yourself to pass on to the afterlife, where you will wait until you are ready to rejoin the cycle of rebirth into the Living World again."
"So I wait in limbo while everything that I love is lost? No way in hell I'm ready to leave yet!" I started angrily, but the man just ignored me and drew his sword, while I went for my sidearm, which I notice I didn't have any more as I remembered it was still with my body.
All the guy did was point at me and said, "Bakudo number 1, Sai!" and suddenly my arms were locked behind me and I could not move even an inch without hurting myself. The man came over with what I suppose he had intended as a reassuring smile, though it looked to me more of a smirk as he raised his sword and then gently pressed the butt of the handle against my forehead as he said, "Don't worry, you'll soon be on your way to a better existence," and the world turned white.