I'm very leery of posting multi-chapter stories up here, especially when I'm not certain about where I'm going with them, but I kind of like this and am (fairly) confident that I'm not going to drop it. Heheh.

And there will be much update today, because I haven't updated this account since... dear god, NOVEMBER. . Blech.

What happens after death?

No one knows, of course. That's pretty much the point. You can't know what happens because the very fact of death means that there's no one you can ask. So maybe when you die, you will be reincarnated again. Or perhaps you are sent to one of countless afterlives—Heaven, Hell, Valhalla, Hades, Aaru, Jannah. Or maybe you return to the earth in some mystic sense, melt back into an all-encompassing, pantheistic sort of world consciousness.

Or maybe you simply—end, like a lightbulb that has burnt out. No moment of revelation, no understanding or closure, just life and then its finish. Oblivion. The thought is unattractive, sure, but still possible. Probable, even.

But that's all that they are, possibilities. You can't know. It's death, after all. Anything could happen after death. For all you know…

Well…

For all you know, it goes something like this:

"You… never say what I expect…"

Seishiro could hear Subaru talking to him through the pain and darkness, but he couldn't quite make out the words. A shame, that. His Subaru-kun never reacted quite how he expected him to—it would have been interesting to see how he took this. Seishiro felt a brief constricting sensation in his chest, and it took him a moment to identify it as regret that he wouldn't be around to watch Subaru as the Sakurazukamori.

A Sakurazukamori feeling regret. How odd.

His eyes began to fall shut, simply too heavy to keep open. The pain started to spread and then fade, replaced by a sort of numb, heavy, weary feeling that went deeper far than bone and muscle. Seishiro let his eyes close and his mind drift away—it would have happened anyways, and he always likes to feel that he is the one in control.

All things considered, the end was rather disappointing. Seishiro didn't even realize he was dead until he noticed that he could open his eyes again. He was standing on (and partially in) his own body, and as he looked down, he noticed that he was also partially transparent. Experimentally, he waved a hand in front of Subaru's stricken face. Subaru didn't see him, so he probably wasn't a ghost. Seishiro concentrated. No, he couldn't move things around, either.

There was a loud cracking noise, and Seishiro looked up idly as the steel girders that held up the bridge began to fall. Subaru hadn't moved, and Seishiro raised a no-longer-corporeal eyebrow. It would be… undignified for the new Sakurazukamori to be killed by something as commonplace as a collapsing bridge. Really, he had expected better of Subaru-kun. He tried poking the boy (even now, he still thought of him a little wounded boy), and, when that failed, shaking him. His hands passed right through Subaru's flesh.

That was going to be annoying. Was this Hell? He looked around again, absently noticing the Seals' leader running down and pulling Subaru off the bridge. Really, you would think that an all-powerful deity would be able to come up with something a little more impressive.

And then, as if in answer to his silent criticism, everything went black and silent.

Seishiro was an assassin. He knew the darkness like he knew power—instinctively, something that had always come to him so naturally he never even really had to think about it. He was a creature of the darkness. He reveled in it.

But not this darkness.

Normal darkness is only the absence of visible light—it is not an actual entity, in and of itself. Science tells us that there isn't even any such thing as true darkness, because there is always some form of electromagnetic radiation being emitted from matter.

This darkness had apparently missed the memo. The darkness that surrounded Seishiro now had as little do with normal, human darkness as antimatter did with empty space. This darkness had a purpose, a mindless devouring insatiable purpose, and that purpose tugged and pulled and writhed underneath Seishiro's skin. He could just barely make out a faint, tortured keening in the distance, almost inaudible and yet horrible, like a million people all screaming together in a single, shared agony. Sharp stinging bursts of pain blossomed across his chest, and he swore under his breath as he realized that he couldn't move his arms or legs.

The pain stopped at the sound of his voice, and the darkness-that-was-not-darkness began to shift and wrap around him, the basic purpose now put aside in favor of curiosity. The sound grew muted, as though the cocoon of night was intentionally blocking it out. Seishiro could feel it withdrawing from inside him and then undulating against his skin, cool and soft and dry, and it almost felt familiar. He slowly pushed his right arm in front of him, feeling the darkness slowly give way. It was almost like… like…

The pulse of the darkness shifted from welcoming to alarmed, and Seishiro got a brief, confused impression that he was being thrown through the air—except there wasn't any air—before he found himself landing face-first on a wooden floor.

He lay there for a moment, working through the whiplash and listening intently for any noises. There was nothing but the sound of his own breathing. Once his eyes had more or less adjusted to the light, he rolled carefully to his feet and opened them.

He was standing in the center of an airy, clean, well-lit kitchen. The last, blinding rays of sunset streamed in through a small window over the sink. The appliances were black and modern, with sleek lines that vaguely reminded him of the ones in his apartment. There was a blue cutting board on the granite countertop, with a knife and a half-chopped apple beside it. The sounds of downtown Tokyo at nightfall drifted up through the window to create a soft, familiar background cacophony.

Seishiro's brow furrowed. He'd heard of reincarnation, of course, but weren't you supposed to start at the beginning?

"Oh!"

Seishiro had long since given up on being surprised, but that almost did it. Slowly, he blinked and turned to face the doorway.

Two bright green eyes stared back at him. "Um…"

Seishiro met Subaru's eyes as calmly as he could manage—which, given the circumstances, was actually quite calm. Every career had its side benefits, after all.

"Ah…" Subaru said hesitantly, eyeing him, and he looked wrong. Maybe it wasn't something that he would have noticed if he hadn't spent nine years occasionally stalking Subaru (not that he would have phrased it that way), but he had, and something was very not right here. Subaru looked exactly as he had when he had lost the bet, maybe a little older, a little wearier, but this was more than superficialities.

"Um…" Subaru said. "Do I… know you?"